Me and my flatmate got beef, it seems. Which is fine, really; I seem to never be able to avoid conflict with whomever I’m living with. Or at least it has been this way for a while now, maybe since I moved into boarding school. The very first term my roommate hated me. Thing is, she hated me because of herself. Freshly made into a Head Girl, she expected to have a room to herself. She didn’t though. She’d grown up at that school; she started when she was 7, but then she was in Year 13 (I was Year 12) and expected the school to reward her for her apparent loyalty. So she spread rumours about me throwing dirty socks around our dorm; being rude to her by completely ignoring her (it was her who gave me dirty looks whenever I spoke up, so I stopped); and just generally being a nightmare.
I found that out from my friend (another student on scholarship) who’d covered for Head Girls’ best friend in the kitchen (students worked there in the evenings and at the weekends). I mean, I’m not a cleanliness freak but that thing about socks was still far from truth. It was her who never collected her laundry from the floor and got naked right in front of me when changing out from her games kit. (Her big butt wasn’t a great sight. I understand dorm sharing, but sticking one’s ass into someone else’s face is another thing). One day out of the blue we got called to the Office (not headmaster’s office, he didn’t deal with the boarders. It was the secretary’s office, which was also used for boarders’ ‘private’ conversations – in reality, anyone outside walking past could see right through the huge window. Sights of people crying were reported right away to everyone who shouldn’t know), to resolve what – I found out then – was a ‘long-running issue between you two’. To me, the previous two months just meant that my roommate and me were fine, she was just friends with someone other than me. But apparently there was an ‘issue’.
I am very self-critical, but I swear it wasn’t me reading the room wrong. It was the Head Girl being a manipulative bitch just so that she can have the room to herself.
At the end of the conversation it was decided that I move to the dorm next door, which wasn’t used by anyone else. To me, it had a much greater standard than the first room I was in – it had its own sink; a huge window through which I could see everybody coming into school in the morning, and boys going back to their dorms at night; and a bunk bed, which gave it a cool edge of cosiness and individuality. And, what was important, it had a much more original and interesting sounding name than ‘Backstairs 1’ – it was named after one of the former pupils, a lady who was allegedly really good at tennis, and was now obviously a rich, land-owning lady.
My adventure living with that Head Girl was over, and I was even happier than I was before. It still left me with a bit of distaste, though. Not a way to start your first term boarding abroad than to deal with some mean person’s imaginary issues. Since then I don’t let anyone I have to live with mess around with me. They’re not gonna B-J with me all over again. They can deal with their own problems.
To end the story, when we got back to school after Christmas break, the Head Girl got a new girl taking up the empty bed in her dorm. She stayed there for the rest of the year.
kotersey 