Bet You One Butter
One tiny cube per meal,
Legal tender.
Want a favor?
Cost you two butters.
Make a bet?
Butters for one week.
If you got caught,
Cost you ten demerits.
Hell, some kids
Never tasted butter for a year,
But we bartered,
We bet.
We paid our debts,
With those tiny cubes,
Legal tender,
Mission money!
Another section of this chapter revealed the high school relationships amongst the boys and girls. Wednesday was laundry, a day that the girls would deliver a fresh set of clothes for all the boys. Upon delivery, the boys and girls would discretely switch off letters for the ones that they were crushing on. None of the prefects ever caught on to the secretive acts of emotion. Ever so often, the students were given a dance to socialize. Friday was shower day. The process of showering was almost humiliating. Giago describes it as "shower days, a fine-tooth comb, kerosene, deloused, delighted, deserted, by our lovely girlfriends, until the kerosene wore off." Most students didn't seem to mind, since they all went through the same process of getting a headful of kerosene. When the dances began, nuns were quick to pull apart two teenagers who were closer than an arm's length apart. Two warnings and the night was over for whomever dared to test the short temper of the nuns. Most often, the boys would stand on one side of the gym and the girls on the other, until, that one brave boy would make the first move and ask a girl to dance. After the dance was over and the days moved on, the children would begin passing love letters once again.
Hello Jerilee, I enjoyed reading your post. There's so much said over the little cube of butter. I couldn't help but reflect up the "laundry" day. I remember in my basic training days how the women and men couldn't really socialize with one another and they would do the same thing. We would all be doing laundry in the same area and we wouldn't be caught dead talking to one of the males. It's amazing how much control the boarding school ahd over these young children. They even had to hide their emotions in fear of getting into trouble. Great Post! : )
ReplyDeleteHey,
ReplyDeleteI really like the poem, billie is right a great amount is said in such a short verse. I also feel that children will do anything to keep their spirits up and by betting this little piece of gold if thats what they had to do to have some fun. I bet they created quite a few games just to keep their sanity. Also, when I read your post about the dances i think back to my middle school dances how they were the exact same way. I remember when it had to be an older boy who would go over and ask a girl after that everyone worked up the courage to follow.