Spud - Learning to Fly (3 page)

6:30 Roll Call

Norman Whiteside read out the names at the first roll call of the year. For this reason, and because he looked overly self-important, I’m backing he’s our new head of house. Boggo agreed and said, ‘The class of 1992 aren’t exactly top of the gene pool.’ He then downed his tea and strode off across the quad shaking his head and looking disgusted with life.

Garlic and Barryl were nearly declared missing after spending roll call in the bogs. Apparently, Garlic bailed Barryl up with more talk of Lake Malawi. The shaken Barryl said it was impossible to get away from the prattling maniac, and that Garlic also looked a bit like the
tokoloshe
. Whiteside made a great show of giving the two a severe rebuking and a final warning. He droned on for ages about people taking liberties and disregarding school traditions. His speech attracted quite a crowd because many boys thought he was making an official announcement.

Garlic was greatly upset that he had implicated Barryl and pleaded, ‘It wasn’t this gentleman’s fault. I was talking about Lake Malawi!’ A collective groan sounded around the bogs and the crowd began to disperse. Looks like word has already spread about the great peril of Lake Malawi.

To add salt to the wounds, Vern gave both Barryl and Garlic a written warning for Bad Form in the Bogs and Surrounds. Garlic obviously didn’t know what was cracking because he said, ‘Hey, shot!’ and happily stashed the blue chit in the pocket of his crimson dressing gown.

Spike has grown. In fact he looks more and more like his vermin older brother by the day. Unfortunately, he now seems to be at least a head taller than me and to make matters worse he shoulder-charged me as I passed him in the passage near the piss trough. He claimed it was an accident but didn’t apologise.

The matrics are all walking around barking orders at people and looking prefectish. Tonight Viking will announce this year’s head of house and the 1992 prefects.

16:45 Garlic covered his entire body in Vaseline after his afternoon shower. He then ambled around the dormitory chatting to people about Lake Malawi while stark naked and glistening. Vern thought this was hilarious, squawked with laughter and pointed at Garlic’s groin. Garlic then asked Vern if he was retarded. Vern thought this was equally hilarious and cackled away to himself before pointing at Garlic’s nuts again and shouting, ‘Spud!’ Garlic looked a little shocked and backed away to his cubicle where he hurriedly got into his clothes and scurried out the dormitory.

20:00 House Meeting

Viking called the first house gathering a ‘Meet and Greet’ although it would be more accurately described as a ‘Clout and Shout’. Spike farted and tried to pretend it was his chair squeaking on the floor. Tough break for him was that it stank and the entire house meeting had to be adjourned for ten minutes while the Normal Seven were ordered to fan the room with cushions and spray their deodorant. Viking conducted his first thrashing as housemaster and caned Spike with two very meaty strokes. Eventually order was restored and Runt was allowed to continue with his Bible reading.

Viking’s introduction was conducted at the general volume of a shout. The poor first years huddled together on the floor at his feet looking genuinely terrified. I remember those days when I kept my eyes glued to the floor, cringing from everything.

‘This house,’ Viking declared, ‘is a complete and utter disgrace!’ He then continued with, ‘And most of you lot wouldn’t cut it in any half-baked platoon!’ I felt an elbow in my ribs before Vern’s extremely loud whisper of, ‘Half-baked Spudoon …’ His crazy sniggering was brought to a halt by Viking who boomed, ‘You clearly have something to share with the house, Blackadder?’ Vern blushed and shook his head about seven times. He then realised that everyone was watching him so he said, ‘Spud!’ There was a long pause. Clearly Vern had stumped yet another figure of authority with his rambling nonsense. Viking eventually said, ‘Yes well … um yes indeed … thank you for sharing that with us, Blackadder,’ before cranking up the volume with, ‘Now I am going to instil peace and respect in this house even if there must be bloodshed!’

After this heart-warming welcome, Viking announced his 1992 prefects:

There was uproar in the common room after the prefects were announced. The fact that Pike was coming back for post matric was thoroughly gutting. That he’s now a prefect is a catastrophe! Viking must be insane if he thinks that Pike could in any way be a good prefect? Thankfully the swine isn’t back at school yet so we didn’t have to endure the look on his smug face and his taunting threats.

Viking congratulated the new prefects with shouted congratulations and wild slaps on the back. He then said to them, ‘My office – now!’ Rambo turned to the rest of the Crazy Eight and said, ‘My cubicle – now!’

House Meeting adjourned.

Upstairs Rambo ordered the windows and door shut. Fatty tried to light up incense and candles but Rambo told him to grow up and look sharp. Then Boggo, who had sauntered into the dormitory with his hands casually fondling his pockets said, ‘Oh, so now suddenly we’re calling Crazy Eight meetings again.’

‘All right, we’ve got a serious problem,’ said Rambo, completely ignoring Boggo’s taunt.

‘This place is insane,’ added Simon as he furiously bit his nails.

‘Talk about scaling an oke’s nuts from out of his jocks,’ agreed Fatty solemnly.

Vern shouted, ‘Oi!’ to let us know that he wasn’t happy either.

Rambo waited for complete silence before continuing, ‘Right, now listen up. We’ve got to box clever. We can’t have a repeat of last year.’ We all nodded back in agreement. ‘We can never get bust, never! In fact we can’t put a single foot wrong. With Viking and Pike sniffing around like detectives we’re gonna have to keep our noses clean – and I mean Omo clean …’ We all nodded solemnly again, apart from Garlic, who chuckled loudly and thought everything was great fun – a clear indication that he’s never encountered a human being as dire as Pike before.

‘We can’t just carry on like we’re a law unto ourselves,’ continued Rambo, now looking more in control. ‘It’s a dead end street and it’s obvious that something suspicious is going on here.’

I wasn’t too sure what Rambo was talking about but if it meant an end to suicidal crazy missions then I’m all for it.

‘Oh, and another thing,’ said Rambo. ‘I’m doing away with democracy. There are members of this group who don’t deserve the vote, have no judgement, and are clinically insane. That’s the reason the shit hit the fan last year.’ Vern stroked Roger forcefully and looked around deviously like he was expecting something to happen. Nothing happened.

Rambo cleared his throat and glared at each of us in turn before saying, ‘So that is why I am taking over full control of the dormitory.’

There was another long and awkward silence. Boggo looked like he was sucking on a lemon. Fatty eventually summoned up the courage to speak, albeit in his whiny voice. ‘So what happens if we don’t want to do what you want us to do?’ Rambo stared at Fatty for a few seconds before grinning and saying, ‘Let’s double-cross that bridge if we get to it.’ Fatty grinned back like an idiot and said nothing further.

‘Right,’ said Rambo clapping his hands together. ‘Let’s go meet the new boys!’ His march to the door was stopped by Simon who had clearly had enough of Rambo Stalin’s orders. ‘Okay, you’ve told us we are going to stick to the rules and stay out of trouble this year. Then in the same breath you order us to break the rules of the house.’ Boggo snorted loudly and shouted, ‘Hello – contradiction?’ Nobody moved. Rambo stared, but still nobody moved.

It was a classic Crazy Eight stand-off.

‘There’s no contradiction, Boggo,’ said Rambo in an unnervingly calm voice. ‘Yes, it’s breaking the rules to touch a first year before their two weeks’ grace is up. But there’s nothing in the rules about a little meet and greet …’

Simon shook his head and said, ‘If the prefects bust us in that dormitory they won’t ask questions.’

Rambo grinned, ‘They can’t bust us, you piss brain, because they’re all in a prefects’ meeting in Viking’s office. Trust me, it’s now or never.’

We reluctantly followed our leader along the passage and watched him throw open the door to the second years’ dormitory. Our arrival was met with a horrified silence …

THE NORMAL SEVEN

The Normal Seven were appalled to see the Crazy Eight. In fact half of them dived onto their beds and desperately tried to hide, while Darryl (the last remaining) made a hilarious attempt at disappearing into his trunk. Rambo ordered them all to sit on their lockers. All obeyed except one: Spike made a big show of lying on his bed and opening up a newspaper. Rambo once again demanded that Spike sit on his locker. Spike ignored him. Rambo strode up to Spike’s cubicle and stood over him looking like he was on the verge of violence. I noticed the hands holding the newspaper were becoming a little unsteady.

‘My brother’s a prefect, in case you haven’t heard,’ said Spike, trying to appear nonchalant. ‘You guys so much as touch me, touch any of us …’ He faded off in a strident voice and waited for Rambo to say something.

Rambo said nothing and instead softly plucked the newspaper out of Spike’s hands and began reading it. Spike jerked his hand away in fear of the sudden movement, and there were a few snorts and sniggers from the Crazy Eight.

After about a minute of reading the newspaper Rambo finally spoke. ‘Tell me, Spike, why are you reading a newspaper from November last year?’ Spike didn’t answer and there were a few more sniggers rippling around the dormitory.

‘Is it because you’re woefully behind the times? Or is it because you get turned on by this picture of Margaret Thatcher?’ Rambo flashed us the picture of Margaret Thatcher dressed in green and looking horsey. The sniggers now turned into loud cackling laughter.

‘Or is it because you wanted to try and look cool in front of your mates instead of lying there with your legs open like the dipshit you really are?’

The laughter died away and Rambo turned and made his way towards the first year dormitory. Boggo snapped up the old newspaper, took a brief look at the picture of Margaret Thatcher and then stashed it into the back of his pants before following Rambo.

‘Piss off, you wanker.’

It took a few moments for us to realise that the insult had been uttered by Spike, and that his intended target was Rambo. For the second time in minutes Rambo had been challenged on his way out of a dormitory door. This time he stopped and swung around with his jaw clenched and his dark eyes burning.

‘I’m sorry, what did you say, Spike?’ replied Rambo in his brand new soft and terrifying voice.

Spike stood up and repeated, ‘I said, piss off, you wanker!’

Rambo marched up to him and everybody backed away a few paces. He stopped his march centimetres from Spike’s face.

‘Listen, Spike, what you’ve just said is insubordination to a senior. You ever speak to me, or any of my boys like that again, I’ll go straight to Viking. Am I understood?’

Spike nodded and suddenly looked on the verge of tears. I even found myself feeling a bit sorry for the idiot.

We left again. It was a relief to exit the second years’ dormitory because Runt was staring at me and making me feel self-conscious.

THE NEW BOYS

When we arrived in the first years’ dormitory they all dropped what they were doing and stood to attention at the foot of their beds like they had been drilled all afternoon by an army sergeant. Unfortunately, Vern strode forward and saluted vigorously at the new boys. Some of them saluted back while the rest stared back at Vern in terrified confusion. Vern held his rigid salute for about thirty seconds while beadily eyeing out the new recruits. When he was satisfied that he had sized them all up, he dropped his right arm, sniffed loudly, and returned to his place in the line.

Garlic looked a little confused by the military developments and asked Fatty, ‘Why are these boys saluting us?’ Fatty glanced around suspiciously and whispered, ‘This dorm is haunted, Garlic. There can be no explanation for the shit that goes down here.’ Garlic looked around nervously and asked, ‘Voodoo shit or like weird shit?’ Fatty closed his eyes dramatically and inhaled through loud nostrils as if sniffing the air for the supernatural. Then he said, ‘All kinds of shit.’ Garlic’s eyes widened like saucers as he nodded slowly to himself and said, ‘Same at Lake Malawi.’

Thankfully, Rambo interrupted.

‘Good evening, gentlemen. We are the third years and I’m Rambo. We just wanted to welcome you all to the house. And if there’s anything, or anyone … that troubles you, come speak to me first.’

No violence, no bloodshed, nothing. Rambo wouldn’t even let Fatty examine anyone’s tuck or allow Boggo to interrogate the new boys about their moms and sisters. The first years, I’m happy to report, are all smaller than me and at least three of them are still spuds. In fact I had the weird sensation of feeling my body growing taller while we were standing proudly in front of them.

When new head of house Norman Whiteside came storming into our dormitory to turn the lights out, we were already lying silently in our beds. He looked dreadfully disappointed and didn’t even bother to say goodnight before flicking off the lights and slamming the dormitory door.

These are strange days indeed.