1988

The year started with my seven-year-old self announcing to my parents that school was an utter waste of time for intellectuals of my level and I wished not to return for another miserable year to that dreadful establishment. But my protests were drowned out by “logic”. Thus, for the second time in my life, I was dragged by force on a beautiful September morning to my own private hell, the 124th elementary school of Athens.

During the summer, I had read at least 20 or 30 delicious children’s books full of all kinds of adventures. How could mundane subjects like grammar or math stand a chance of grasping my fleeting attention? I was constantly daydreaming, imagining the most glorious escapades. I could hear the sea calling me and almost feel the leaves of giant trees touching my face in tropical forests.?In my mind I was already the first child astronaut on a mission to Saturn, a faithful companion to Sherlock Holmes, a fierce arctic explorer and definitely?not?a miserable elementary school pupil.

During that time my greatest wish was to become an orphan. I didn’t mean to cause any harm to my parents. All I wanted was to discover that I’m adopted so that my life could finally acquire at least one extraordinary feature. Or, at the very least I could defy my parents as my legal guardians and skip school forever.

No matter how hard I tried to find adoption papers hidden in their drawers, nothing came up. How unfair! There was not a shred of evidence that I was not a product of my ordinary family. I cursed my luck. My parents had to be jungle explorers, astronauts, international spies or aliens from another planet to fulfill my outlandish fairytales. Instead, both of my parents were school teachers, and I was uncontrollably bored.

The more bored I got, the more I read. The more I read, the more miserable I felt about my own pathetic existence. For starters, nothing exciting ever happened. My graduation diploma from the kindergarten hung proudly above my messy desk. The teacher was kind enough to give me one; after all, I?had?spent?every single recess making crafts in her class. True, the diploma commemorationed of my achievements, but it could not console me in the midst of this oppressive normality.

On the day that my poor parents had to urgently take my sister to the doctor, I decided that I had had enough of this family. The time was right, an opportunity had arisen. I was about to prove to everyone that I came from a different set of parents. I quickly emptied all my parents’ drawers, searching frantically. I felt pretty lousy the whole time though, especially after it dawned on me that my parents were actually nice to me.

I had already read enough Charles Dickens* and Hector Malot** to know that orphans weren’t exactly born with golden spoons in their mouths. Also, my dad was actually very interesting. He was a chemistry teacher and always eager to explain stuff to me and my sister and do experiments. And my mum was constantly giving me the books that fueled my daydreams.

But there was no turning back now. I was sitting on top of a mountain of papers. Their room looked like a typhoon hit it. Every drawer was flipped upside down, their contents scattered all over the floor. The door flung open, it was my parents. Naturally, they demanded a rational explanation for this colossal mess. I openly admitted everything. I was looking for my adoption papers so that I could leave this family once and for all. My dad sighed and handed me my birth certificate. I was born February 8th, 1982. My fate was sealed; I was condemned to this family.

* ** The writers of?Oliver Twist?and?Sans Famille?accordingly