NaBloPoMo: one post every day throughout November

SmallMonkey gets off the bus in tears:

‘I’ve been borrowing money,’ he confesses, ‘because I’m so hungry. There’s a note in the book.’

If you know SM then you’ll know how this could tug at a person’s heartstrings: you can play the piano on his ribs. His food fads are legendary and clearly come from the maternal side (although my waistline sadly shows how I’ve fast got over all that). He’s already been banned from buying snacks in the canteen because this is precisely how his diet ends up: all Oreo, no sandwich. So it’s not a crying matter but still, it’s not really OK.

There is indeed a note in the book, as well as the lunchbox containing one and a half wilting specimens. There has been a class meeting about the proffering of coins and the polite note asks: could we please pay the money back? SM is contrite.

After emptying the pocket money pig, counting out the required cash (it’s not a lot, between you and me, but that’s not the point), drawing up a new lunch menu, sharing a bit of fresh apple and finally talking about how it is the duplicity of the secret canteen-snack habit that is the NotOK thing, I tell him a story:

Mum used to tell me and my sister, with a rather wistful pride, of how she threw her sandwiches in the hedge on the two-mile walk home from school. I’m not saying it’s OK, I tell him: I just want him to know I can see where he gets it from.