Poppy Days Quotes

“Of course I could never solve them. I didn’t know where to begin and she would bellow at me that I was useless, and tell me to sit down. I had to do the walk of shame back to my desk, cheeks burning, avoiding the smirks and sniggers as I slunk back. The bell would go for the end of the lesson, and everyone would file outside. I would try not to look at Miss Cooper’s smirking face as she watched me miserably shuffle out of her lessons. I would try to find a hiding place before I was spat at, or shoved down stairs or called whatever foul names they could dream up that day. I didn’t have any friends at school. I was the original miss no mates. I had turned thirteen in June, and here I was in September, a new term and another day in hell. It was the “copy this down” lessons I dreaded most. It was then that the bullies would torment me and generally make my life a misery. I was scared of Miss Cooper the maths teacher, but she was so strict, no one dared do more than smirk at me during her classes. It hadn’t always been like that. I had started off so full of high expectations on my first day at Star Cross Secondary modern school for girls. It was 1969, I was eleven years old, but looked much younger.”
― D.S. Ingram, Poppy Days