Updating Dennis the Menace...

I remember reading Dennis the Menace comic strips when I lived in Edinburgh.

I was about 6 or 7 years old I think, I had mastered English, and life was carefree. I used to see these comic strips with Dennis in his red and black stripped jumper, with his ever present companion and fellow mischief-making-friend Nasher the black, spunky, dog sitting in the corner of the after school club at Sciennes - which I wasn't technically attending. We were extremely poor then, my father studied for his PhDs whilst trying to juggle as many dish-washing and restaurant jobs as possible so we could get by, and my mother had just started on her Masters. It was a true case of starting at the very bottom and scraping a living. 

I remember my mum telling me the other day that my dad actually quit a dish-washing job once because they refused to pay him more, and he thought his work was worth more. Funny. Especially since half the time he washes them these days they still manage to look unwashed..

I used to sit there not really part of the club because we couldn't afford it, and not having anyone pick me up yet because mum had to rush from class to school, and she'd always come in near closing time, having half run half walked the distance - Edinburgh is notoriously hilly after all. I had to do something with my time, so I'd pick up these magazines, and I read them all. 

Pouty lips.

How eagerly I waited for the next edition as well after I had finished the backlogged collection. Sometimes the lady who ran the club felt sorry for me, and so she'd let me join in the activities too and gave me food. It's sad that I don't remember her name or her face, but I remember her being a plump, strongly built woman, a true northerner - a character you read about in books, a bit like the maid or the old cook who had been with the manor serving all her life.

It's kinda surprising that I don't remember any of this normally, and I really have to recall it. I feel like I forget, or bury things far to easily.

Anyway, it was really surprising when I found out the boy who acted the part of Dennis looked the exact opposite to the character. And like a certain someone.. And he's certainly much better looking too. Dennis was never the prettiest character you had ever seen. 

I'm a sucker for mischief, what can I say. I think I'm much smoother than him though, and I never, well, hardly ever, got caught.

And now I'm just thinking about this boy I used to know. 

We were good friends, we lived in the same flats and I remember thinking he was really annoying at first, that he'd follow me around and pick a fight with me and argue with me about stupid stuff. I would think "Boys are soo stupid" and one day me and this other girl were playing, and he wanted to join in. I told him no because he was a boy, and he just wouldn't go away for some reason that day. My friend said something like "I bet you fancy her, that's why you won't go away isn't it?". And the poor boy went bright red and denied it ferociously (still not going away). It made me think. 

The next time I saw him we were on our own (I often sneaked out the door when my mum had a mid-day nap and I would hook the door open with a chain or a stick so I could get back in), I asked him outright if he did. He admitted it. It was incredibly cute, he was maybe a year younger than me - but when you're a kid, you feel so much more powerful and look down on people younger than you - and American and he looked so guilty. It was quite adorable, and it made me change my attitude towards him a bit. But I think he felt so embarrassed over it that he couldn't look me in the eye and our friendship was never quite the same after that. His parents left to go back to America soon after that so we didn't really get the chance to patch it up either. 

Luke Fisher, I wonder what kind of person he is now.