by Roald Dahl
‘I’ll bet the police are here already,’ Thwaites went on. ‘And the Black Maria’s waiting outside.’
As we made our way out to the playground, my whole stomach began to feel as though it was slowly filling up with swirling water. I am only eight years old, I told myself. No little boy of eight has ever murdered anyone. It’s not possible.
Out in the playground on this warm cloudy September morning, the Deputy Headmaster was shouting, ‘Line up in forms! Sixth Form over there! Fifth Form next to them! Spread out! Spread out! Get on with it! Stop talking all of you!’
Thwaites and I and my other three friends were in the Second Form, the lowest but one, and we lined up against the red-brick wall of the playground shoulder to shoulder. I can remember that when every boy in the school was in his place, the line stretched right round the four sides of the playground – about one hundred small boys altogether, aged between six and twelve, all of us wearing identical grey shorts and grey blazers and grey stockings and black shoes.
‘Stop that talking!’ shouted the Deputy Head. ‘I want absolute silence!’
But why for heaven’t sake were we in the playground at all? I wondered. And why were we lined up like this? It had never happened before.
I half-expected to see two policemen come bounding out of the school to grab me by the arms and put handcuffs on my wrists.
A single door led out from the school on to the playground. Suddenly it swung open and through it, like the angel of death, strode Mr Coombes, huge and bulky in his tweed suit and black gown, and beside him, believe it or not, right beside him trotted the tiny figure of Mrs Pratchett herself!
Mrs Pratchett was alive!
The relief was tremendous.
‘She’s alive!’ I whispered to Thwaites standing next to me. ‘I didn’t kill her!’ Thwaites ignored me.
‘We’ll start over here,’ Mr Coombes was saying to Mrs Pratchett. He grasped her by one of her skinny arms and led her over to where the Sixth Form was standing. Then, still keeping hold of her arm, he proceeded to lead her at a brisk walk down the line of boys. It was like someone inspecting the troops.
‘What on earth are they doing?’ I whispered.
Thwaites didn’t answer me. I glanced at him. He had gone rather pale.
‘Too big,’ I heard Mrs Pratchett saying. ‘Much too big. It’s none of this lot. Let’s ’ave a look at some of them titchy ones.’
Mr Coombes increased his pace. ‘We’d better go all the way round,’ he said. He seemed in a hurry to get it over with now and I could see Mrs Pratchett’s skinny goat’s legs trotting to keep up with him. They had already inspected one side of the playground where the Sixth Form and half the Fifth Form were standing. We watched them moving down the second side … then the third side.
‘Still too big,’ I heard Mrs Pratchett croaking. ‘Much too big! Smaller than these! Much smaller! Where’s them nasty little ones?’
They were coming closer to us now … closer and closer.
They were starting on the fourth side …
Every boy in our form was watching Mr Coombes and Mrs Pratchett as they came walking down the line towards us.
‘Nasty cheeky lot, these little ’uns!’ I heard Mrs Pratchett muttering. ‘They comes into my shop and they thinks they can do what they damn well likes!’
Mr Coombes made no reply to this.
‘They nick things when I ain’t lookin’,’ she went on. ‘They put their grubby ’ands all over everything and they’ve got no manners. I don’t mind girls. I never ’ave no trouble with girls, but boys is ’ideous and ’orrible! I don’t ’ave to tell you that, ’Eadmaster, do I?’
‘These are the smaller ones,’ Mr Coombes said.
I could see Mrs Pratchett’s piggy little eyes staring hard at the face of each boy she passed.
Suddenly she let out a high-pitched yell and pointed a dirty finger straight at Thwaites. ‘That’s ’im!’ she yelled. ‘That’s one of ’em! I’d know ’im a mile away, the scummy little bounder!’
The entire school turned to look at Thwaites. ‘W-what have I done?’ he stuttered, appealing to Mr Coombes.
‘Shut up,’ Mr Coombes said.
Mrs Pratchett’s eyes flicked over and settled on my own face. I looked down and studied the black asphalt surface of the playground.
‘’Ere’s another of ’em!’ I heard her yelling. ‘That one there!’ She was pointing at me now.
‘You’re quite sure?’ Mr Coombes said.
‘Of course I’m sure!’ she cried. ‘I never forgets a face, least of all when it’s as sly as that! ’Ee’s one of ’em all right! There was five altogether! Now where’s them other three?’
The other three, as I knew very well, were coming up next.
Mrs Pratchett’s face was glimmering with venom as her eyes travelled beyond me down the line.
‘There they are!’ she cried out, stabbing the air with her finger. ‘’Im … and ’im … and ’im! That’s the five of ’em all right! We don’t need to look no farther than this, ’Eadmaster! They’re all ’ere, the nasty dirty little pigs! You’ve got their names, ’ave you?’
‘I’ve got their names, Mrs Pratchett,’ Mr Coombes told her. ‘I’m much obliged to you.’
‘And I’m much obliged to you, ’Eadmaster,’ she answered.
As Mr Coombes led her away across the playground, we heard her saying, ‘Right in the jar of Gobstoppers it was! A stinkin’ dead mouse which I will never forget as long as I live!’
‘You have my deepest sympathy,’ Mr Coombes was muttering.
‘Talk about shocks!’ she went on. ‘When my fingers caught ’old of that nasty soggy stinkin’ dead mouse …’ Her voice trailed away as Mr Coombes led her quickly through the door into the school building.
Our form master came into the classroom with a piece of paper in his hand. ‘The following are to report to the Headmaster’s study at once,’ he said. ‘Thwaites … Dahl … ’And then he read out the other three names which I have forgotten.
The five of us stood up and left the room. We didn’t speak as we made our way down the long corridor into the Headmaster’s private quarters where the dreaded study was situated. Thwaites knocked on the door.
‘Enter!’
We sidled in. The room smelled of leather and tobacco. Mr Coombes was standing in the middle of it, dominating everything, a giant of a man if ever there was one, and in his hands he held a long yellow cane which curved round the top like a walking stick.
‘I don’t want any lies,’ he said. ‘I know very well you did it and you were all in it together. Line up over there against the bookcase.’
We lined up, Thwaites in front and I, for some reason, at the very back. I was last in the line.
‘You,’ Mr Coombes said, pointing the cane at Thwaites, ‘Come over here.’
Thwaites went forward very slowly.
‘Bend over,’ Mr Coombes said.
Thwaites bent over. Our eyes were riveted on him. We were hypnotized by it all. We knew, of course, that boys got the cane now and again, but we had never heard of anyone being made to watch.
‘Tighter, boy, tighter!’ Mr Coombes snapped out. ‘Touch the ground!’
Thwaites touched the carpet with the tips of his fingers.
Mr Coombes stood back and took up a firm stance with his legs well apart. I thought how small Thwaites’s bottom looked and how very tight it was. Mr Coombes had his eyes focused squarely upon it. He raised the cane high above his shoulder, and as he brought it down, it made a loud swishing sound, and then there was a crack like a pistol shot as it struck Thwaites’s bottom.
Little Thwaites seemed to lift about a foot into the air and he yelled ‘Ow-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!’ and straightened up like elastic.
‘’Arder!’ shrieked a voice from over in the corner.
Now it was our turn to jump. We looked round and there, sitting in one of Mr Coombes’s big leather armchairs, was the tiny loathsome figure of Mrs Pratchett! She
was bounding up and down with excitement. ‘Lay it into ’im!’ she was shrieking. ‘Let ’im ’ave it! Teach ’im a lesson!’
‘Get down, boy!’ Mr Coombes ordered. ‘And stay down! You get an extra one every time you straighten up!’
‘That’s tellin’ ’im!’ shrieked Mrs Pratchett. ‘That’s tellin’ the little blighter!’
I could hardly believe what I was seeing. It was like some awful pantomime. The violence was bad enough, and being made to watch it was even worse, but with Mrs Pratchett in the audience the whole thing became a nightmare.
Swish-crack! went the cane.
‘Ow-w-w-w-w!’ yelled Thwaites.
‘’Arder!’ shrieked Mrs Pratchett. ‘Stitch ’im up! Make it sting! Tickle ’im up good and proper! Warm ’is backside for ’im! Go on, warm it up, ’Eadmaster!’
Thwaites received four strokes, and by gum, they were four real whoppers.
‘Next!’ snapped Mr Coombes.
Thwaites came hopping past us on his toes, clutching his bottom with both hands and yelling, ‘Ow! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Owwwww!’
With tremendous reluctance, the next boy sidled forward to his fate. I stood there wishing I hadn’t been last in the line. The watching and waiting were probably even greater torture than the event itself.
Mr Coombes’s performance the second time was the same as the first. So was Mrs Pratchett’s. She kept up her screeching all the way through, exhorting Mr Coombes to greater and still greater efforts, and the awful thing was that he seemed to be responding to her cries. He was like an athlete who is spurred on by the shouts of the crowd in the stands. Whether this was true or not, I was sure of one thing. He wasn’t weakening.
My own turn came at last. My mind was swimming and my eyes had gone all blurry as I went forward to bend over. I can remember wishing my mother would suddenly come bursting into the room shouting, ‘Stop! How dare you do that to my son!’ But she didn’t. All I heard was Mrs Pratchett’s dreadful high-pitched voice behind me screeching, ‘This one’s the cheekiest of the bloomin’ lot, ’Eadmaster! Make sure you let ’im ’ave it good and strong!’
Mr Coombes did just that. As the first stroke landed and the pistol-crack sounded, I was thrown forward so violently that if my fingers hadn’t been touching the carpet, I think I would have fallen flat on my face. As it was, I was able to catch myself on the palms of my hands and keep my balance. At first I heard only the crack and felt absolutely nothing at all, but a fraction of a second later the burning sting that flooded across my buttocks was so terrific that all I could do was gasp. I gave a great gushing gasp that emptied my lungs of every breath of air that was in them.
It felt, I promise you, as though someone had laid a red-hot poker against my flesh and was pressing down on it hard.
The second stroke was worse than the first and this was probably because Mr Coombes was well practised and had a splendid aim. He was able, so it seemed, to land the second one almost exactly across the narrow line where the first one had struck. It is bad enough when the cane lands on fresh skin, but when it comes down on bruised and wounded flesh, the agony is unbelievable.
The third one seemed even worse than the second. Whether or not the wily Mr Coombes had chalked the cane beforehand and had thus made an aiming mark on my grey flannel shorts after the first stroke, I do not know. I am inclined to doubt it because he must have known that this was a practice much frowned upon by Headmasters in general in those days. It was not only regarded as unsporting, it was also an admission that you were not an expert at the job.
By the time the fourth stroke was delivered, my entire backside seemed to be going up in flames.
Far away in the distance, I heard Mr Coombes’s voice saying, ‘Now get out.’
As I limped across the study clutching my buttocks hard with both hands, a cackling sound came from the armchair over in the corner, and then I heard the vinegary voice of Mrs Pratchett saying, ‘I am much obliged to you, ’Eadmaster, very much obliged. I don’t think we is goin’ to see any more stinkin’ mice in my Gobstoppers from now on.’
When I returned to the classroom my eyes were wet with tears and everybody stared at me. My bottom hurt when I sat down at my desk.
That evening after supper my three sisters had their baths before me. Then it was my turn, but as I was about to step into the bathtub, I heard a horrified gasp from my mother behind me.
‘What’s this?’ she gasped. ‘What’s happened to you?’ She was staring at my bottom. I myself had not inspected it up to then, but when I twisted my head around and took a look at one of my buttocks, I saw the scarlet stripes and the deep blue bruising in between.
‘Who did this?’ my mother cried. ‘Tell me at once!’
In the end I had to tell her the whole story, while my three sisters (aged nine, six and four) stood around in their nighties listening goggle-eyed. My mother heard me out in silence. She asked no questions. She just let me talk, and when I had finished, she said to our nurse, ‘You get them into bed, Nanny. I’m going out.’
If I had had the slightest idea of what she was going to do next, I would have tried to stop her, but I hadn’t. She went straight downstairs and put on her hat. Then she marched out of the house, down the drive and on to the road. I saw her through my bedroom window as she went out of the gates and turned left, and I remember calling out to her to come back, come back, come back. But she took no notice of me. She was walking very quickly, with her head held high and her body erect, and by the look of things I figured that Mr Coombes was in for a hard time.
About an hour later, my mother returned and came upstairs to kiss us all goodnight. ‘I wish you hadn’t done that,’ I said to her. ‘It makes me look silly.’
‘They don’t beat small children like that where I come from,’ she said. ‘I won’t allow it.’
‘What did Mr Coombes say to you, Mama?’
‘He told me I was a foreigner and I didn’t understand how British schools were run,’ she said.
‘Did he get ratty with you?’
‘Very ratty,’ she said. ‘He told me that if I didn’t like his methods I could take you away.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I would, as soon as the school year is finished. I shall find you an English school this time,’ she said. ‘Your father was right. English schools are the best in the world.’
‘Does that mean it’ll be a boarding school?’ I asked.
‘It’ll have to be,’ she said. ‘I’m not quite ready to move the whole family to England yet.’
So I stayed on at Llandaff Cathedral School until the end of the summer term.
* * *
A Life Without Sweets
Life without the sweet-shop and without sweets would hardly be worth living. It wouldn’t be worth living. Gone for ever would be the thrill of jingling the pennies in one’s pockets all through the day and wondering exactly how to spend them. I myself had often whiled away an entire arithmetic lesson wondering just how to get the best possible value out of a single penny in the sweet-shop on the way home. Would it be two Liquorice Bootlaces? Or would it be one Bootlace and one Sherbert Sucker? Or should I blow it all on a Gobstopper? The advantage of the Gobstopper was that you could make it last almost for ever by sucking it for only a few minutes at a time and then taking it out and putting it in your handkerchief. Perhaps, yes perhaps it might be better to spend it on Aniseed Balls, which were six for a penny, Would six Aniseed Balls last longer than one Gobstopper?
Grappling with questions such as these could furrow my brow for hour after hour.
‘We simply can’t go without sweets for the rest of our lives!’ I cried.
We stood there gazing across the street at the sweet-shop.
Thwaites was tinkling some pennies in his pocket. I had two halfpennies in mine and was running my fingers lovingly around them.
It was simply terrible standing there like that. It was hell on earth. It was pure torture.
But the th
ing about torture is that it concentrates the mind most marvellously. I could feel my own mind beginning to concentrate at this very moment. Massive brainwaves were starting to surge through my head.
‘I think I may have a bit of an idea,’ I said softly.
‘No, thank you!’ they cried. ‘Don’t tell us! We don’t want any more of your rotten ideas! You had a beauty yesterday, didn’t you, and look where it landed us!’
‘This one is safe,’ I said.
‘Keep it to yourself,’ they told me.
‘It’s a wheeze for getting our own back on Mrs Pratchett,’ I said, ‘and for getting something to eat at the same time.’
‘How can we possibly get our own back on Mrs Pratchett?’ somebody said.
‘I suppose you want us to throw a brick through her window?’ someone else said.
‘I told you this one is safe,’ I said. ‘We won’t be breaking a single rule. And we’ll get some eats into the bargain.’
I saw them hesitate.
I proceeded to tell them about my great and brilliant Chocolate-Mouse Plan.
‘By golly,’ Thwaites said grudgingly when I had finished. ‘I must say, it would be a bit of a lark.’
As we walked slowly across the road towards the sweet-shop, that famous old tingle of excitement came flooding over me once again. I loved that feeling. I craved it. It was an addiction. I got it, for example, when I went birds-nesting up a very tall tree that had long branches. I got it when swinging on a swing standing up and going so high that the ropes went slack at the top of the swing. I got it when eating in class because if they caught you you were always sent straight to the Headmaster who caned you on the spot. I got it on the second-floor balcony of our house when tightrope walking along the top rail with a fall of twenty feet on one side. I got it from doing lots of other things and I was getting it now as we walked across the road towards Mrs Pratchett’s sweet-shop. The tension was terrible. I hoped it would last.
‘Ha!’ Mrs Pratchett said as the five of us sidled in. ‘So you’ve come to say you’re sorry, ’ave you? And so you ruddy well should be!’ She rubbed her filthy hands together and started to cackle. ‘I’ll bet them little backsides of yours is smartin’ something fierce!’ she went on. ‘’E does a very neat job, that ’eadmaster of yours, when ’e puts ’is mind to it, ain’t that so?’