Spud (2 page)

13:00   Yet more embarrassment follows at the buffet lunch on the green lawn outside the library. My father, after seven gin and tonics, sneezes terribly loudly and then opens Mom’s handbag to look for a tissue. As he unzips the bag, three sausage rolls, two gherkins, a string of Russian cocktail sausages and a round of egg sandwiches launch themselves onto the lawn in full view of the headmaster who coughs politely and pretends not to notice. I sidle up to some other people and pretend that they are my parents instead.

15:00   At last my parents depart, my father now in the passenger seat, and Mom cramped up behind the wheel with a long strip of red smock caught in the door. After a hundred and fifty metres of pushing, the engine fires and they disappear around the bend in Pilgrim’s Walk. I stand on the cobblestones staring at the driveway. I look around at the massive buildings and tall trees, which seem to surround me. I’ve never felt so small in my life.

18:00   Julian leads the eight new boys in our house down the stairs and into the common room (moth-eaten carpet, a few old red couches, a TV and a noticeboard). There’s a boy called Sidney who must weigh over a hundred and fifty kilograms and the luminous boy that I saw on the stairs earlier who still looks like he’s on the verge of death. (There must be healthier looking corpses…) Thanks to this sickly looking dude I escape being the smallest boy in the house. It turns out that the lumo guy’s name is Henry Barker. Our head of house is a black boy called PJ Luthuli who looks incredibly serious and is neatly dressed. He gives us important
tips about the school like ‘Don’t run in the quad’, and ‘Stay off the grass’. He then tells us to get ready for bed. I think this is the first time I’ve ever taken instructions from a black person.

21:00  Lights out! My first night away from home. A big muscular fast-talking boy with dark eyes and jet black hair called Robert Black seems to have appointed himself the king of the dormitory. He includes enough swearing in every sentence to satisfy the group that he means business and is to be heartily respected and hero-worshipped.

I’m sleeping next to a deranged individual called Vern Blackadder who looks slightly brain damaged. He also has the nasty habit of pulling out large clumps of his own hair with a loud thunk.

I lie in bed listening to assorted snores and mutterings, the odd thunk of Vern’s hair being ripped out, and the never-ending trickle of Pissing Pete (the concrete statue of St Peter) who stands proudly in the fish pond in the quadrangle with water dribbling out of his sword.

06:15   Awoken by a terrifying siren. I jumped out of bed and called out ‘Mom’ before I could stop myself. Thank God nobody heard me. I followed the long line of boys stumbling their way down to the showers. As I reached the foot of the stairs a door opened, revealing a tiny room filled with smoke and candles. A strange looking guy staggered out, stark naked, with a towel draped over his head and his willy pointing at the ceiling. A pimply boy called Al Greenstein said he’s a weird prefect called Gavin who lives under the stairs.

The bogs (toilet area) consist of ten showers on a grey concrete floor with six basins and four toilet stalls. The floor felt slimy under my feet and the smell was foul. Julian
and Bert, the two duty prefects, watched us showering and Julian made comments about everybody’s willy. He described mine as ‘a runty silkworm with an eating disorder’. I was shocked to see that every boy had body hair except me. Even Mr Lumo has sprouts of black hairs around his groin. Bert shouted something that sounded like ‘Vulva’ which means that our showering time was over. I got out quickly with my back still covered in soap.

Robert Black has the hugest willy. After his time was up, Bert shouted, ‘Vulva’ and Robert ignored him. Julian then shouted, ‘Time’s up, Meatloaf!’ much to the delight of Bert who screeched out a song called Bat Out of Hell (which was about the speed that everybody charged out of the showers).

06:30   Roll-call. (We have to start every day with this just to check nobody has run away or died in their beds.)

I nearly missed roll-call because an older boy told me it took place in the common room and that I should report there immediately. When I arrived in the common room I found it completely deserted. Stupidly, I sat on one of the old red chairs thinking I was the first to arrive when actually it turned out that roll-call was taking place outside in the quad. Luckily, I heard two boys run past in a blind panic and followed them out to where the house was lined up. It seems that when your name is called out, you have to shout ‘Sharks’ in reply (nobody can explain why). PJ Luthuli read out a name and then glared at its owner for some time before reading out the next. I waited nervously until… ‘Milton… John?’

‘Sharks!’ I squeaked. Everyone laughed.

Luthuli has a faint lisp, which was severely tested by the name of the fat boy Sidney whose surname is Smitherson-Scott. After a number of attempts at getting it right he glared at Sidney and re-christened him Fatty. (Most people call each other by nicknames here. Not
sure how or who decides your name and if I’ve been given one yet.) The roll-call then moved on to the older boys but my brain was already panicking about finding the dining hall again.

The tall blond boy with railway braces called Simon Brown told us a story about an abattoir over a breakfast of egg and sausages. Luminous Henry (already nicknamed Gecko) turned a pale green, ran outside and vomited in the flower bed. This brought on a loud cheer from our section and a stern look from a miserable looking teacher seated at the top table.

Bert, Julian, Luthuli and Gavin (the weird prefect who lives under the stairs) spent the day showing us around the school and telling us what everything meant. The school consists of years one to three, marries and post-matrics, who only do university subjects and play sport. There are seven houses. Every house has four prefects and a head of house. The head of school is always a post-matric and he spends most of his time making speeches, meeting parents and old boys and raising money to make the school richer.

It seems that every room has a code name and every quadrangle is identical, no doubt designed to completely confuse new boys. Our lesson timetable was like reading a page of hieroglyphics and I had to ask Julian to write down my lessons for me. My first lesson is English which starts at 06:40 tomorrow.

17:00   The entire house gathered in the common room. About fifty boys stared at our cartoonish housemaster, Mr Wilson, who’s just like a goblin. He has big bulging eyes (one of which is squint) and a shoulder that looks like something’s taken a huge bite out of it. He speaks in a rasping voice through clenched yellow teeth and despite his small size he looks wickedly fearsome. He announced his seven commandments with a flourish of his cane:

1) Thou shalt not disobey those in authority.

2) Thou shalt not behave in a depraved fashion.

3) Thou shalt not tease my cat. (This is apparently a Siamese called Roger.)

4) Thou shalt not waste toilet paper.

5) Thou shalt not play with yourself (or others) after lights out.

6) Thou shalt not go night swimming.

7) Thou shalt not play darts (a bit strange considering the lack of a dartboard).

Robert Black, who’s nicknamed himself Rambo, told us after lights out that Wilson’s nickname is Sparerib and that a savage lion in the Kruger National Park bit off half his shoulder when he was a youngster. The doctors then took out one of his ribs to repair his shoulder. Everybody whistled and looked impressed.

Vern, my cubicle mate, has developed a nasty habit of going to the bogs every half an hour for a slash and a sip of water. This wouldn’t be a problem if he didn’t set his alarm clock every time.

A tribunal made up of Fatty, Simon, Rambo, Al ‘Boggo’ Greenstein and myself found Vern guilty of moggy behaviour and confiscated his alarm clock. Boggo Greenstein (a greasy looking boy with big teeth and a bad case of pimples) has also rationed Vern to three visits to the bathroom per night. Vern didn’t defend himself and handed over his alarm clock.

Can’t sleep. I lie in bed, homesick. (I even miss Mom’s cooking!) It feels like there is a lump of lead in my tummy. My new home is like a war zone and while I take heart in the fact that there are two easier victims than me in our dorm (Gecko and Vern), I have the uneasy feeling that my time is coming. Every siren terrifies me because unlike everybody else I never seem to be sure what happens next. I spend all my time looking for and following familiar faces around the school in the
hope that they know more than me. I wonder what my parents would say if I gave up my scholarship and came home. Tomorrow school proper begins. Maybe I’ll die in my sleep and miss it completely.

I dreamed lions were trying to bite my shoulder off.

05:50   Vern wet his bed during the night. His desperate attempt to change his sheets before the rising siren was foiled by Charlie Hooper (nickname Mad Dog) returning from an early morning bat hunting expedition with his catapult. Mad Dog hasn’t spent much time in the dormitory and seems to do a lot of hunting. Mad Dog stole the yellow stained sheet and hung it up from the rafters out of Vern’s reach before raising the alarm.

When a snivelly Gecko returned from the phone room after a chat with his mom, he discovered Vern’s soiled sheet hanging above his bed and charged down to the bathroom with his hand over his mouth. Mad Dog and Rambo exchanged a high five and some raucous laughter.

06:30   Roll-call. Bert referred to Vern Blackadder as Vern Slackbladder, which dissolved the entire roll-call into chaos. The hysterical backslapping and chanting was brought to an abrupt halt by a high-pitched cry from Sparerib who looked like he was quite keen to slaughter someone.

06:40   Our first lesson was English with an extraordinary teacher called Mr Edly (nickname The Guv – a nickname he said he was given when he was a boy at the school). He has a very posh English accent and strides around with a walking stick, swearing like a maniac. His long legs and bulging eyes make him look like a giant praying mantis. He had some spectacular outbursts
(within five minutes he’d threatened to shoot off Boggo’s head with a shotgun). The highlight of the class was when he threw a pile of Henry James novels out of the window and called the author ‘a boring faggot’. We all applauded, he bowed and then told us to get lost.

I like The Guv – and strangely enough he seems to like me. After class he asked me to stay behind. His great bulging eyes studied me closely over the top of his old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses.

‘So, Milton,’ he said, ‘welcome to paradise lost.’ With that he roared with laughter and told me that anybody named after the greatest writer that ever lived must have fine literature in his blood. He presented me with a play called Waiting for Godot written by an Irishman called Samuel Beckett. He prodded the book with his finger and said, ‘Nothing happens, old Johnno, but it’s a raving blast. Now piss off, it’s breakfast time.’

I couldn’t help smiling; it’s the first time I’ve been called by my name since I’ve been here. (Everyone else calls me Spud because my willy is tiny and my balls haven’t dropped yet.) Made a mental note to check out this other John Milton character and his book Paradise Lost.

08:30   Mad Dog told me that I was in his class for maths. I followed him down a series of corridors until we reached our classroom. The teacher was a kindly looking man called Mr Rogers. Unfortunately, it turned out that it was the remedial class. Mad Dog snickered into his rucksack as I packed my things, excused myself and sprinted around in a blind panic looking for my maths class. All the buildings and quadrangles look so similar that it’s easy to become completely disorientated (which I did).

Ten minutes ticked by on my old Remex stopwatch. I felt a huge lump in my throat – I was about to start sobbing. I wanted to go home. I wanted to run out of the school and keep going until I saw those old rusted gates
and the giant acacia tree in our front garden. Suddenly there was PJ Luthuli, marching along the corridor, looking important. Half sobbing, half panting, I asked him for directions. He patted my shoulder and led me to my maths classroom.

As I entered I was faced with the most shocking silence. I stared at the dark figure standing at the blackboard and recognised the scowling face of the miserable looking teacher from breakfast yesterday. He grinned a mean, thin-lipped grin and then said in a low, cold voice, ‘Milton, you’re late. Report to the staff toilets after lunch.’ With a flick of his academic gown he continued with his lesson on the basics of algebra. The teacher’s name is Mr Sykes (nickname Psycho).

16:20   After spending the afternoon cleaning the staff bogs with a scrubbing brush and an old pair of underpants (with the name Brett Ballbag scribbled on them with an ink marker), I returned to a completely deserted house. My heart sank – what had I missed this time? Then I saw the message on the noticeboard:

Touch Rugby 16:00 on Trafalgar!

Where the hell was Trafalgar?

I eventually made my way to the rugby field after getting lost again and ending up at the workshop instead. A greasy looking mechanic in blue overalls gave me directions.

Trafalgar is surrounded by huge plane trees and smells of freshly cut grass. Spread out across its length was the largest game of touch rugby in history (easily fifty a side). I joined one of the teams without anyone noticing. The only recognisable face nearby was Gecko’s, who was desperately trying to avoid the action by sprinting away from the ball as fast as his toothpick legs would carry him.

After what seemed like forever, the ball was hurled across to our side of the field and by some freak chance (and I mean freak!) it landed in the hands of Gecko. Gecko hurtled off without even realising that he was in possession and darted through a gap between two third years. A circus ensued as about twenty boys galloped after the terrified Gecko who was making a beeline for the swimming pool. Eventually it was Mad Dog who flattened him with a crushing tackle just a few feet short of the pump house. Gecko hit the ground with a thud and immediately started writhing around on the concrete shrieking with pain. Bert helped him to his feet and it was then that we saw Gecko’s left arm hanging limply at right angles to his elbow. Bert picked him up and sprinted off to the sanatorium.