"STUPID HEAD"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 57, 26 July 1940, Page 40

"STUPID HEAD"

Written for "The Listener" by

WANDA

HALL

x4 ER father’s Italian, you've Y gotcha mother’s boots on," sang the boys. The little girl walked on stiffly, looking straight ahead, pretending not to see them. Round the corner she relaxed, stopped to do up a shoelace, and kicked a stone as she went on. Now there was only the other lot to pass and perhaps they wouldn’t notice her to-day. Her knees went wobbly as she reached the little group and saw them all staring at her, then prickles ran down her back as she passed them and could no longer see. Suddenly there was a giggle behind her and a triumphant voice saying, "She’s treading on it." She paused, and for a second lost her dignified bearing as she looked down at her feet to see beneath them a chalked swastika; then, not too slowly, not too fast, she walked on, her heart bumping with

anger. Down the road their voices pursued her: "Coward Italian, run-a-way Italian." When she could no longer hear them, she began to think of the day at school, of the story they had had and the kettle holder she was making for a surprise for her mother, and of Sums. Her face got red and she banged the garden gate shut, rushed up the path and into the house. "Mummy! Where are you? I want you." She flung herself on to her mother’s lap and burst into tears. "Why, what’s the matter with my schoolgirl?" "Well Mummy, it’s all right and we had a lovely story, only I can’t do my sums, they go so fast and then they all call me Stupid Head." The tears threatened to break out again at the memory. "I’m not a Stupid Head, am I Mummy?" ;