Title: Bad Girls in School
Author: Gwyneth Harold-Davidson
Publishers: Heinemann Caribbean Writer's series
Reviewed by: Mel Cooke
Corny names. I have a pet peeve with corny names. I really, really, really have a pet peeve with corny names.
So I had an early peeve (plural peeves, in fact) with Gwyneth Harold's Bad Girls in School, part of the Heinemann Caribbean Writers series. With names such as Mrs. Caribe Slipe-Torrington, principal of Redeemer College for Young Ladies (where most of the 148-page book is set), and Caledonia Nuttall, one of the three really, really bad girls deemed beyond redemption by many a teacher, I did not have to guess which section of Kingston the book centred around. (It is Cross Roads, for all of yu who came off the country bus later then me.
There is also a 'Collins Green', Caledonia's stepfather, and a Clara Caenwood teacher, with Ta Jeeka Brentford and Katreena Melmac completing the trio of 'bad girls' shown on the cover).
But on I ploughed through my 'peevity' and, at the less than fairy-tale ending for the girls but bliss that would have done the Brothers Grimm proud for Elaine Mico (tsk, tsk, another kernel) who took the trio in hand, I closed Bad Girls In School with some satisfaction.
A few ears do not a cornfield make, in this tale of three girls given a final chance in Redeemer College, separated from the rest of the school body in the Integrated Learning Unit (ILU) under the instruction of junior librarian Mico. Bu the classroom teaching in the tale takes place in a small room summarily dubbed 'Shorty one-room', after the caretaker who utilised it previously, Bad Girls in School also follows the teenagers going 30s home.
In so doing, it illustrates the class differences among a trio seemingly united in disruptive behaviour, as Caledonia goes to Mon (labelled 'midtown'), Ta Jeeka to Mavis Bank (rural St. Andrew) and Katreena lives in Dillsbury (upper St. Andrew). These different social strata contribute to what, for Elaine Mico, is a disappointing parting at the end of the year, despite the bond among them in bondage in the ILU ("The truth is that the three girls were not natural best friends; they were thrown together by fate.")
Bad Girls In School also gives the inner thoughts of Mico and the three girls, actually ending with the thoughts of Katreena, who muses "working on my future is a full-time job and I won't lose focus again."
A lot of insight
OK, so there is not much subtlety in the line, but there is enough in the book to prove that not only can Harold write well but also pack a lot of insight into a few words. A few such come with Mico's final thoughts, where she concludes that "without them (the three girls), I would still be a large woman, always smalling up myself in the spaces between bookshelves." And, much earlier, in chapter 3 (Postcard of Cross Roads), Harold writes "if you wanted a single snapshot of Cross Roads that captured the mood of the area, the best image would be one focusing on the roads, some winding, some straight and some appearing out of sharp corners and ending abruptly."
Not bad at all.
Bad Girls in School follows the four on their excursion to 'Shorty one-room', the interpersonal tussles, the inevitable confrontation with the teacher ("You don't think seh exercise is a part of discipline? You just nyam down the place and don't even take a walk fi mek even little food burn up. Is laziness that, and indiscipline. And that is why you stay so fat and shape so bad," Caledonia snarls. Ouch!), the three helping her with an exercise programme and, eventually, their triumphant performance at the big school concert which traces their development. (OK, so it is a little corny).
Running parallel to that is Mico's budding love affair with Canon Rodney Pryce (Corny! That's Bounty Killer's name! Yow ello!), as she loses weight and gains confidence.
So there is not much subtlety to Bad Girls in School. It does not really affect the essence of the story, that there are no bad girls without outside circumstances; maybe, though, there are teachers who have forgotten this.
Three girls with bad problemsWhile Bad Girls in School starts with the trouble Caledonia Nuttall, Ta Jeeka Brentford and Katreena Melmac get into in school, the narrative is not confined to the Redeemer College for Young Ladies.
And, as it goes into their lives outside the Cross Roads, St. Andrew, school, writer Gwyneth Harold tackles issues ranging from the 'video light' to the 'big man' (who loves little girls, of course), making the book more than a tale of quick-fix redemption.
In the 'video light' at a dance in her home village of Mavis Bank, rural St. Andrew, is Ta Jeeka Brentford, whose moves are described in detail that the writer could not have got from video tapes only (".... I sit on my bottom and tense realhard so that my tummy muscles can swing my legs over till I balance on my head and hands. I release one hand, then two, and the headtop and the crowd is all mine.")
The video light, though, does not illuminate a life where a deadbeat dad leans where he should give support. And it does not help her either as "I remember that because of my outfit, Jehovah Jireh, I never put on any underwear to spoil the look ... I feel sick and immediately put down the beer and push away all the men who want to talk to me ..."
Then there is Caledonia, who is at home alone in the evening. "At 6:30 p.m. a car pull up at the gate and I feel relieved and scared at the same time. Relieved that I do not have to be alone again, and scared because I know what that visit mean. The gate open then shut, footsteps come up the driveway and a voice call my name from the grill. 'Caledonia.' I get up and let him in."
Nuff said. Well, almost nuff. There is some cocaine runnings in there as well.
And finally there is Katreena, who has spent one weekend a month with her father from she was five years old, a father who "changes his women like how my mother changes her stockings for work".
Not exactly a recipe for stability. But not a reason to steal the current chick's cellphone either.
- Mel Cooke
