Jennings spent another minute over his shoe and said that he could not do anything.
"I think I've pulled the knot tighter," he said.
The boys could not cut it because neither of them had a penknife in his pocket. They tried to break the lace but could not do it either: the lace was very strong.
"You'll have to leave it till you come into class and find Venables."
"But I can't go and find Venables!" he cried. "I can't go into class in one sock and one roller-skate."
"You can, if you come now, before Old Wilkie comes."
"But he may be there already."
"Yes, I know, but - well, he sometimes gives us some minutes after the bell. If we go now there is still a chance that we'll be there before he comes, but if you are going to talk about it and..."
"Come on then, quick," Jennings agreed. "You carry this other skate and go ahead and see that there is nobody in the corridor."
So with a sock on one foot and a roller-skate on the other Jennings crossed the school yard. When they came up to the door Dar-bishire went upstairs and saw that there was nobody in the corridor. Sounds of conversation which he heard from the staff room showed that some teachers were still there.
"We'll have to hope that Old Wilkie is still there drinking his coffee," Darbishire whispered when Jennings jumped from one step on to another. "If you jump quickly enough you can skate the rest of the way along the corridor."
Jennings began to jump quicker, and soon the boys were in the corridor. On the polished floor of the corridor the noise that Jennings made with his roller-skate was deafening, and the staff room was very near.
"Don't make such a noise," whispered Darbishire. "The door of the staff room may open at any moment."
"But what can I do?"
"Can't you walk on tiptoe?"
"On tiptoe? On roller-skates? I want to see you..."
"Well, don't talk. Come on!"
When they came up to the classroom the door was open.
"Old Wilkie hasn't come yet," whispered Darbishire. "Come on!"
The boys of Form Three were greatly surprised to see Jennings in one sock and one roller-skate. Everybody began to ask questions. Jennings did not answer any, but went up to Venables' desk.
"Hey, Venables, where's the key to these skates?"
"Oh, sorry," said Venables. "I've got it here in my..." He took out of his pockets two dirty handkerchiefs, a penny, a piece of string, an eraser. "Oh, I remember now; I left it downstairs in the tuck-box room."
"Go and get it at once, then," Jennings said angrily.
"I can't go now. I haven't got time. Old Wilkie will be here in a..."
"He's coming," shouted Atkinson who was standing at the door.
That's awful! What am I going to do?" exclaimed Jennings.
"Go and sit down. He won't notice anything if you keep your feet under the desk," Venables advised.
"Yes, but..."
"I'll get it for you after school. You'll be all right, really."
Mr Wilkins' footsteps behind the door told Jennings that he must not lose a moment. So he jumped and skated to his back-row desk at the window. Behind him was Darbishire with Jennings' left shoe in his hand. He could not think of what to do with it, but suddenly he saw the waste-paper basket in the corner behind the desks and dropped the shoe in it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jennings' new post
When Darbishire dropped Jennings' shoe with a roller-skate in the waste-paper basket he saw Mr Wilkins come into the classroom to begin the lesson.
"All right! Now we are going to draw a map which shows the rainfall in Australia," he said and sat down at the teacher's desk. "Open your books at page 57."
"Please, sir, I haven't got a pen," said Atkinson.
"You won't need a pen," answered I Mr Wilkins. "You'll need pencils, erasers and..." His last words reminded him of the last book and stationery inspection, and that, of course, reminded him of Jennings. When he thought about Jennings he remembered of his talk with Mr Carter after breakfast that morning. "All right," he thought, "if I promised Carter to give Jennings the last chance to do something good, I'll do it."
"Now, where's Jennings?" asked Mr Wilkins.
"Here, sir," said a voice by the window.
"Well, listen to me. I've had a talk with some teachers about your behaviour."
Form Three looked at Mr Wilkins. That was much more interesting than the rainfall in Australia.
"So I talked to Mr Carter and the Headmaster, and we decided to give you one last chance."
"Thank you, sir," said Jennings. "If I sit quietly and keep my feet together under the desk," Jennings said to himself, "everything will be all right."
"One last chance," repeated Mr Wilkins. "I'm going to create a new post for you. You will have to see that there is ink in he inkwells, that there is no paper on the floor, and that the blackboard is clean when a teacher comes in to begin a lesson."
"Yes, sir."
"And I expect you will do it all well."
"I'll try, sir," said Jennings. He liked his new post.
"All right!" Mr Wilkins looked at the blackboard and saw a list of French words on it. "You can start at once. Come up and clean the blackboard for me."
Jennings sighed. The blackboard swam before his eyes.
"Do you mean me, sir?" he said. "Shall I go and do it now, sir? This minute, do you mean?"
"Certainly. I want to use the blackboard," said Mr Wilkins. "Are you going to clean it after the lesson?"
"Yes, sir. May I do it after the lesson, sir, please?"
"But I want to draw a map of Australia now, and not after the lesson."
"Yes, sir. Only I..." Jennings sighed again. He must think of something at once. But he couldn't. "Well, sir,- you see, sir, I don't really want to leave my desk now, sir," he finished.
Mr Wilkins looked at him in surprise.
"What are you talking about, you silly little boy?" exclaimed Mr Wilkins. "I'm giving you a last chance to make up for your silly behaviour and you are sitting there and telling me that you don't want to leave your desk. Don't be funny, boy. Come up here when I tell you to!"
Slowly, Jennings stood up from his desk and limped between the desks. He was making a loud noise with his roller-skate on his way to the blackboard.
Mr Wilkins quickly stood up from his desk. His eyes opened wide.
"I-I-I... What - what - what, have you got on your foot, boy!" he cried.
Jennings looked down at his feet.
"This, sir?" he asked. "This is a - it's only a skate, sir."
"Only a skate!" shouted Mr Wilkins.' "Roller-skate in the classroom in the middle of a geography lesson!"
"No, no, sir. You see, Venables left the key in the tuck-box room, and..."
"I - I - I've never in my life seen such -nonsense! Jennings, again! Jennings, as Usual. And look at your other foot! Just look at it!
Jennings looked at it.
"Where is your shoe, boy? Where's your shoe?"
This question Jennings could not answer. But Darbishire could. "Please, sir, it's in the waste-paper basket," said Darbishire. Mr Wilkins looked at Darbishire. He could not speak.
"I'm sorry about the holes in my socks, sir," said Jennings "but they were..."
"This is too much!" exclaimed Mr Wilkins. "I choose for you a responsible post and you come on one roller-skate, with two holes in your socks and your shoe is in the wastepaper basket. No, this is too much! Now look at your behaviour this term. Smoke in the classroom! Window tapping! Burglars! And that is not enough! You come in a roller-skate into my class! This is too much! Look at yourself!"
Jennings could not look at himself, of course. But Mr Wilkins could. He looked at Jennings and saw that his eyes were moist. So Mr Wilkins decided that he had -said enough.
"Well, you really are a silly little boy, Jennings. And I think that the day will come when you learn to behave like a clever good boy," finished Mr Wilkins.
"
I hope so, sir," said Jennings and went back to his desk.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jennings' masterpiece
When Jennings' feet were in shoes again, the geography lesson was nearly half over.
"You'll be sorry that you've spent all this time on that nonsense," Mr Wilkins said to the class. "I was going to repeat some important things with you at the end of the lesson for next week's test. But there won't be time for that now - thanks to Jennings."
"Test, sir?" asked Temple in surprise. "What test, sir?"
"The test that I shall give you next week on Australia," said Mr Wilkins. "You must learn the last lesson in your own time because those of you whose work isn't good enough will be - will be..." Mr Wilkins could not think of any punishment. "Well, I'm warning you," he finished.
Jennings decided to do the geography test well. That evening he was going to read the geography textbook for half an hour before bed time. He sat down at a table in the common room and began to read about the climate of Australia, but after ten minutes he turned to Darbishire who was sitting at the other side of the table. ,
"I want to live in Australia," Jennings said to his friend.
"Do you really? Why?"
"You see, when we have winter they have summer. So you can, for example, eat your Christmas dinner in the garden when the sun shines brightly."
"I don't think I'll like it," said Darbishire. "I like snow on my Christmas cards," and he passed Jennings a sheet of paper with a half-finished drawing of a home-made Christmas card. "There aren't many days left before Christmas. So I've already begun to draw some home-made Christmas cards."
Home-made Christmas cards were a popular hobby at the end of the autumn term. Darbishire showed Jennings his first Christmas card which he wanted to send to his grandmother. The people in the card were going round the Christmas tree and singing.
Jennings did not like his friend's drawing.
"Why don't these funny little people eat their Christmas puddings, instead of carrying them on their heads?" he asked.
"You don't understand. These are their hats," explained Darbishire. "Wait till I've coloured the drawing, and then you'll see. I'm going to make a lot of Christmas cards and send them to all my relations."
"But why only Christmas cards?" asked Jennings. "Let's make some decorations and hang them up in the common room before the Christmas party."
The boys usually had their Christmas party on the last day of the term, and Darbishire liked his friend's idea.
"We can make lanterns and very long paper chains," said Darbishire. "We've got twenty days before the Christmas party. So if each of us makes a yard of paper chain every day that will give forty yards."
"That's nothing," said Jennings. "When we tell the boys about the idea and they all will begin to make paper chains... Let's see now. Seventy-nine boys will work and make a yard a day..."
"I don't think everybody will," said Darbishire. "Let's say fifty. It will be easier to count."
"All right, then, fifty. Fifty boys will make twenty yards a day. Oh, a thousand yards!"
"That's wonderful!" exiaimed Darbishire. "The common room with more than half a mile of coloured paper chains will be beautiful."
"More than half a mile! If we put it in a line the chain will go from the school to Linbury village," said Jennings.
"But where can we get all that paper?" asked Darbishire.
"We'll go through all the waste-paper baskets and use the wrapping-paper from boys' parcels," answered Jennings. "And if that isn't enough we'll..." He looked at his geography exercise-book. "Well, what about old exercise-books?"
"I don't think the teachers will like that," 1 said Darbishire.
"I don't see why not. We don't use our old exercise-books, do we?"
"I know, but..."
"Take this old geography exercise-book, for example. I finished it this afternoon, and I'll begin a new exercise-book next lesson. So why can't I use this exercise-book for a paper 1 chain? We throw away a lot of old exercise-books at the end of every term."
When Jennings and Darbishire explained their plan most of the boys of Linbury Boarding School liked it very much. After a long conversation the boys decided to decorate with I paper chains not only the common room, but the corridors, too. They also organized a corn petition to see which dormitory could make more paper chains. Then the boys went to Mr Carter and asked for his permission.
"All right," said Mr Carter. "But here are two things that I want to warn you about. First. You must use only waste paper for your chains. Second. You mustn't begin to hang up your decorations till the day of the party."
The boys agreed, and the next day nearly all the boys were busy making paper chains:
they cut paper into strips, coloured them and gummed the ends together.
Soon they had used all the waste paper that they could find and had to look for some more. They used newspapers, magazines and letters from home.
All the free time that was left from decorations the boys spent on drawing Christmas cards.
Atkinson was drawing a Christmas card for his favourite uncle when Jennings came into Form Three classroom before Mr Wilkins' geography lesson on Friday afternoon. He looked at Atkinson's card.
"What a funny pillar-box you are drawing!" said Jennings.
"It isn't a pillar-box," said Atkinson. "What you call a pillar-box is Father Christmas. See? You don't know anything about art, Jennings."
"Well, I bet I could draw a better man," said Jennings.
"I bet you couldn't!" said Atkinson. "Do your best drawing of a man and we'll ask somebody to say if it's better than my Father Christmas."
Jennings opened his desk and began to look for pencil and paper.
"All right," he agreed. "Wait till I find something to draw on, and I'll show you."
He could not find anything but some brown paper which he wanted to use for the decorations. So he got a pile of exercise-books out of the desk, took one and opened it at a clean page.
"Hey, you can't draw in this, Jen,- not in your geography exercise-book," Atkinson warned him.
"I can rub it out," said Jennings and began to draw the head and shoulders of a middle-aged man. The drawing was very poor: the ears were too large, the eyes were like marbles, the neck was too short.
But when Darbishire saw the drawing he was sure that he knew that man. "I say, Jen, that is a good picture. I've recognized him at once."
Jennings looked up in surprise. It was only a drawing of a man's head. "Recognized whom?" he asked.
"Well, I know who you meant," said Darbishire and began to laugh. He called the boys who were coming into the classroom for afternoon school. "Hey, Venables! Temple! Come here and look at old Jen's drawing. It's wonderful." The boys gathered round Jennings' desk.
"Do you recognize the man?" asked Darbishire.
Like Jennings, Temple and Venables could not recognize the man in the picture.
"Is it a snowman?" asked Temple.
"No, try again," said Darbishire. He was surprised that nobody could recognize the man.
Temple looked at the picture again. No, I he could not recognize the man. It was just a man. That's all. "Old Wilkie," he said for fun.
"Of course!" exclaimed Darbishire. "Who else? Of course it's Old Wilkie!"
There was certainly no resemblance between Jennings' picture and Mr Wilkins. But the boys were only too ready to recognize him in the drawing. Temple was happy with his guess. Venables did not want to say anything against Jennings' drawing because Jennings was expecting a parcel of food from his Aunt Angela. Atkinson did not like Mr Wilkins and was only too happy to see a caricature of him.
"Yes, so it is. I can see it now," said Venables and laughed loudly to show that he liked the picture.
"I can't understand why I couldn't see it before," said Atkinson. "It's a masterpiece, if you ask me."
Jennings was happy.
"Well, it isn't a masterpiece," he said modestly. "But I think it
's not a bad picture of Old Wilkie."
Now he decided to make the picture funnier. He drew a balloon coming out of the man's mouth and in it he wrote the words, I-I-I... You, silly little boy!
When the bell for the afternoon school rang the other boys of Form Three came into the classroom. At once Darbishire showed them the masterpiece.
"Come and look at it," he said to Jones and Crosby. "Do you know who it is?"
Jones looked at the exercise-book and smiled. The drawing meant nothing to him, but when he read the words he said, "Yes, of course. It's Old Wilkie."
"You see," cried Darbishire. "If Jones recognizes it, everybody will."
Jennings was happy. Now he himself was Sure that it was Old Wilkie's picture, and he wrote under the drawing L. P. Wilkins.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The geography test
When Jennings finished writing the last letter under his drawing Mr Wilkins himself arrived to begin the lesson. Quickly Jennings turned over the page. Mr Wilkins must never see the caricature.
The boys began the geography test and worked on it during nearly all the lesson. Jennings was ready for the test and soon he found that he could answer most of the questions well enough. So he finished the tests ten minutes before the end of the lesson.
That was very good because it meant that he had some time to think what to do with his masterpiece. If Mr Wilkins mustn't see his portrait he must rub it out before Mr Wilkins stood up to take in the boys' exercise-books at the end of the lesson.
At the same time Jennings did not want to rub out the drawing. He wanted to show it to some other boys of Linbury Boarding School who, he was sure, would like it too.
"I'm sorry I've chosen my geography exercise-book to draw Old Wilkie's portrait," thought Jennings. "But how did I know that I could draw a masterpiece? Maybe I'll cut the page out."
He looked at the teacher's desk. Mr Wilkins was reading something. Now was the time!
Jennings opened his desk and put the exercise-book into it. "If Old Wilkie looks at me, he will think that I'm taking my books and exercise-books for the next lesson," Jennings thought. From a box in his desk he took his penknife and opened it.
Jennings and His Friends Page 12