Sunday 24th February

Read all morning. Nineteen Eighty-Four is very interesting but seriously bizarre. It’s set in a futuristic world called Oceania and predicts what our world will be like in 1984. It was actually written in 1948 and is all about Big Brother who runs the world in a vicious police state.

In the afternoon I couldn’t get the Mermaid out of my head, so I decided to play poker with Boggo and Rambo and lost eight rand.

Monday 25th February

We are having extra choir practices every day now in preparation for the Easter tour to Johannesburg. The choir is sounding brilliant – except for the tenors who, according to Mrs Roberts, are a little wobbly on the harmonies. (Julian was less complimentary and called the tenors ‘ball bouncingly bad!’) Julian asked me if I would sing a solo of Dear Lord and Father of Mankind for the tour. I told him after singing it at Gecko’s funeral I’d rather not. He said, ‘Oh my darling boy,’ and then hugged me passionately.

Received a letter from the Mermaid. It basically said exactly what she said to me on the phone when she dumped me. She reckons she loves me, but doesn’t want a relationship because her life is too busy and that she’s in a ‘funny place right now’. I showed the letter to Simon to get his opinion. He read the first line and then burst into hysterical laughter. He then showed Boggo, Rambo and Fatty, who also roared with laughter and slapped me on the back. They showed Vern who also cackled with laughter and furiously banged his hand on his locker. Unfortunately, it was clear that he didn’t know what was going on and only succeeded in looking like a cretin. I snatched the letter back and reread the first line. It said:

Dear John

Just to rub salt in the wounds my ex-girlfriend had sent me a Dear John letter!

Tuesday 26th February

SHROVE TUESDAY PANCAKE RACE

We all gathered in the quad for the traditional inter-house pancake race where a boy from each standard and the housemaster run through the cloisters of the main quad flipping a pancake at every corner. From our house representing the Normal Seven was Thinny, who looked hilarious in very tiny running shorts, and this time Mad Dog was running for the Crazy Eight. Clearly Rambo was a bit miffed about not being chosen this year.

The Glock fired the starter’s pistol and Sparerib screamed off to a big lead. (It must be noted that he was running against all the other houses’ first years.) Mad Dog ran third for us and had a controversial collision with a matric from Barnes which resulted in Mad Dog finding a clear path forward, and the Barnes matric missing the corner and ending up in The Guv’s English classroom. When Anderson received the frying pan for the final lap we were miles ahead. He ran with his house scarf around his neck and raised it high above his head as he broke the finishing tape.

As a reward Sparerib delayed lights out by ten minutes, which provided Mad Dog with just enough time to cut off Potato’s leg while Vern groaned and rolled around on the floor like he was having his own leg amputated.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 558