Frightened of a 12 year old

This evening I went to see Ratatouille with my housemates. The film was enjoyable enough but sadly our experience was marred by a group of three boys, aged around 12 or so, talking nearly the whole way through. They would chatter away, then get annoyed with each other and swear aggressively, then one would get up and move to a different seat, then they’d all follow, then they’d move back to where they’d been, then the cycle would start all over again, with some banging on seats thrown in for good measure.

I was glad to see they hadn’t completely forgotten their manners though – when one boy’s phone rang he did have the courtesy to move three rows down so his conversation wouldn’t disturb his friends.

So, what to do? I tried giving them a Hard Look™ – a type of icy glare my mother specialises in, guaranteed to turn even Osama bin Laden to stone, and which I have been honing to perfection in the mirror for many years now.

Maybe it’s been too long since I practised, or maybe these kids were just too damn cool – whatever, they didn’t succumb to the fear. Thus I began to formulate a Plan B. I decided that the best thing to do would be to go over, tap the ringleader on the shoulder and ask in a saccharine sweet way if they would mind being quiet – the ‘embarrassing them into silence’ tactic.

This idea sprang from imagining what would have shut me up if I were them – at their age an older person directly confronting me would probably have reduced me to a shadow of my former cool, boisterous self.

But as I was on the verge of going over to them, something stopped me. And what did I do?

Nothing. Save for a few Hard Looks™, I did not act. An absolute failure of modern day citizen policing, I sat there, heart racing, and chickened out of going over there in case… In case of what? Getting stabbed outside the Cardiff Vue? Well yes actually. What if they were Bad? They were wearing hoodies after all… They might be harbouring knives, or even guns, under there!

Ok so I know I sound like a Daily Mail-reading, Tory-voting 50 year old (although I wouldn’t have hugged the little rogues for love nor money), but these days you just never know.

As we left, I saw them counting their pocket money to see if they could afford an ice cream before climbing into a parent’s Renault Espace. But I could have sworn I saw the glint of a blade peeking out from beneath the ring leader’s anorak as he scrambled in, baggsying the front seat.