Spud (25 page)

I knew where it was from, and by then I also knew that my diary had been stolen. I think this is worse than the first week and my birthday combined. I feel ashamed and wish I’d never kept a diary in the first place. I thought about telling Sparerib. I thought about telling Earthworm. I didn’t tell anyone.

I found my diary this morning in my locker. Nobody’s admitted to stealing it or bothered to apologise. I know it was Boggo though. (I heard him bragging to Mad Dog that he’d taken it.) I looked back over what I’ve written and felt ashamed that everybody had read my personal thoughts and things. Why did I write them down? Was I stupid enough to think that they wouldn’t steal the diary and read it? Boggo must have been itching to know what I’ve been writing every day.

I’ve thought about burning it or hurling it into the bog stream. But here I sit writing away – I guess I’m addicted.

I read my grandfather’s (my dad’s dad) gold inscription on the brown leather covering:

‘Every man’s life, no matter how routine, will fill a chest of books, and if he’s lucky, a million miles of film. Forget nothing lest yourself be forgotten.’

(I still don’t know if these were his words or someone else’s. I was too young to ask him before he died. I’ve always just assumed they were his.)

I’m finding it hard to look anyone in the eyes. I’m not sure what they know and what they read.

Last week’s news

There has been no mention of last week’s kitchen raid. (Apparently the caterer thinks it was an inside job, since there was no sign of a break-in.) Six more pairs of underpants have been stolen, including two pairs of mine. We lost our rugby match 66-0 to Weatherby, but thankfully we weren’t the only side to lose (the under 15Cs lost 9-8). The first team crushed the opposition 42-12.

Gecko is once again in good health and made yet another triumphant return to the dormitory. (At least I know
he
didn’t read my diary.)

Rehearsals are getting a little boring what with singing the same songs over and over and Kojak as demented as ever. I can’t wait to start speaking dialogue and stringing the songs together. Viking reckons we’ll only do that after half-term.

19:00   A complete house search was carried out during prep. We were ordered to remain in our prep classrooms while the prefects rifled through our belongings. Word is that Sparerib is hot on the tail of the underpants thief. Boggo reckons our housemaster might soon have
a dodgy sex scandal on his hands. We could hear the movements of the prefects through the ceiling as they searched the second years’ dormitory.

21:00   Various boys have been hauled into Sparerib’s office to explain various items found in their lockers. Pike was in possession of a fake ID and a nasty looking scalpel. Devries’s porno mags were confiscated and Fatty was questioned over a ten kilogram bag of rice and three kilograms of rotting stewing beef which were found under his bed. He was forced to get rid of the meat but was allowed to keep the rice. But still no sign of the thirty-five odd pairs of missing underpants. Whoever this pervert is, he must be crafty.

After lights out, Fatty lit his candles and summoned us to his cubicle with his now familiar ghostbuster routine. I reckon the entire Macarthur mystery is getting a bit stale. It’s been weeks since we had any new information and by the looks of things, the Crazy Eight (with the exception of Fatty) are starting to doubt that this hanging ever happened in the first place.

We patiently waited as Fatty once again rambled on about what we all knew already. It was impossible not to notice the odd yawn and vacant stare amongst the Crazy Eight. I refused to look at any of them and stood in silence, staring at the candle. Thankfully, Fatty did have a new lead, although to me it looked most likely to be another dead end.

He explained that while our focus has been on Macarthur and his son who was off fighting in North Africa, he’s now discovered that the old man had a daughter by the name of Mary Elizabeth. Mary married an engineer and businessman called Trevor Gosforth, who himself was not an old boy of the school. After her father’s suicide, Trevor took Mary Elizabeth to Canada where they still live. The couple then had a daughter called Isabel Rose, who married a wealthy South African
businessman. Fatty’s plan was to try and hunt down Isabel Rose and write a letter to her.

Fatty shifted his huge frame and looked at us intently. After a ridiculous pause he said, ‘Gentlemen, I think the time has come to speak to Mango.’ Boggo sniggered; Rambo laughed. Fatty glared at them until they were silent, and then said, ‘I will not force anyone to take part, but next week I will call up the ghost of Macarthur.’ There was a long silence. Gecko’s eyes were like pale blue saucers. Even Roger stopped licking himself and stared at Fatty.

‘How you gonna do it?’ asked Simon, furiously biting the skin around his nails.

‘Glassy Glassy’ replied Fatty. Rambo hooted with laughter and said, ‘In just four months he’s gone from finding Jesus to looking for Satan!’ Minor chaos then broke out as everyone started talking at the same time. Fatty closed the debate by blowing out the candles and told us all to ‘reflect on what was said’.

Sleep took a long time coming and I’m sure I woke in the middle of the night to the sound of somebody shrieking in terror – perhaps it was only in my dream but the panic slept with me under my Good Knight duvet. Rambo rates it as the naffest duvet cover he’s ever seen. I don’t give a stuff!

14:30   We warmed up for our practice match against the under 14Es under our usual tree. The poor E team are yet to play a match this season because every school has been unable to field a team. If we were a sad lot, the E team were completely depressed. Half our size and terrified out of their skins, they crowded around their coach Mrs Bishop (the Reverend’s wife), who’d been ordered to coach a game that she doesn’t understand nor seems to like much. Lilly told us not to be too aggressive
with the Es and said we should let them score at least one try to avoid destroying their confidence.

We allowed them a few more than one – in fact, against the laws of science, averages and probability, the under 14Es defeated the under 14Ds 22-14. The score was actually rather flattering to us; if the Es hadn’t dropped the ball so many times near our try-line, it would have been a thrashing. Mrs Bishop was beside herself with glee after the match and Lilly praised us for doing the Es a good turn. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Es run out instead of the Ds on Saturday against the mean Afrikaans school Voortrekker.

At dinner Geoff Lawson asked me to come along to Christian fellowship with him tonight. He reckons a girl who he met at the Rand Easter Show will be there. She goes to St Joan’s in Pietermaritzburg and Geoff’s hoping that she could be a bit of a slut. I agreed to join him (he reckons there’s free biscuits).

20:00   The crypt was packed with girls who seemed to know most of the boys. There was a lot of smiling, hugging and giggling. Geoff, who had obviously taken part in these meetings before, introduced me to a number of girls, who smiled and said, ‘Welcome.’ (I’m not sure why I was being continually welcomed to my own school’s crypt?)

Our junior fellowship leader, Nelson Johnson, stood up and greeted everyone before calling up a rather weird looking dude with a shockingly bright floral shirt who let loose a fake smile, and spoke with a lisp. Before long he was strumming away at his guitar and most people had their hands raised skywards in some sort of spiritual trance. I couldn’t help but notice the girl next to me, whose knockers leapt up and down while she sang Give me oil in my lamp…

After a number of songs, prayers and a sermon, we were encouraged to chat amongst ourselves. Geoff
sidled up to a pretty brunette (the one from the Rand Easter Show) and set about some serious spadework. I tagged along and closely studied my chocolate wafer biscuit, never quite in or out of the conversation.

Judging by the quality of his inane ramblings, Geoff was getting now here. He waffled on for ages about the food in the dining hall – while the brunette kept trying to stifle her yawns. Eventually Geoff got on to his parents and how they lived mainly overseas and had homes all over the place. The girl immediately woke up and began turning on the charm. She fired a number of questions at him:

I think that was the point when I started choking on my chocolate wafer biscuit. It couldn’t be! Could it? This was like something out of a Hollywood thriller! Trevor Lawson married Mary Elizabeth Macarthur and took her to Canada. They had a daughter called Isabel Rose. Was this idiot next to me, being drooled on by a gold-digging snob, possibly the great-grandchild of the man who hanged himself upstairs? I tried to speak but couldn’t – Geoff was now being introduced to the gold-digger’s friends. I galloped back to the dormitory to find Fatty noshing his uncooked rice out of the packet, using
his shoe polish lid as a spoon. The words tumbled out of my mouth and this time it was Fatty’s turn to have saucer eyes. He made me tell the story twice more, grunted, hid the rice under his pillow and then together we hatched our plan.

11:00   Unbelievably, the under 14D team has remained unchanged. (I don’t think Lilly had the heart to drop anyone.)

Received a depressing letter from the Mermaid. She says that she’s been advised to see a psychologist so that she can be prescribed some antidepressants. I called her immediately but Marge said she was sleeping. I have no experience in dealing with depressed people. (I’m only fourteen and come from a strong family line of madness, but no depression.) I called Mom to ask if she knew anything about the Mermaid. She said it was her parents’ divorce that was eating her up. She said I must write to her as much as possible. Mom also said that Wombat had found the Easter eggs in the washing machine but had since lost them again.

Boggo nearly killed himself during prep. (Pity he failed.) Because he was cold he had shifted his seat right up near the fire. Unfortunately, the back of his trenchcoat caught alight and soon the diary thief was engulfed in flames. Quick as a flash, Bert blasted the fire extinguisher at him, blowing Boggo right off his seat. Luckily for him he was wearing three jerseys underneath his trenchcoat and escaped any serious burns. Have a feeling that this is just part one in a series of horrors that Boggo will receive for stealing my diary. (It will be like the curse of Tutankhamun’s tomb!) Bert has been credited with saving Boggo’s life and fires have been banned during prep.

I would love to report that Mr Lilly’s faith in our side has finally borne fruit but alas the news is bleak. An 88-0 drubbing by the fearsome Afrikaans Rustrek school (who took the game way too seriously) is all I can report. Once again we were the school’s only beaten team, although the first team only just squeaked home 15-12 with a late penalty by Oliver Brown. Lilly did his best to find some positives but even he was hard pressed to find anything amongst the wreckage. Eventually, he said that we showed remarkable consistency (consistently bad?) and spirit far beyond our young years. Pig, our captain, said that he was considering retirement and taking up tug-of-war instead.

22:00   Julian lined up the Crazy Eight and beat us with his pink fly swatter. He said the state of our dormitory was deplorable. After each stroke with the swatter he squealed with delight and skipped around like a fairy. Bert would then let loose a booming laugh and clap his hands like a loon. The swatter wasn’t sore at all but everybody pretended to flinch in agony in case he selected a more serious weapon. Fatty hammed it up so much that Julian apologised for hitting him too hard. Rambo’s convinced that Julian is the infamous underpants thief.

10:30   It would be a lie to say that the entire school gathered to watch the female Oliver cast arrive for their first rehearsal. In fairness to the boys, the figure was closer to eighty-five per cent of the school. With The Glock and Viking there to usher them through to the theatre, nobody dared make any funny comments or farmhouse noises. Much to everyone’s relief the group
of twenty was not a bad looking bunch. No doubt Viking had chosen wisely. I was anxious to see which girl would take the role of Bet (the girl Oliver sings I’ll Do Anything with).

Viking called each girl up onto the stage to introduce her to the rest of the cast. They all blushed and smiled sweetly. The last girl he called up was Bet, a girl called Amanda Lawrence, dressed in a black coat and beret. She sauntered onto the stage, flicked off her beret with a flourish and bowed. Long red locks of hair cascaded down and the snare drum kicked off in my chest. Bang! Bang! Bang! It was Julia Roberts!

Viking called Dodge and me onto the stage. I could hear the whisper of girls’ voices. I forced a smile that made my cheeks hurt and felt myself blushing. Amanda Lawrence stared at me. I suddenly realised I am completely and utterly terrified of her.

We began with the London chorus songs, Oom Pah Pah, Who Will Buy? and It’s a Fine Life. The girls sang brilliantly, and combined with the elder boys’ tenor voices, it sounded fantastic. Despite Viking’s gruffness I could tell he was delighted with the sound. Kojak also appeared calmer – perhaps the girls’ voices have a soothing effect on his psychopathic tendencies.

And then came the moment. Dodge and Eve, Spud and Amanda singing the song of love called I’ll Do Anything. My nerves were jangling. The entire cast was watching us with complete focus. Lloyd and Eve kicked off with gusto and then it was my turn, and then I was singing. The sound was full and clean; I noticed the transformation in Amanda’s face. Instantly she’d become soft, loving and even more beautiful. Was she acting or was she melting to the sound of my voice? She opened her mouth and her voice was strong and husky and beautiful, like a rock star. Applause and whistling.