W hen I was 13, two of my friends were arrested for shoplifting. Along with two boys in our year, they had decided to bunk off school – our suburban grammar school renowned for its academic excellence – and get the train to a shopping centre nearby. The day had been going well until they reached HMV, where a security guard asked them about the CDs they had hidden in their coats.
Cue a call to the police, and some time in a cell at the local police station. By the end of the day, news had travelled to the rest of us via an SMS on our Nokia 3310 s and we gathered at one of our houses to discuss the situation. Most of us were crying.
It was but one dramatic moment in a lawless year. In year 7 we had been a fairly risk-taking group, but in the spring of year 8, a new girl joined our school and her arrival set things on fire. Beside the shoplifting habit, there was a lot of alcohol, stolen from parents’ cupboards or bought for us by strangers on the high street or by older siblings.
We drank where teenagers have always drunk: in parks at night or during unsupervised parties at home. Blacking out was not uncommon, and more than once someone ended up in A&E. There was a lot of smoking, too, cigarettes and weed, and a lot of arguing about boys and each other (more crying there, too).
I remember going through all of this with a sort of stunned horror: confused about why it was all happening, terrified that something would go wrong or I’d get into trouble, but desperate to fit .
