Spud - Learning to Fly

by John van de Ruit

  The sight of Boggo’s morning glory is so commonplace back at school that nobody even teases him about it any more. The girls, however, screamed in terror and charged out of the common room. Boggo shouted in fright and desperately attempted to cover his groin with one hand while hurling himself backwards into his bedroom and slamming the door behind him. Cackling laughter from inside the bedroom.

  The girls peeped their heads around the common room entrance and seemed greatly relieved that Boggo and his boner had retreated.

  ‘Where’s he gone?’ asked Brenda, looking equally revolted and excited.

  ‘Was that real?’ asked Penny earnestly.

  ‘Did he have something in his pants?’ questioned Brenda.

  ‘Is he Rambo?’ asked Penny.

  ‘Why’s he got so many pimples on his back?’ said Brenda.

  I told the girls that it was a ruler in Boggo’s underpants and that he was just playing a practical joke. Penny turned pink and said, ‘Okay, blind. Whatever … Just don’t tell anybody we fell for it.’

  The bedroom door creaked open and Boggo’s worried face appeared in the crack. Then my bedroom door creaked open and Vern’s inquisitive face appeared in that crack.

  ‘Spud,’ hissed Boggo and beckoned me urgently to the door. ‘You’ve got to get rid of those chicks before my bladder bursts. Also Fatty needs the bogs big time. He says it’s a number two.’

  ‘You’re gonna have to go now,’ I explained to the girls as if talking to morons. ‘We need to get dressed and stuff …’

  ‘We’ll be back in fifteen minutes to take you to breakfast,’ said Brenda looking somewhat relieved.

  ‘Then it’s assembly, and then your first lesson which is a school tour with Mr Owen.’ Penny had to stand on tiptoes to tighten the taps in the sink.

  ‘Lucky you,’ said Brenda.

  I must have looked a little startled by all the sudden orders, because Penny smiled sympathetically and said, ‘Don’t worry, Spud, we’ll be here to make sure you don’t get lost.’ They left, giggling and gossiping, and looking at each other’s watches and arguing about who had the correct time.

  Suddenly a huge figure wrapped in a white sheet streaked out of Boggo’s bedroom, thundered across the common room and hurtled down the passage. Boggo sprinted closely behind, as did Vern who obviously thought that something serious was going down.

  6:40 The five of us crammed into the kitchenette and stood around sipping tea and coffee and waiting for the two girls to arrive. Fatty was on his fifth rusk in a mere four minutes and seemed deeply worried about what awaited us at breakfast.

  ‘Chicks’ school,’ said Fatty with a mouthful of rusk. ‘Anything could happen. They might give us like one slice of bread and a quail’s egg.’

  Boggo nodded his head in agreement and said, ‘Chicks never eat.’ We all nodded solemnly and fell silent. I became aware that the two girls had returned and that they had been watching us for some time and listening to our conversation.

  ‘Hi,’ said Penny standing to attention. ‘I’m Penny and this is my friend Brenda. We’re going to take you to breakfast.’

  The two then turned on their heels and led off. The Crazy Eight were a little taken aback by being ordered around by two small girls and Fatty’s mouth hung open in amazement as the two little figures in white disappeared out of the room and into the passage. We followed them like sheep, and soon found ourselves outside in the bright sunlight.

  Boggo breathed in the air and smacked his hands together. ‘This is it, boys,’ he said. ‘The holy grail of schoolboys everywhere.’

  Everything is so different here. This school brings new meaning to the term ‘open plan’ with the different houses and subject departments dotted around over the estate. It almost feels like a university, only everybody looks fourteen and is dressed in white. We didn’t speak. We just drank it all in. Even the grass was different. Compared to our school, it all felt so modern and new. Brand new. And neat. Very neat. Most of the girls we passed on the way to the dining hall either stared at us like we were aliens or deliberately ignored us.

  Penny and Brenda marched ahead on their spindly legs and seemed immensely proud that they were in charge of the five lumbering idiots following behind.

  ‘That’s the senior dining hall over there,’ said Brenda, pointing at a large building with white doors.

  ‘We’re not allowed in,’ said Penny dejectedly.

  ‘You need to walk in, take a tray and then turn left to the food serving area,’ said Brenda. ‘The food services matron will show you where to sit.’

  We marched forward towards the door. But then Boggo stopped and said that Rambo should enter first. Rambo hooted with laughter and announced that Boggo had lost his confidence because two twelve-year-olds saw his boner.

  ‘I haven’t lost my confidence,’ whined Boggo. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘I was wearing jocks.’

  Rambo chuckled and pushed open the door to a huge throng of noise that grew instantly quiet the moment we entered the dining hall. I felt my face heating up and searched desperately for the trays and something to do with my hands. The hush became a chorus of low whispers and then a few sniggers as Fatty was forced to squeeze through the dining hall door because one flap was bolted shut. The sniggers and whispers became loud laughter when Vern grabbed his tray, became disorientated, and walked into the kitchen by mistake. He returned some seconds later, red faced and muttering angrily to himself.

  ‘It’s better than school,’ said Fatty as he marvelled at the pile of eggs and bacon that had been slapped onto his plate. Once we had all been served up, the food services matron led us through the dining hall to an empty table standing adjacent to the table of the other boys from the cast.

  ‘Hey, Spike!’ hissed Boggo across the aisle. ‘Where you guys staying?’

  Spike looked a little grim and said they were staying with the headmistress, Mrs Mitchell. Boggo and Fatty sniggered and shared a high five at our luck.

  Then came the sound of a gavel pounding and everybody stopped eating and stood up. A rather important looking girl with far too many badges on her blazer arose from the top table and said, ‘Welcome back, girls … and boys.’ The senior dining hall erupted into giggles. Then she continued: ‘Before we sing grace, I’d like to remind the girls that there are builders on the school premises so please stay away from those areas, which include the new Trinity Theatre. Also remember that matrics are preparing for trials so please be considerate and keep the general noise level down …’

  ‘I’d definitely do her!’ whispered Boggo and poked Fatty in the stomach. Fatty grinned back and Boggo said, ‘Headgirls always do the kinkiest shit.’

  In my opinion there was nothing kinky about this particular head girl. Especially when she sang the grace in a high shrill voice that made both tables of boys snigger and bury their heads in their napkins. The girls in the dining hall didn’t laugh – in fact, by the looks of things, standing up and singing an embarrassing grace could be standard form around here.

  After breakfast, Fatty led us into the kitchen to congratulate the food services matron on a fantastic breakfast all round. The matron looked a little startled by the five of us suddenly materialising in her kitchen but was thrilled with Fatty’s compliments. She told us that if we ever wanted seconds then she would organise them for us.

  ‘You can count on it, ma’am,’ said Fatty and led us proudly out of the dining hall to the courtyard where the two imps were impatiently waiting for us.

  ‘We’re nearly late,’ said Penny. ‘The hall is across the hill.’ We sped after the two girls, with Fatty bringing up the rear and complaining bitterly about the general layout of the school. ‘This school was either designed by a sadist or a palooka,’ he gasped, and added that it was incredibly unhealthy to run with four undigested eggs in one’s system.

  We came across The Guv who was stalking around in a tweed suit and looking disturbed. He admitted to being completely lost and very near suicide.

/>   ‘I’m already homesick,’ said The Guv, ‘and the halfwit responsible for this architectural debacle should be dragged naked through the streets and have his testicles guillotined.’

  Fatty agreed wholeheartedly and offered to do the guillotining.

  ‘Come on, boys, keep up, we have one minute,’ called Penny in a shrill voice. We immediately fell silent and obediently followed the two girls through an archway across yet another hockey field and into the cream hall. Fatty reckoned there were about 600 girls in the school hall. Pig said it looked more like 800. Either way it was a lot of girls who all seemed to be looking at us like we were the science experiment that backfired. Poor Vern became a little overcome with being watched and stuck his head under his chair and pretended to look for something until the assembly began. Meanwhile Boggo was scanning the rows of girls and was dividing them into groups of possibly shagable and definitely shagable.

  ‘Good morning, girls,’ said Mrs Mitchell, the tall headmistress with large round spectacles and a warm smile. ‘And good morning, boys of The Midsummer Night’s Dream cast who have joined us here at Wrexham for the next six weeks.’ The headmistress smiled at Viking and said, ‘And a special welcome to Mr Richardson who has kindly agreed to direct the production which will inaugurate our brand new Wrexham Trinity Theatre.’

  Viking leapt from his seat on the stage and bowed to the school with a flourish. There was a brief pause and then the headmistress led a weak applause. After Viking had returned to his seat, Mrs Mitchell said, ‘And last but not least, Mr Edly has joined us as an English teacher, and of course, he will also be up on the stage later this term when he plays the key role of Bottom.’

  The girls thought this was hilarious and screeched with laughter. The poor headmistress looked flustered and embarrassed and had to stop her speech for an urgent sip of water.

  After the welcome and a long and encouraging speech from the headmistress, a series of awkward events followed. Firstly, some girl called Melissa stood up and performed a reedy tune on a clarinet. Then a junior girl who had won a poetry prize jumped up and read a poem about her mother. (Couldn’t have been a serious prize if that was the poem that won.)

  Eventually, the staff left the stage and filed quickly out of the hall. Weirdly, the entire school stayed behind and then were forced to put up with a further twenty minutes of all the prefects standing up with their blazers covered in badges and making their individual speeches about discipline and being polite and good ambassadors for the school. There weren’t even any threats of punishment and violence. At Wrexham, the approach is the exact opposite from our school. Here they begin by appealing to each girl’s better nature and then dangle carrots for good behaviour in front of them. One almost gets the feeling that speaking too loudly and giggling at random things is probably about as rebellious as Wrexham gets.

  After a chapel service involving several hymns and a single prayer, Mr Owen led us around the grounds at breakneck speed. She barked out names and rattled off Wrexham history as she waddled along in front of us, and only paused to hurl abuse and to insult Fatty.

  ‘Come on, Fatso,’ she kept shouting, ‘we’ll shed some of those pounds before the term is out.’ Fatty looked terrified and tried to tell Mr Owen about his scoliosis and peptic heart murmur, but she didn’t appear to hear him.

  Obviously The Guv has never met a woman like Mr Owen because he shrank down behind Rambo and peered suspiciously at everything over the top of his glasses. At one stage Mr Owen became distracted with lambasting some girls for being late for class. The Guv pulled me aside with a worried look on his face.

  ‘Milton,’ he said, ‘by God, Milton, I’m terrified. Who is this woman?’

  ‘It’s Mr Owen, sir,’ I replied.

  The Guv’s eyes widened and he turned deathly pale. ‘Mister?’

  ‘That’s what they call her, sir,’ I explained.

  The Guv was definitely on the verge of having some sort of freak out because he jabbered away at three times his normal pace. He says he’s sharing a house with Viking and it’s a living hell.

  ‘The man doesn’t stop shouting, Milton. My nerves are fraying, dear boy, and I fear I have become dangerously unhinged …’ He tapped his leg three times with his walking stick and whispered, ‘That’s why I’m wearing tweed.’

  ‘You two!’ shouted Mr Owen. ‘What’s going on there?’

  ‘Nothing at all, sir,’ replied The Guv, before striding off in the opposite direction.

  I don’t think the tour with Mr Owen really helped because I still don’t know where anything is. She wouldn’t even let us anywhere near the theatre because it’s still in the process of being built. Our tour ended back at Elizabeth House with yet another sharp rebuking from the bulldog about us forgetting to make our beds and clean our rooms this morning.

  ‘This isn’t your snooty palace in the valley, you know,’ she snarled. ‘Round here, we all pull our weight!’ She then marched to the door before stopping and asking if there were any questions that anybody would like to ask. Fatty raised his hand and Mr Owen’s left eyebrow lifted in surprise.

  ‘Well, fat boy, what is it?’ she demanded sternly.

  ‘Er …’ said Fatty, ‘what time is lunch?’

  THE FIRST RUN THROUGH

  It would appear that Viking spent the entire day wrestling with white tape. By five o’clock he had finally marked out the Trinity Theatre stage dimensions on the school hall stage, although all we could see was a series of taped lines stretching across the floor. When Smith asked our director what all the white lines meant, Viking shouted, ‘Oh for God’s sakes! Bold lines are levels, straight lines are steps, rectangular stripes are the doors and crooked lines are trees! Exits are marked with dotted lines and all setting is denoted by zebra crossings.’ He then glared as us with murderous eyes and barked, ‘Now I hope that’s crystal clear?’ There was a brief pause during which it was deeply hoped that somebody would be brave enough to ask Viking to repeat his convoluted taping system. Nobody said anything and some of us may even have nodded lamely back at him.

  ‘Good,’ said Viking before giving us ten minutes to, ‘avail yourselves with the subtleties of my intricate set design’.

  We all charged up the steps and bounded onto the recently polished school hall stage. It was then that I saw the full extent of Viking’s set. It was like a great maze of strange markings in white tape. My memory instantly deserted me, and a flush of terror descended as I realised that I couldn’t remember a single thing that he’d just said. Thankfully, I wasn’t alone because Spike and Boggo were already having an argument about what line meant what. Vern was hurriedly sketching down the stage design with his tongue sticking out.

  ‘My oath to God,’ insisted Boggo. ‘Bold lines are steps!’ I quickly wrote BOLD LINES ARE STEPS! on the back of my script. But then Spike said, ‘On my mother’s life, Boggo, bold lines are levels!’ I reasoned that swearing on your mother’s life showed more commitment than swearing to God, so I wrote down BOLD LINES ARE LEV on the back of my script before my pen ran out of ink.

  I’m learning that life frequently does this to me. First it offers you an impossible challenge, which you can’t refuse. Then it breaks your spirit by messing about with your ballpoint pen. These may seem like isolated events that can be explained away as coincidences, but I fear not. It’s happened far too often to me to be a coincidence. It’s this kind of thing that convinces me that I’m not going to make forty and my death will most probably be humiliating and painful – a death that people will still laugh about in three hundred years’ time. One day I’m going to sift through every single entry of all my diaries and mark down how many times a stroke of ‘bad luck’ has followed the issuing of a severe test in my life …

  But then I saw Rambo languishing backstage on the enormous Duke’s throne with his feet up on a wooden stool. There clearly wasn’t a worry in his mind as he calmly watched the panic unfolding before him.

  ‘Hey, Rambo,’ I called in a hi
gh echoing voice. ‘Do you know what all the different lines mean?’

  Rambo chuckled and said he didn’t have the first clue.

  ‘Then why aren’t you trying to work it out?’ I questioned.

  Rambo smiled and said, ‘Because I have a simple plan.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I said.

  ‘Stay away from all the lines and never enter first. If you go second then the first person gets Vikinged!’

  The logic worked for me. I pulled up a small stool next to Rambo’s throne and together we watched the arguments breaking out in front of us.

  Vern stupidly left his carefully sketched stage plan behind when he scurried off to the toilet. It didn’t take long for Boggo to swoop on it and then begin defacing it with his red and black HB pencil. Somehow he managed to join all the lines up and come up with an incredibly realistic picture of a woman’s boob.

  ‘Right!’ shouted Viking as he strode through the back of the hall with a large mug of coffee. ‘Now I hope you are well acquainted with the stage because I won’t tolerate unprofessional behaviour!’ We all nodded and looked away. He then ordered us to spend the next fifteen minutes going over our lines and preparing ourselves for what lies ahead.

  18:30 Viking isn’t in a healthy mood. He’s outraged about the theatre not being ready on time. He says he signed a contract that guaranteed him use of the new theatre from the beginning of term and is determined to sue somebody. He’s already had furious rows with the headmistress, the builders, and most of the staff. He even made a last gasp effort to move the entire production back to school, which was unsuccessful. The school hall isn’t exactly the Sydney Opera House, but we’re stuck with it.

  19:00 The girls arrived in a group closely followed by the figure of The Guv, wearing a long dark coat and hat and creeping along like he was hiding from somebody. It was obvious that the sexes were checking each other out as the girls filed closely past us. Bringing up the rear were two short little girls who appeared very smug and self-important as they marched past. Boggo slid low in his seat and hid his face in horror as he realised that Penny and Brenda were part of the cast.