Can there ever have been an ad campaign that is so simultaneously loved and loathed than those “Back to School” posters displayed by many big stores around this time of year? For me, as for many parents, I would imagine, those pictures of happy, smiling children in their uniforms, make me want to jump for joy, signalling as they do that the end of this very long holiday is in sight. For big boy however, they mean that the end of the world is nigh and that we are all doomed; ‘we’ being any unfortunate child like himself who is still obliged by law to return to school after the break.

“I see those fings and I get so depressed,” said big boy one afternoon as we were going along in the car. “It means the end of freedom, it means being bored and if I get that psycho French teacher again I’ll kill myself.”

“Yeah but at least we can go out at lunchtime,” said a mate who was travelling with us.

“But bein’ allowed out’s not the same as sneakin’ out,” stated big boy. “That’s what makes it fun, when you have to sneak out and back in wivout gettin’ caught.”

“True,” said the mate.

“Then there’s homework and havin’ to get up in the morning. Aaagh! I don’t fink I can stand it. Why can’t it always be the holidays?”

“You’d get bored,” I said.

“I haven’t been bored once this holidays,” replied big boy.

And it’s true: I don’t think he has. He’s been abroad, he’s been to the country (not quite so exciting perhaps), he’s been to an exhibition about computer games three or four times and made countless trips to his beloved West End with bro and the posse. In between times, he’s experienced the thrill of being home alone, cooking up a storm in the kitchen and entertaining his mates. He’s played lots of football and trundled up and down the street on his skateboard. He’s stayed up till the early hours most nights and remained in bed till 11 o’clock most days and when there’s nothing else doing he’s watched hours and hours of TV. Oh joy!

“Aren’t you looking forward to school just a little bit?” I asked.

“Not one bit,” he replied solemnly.

“But you can see your friends.”

“I’ve seen all my friends,” he said firmly, ending the discussion.

Only one person has been looking forward to school even less than big boy and that’s his brother. I thought that because his big brother goes there and because so many of his friends will be going from primary school with him, that bro wouldn’t be particularly worried, but he’s been very worried indeed.

The first sign of trouble was when he suddenly developed a terrible fear of wasps. He claimed that a swarm of them pursued him across the local football pitch, up the hill and all the way home and that because of that he had become very frightened of them. The claim could not be substantiated by any of the other children he’d been with that day but the fear was very real nonetheless. Every time a wasp appeared in the house he would scream for my help. On hot nights, he would insist on keeping all his windows closed and the curtains drawn. On one occasion, when we were in a shop, he discovered a wasp crawling on him and sobbed in terror.

Then he developed a strange illness with a multiplicity of symptoms which would appear and disappear again quite mysteriously; one minute he felt sick, then dizzy, then he had stomach pain and then a strange lump appeared near his throat which he said he could move around with his fingers. I tried to reassure him that he might just be getting a virus and have a swollen gland but he retired to bed unusually early that night with a bandage wrapped around his face and tied on top of his head in a bow. He looked like a demented, suntanned rabbit.

This was all so uncharacteristic of bro who is normally a jolly, brave, fearless-to-the point-of-reckless kind of child and whose most recently stated ambition was to join the marines. So I asked him if anything was worrying him and it turned out to be the prospect of going to his new school.

“Why are you so worried about it?” I asked. “You’re going to know so many people there and your brother and his friends will take you there and bring you back every day.”

“I just don’t like the sound of it,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been getting advice and all that about what to do but I still don’t like it.”

“What kind of advice?” I asked, “and from whom?”

Big boy it seems, had been trying to coach bro in playground survival skills: Lesson One – What to do if you get barged. Lesson Two – What to do if someone tries to jack your lunch money. Lesson Three – What to do if someone says ‘Your Mum’. Lesson Four – What to do if someone jumps you. And so on. All of which was making bro feel like he was headed into a war zone without even having the benefit of training with the marines.

So I told big boy to stop the coaching and just to take care of bro and reassure him a bit in the days before school starts. He’s promised that he will (in addition to promising to work hard and not give his teachers a hard time). Bro meanwhile, has calmed down considerably this past few days. The mysterious illness has cleared up and he’s stopped being frightened of wasps. He seems just about ready now to join big boy on the rocky road through adolescence. I feel sorry for the Mum though, don’t you?

Rebecca Misell lives in London with her two sons aged 11 & 13.

This is Rebecca’s last diary instalment. We will really miss her on the site and hope to hear more from her in the future. In the meanwhile, please feel free to let her know how much you have enjoyed ‘Hormone Heaven’!