So often accident is the agency of enlightenment. Where a thing remained enigmatic, chance discovery opens the doors of perception. If we still await the appearance of Shakespeare’s annotated manuscript of Hamlet on the bargain barrow of a second-hand bookstall, an ever more precious artefact has come to light. A student diary, which is nothing less than the Rosetta stone unlocking the secrets of the adolescent psyche.

The following are extracts:

Monday 2 Feb

First day back. Assembly. School band sucks. Trianfilipolipoulos’s grown a metre. Has hair in new and surprising places including forehead and palms. He’s got hot new teacher for History. We’ve got Diogenes. School sucks.

Tuesday 10 March

Geog project due. Get Mum to make cold tea to antique old map. Only half way through 1st term. THIS IS NOT FAIR. Trianfilipolipoulos still growing, still hairy.

Thursday 2 April

General assembly. School band sucks. Diogenes gave detention when I told him history was a nightmare from which I was trying to awake. THIS IS NOT FAIR.

Friday 24 April

Holidays went like M&Ms at a class party. Three terms to go. TIME MUST HAVE A STOP. History project due. Get Mum to make cold tea to antique poster.

Wednesday 27 May

Trianfilipolipoulos keeps a record of how many times he does it with himself. Says hot new teacher wants him. Not (I said) unless she’s attracted to woolly mammoths. Spent afternoon in sick bay.

Tuesday 2 June

General assembly. School band sucks. Handed in Maths project. Teacher wanted to know why it was brown and smelt of tea.

Friday 12 June

Diogenes re-enacted the entire Hundred Years War in the double. Or maybe it was just the Eureka Stockade and it only seemed like forever. Told him all history was more or less bunk. Gave me a detention. THIS IS REALLY NOT FAIR.

Friday 19 June

English assignment due. Teacher has forbidden use of cold tea. No imagination. Asked Trianfilipolipoulos if he’d heard of Nair. Went to sick bay. Diogenes cracked it because I was late. One week to go. We appear to have hit a warp in the space-time continuum. WHY IS THE UNIVERSE DOING THIS TO ME? (This turned out to be not the still small voice but Diogenes. Principal Kevorkian took him to the sick bay screaming. Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.) The hot new teacher stepped in for the rest of the period. There is a God.