ana.
the school has
one floor and a cement playground
it has toilets outside for when we are outside
and the terrible pit
and the porter’s hut
and a fence and a walnut tree next to the fence.
From the first floor, where the dormitories are
and the kitchen and the canteen
that’s where Ciocarlan jumped from
when he wanted to go out.
He is really crazy (just like me!) and he wasn’t even hurt.
All the way up you also get the Headmaster’s offices
and the Doctor’s and Mr Aurel who administrates them.
The fat old teachers
don’t have a staff room like they do at a normal school.
They don’t deserve it.
The cement playground has a bit of grass, too.
The pit is terrible because:
- that’s where a little girl fell and died, one of the really
crazy ones
that’s what we heard.
- and because it stinks of shit
because it’s got shit in it.
in the porter’s hut there are bodyguards now.
Some of them are nice and some are not.
Like people everywhere.
Behind the big fence is the field,
and behind the small ones are people’s back yards
Maria once climbed up the walnut tree next to the fence
and she was shouting from there
that the nurse was you-know-what-ing you-know-who…
Hello Headmaster, nice day!
And now that I’ve written your essay
do your worst!
If you really want to know,
miss, your pills are crap!
I sleep a little but when I wake up I cut myself with a
shard of glass so
the Mayor will come and close down your school!
Because you don’t deserve to have the kids you have.
mother’s day
this is the day when the inspectors come and we sing
it’s your day mummy and the school gets a top-up.
we make collages with Mrs Jeni whose hands work like
magic
and she knows how to make flowery branches
out of plastic bags and garbage.
When talk of families comes up you can’t help laughing
and you get goose-bumps.
Family is an ugly poster full of dust
which lives in the storage room
with «Romdidactica» on it.
It’s even got grandparents.
a drawing
Here I drew a heater made out of squares
which heats things. What does it heat? Wet socks and rags.
Who put them there? A mummy. Maybe mine.
It gets nice and warm and she is looking at how the heat
steams up the window.
And at me.
She says I’m precious.
And sweet.
That I know how to play nicely.
With toy cars.
These are drops from the rags.
Why pick on me?
Everyone pisses sometime.
Especially people like
Ciocarlan.
But we all have our reasons.
It’s because of the tinned fruit Miss.
They give it to us in the evening and it’s too warm.
Makes your tongue burn.
You can draw on a steamed window if the coloured pens
run out.
You can see who passes through the playground
and you can make a steam dog because we don’t have one
in the garden.
Or you can write words that can be erased quickly
as if they were never there.
Or little men.
the great humiliation
Just leave me alone, all right,
I know I don’t spell the words properly
because Cat took my letters.
She’s skanky and spits them out
and walks around bare-assed in the classroom and I can’t
concentrate.
I don’t even touch her letters because
she puts her hand everywhere even
in her trousers
and the cleaning ladies found her
drinking out of the toilet.
That’s her business
but don’t make me
make words out of those disgusting letters!
Nothing is clean around here
because you can’t keep yourself clean
everyone wipes themselves off on you.
For the great humiliation.
Traducere / Translation: Patricia RADOI
