Bethany Bluebottle starts young

For Mrs S and in memory of my dad, an eminently sensible man and teacher -- and to all people in charge of children who see the funny side!

"You will start piano lessons this month."

"Later this year, you will be going to ballet."

"Next month you will start Brownies."

Oh dear, the ever hopeful mother.

The piano lessons started amidst much howling. Mrs Bluebottle was determined that Bethany should go, however. The piano teacher, it turned out, did not appear particularly to like children. Plus, she had a large wart to one side of her chin with a big hair sticking out of it. On the worst days, when she thought Miss Hamm, the piano teacher, would shut her fingers in the piano lid, she fantasised about pulling that hair out. Snap! Yank! It's gone with only one deft movement! And Mrs Hamm had very big teeth. There was nothing to be done about that, though.

Bethany had no patience with the piano; it just wouldn't seem to accommodate her. After months of poor reports and an embarrassing turn in a little concert in Mrs Hamm's house, her mother recapitulated and told her she could stop. Oh, the relief. Bethany kept quiet, though, about the fact that, when she closed her eyes at night, great patterns of notes would swarm and swoon behind her eyelids and, gradually, compose themselves into melodies. "Hmmm", thought Bethany.

Ballet. In the village hall. There were lots of sweet little girls in their pink ballet pumps and angora ballet wraps. Bethany tried to walk in gracefully. There was a witchy woman called Miss Close in charge of the class. It appeared to Bethany that this lady also did not particularly care for children, regarding them as objects to be trained and formed and improved upon. Alice could do every little move expected; Emma could bend her leg up behind her back while smiling and keeping excellent poise. Oh. Miss Close was smiling. Perhaps, then, she didn't particularly like Bethany. But the Bluebottle gave her all, as she thundered around the hall in vain mockery of the movements the girls had been asked to perform. She was aware of the shame settling upon the room when she, elephant that she was,danced past the old room heater with its big wire guard. She could hear it rattle as she passed. This time, Mrs Bluebottle removed her from the class after only a brief conversation with Miss Close. "Great. Now I can get back to climbing trees and building dens", thought Bethany.

Brownies. Really, it was an accident just waiting to happen. Bethany felt the urge to rebel on the swearing in day. She chanted the Brownie Guide pledge, stepping from one chair -for Brown Owl had put two chairs back to back: little girls stepped over the apex from one chair to the other and thus entered a new realm. But Brown Owl did not seem to be smiling very much. Could it be that she, too, did not particularly like children? Red rag to a bull. Certainly, over the coming weeks Bethany hoovered up snippets of conversation: "I do have a full time job, you know." "I am doing this as a volunteer, you know." And she realised that Brown Owl had cast herself in the role of community martyr. Bethany was always eavesdropping on adult conversations.

Well now. Bethany liked the walks they went on, but disliked everything else. And then she did her first badge with Brown Owl and another ill humoured person. After this, it was suggested that the Bluebottle was not perhaps suited to structured and responsible work of this kind. There had been matches. A roll of kitchen paper. The mixing up of food and non food substances and, worst of all, the inappropriate use of water in a tiled area. Mrs Bluebottle paled. And yet, in the car on the way home, Bethany could have sworn her mother was trying not to giggle. At home, Bethany continued with making up her spy codes. She was sitting high up in her rickety tree house in the damson tree as she did this. "Alright there, old son?" asked her father.

After these three episodes, it was decided that Bethany Bluebottle was perhaps better with spontaneous activity. The funny thing was, though, that given a few years she went on to sing and play various instruments, scruffy little thing that she was. And the musical notes continued to swarm and cohere behind her eyes at night. They were joined, increasingly, by words. All in good time, she thought. And that, dear reader, is one reason why she observes a stern policy of benign neglect -- offering and responding to be sure-- with her own children now she is all grown up. And, do you know, she still sometimes has the urge to be very, very naughty....