Somewhere around puberty, a problem began gnawing at me. My classmates started growing up, and I didn't. There were still a few shorter than me, but by now you could count them on one hand, and my little soul shrank with pain. I'd often sit lost in thought, sighing. My once cheerful life had turned into daily misery, all on this one subject. One evening Mum came into my room and, although I immediately buried my nose in my geography textbook, she asked me: “Lately I can see something's weighing on you – tell me, what's wrong?”
I sensed that this time she was looking at me differently. Usually she was strict and demanding with my big brother and me, but today she looked at me the way she used to when we were little and not yet at school – cheerfully and with love. I decided that this time I'd spill the beans:
“I'm upset that I'm shorter! When they line us up in PE, I'm always down towards the end of the row. Some of the boys have grown moustaches, they've got hair on their legs, under their arms, and in other places too! And I'm like some bald little chick. I'm scared to go back to school after the April holidays. I might be last in the row by now!” Mum laughed – she was clearly in a good mood too – and asked: “Is that all?”
“Isn't that enough?”
She launched into a long lecture on growing up and puberty. In some it came early, in others it was late, but then those ones lived longer. The later children left childhood behind, the better it was for them. Besides, the ones who'd already hit puberty broke out in spots and got uglier.
What was so great about that, I wondered, if I'd live longer but be shorter? I'd been hoping Mum would pull out a packet of magic vitamins from somewhere that would make me shoot up in no time, but she just carried on lecturing me. If you could grow from words of wisdom, I'd have been at least 1.80 m by now. She also started listing my strong points at great length – I was a straight-A student, so was my brother, and the two of us had a room of our own. Soon they'd be having running water put into the house, so we wouldn't have to walk all the way to the tap in the yard like most households around us. So, apart from being alive and well, the two of us had very caring parents – what on earth was there to brood about? My face must still have looked sad, because Mum went on in the same vein:
“Look, just now, for the First of May, they gave me a wristwatch at work as an award. Your father often comes top in the work competition too. We have a radio, a double wardrobe and a cooker. You and your brother are well dressed and well fed. All that's asked of you is to bring home top marks. You don't have to wonder how to provide your family with bread, cheese, clothes, shoes and furniture, or how to make ‘ends meet’. Your father and I break our backs for you, and you, instead of living happily, torment yourself over some nonsense!” Then she stroked my head and noted that my hair was still clean, whereas the ones already in puberty usually had hair full of dandruff.
I was already starting to regret telling her about my problem.
While she'd been explaining all this at great length, some of my classmates had probably grown another millimetre. Then Dad came in and told me almost the same thing, only much more briefly. After a while he asked Mum what was for dinner. Before they went off to the kitchen, Mum summed up, and Dad repeated straight after her: “When you grow up, you'll understand how right we were!”
Left alone, I felt even sadder. According to them, my torment was pointless, but according to me – it wasn't. My conclusion was:
It's a waste of time talking to your parents about your problems if they're problems of the soul and not material ones.
Whatever they tell you, either you've heard it before or it's no use to you. Usually, at the end, they tell you that you're happy now, you just don't realise it yet. My disappointment hit its peak when I also thought this:
“I ask them how to grow, and they answer that when I grow up I'll understand how right they were!”
Now I felt like having a go at them myself:
“You don't care how tall you are, or whether and where you've got hair! All that's asked of you is furniture, cheese, bread and clothes. I break my back bringing you top marks, and as thanks – no vitamins, not even one useful bit of advice! And you just carry on with your competitions! It's easy for you – nobody lines you up, and nobody looks down on you because you're at the end of the row…..” I got cross with our PE teacher too – why did she have to line us up like ‘pharmacy bottles’ in the first place? Clearly, grown-ups lived in a world of their own. At dinner the subject didn't come up again, but Mum tried to comfort me in a roundabout way:
“Look at your father eating – like a dragon!” she told me, but in a tone that said: take the hint!
I didn't answer her. I'd tried that long ago, and it didn't work. Eat or don't eat, I stayed stuck at 1.39 m. I also wondered what an odd bird my brother was. He was a shrimp like me, but he couldn't have cared less. He laid his top marks like a happy hen and didn't fret about anything. I got angry at puberty itself too. Until recently I'd been living beautifully, and now what – some boys shoot up and get hairy, and the rest of us – the ones without spots – just envy them. Was that fair? No, no way!
My parents switched on the TV in the living room, and my brother and I went off to our room. He started reading, and I waited. I knew very well that Mum never left anything she'd started unfinished and that she'd be back with more advice for me, which is exactly what happened. She came in and said to me, with the air of someone struck by a brilliant idea:
“Right, I'll give you an example! Do you think Stoyan's mother – your tallest classmate – has it so easy?”
“I don't know about her, but he's first in our row!”
“Well – the other day I ran into her at the plimsoll shop. The poor woman was complaining to me that she couldn't find his size anywhere – he takes a 44, can you imagine? Whereas your size – a 35 – they have everywhere.” A long pause followed. She waited for me to nod and immediately went on, even more fired up:
“And what about when she bought him fabric for trousers? She'd get 1.80 metres for the tailor to make them, and it was never enough. Whereas when I buy you 1.10 m, there's fabric left over even for turn-ups!”
“Well – am I right? I'm right!”
After which she walked proudly out of our room, and the moment she'd gone I quietly burst into tears.
I didn't get any kick at all out of having saved my family 70 cm of fabric on every pair of trousers. Nor out of wearing plimsolls in a size you could find on every street corner, so Mum had no trouble getting hold of them. And as for being a straight-A student with no spots and no dandruff, but with turn-ups on my trousers – who on earth cared about that?
I had to take my anger out on something, so in my rage I unpicked the turn-ups on my trousers.
And now let me ask you: “Well – am I right? I'm right!”
