Nine Till Three and Summers Free

by Mike Kent

For want of something to do, Duggan began to fiddle with one of the projectors, cleaning the film channel with a corner of his handkerchief. As he reached across the controls, he accidentally leaned on the main switch and the machine whirred into action, pulling his handkerchief with it.

  ‘Oh bugger!’ he exclaimed loudly, slamming the switch to the off position and tugging on the other end of his handkerchief. Gerry hurried over to the machine.

  ‘That was daft,’ he said angrily. ‘Why didn’t you leave it alone? For God’s sake get it out quickly!’

  ‘I couldn’t help it! I was just cleaning the thing.’

  ‘What for? We cleaned the bloody things before we laced the film in.’

  ‘I know. I was just…’

  ‘Well for God’s sake get your handkerchief out.’

  ‘All right. Calm down. Pass me the screwdriver. I’ll try and move it bit by bit. Good thing it wasn’t my bloody tie. I could have been chewed up inside the thing and projected alongside Glenn Miller.’ Gerry grimaced angrily and passed over a pair of scissors and a tiny screwdriver.

  ‘It’s jammed under the sprocket,’ he said bluntly. ‘You’ll have to unscrew the sprocket. Let me have a look.’

  They changed places. Gerry took his jacket off and rolled his sleeves up, looking as if he was about to disembowel the machine. After several minutes of tinkering, he turned and looked in disbelief at the part he had removed.

  ‘Looks like we’ll be running on one machine after all,’ he said miserably. ‘I don’t see what else we can do. The sprocket doesn’t look too damaged, but I wouldn’t be keen to rely on it.’

  ‘Give it a try,’ urged Duggan. ‘You never know.’

  Gerry replaced the component, connected the mains lead, and switched on. The projector whirred into action again, but after several minutes the speed faltered intermittently. Duggan poked the screwdriver inside the casing again.

  ‘The sprocket’s holding alright,’ he muttered. ‘So what the hell’s the matter with the thing?’

  ‘Miss Pratt’ll have us for this,’ said Gerry. ‘We can’t possibly be lucky a second time.’

  Duggan offered an uncomplimentary remark about Miss Pratt, and Samantha winced.

  ‘It’s no good saying that,’ said Gerry. ‘We’ll probably never be able to borrow the machines again.’

  ‘Well, it’ll run for a bit,’ Duggan replied. ‘Let’s worry about it afterwards. If we keep our fingers crossed it’ll probably get us through a couple of reels. What’s the time?’

  ‘Twenty to three.’

  ‘Then where have they got to, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘I suppose we could leave out the middle reel,’ I suggested. ‘They probably wouldn’t notice.’

  ‘We’ll be skipping the whole show if they get here much later,’ said Duggan. ‘My God, a dodgy projector, the wrath of Miss Pratt, and no audience. Samantha, come and show me some affection while we’re waiting.’

  ‘I’ll show you a wafer biscuit if you like.’

  ‘Wonderful. That’ll do. Show Gerry one too, but don’t let the bugger eat it.’

  ‘I don’t want one,’ Gerry grunted miserably.

  Duggan straightened his back, stretched his legs, yawned, and sat down heavily on a bench in the front row.

  ‘Hello,’ he said suddenly, nodding towards the door, ‘who’s this, then?’

  A large West Indian boy, aged about twelve, was leaning against the door. He stared around the hall for a moment and then ambled over to Gerry, looking at the two projectors with obvious interest. Samantha smiled at him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said kindly. ‘Are you from St. Bernards?’

  The boy considered this carefully, like a candidate pondering an ambiguous question in a difficult interview. Then he nodded slowly.

  ‘Where are the others?’ Gerry asked. The boy removed the large piece of gum he was chewing, inspected it, and carefully replaced it in his mouth before replying.

  ‘Dunno,’ he grunted.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They was outside by the front gate.’

  ‘You mean they’re not there now?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Well you must know!’ Gerry retorted sharply.

  ‘I s’pose they’re still there. Mr North told me to come in an’ see if this was the right place.’

  ‘Is Mr North your teacher?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, if he isn’t your teacher, who is he?’

  ‘Shall I tell ‘im to come up ‘ere?’

  ‘That would seem to be a good idea. And tell him to bring the others.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The boy turned, hurried out of the door, and several minutes later the sound of loud, excited voices drifted up the stairs. There was a sudden, bellowing command from a voice obviously belonging to somebody much older, and the noise level immediately dropped slightly. A short, slightly built man, younger than he looked, strode through the door. He wore an old sports jacket frayed at the cuffs, and he walked with a round-shouldered stoop. His ginger hair was receding badly, and though he had tried to disguise this by combing it carefully forward, the effect hadn’t been very successful. He barged his way heavily through the crowd of boys standing near the door, smiled a little uncertainly, and then extended a limp right hand towards Gerry.

  ‘So sorry we’re late,’ he apologised. ‘I’m afraid I had a job getting them all on one bus. And then Davis managed to jam the whole… stand still Barry Cross, you stupid, stupid boy!’ He screamed the command at the boy nearest to him, who had been hovering, like a bee near a honey pot, to see what was on offer. The pitch and volume of the man’s voice made Samantha jump and a large pile of wafer biscuits fell from the corner of the table. The boys were silenced for several seconds, but then the noise level quickly crept up again. It was obviously a tactic they had all become extremely familiar with.

  ‘We’d better get started,’ said Gerry anxiously, looking at his watch. ‘We’ve only got the lecture theatre till five.’

  ‘Of course. I hope we haven’t spoiled anything by being late. I’ll get them in, shall I?’

  ‘Are you the only teacher with them?’ I asked. ‘We thought a teacher called Alan Green…’

  ‘He’s got to cover another class because a lot of the staff are sick. I’m a supply teacher. I’ve done St Bernard’s fairly regularly but I can’t say it’s a barrel of fun. Kids are a nightmare. Couldn’t even bring one of the helpers today. Mind you, they’d probably have murdered her in the bus or something. Frankly, it’s been quite an achievement to get here at all.’

  ‘They’re making an awful lot of noise in the corridor,’ said Samantha. ‘Do you think we ought to go and bring them in?’

  ‘That’s typical,’ Mr North said bluntly. ‘It’s bad enough if three of them have to wait for five minutes, let alone thirty five, and I…’

  ‘Thirty five?’ Duggan interrupted.

  Mr North looked surprised. ‘Yes, didn’t you get the phone call? They asked if we could bring a bigger group because they’re so short staffed. Anyway, I’d better go and get them in before they wreck the place.’

  The noise outside had reached a deafening pitch. Most of the boys were shouting at the tops of their voices and there was a sudden crash of broken glass that caused an instant and miraculous silence.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Mr North exclaimed. ‘What now?’ He sighed like a man sentenced to a long term in prison and hurried outside.

  ‘Johnson knocked that vase off!’ somebody shouted gleefully.

  ‘No I never,’ a loud voice objected.

  ‘You did. I saw yer.’

  ‘I bloody never done that! You watch it!’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Shut it!’

  There was another high pitched scream from Mr North and the boys b
egan to surge through the doors, pushing, nudging and shoving each other as they dived for the seats nearest the screen. Those who sat down first were thrown off the seats again by the bigger boys, who didn’t bother hurrying because any seat they fancied could easily be reclaimed with a little unfriendly persuasion. There was a sudden sharp crack as the arm of a front seat snapped in two, and the three boys trying to sit on the seat fell in a jumbled heap on the floor, causing the others a great deal of amusement. Mr North dashed across to them.

  ‘Sit down!’ he screamed, the strength of his voice causing an echo round the lecture theatre. ‘Where do you think you are? You, sit there! John Cross, sit there! Murphy, sit here! Johnson, sit on the end.’

  The large West Indian boy’s face creased into a moody expression.

  ‘I don’t wanna sit on the end.’

  ‘Johnson, SIT..ON..THE..END!’

  ‘I don’t like sitting on the end…’

  ‘Johnson…’

  ‘I can’t see properly on the end.’

  ‘You can sit on the end or you can sit in the corridor.’

  ‘Can I sit up there, then?’

  ‘Up where?’

  ‘There. On that ledge thing.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I said so.’

  ‘That ain’t much of a reason.’

  ‘Do you want a good slap round the ear?’

  ‘No. I’ll sit on the end.’

  Johnson sat down cautiously and another five minutes passed while Mr North struggled to get the rest of the boys seated. Then, breathless, he climbed the short flight of stairs to the back of the theatre where the projectors were and sat down heavily next to Gerry, wiping his forehead with a folded handkerchief.

  ‘Are they always like this?’ Gerry asked in a horrified voice.

  ‘No, no. Sometimes they’re worse. It’s the excitement. They’ve been looking forward to this for days. It would have been a lot easier if I’d had somebody else with me. Oh, by the way… that broken vase… if you just get a bill sent to the school I’ll see that it’s paid.’

  Aware that time was passing quickly, Gerry turned on the cassette player containing the interval music. As the boys heard the music through the loudspeakers, the noise died a little and they began to settle into their seats, aware that something was about to happen. Johnson had stopped talking and was now sitting sideways in his seat, staring moodily at a length of rope he had taken from his pocket. I shuddered to think what he might use it for.

  ‘Come on,’ Gerry urged, ‘let’s start while it’s quiet.’

  He motioned to Samantha to turn the lights out, and as a Bugs Bunny cartoon appeared on the screen the boys howled and shrieked with delight. It reminded me of the enthusiasm the opening cartoon had been greeted with a few nights previously, but instead of dying down as the cartoon began the cheering and shouting merely increased in volume.

  ‘They’ll never hear the bloody thing at this rate!’ Duggan shouted above the noise, turning up the volume until distortion threatened to wreck the loudspeaker.

  ‘They’ll settle in a minute,’ Mr North shouted back confidently.

  ‘I hope so. You’ve got more faith than I have.’

  The noise was now so intense that nobody could hear the soundtrack at all. Nevertheless, the visuals caused untold delight, and one boy, bigger than most, turned to his partner and began slapping him on the back each time he found something particularly amusing, until his partner swung round angrily and threatened to smash his head in if he didn’t pack it in right away. As the film progressed the boys became interested and involved, but as soon as it finished there was an instant and excited chattering again. Duggan hurriedly flicked the repaired projector into life, and the children cheered again as the Tom and Jerry cartoon we’d shown the other night burst onto the screen. Nobody seemed to care that it was running at a third of its usual speed.

  ‘Shame we haven’t got a few more of these,’ said Gerry. ‘I just hope they enjoy the Glenn Miller.’

  ‘Oh, they will,’ said Mr North. ‘Put ‘em in front of a screen and they’ll watch anything.’ He took out a small tin of tobacco and a packet of papers, and began to roll a very thin cigarette. A coil of smoke rose into the projector beam, and I waved it away from me.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Mr North brightly. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’

  Half way through the first reel of the Glenn Miller Story, I realised that at least a dozen boys were not watching the screen at all. Peering through the darkness I could see Johnson attempting to lash his partner’s hands to the chair with his piece of rope. Another boy had crawled underneath his seat and was amusing himself by pinching the bottoms of the boys in front, finding it intensely amusing when they turned round to wallop the person responsible and found themselves staring at an empty seat. Samantha, absorbed in the film, didn’t notice one of the smallest boys scuttling across the floor on his hands and knees to give the refreshments table a premature inspection. Manoeuvring himself into a shadowy corner underneath the table, he sat waiting for a distracting moment in the film that would allow him to remove some of Samantha’s stock without anybody spotting him. She caught him just as his hands reached upwards, and throwing caution to the winds gave them a smack. There was a squeal of surprise, and the fingers disappeared from view. Glancing around, I noticed that four others were sitting up in the balcony, even though the staircase had been carefully screened off. I suspected it wouldn’t be long before they found some items to throw over the edge.

  ‘I think you’d better get them down from there,’ said Gerry. ‘They shouldn’t be up there anyway.’

  ‘Best to leave them at the moment,’ said Mr North. ‘They’ll get involved in the film soon. The trouble is, they soon get bored with things.’

  ‘Then at least have a word with the others. I’m a bit worried about the leads,’ Gerry persisted. ‘The mains wire runs right underneath the seats. ‘So does the speaker wire, come to that.’

  ‘Leave it for another ten minutes.’ said Mr North. ‘If they’re not quiet by then, I’ll speak to them.’

  ‘Well… it’s up to you. I don’t want any of them electrocuted.’

  Mr North grinned. ‘I wouldn’t mind, frankly. It would shut a few of ‘em up.’

  He settled back into his seat and concentrated on watching the film. For a while it did seem as if the boys were settling as they began to follow the story. As the action moved to the suspect projector Duggan watched the machinery like a hawk, his nose hovering a few inches from the troublesome sprocket.

  ‘I think it’s going to be okay,’ he whispered to Gerry, closing the projector cover and settling back into his seat with relief. Nobody seemed to be concerned that James Stewart’s voice had slipped an octave, but the calm was quickly shattered as soon as he played the first love scene of the film. Immediately, there were hearty jeers and crude comments as each boy tried to outdo the previous suggestion. Samantha looked at the front two rows in astonished disbelief, furrowing her eyebrows and shaking her head sadly from side to side. When the scene extended into several minutes, the boys began to boo loudly. One of the boys, more scientifically aware than the others, stood on his seat to intercept the projector beam and a silhouette duck suddenly appeared between the couple on the screen. This was considered highly amusing and the other boys shouted with delight as everybody raised their fingers to try a few variations. I began to worry that the noise might bring some of the lecturers into the theatre to see what was going on, and then a clattering from the faulty projector caused the film to slow down dramatically.

  ‘Oh Jesus, that’s it!’ Duggan groaned, opening the cover of the machine and staring hopelessly as the sprocket wobbled in its mounting. ‘It’s never going to finish this reel now.’

  ‘Do you mind telling them to shut up?’ Gerry said bluntly to Mr North. The
teacher stood up uncertainly for a moment and then sat down again.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he shouted cheerfully. ‘They’re bound to get sick of it in a minute.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Duggan shouted back. ‘I’m going to have to stop this machine anyway.’

  As he spoke, the clattering from the projector grew louder and he flicked the off switch, forgetting in his agitation to turn the sound down first. Glenn Miller’s voice faltered in mid-sentence and slurred to a halt. There was a loud cheer, and several boys turned around in fascination at this new effect, obviously hoping that Duggan would do it again.

  ‘What the hell do we do now?’ Duggan hissed at Gerry, staring first at the machine and then at the audience. ‘They’ll tear the place to bits if that bloke doesn’t shut them up.’

  ‘First things first,’ Gerry said. ‘Let’s get the lights on.’ He gesticulated at Samantha and waved his arms. She hurried across to the switches on the wall and the boys sat blinking in the light for a moment, unsure what was happening now. Duggan suddenly looked across at Gerry.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said.

  ‘Oh God. What?’

  ‘You might not like it.’

  ‘Try me. I’m desperate.’

  ‘You talk to ‘em.’

  Gerry’s eyebrows shot several inches higher and his mouth dropped open.

  ‘Talk to them? Me? What about? Why me?’

  ‘Because you are going to teach in a secondary school.’

  ‘I’m not going to be teaching kids like these.’

  ‘But you’re good at things like this. Look how you handled that meeting when we elected the committee. If you can handle that, you can handle anything. Go on. I’ll get the next reel loaded and we’ll skip the rest of the dodgy one. They’ll never know. Hurry up, before it gets worse.’

  ‘But I can’t! What am I supposed to talk about?’

  ‘You’ll think of something.’

  ‘This isn’t fair!’

  ‘Go on! You can do it. Samantha, let him have a wafer biscuit.’

  Gerry stared round wildly for help, only too aware there wasn’t any. Then he walked to the front of the theatre like a man walking to the scaffold, while Mr North tried to make himself inconspicuous, more than happy for somebody else to take on the task. Gerry climbed onto the stage area, gesticulated hopelessly and then suddenly pulled himself up to full height.