Roger’s birthday! Since he is no longer a fully paid up member of the Crazy Eight, Rain Man’s cat was spared a trip to the school fountain. Vern bought him a tin of tuna from the trading store at the station, which the stupid animal refused to eat. Fatty once again raided Plump Graham’s spastic colon friendly food stash and stole a large packet of cashew nuts and fed Roger three nuts before wolfing down the rest. Roger sniffed the nuts before devouring them like a hungry lion. This means Roger is now a vegetarian or, like me, he’s recently gone off fish.
The folks chose the perfect day to watch me playing cricket for the fifths. I took seven wickets for just 23 runs, including a hat-trick. Dad was so excited with my three consecutive wickets that he raced around the boundary with his arms held aloft and screaming for joy. Mom popped open yet another bottle of JC Le Roux and the two of them became incredibly sozzled on the deep cover boundary.
I then scored my first ever half century – although it must be said that I was facing a bowler who looked suspiciously like a girl, and I lost count of how many times I survived dropped catches. By this stage Mom and Dad were well past sozzled and entered the terrifying realm of drunk and disorderly. Then Dad began singing rude songs in a loud voice about Sparerib and Norm (I don’t believe in spinners) Wade. It was a relief when I was finally bowled for 57 because at least the madman standing on the pitch roller ceased his loud and slanderous musical tirade against the school staff.
Even Mr Ashleigh-Meyer was impressed with my day’s work and told me I was the most talented cricketer he’d ever coached. He then seemed to lose interest in what he was saying, lit up a Chesterfield and sauntered off in the general direction of the staff room.
Sunday 8th March
Simon was beside himself about a brilliant run out by Jonty Rhodes in South Africa’s World Cup match against Pakistan this morning. He tried to demonstrate the missile-like dive but ended up grazing his knee and looking like an idiot. The good news is that we won the match and look a good bet for a spot in the semi-finals.
Fatty, Boggo, Garlic, Vern and I set off to the fields with our golf bags while Simon and Rambo marched off in the opposite direction because they said they didn’t want to hang around with hackers.
Boggo elected himself the group’s golf pro and gave us a thorough coaching clinic on swinging the club properly. Unfortunately, when it came down to actually hitting the ball, Boggo was worse than everyone except Vern.
Golf has to be the most frustrating game in the world. You can hit the ball perfectly with one shot and then with an identical swing the next shot can be an embarrassing disaster. Fatty hit one ball so far that it sailed over the field and landed on the tennis court, nearly killing Rowdy and Plump Graham who had just begun knocking up for a set of tennis. The rest of Fatty’s shots either scuttled along the ground or ducked off viciously to the left. Vern’s golf is embarrassingly poor. He seemed to miss the ball more times than he actually hit it. Garlic got the ball up in the air every time but it never travelled further than he could throw it.
After practice we caught up with Simon and Rambo who were hitting balls at the far end of Trafalgar. Simon’s golf looks nearly as good as his batting. All his shots ended up in a tight circle and he never seemed to make an error. Rambo hits the ball miles but nearly falls over in the process because he’s trying to thrash it so hard.
I must admit that hitting a great golf shot is one of the most splendid feelings I’ve ever experienced. Unfortunately, I only felt it once.
Monday 9th March
00:30 Fatty stubbed his toe on the corner of my locker on his way back from the bogs. He screamed with pain and said that his toenail was loose. He wailed on in agony and only shut up when Boggo gave him four aspirin and a sleeping tablet, which Boggo later conceded may have been one aspirin and four sleeping tablets. Fatty passed out almost immediately.
Unfortunately, then I couldn’t sleep. The realisation struck me that in a mere nineteen months I will leave this place forever and be truly free. The thought was terrifying.
13:00 Fatty’s toenail is hanging by a thread. He was in so much pain that Garlic and I had to help him to the san after lunch. Unfortunately, Red Tape was on sanatorium assistant duty and his eyes lit up when he saw Fatty in distress. It’s a known fact that Red Tape returned for post matric just so that he could torment more sick and injured boys. Fatty groaned as he realised who was on duty and looked around desperately for the san sister. No doubt he was reliving the moment Red Tape took great pleasure in sending Fatty off to athletics trials last year despite his having a peptic heart murmur.
FATTY Where’s the san sister?
RED TAPE She crept up your arse! Who cares anyway? Red Tape’s in charge around here …
GARLIC (Loudly) Your name’s Red Tape?
RED TAPE (To Fatty) Who in the hell is this freak?
FATTY He’s Garlic. Comes from Malawi, but don’t ask him questions or you’ll never hear the end of it.
RED TAPE (Nodding at me) I see you brought fag boy along with you again. You guys bum chums or what?
FATTY Look, I’ll be honest with you, Red Tape. My toe’s pretty bad and I need some medical assistance. I mean we could be talking hospital here …
RED TAPE I’m afraid I don’t waste my time with stubbed toes.
SPUDMaybe you could just give me some antiseptic and a bandage and I’ll help him.
RED TAPE I bet you will, fag boy. Bet you’d enjoy it too. Just like you enjoyed having your hair permed last year.
SPUD It was two years ago actually.
RED TAPE Whatever. Time flies when you’re having fun.
GARLIC Why are you being so unhelpful, Red Tape? Our friend needs your help and we’re not leaving here until you do your job!
RED TAPE (After a long sigh) Well, I suppose I could do something, but I’m kind of busy right now.
We all look down at the pile of Asterix comics lying on the desk in front of him.
FATTY Please, Red Tape, I swear I’ll never ask you for anything ever again. I swear to God.
RED TAPE (After a dramatic sigh) All right, I suppose I could help you, Fatty.
GARLIC (With much relief) Hey, shot a lot, Red Tape, you’re a legend!
RED TAPE (To Garlic) No problem, Garlic. Just drop your rods and lie face down on the operating table.
GARLIC What?
RED TAPE Well, if this septic toe is as bad as everyone says it is, then we have to see if you and fag boy have been contaminated as well.
Red Tape reaches into the top drawer and brings out a thermometer the size of a church candle.
FATTY Oh my God, what’s that?
RED TAPE Breakthrough in medical science! Plunge this right up your rectum and we can tell immediately if you’re septic …
GARLIC (Backing away towards the door) Um … no … I can’t. Sorry, Fatty, I can’t. Um … er … cheers.
Garlic sprints out the sanatorium door.
RED TAPE Now look, if you guys aren’t going to meet me halfway then the deal’s off.
FATTY But my toe could have gangrene!
RED TAPE Rules are rules, Fatty. You and fag boy should have thought all this through before bursting in here and interrupting my lunch hour!
I helped Fatty back to the dorm. When we finally arrived at his bed, I’m not sure which of the two of us was more exhausted.
Fatty then buried his face in his pillow and wept.
Tuesday 10th March
Received another letter from Mermaid who’s obviously feeling guilty for giving me Valentine’s bat yet again. She rambled on about being worried that she’s hurt me and that the only reason she told me about her new boyfriend was that she wanted to be honest and not operate behind my back. (Like last time.)
Not sure if this was something to throw me off course, but she says her new boyfriend is a cricket umpire (?) and a junior minister in her church. She also admitted he’s much older than her. That must be a joke, surely – the umpire bit, I mean.
> After reading the letter twice for hidden meanings, I scrunched it into a ball and hoofed it out the dormitory window. I then remembered that I hadn’t told anyone about getting savage Mermaid bat and tore down the steps before my paper football fell into the wrong hands.
I reached it just in time because Rowdy and Gastro were on the verge of picking it up. I gave them a commanding shout and the two first years bolted away like I was a homicidal maniac.
Wednesday 11th March
Dad phoned to say that they have moved back home at last!
My father reckons the whole house smells like a terrible mixture of fertiliser, Jeyes fluid, and Wombat’s cheap perfume. It seems Blacky has recovered well after his stint behind bars.
Friday 13th March
8:30 The Glock called me up in assembly to shake his hand and receive the match ball. I tried to look proud about my hat-trick but as The Guv says, ‘Playing for the fifths is like clubbing baby seals in the springtime.’
I kept an eye on Norm (I don’t believe in spinners) Wade for the rest of the assembly. Behind his thick horn-rimmed glasses his beady little eyes revealed absolutely nothing.
Roger was behaving weirdly this morning. He kept spraying all over the place and howling mournfully whenever he felt like it. Fatty blamed Roger’s behaviour on Friday 13th and said it was a sign that supernatural forces were already at work.
Spent the afternoon with Fatty, Boggo and Sidewinder in the archives. Fatty was desperate for me to join them and even offered me unlimited hot drinks and toast. Poor Sidewinder was up and down the turret stairs all afternoon ferrying drinks and snacks. Boggo tasted his first cup of tea and made Sidewinder take it back down to the annexe because it wasn’t sweet enough. When he returned, Boggo complained the tea wasn’t milky enough. Sidewinder raced down to the annexe again and returned a few minutes later, carrying a mug and still looking desperate to impress. Boggo took a noisy slurp of tea once again, but then decided it was lukewarm and poured it out the window. The small first year then raced off eagerly to begin the tea-making again. Fatty suggested to Boggo that he lay off Sidewinder since he was going through a tough patch. Boggo reclined on the couch with his legs open and said it was important to keep up standards.
Meanwhile Fatty was rummaging through a drawer of papers labelled SUPERNATURAL REPORTS with a pencil behind his ear and a plate of peanut butter sandwiches at the ready. He kept calling me over to read out reports of unexplained ghost sightings. Each time he would conclude the point with, ‘So come on – you’re the boff – explain that then!’
Boggo showed us a picture from a 1981 Scope magazine of a semi-naked nun with pink stars over her nipples. He prodded the nun’s pink stars with his fingernail and said, ‘God, it’s good to be an Anglican!’
Pike spent the entire evening camped outside in the passage in case Fatty tried to make a break for the first year dorm. The swine perched himself in a deck chair and kept making orgasm and ghost noises, and threatening to molest our mothers. Fatty was beside himself that Pike was ruining all his supernatural plans for the evening and kept creeping to the door to peer through the crack to check if the coast was clear. By the time the menace left it was Saturday the 14th and nobody was willing to leave the safety of their beds.
Sunday 15th March
Boggo made us each put up cash for the Crazy Eight Masters Putt-Off. With a grand prize of twenty bucks (Boggo took a sizeable commission as an organiser’s fee) there was everything to play for. The rules were simple. There would be one hole only. It would begin in our dormitory, cross the landing at the top of the stairs, pass all the way through the second years’ dorm to finish at the far side of the first year dorm. The hole itself was a capsized teacup stationed beneath the old nightswimming window. Boggo made it compulsory for each player to have a caddy to carry our putter and make the whole thing look professional.
PLAYERS AND CADDIES
RAMBO Plump Graham
FATTY Sidewinder
BOGGO Meg Ryan’s Son
GARLIC Gastro
SIMON Darryl (the last remaining)
VERN Rowdy
SPUD Runt
Unfortunately, all the first years had already been booked so I had to bribe Runt into being my caddie. We agreed that in the unlikely chance that I won the grand prize, we would split the winnings 50/50. It was a heavy price to pay but still better than being mocked and disqualified. In the end Rambo narrowly won the competition but only after Simon squandered a good start after becoming badly caught up in Thinny’s shoe cupboard. After taking six shots to extricate his ball from inside one of Thinny’s Grasshoppers, Simon blew a fuse and threw his putter at Darryl (the last remaining) and blamed his poor caddying for the entire fiasco.
Vern’s attempt ended in utter disaster. His first shot screamed down the passage but then hit the edge of the wall and rebounded off down the stairs. The golf ball gathered pace down the stairwell and shot out of the house doors and began bounding across the quad like it was on a Sunday joyride. The ball finally came to rest in a gutter outside the dining hall. Vern’s second shot wasn’t much better and ended up at the bottom of a drain near the library. Rowdy had to stick his hands through the grate and retrieve the slime-covered ball. After advice from Simon, Vern took a penalty drop and whacked his fourth putt right the way across the quad just as Mongrel appeared through the archway dressed in white and carrying a squash racquet.
Mongrel grabbed Vern by the collar and dragged him off to his office where he presented Rain Man with the choice of being thrashed with a squash racquet or his putter. Vern unwisely chose the squash racquet and now his entire bum is deep purple. To add to his woes he was then disqualified from the competition because we all agreed that it was impossible for a player of Vern’s limited skill to putt his ball up two flights of stairs without having a potentially dangerous cretin attack.
With just twelve days to go until the father and son golf day, I seem to be losing the battle, at the very least, not to look like an idiot at Victoria Country Club. I just hope Dad has improved on his dodgy performance at the long weekend. I also hope Frank was joking when he said Dad’s swing looked like ‘moving cardiac arrest’.
Monday 16th March
Lennox spent the entire lesson talking about the national referendum tomorrow and said it was white South Africa’s second chance to cross the Rubicon after PW Botha blew it badly back in ’84. Thanks to Wombat’s news bulletin fetish I was already well versed on all matters referendum, although I was under the impression that a majority ‘yes’ vote for change was a dead certainty to win. However, judging by the worried frown on our History teacher’s face, it seemed that the ‘No’ for change voters were growing in rapid numbers due to last minute underhanded racist scare tactics.
Only a moron could want to go back to a government of twelve bald seventy-five-year-olds in safari suits!
Lennox said that if we were really concerned about change in our country then we should call our families and friends and encourage them to vote ‘yes’ tomorrow.
I rushed off after History to call home and double-check that my parents weren’t about to sabotage my future by voting ‘no’ instead of ‘yes’.
PLANNED MILTON FAMILY VOTING
DAD NO!
MOM Not sure yet.
WOMBAT Definitely no.
I tried my best to change my father’s mind but he gave me the ‘Look at the rest of Africa’ speech and said I had obviously been brainwashed by bleeding heart liberals and ‘that commy pinko society you got sucked into – ’ In the end I resorted to lying and told my father that if the ‘no’ vote succeeded the South African cricket team would immediately be turfed out of the World Cup! Dad fell silent and said he would double-check this with Frank. Sensing I was having some success, I asked my father to put Mom on the line. I then heard Mom’s angry whispering in the background before Dad announced that Mom had gone out and he had no idea when she was getting back.
Called Wombat but she thought I
was Dad, and gave me a tongue lashing before slamming down the phone. If that’s the kind of treatment he gets from his mother-in-law I’m not surprised he’s always plotting to kill her.
Still, I tried my best in a losing cause.
If the ‘no’ vote wins by a narrow margin, I think I might punish my father and his dodgy right-wing politics by joining the Communist Party.
23:00 Lay awake thinking about life and the referendum. Not being allowed to vote is a frustrating business – I now understand what drives black people to toyi-toying and smashing shop windows.
Tuesday 17th March
Not only is it referendum day, but it’s also Boggo’s birthday! Pike, Spike, Meany Dlamini and Rambo held the birthday boy down and shaved his right leg. Boggo screamed hysterically and threatened to kill people, but was easily overpowered and sheared. The contrast between his furry left leg and his clean-shaven right leg caused mass hilarity in the showers soon after 5pm. Boggo says the joke is on us anyway, because the only time he takes off his long trousers, is to shower and shag.
Had a poor night’s sleep after a succession of weird nightmares involving Pike attempting to murder me. At one stage in the night Pike marched into the main quad with an angry looking Robert De Niro, who had a large violin case slung over his shoulder. Pike pointed directly at me. De Niro nodded, and then began striding towards the house door with that typically sadistic expression of his. Thankfully, De Niro didn’t get the chance to FUBAR me with his violin/concealed weapon, because I leapt out of the window to certain death instead. Thankfully, I had a soft landing in the main quad, only to discover that I was now half-naked at roll call with Pike reading out the names. After roll call Pike informed me that I wasn’t dressed properly and stabbed me in the stomach with his penknife. Everyone laughed and I couldn’t get them to stop.
Spud - Learning to Fly Page 9