In Year Three I learnt how important it is to be able to write without spelling mistakes. What I mean is – I learnt that spelling helps you achieve your goals. Whether noble or not. At that stage my goal was to learn to forge my sick notes for school.
I reached this conclusion the hard way, which is why the lesson has stayed with me for life.
We had PE and dance back to back. I loved PE, and I hated dance. So I decided to write a sick note in my mother's name. I'd seen the other children hand them in.
In the note I was planning to write that I had a rare disease that allowed me to move actively for only 40 minutes (so as not to miss PE). After that, to preserve my life, I had to stop moving at once (so as to be excused from dance).
I was on just the third line of the note I was writing in my mother's name. I'd really got into my stride, describing the terrible disease ravaging her daughter's fragile constitution. At that very moment my mother herself walked into the room.
My face must have taken on a guilty expression, because she impatiently snatched the note out of my hands and started reading it. I was ready for many things, but not for the reaction that followed:
“Well, I've never read a more illiterate note in my life. What do they teach you at that school???” My mother angrily flung the note into the bin. “What will Comrade Teacher think of me????”
My mother was not about to let any Comrade Teacher think she was illiterate.
“Get a fresh sheet and write:” (my mother starts dictating) “First write the date. Then – new line.
“Dear Comrade Klisarska… comma, new line, capital letter. I request that my daughter Nia be excused from dance class because of her illness, ‘illness’ has two Ls and two Ss. Her condition is serious, ‘condition’ ends in -tion, not -shun… and so on, and so on.”
I don't remember what illness my mother and I made up, but I do remember that I was excused from dance for two weeks.
And she didn't tell me off for anything else, apart from the spelling. She just gave me a strange look and remarked that I was obviously still too young for the trust she had placed in me. From then on I tried not to betray her trust. All my sick notes from Year Three onwards were written with impeccable spelling!
