The Truculent School Shoes
Mikey looked at the orange bakelite clock on the wall of the family kitchen. He wondered how long it had been there, as that part of the wall had been bare yesterday morning as far as he could remember. Most likely it was one of his mother’s secret purchases, he speculated, and smiled at the thought. She was no doubt hoping to pass off this new ‘vintage treasure’ as having always lived there, in the space above the kitchen door.
But then the warm feeling evaporated and was replaced with anxiety, and a crinkle formed on Mikey’s brow. He could hear his lively new school shoes chatting between themselves. They were discussing the fact that it was already 8.40am he would be late for school!
“He’s going to be late!” Right Shoe panicked, “and it’s your fault, you should have woken him earlier.”
“You are such a drama llama! We’ve got plenty of time, and the bus is always late anyway.” Left Shoe said, stretching his words out leisurely, antagonising Right Shoe further.
“Assumption is the mother of all fuckups. Do you want him to get into trouble?” Right said, getting more impatient.
Mikey looked down at the shoes, sighing. It was always the way, new school shoes took some time to break in. The most tiresome part of the breaking-in process was getting them to stop bickering, which interfered with his school day.
Realising that he is about to get drawn into their squabbling for the second time that morning, Mikey shakes it off. He goes to the fridge to transfer his packed lunch into the rucksack he’s grabbed from the table and sets off out of the back door. His shoes are still squabbling, albeit in a whispered fashion, as they walk him past the jolly daisy-print on the garden walls, out of the back gate, and down his street towards the bus stop.
As he is getting on the bus he can still hear Left and Right bickering while he shows the driver his bus pass. This is so embarrassing. It will be perfectly obvious to his classmates that he has new shoes, the way they are going on!
Most of the kids his age don’t seem to grow as rapidly as Mikey, and he is somewhat self-conscious about it. He is taller, and with bigger feet than most of them already. His Dad says this is because he is more mature than the other kids, but still, he prefers not to draw attention it. And there is the inconvenient fact that he has to keep getting new clothes to accommodate this accelerated growth. Shoes are demonstrably the worst, because of the persistent arguing . You don’t get this kind of bother with blazers, shirts, or even socks.
Luckily the shoes manage to restrain themselves for the remaining journey to school. Mikey prays that they won’t humiliate him in class like the last pair did.
It was preposterous, how much disruption was caused in his class last year; by a pair of shoes for goodness sake! They were very nice shoes, and although they conformed to the school’s guidelines for acceptable footwear, they were really much fancier than school shoes have any right to be. The problem, Mikey thought, was that they had ideas above their station right from the kickoff.
The bickering was merely banter at first. Their upmarket accents and the intellectual way they articulated themselves did give their discussions a civilised air. But as the volume escalated, and the tone became increasingly hostile, the fancy shoes couldn’t go an hour without having a big, cringey blow-up. They disagreed aggressively about everything; what Mikey should have for lunch, answers to his maths problems, school rules, even his music. As hard as he might try, Mikey absolutely could not break those shoes in.
This went on for months, it was disconcerting for him to have to listen to his shoes discussing what was best for him every minute of the school day. When he got home from in the evenings he would race upstairs to yank the shoes off immediately. He would throw them into the cupboard in a frustrated temper. Not that it stopped them from sounding off, but at least it muffled their voices and gave him some peace until the next morning.
In the end, Mikey grew out of this flashy footwear faster than usual. It was the start of a growth spurt foot-wise, and so to his relief he got to dispose of the * truculent pair before they were even halfway worn out.
This term, Mikey was determined to start as he meant to go on with these shoes. He wouldn’t take any sassiness from them, and he had fully decided to put his foot down quick sharp before they had a chance to become belligerent and domineering.
“See here, you two”, he said assertively. “Lace up and Listen up. You are the shoes, you have one job to do, and that is to be on my feet. You are not in charge of me, you don’t get a say in what I do, or how I do it. Got it? “
Silence. The shoes had not expected this. They imagined that Mikey would be a compliant schoolboy, impressionable enough that they could shepherd him in whatever direction they wanted. This was a most unexpected turn of events indeed.
“Good.” said Mikey, pleased with their subdued response. “From now on I will be making the decisions. I am not a little boy any more, so don’t get any ideas that you can out manoeuvre me, or persuade me to go along with your imbecilic suggestions. Do we understand each other?”
Right Foot coughed a little, clearly embarrassed, and capitulated immediately “Oh Yes. We won’t argue any more, we know our job, don’t we Left? “
“ Well of course, I concur. After all, you are always Right!”
Left was not generally inclined to agree with Right, and so couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his inflection. But he didn’t dare bring an argument to this new strong-willed Mikey.
Mikey smiled, elated that the exchange had gone entirely as he had hoped. He strode out towards his new form room, with a new faith in his ability to hold his own with his shoes, and amongst his peers. This term, he would be making his own decisions. And he was self-assured enough to know that he would make the right ones.
The shoes remained practically mute. As shoes should be.
