Mental Note: Never begin athletics season without an off-sport slip.

Sunday 4th August

The Crazy Eight spent the afternoon attempting to stick the wildebeest head up in the Mad House. It took about two hours because Mad Dog and Rambo kept trying to creep up on us and give us frights with it. Also Fatty’s plan of sticking the head to the tree with a combination of Prestik and chewing gum wasn’t as clever as it sounded last night.

The Mad House is looking fantastic. It’s now big enough for everyone, it has a real Persian oriental carpet, and what with the wildebeest head wired to the tree trunk it makes it look like a hunter’s hideaway. Rambo says he is still trying to think of a way to pump electricity into the tree so that he can bring his bar fridge to school. Mad Dog said he would try and build a wind generator. Fatty said if there was a way of catching his natural gas it could provide electricity to the whole of Natal. Fatty then spent the afternoon trying to fart into bottles. At one stage Fatty reckoned he had turned a bottle of dam water into soda water but nobody was brave enough to take a sip.

16:30 We found Runt snooping around in the bushes near the Mad House. Rambo was furious and demanded to know what he’d seen. Runt didn’t answer and tried to make a break for it but Mad Dog flattened him with a vicious rugby tackle. He reckons that Runt knows too much and carried him down the bank and tried to drown him in the bog stream.

19:00 AA meeting turned a little nasty when Linton Austin and Luthuli almost punched each other’s lights out. It all started when Lennox showed us a video interview with Desmond Tutu (Anglican archbishop and nemesis of my father). Tutu called South Africa the Rainbow Nation and said we have to celebrate our different colours together as one ray of beautiful light. Linton Austin, with his foot up on Lennox’s coffee table, said Tutu was a deluded fool and that the real revolution was a class revolution. Luthuli rounded angrily on Austin and told him that apartheid has created a class divide on racial lines and race still means everything in South Africa. Linton called Luthuli ‘simple’, and said that in thirty years’ time socialists will look back and say the revolution was wasted on petty racial squabbles and not on creating a communistic state. Luthuli then called Linton a racist. Linton picked up his spectacles and his notebook and stormed out of Lennox’s house without uttering a word. I kept my mouth shut the entire night but even still it was the most riveting AA meeting of the year.

23:10 After the fiery AA meeting I headed back towards the house with my ears stinging from cold and my heart beating abnormally fast. For some reason the lights in the cloisters weren’t on and neither was Pissing Pete dribbling any water into the fountain. I marched down a dark passageway that runs behind West House and tripped over what felt like a pile of books and files. I then heard a deep booming voice that shouted, ‘Stop! Who goes there?’ I turned slowly and saw a figure holding a lantern at the end of the corridor. I felt a bit terrified so I thought I’d better answer straight away. I told the figure my name, but simultaneously had a loud knackjump that echoed around the corridor. The figure strode towards me looking distinctly like a stick insect. I recognised the blue and red sheepskin slippers. It was The Guv. He told me he couldn’t sleep so he thought he would take a stroll and look for Macarthur. I didn’t know if he was being serious or not so I nodded as if it was a normal thing for a teacher to be doing at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night. ‘Walk with me, Milton,’ he said. ‘There’s more than one that drifts these halls.’

The Guv and I must have covered the whole school. We didn’t see any ghosts but I did manage to tell him all about the Milton England adventure. We found ourselves on the under 14 cricket field where I played last year. In the moonlight it looked much smaller than I remember it. We stood chatting on the pitch and it was only after some time that I realized The Guv was quoting Macbeth while taking a pee. He says it’s good luck for the coming season. When he had finished he said, ‘To bed at once, young man! This late revelry leaves an old man’s bones dead to the marrow.’ He then waved his walking stick and cried, ‘Exit! Pursued by a bear!’

I sprinted back to the house with the wind screaming in my ears and the freezing night air biting at my face.

Monday 5th August

WELCOME TO AUSCHWITZ!

06:30 Vern shook my hand at roll call and said it was the 1st of August. He then shouted ‘Oi!’ at Spike who was running along the cloisters with three cups of tea.

Spike didn’t stop or listen. I took a look at the misery that surrounded me – everyone lined up in their trench coats, clutching at mugs of tea and breathing waves of steam into the freezing morning gloom.

Anderson kicked Barryl in the bum for being late and Emberton kicked Thinny in the knee for not showering. Anderson then moved along the line-up looking for trouble. He soon discovered that one of the Darryls was missing a shoelace. He seemed to take this personally and picked the Darryl off the ground with one hand while Emberton kneed him in the nuts. Anderson then dropped him in the gutter and moved on to JR Ewing’s haircut. Mad Dog nudged me in the ribs and pointed at his right shoe, saying, ‘Check, Spuddo, guess whose shoelace?’ Boggo turned to Fatty and said he was amazed that Anderson and Emberton could get away with concentration camp violence in the main quad. He then spread his arms and said, ‘Welcome to Auschwitz!’ Emberton overheard him and called him a mommy’s boy before thumping his head into the gutter. Boggo screamed like he had been shot and collapsed onto the floor like Diego Maradona (it’s a plastic gutter). For some reason Mad Dog saw red and grabbed Emberton by the lapels of his trench coat and head butted him straight between the eyes. (It sounded like two planks of wood being smashed together.) Emberton reeled back with blood pouring out his nose.

Anderson immediately cancelled roll call and he, Pike and Death Breath dragged Mad Dog up to Anderson’s room while Emberton was led off to the sanatorium with a battered face. Julian also went to the san because he said he needed treatment for shock.

06:35 Anderson told Mad Dog that he was a disgrace to the house because Emberton was a senior, a prefect and his own cousin. Our head of house then thrashed Mad Dog six strokes with his sawn-off hockey stick. We could hear the sound of it from downstairs.

11:00 Anderson and Emberton (with red nose and swollen face) were hauled into Sparerib’s office. Boggo has it that Darryl (the one who was roughed up this morning) ran off to Sparerib’s house and said he wanted to go home like the other Darryl. He then told Sparerib about the fighting at roll call.

11:10 Mad Dog was called in to Sparerib’s office. By this stage there was a fair-sized crowd milling around the quad outside our housemaster’s office. Julian was practically leaning against the office door pretending to be engrossed in the sports pages of the newspaper. Boggo was pacing up and down like a nervous father in a hospital waiting room desperate for the first news from inside.

AUSCHWITZ SCORECARD

ANDERSON Escaped with a warning EMBERTON De-prefected and put on final warning MAD DOG Put on final warning DARRYL Was probably given a hug and a cookie RAMBO Put on final warning despite not being involved It seems these final warnings are a serious threat. They mean that even being caught night swimming could get them expelled! Emberton looked livid after being sacked as a prefect. I overheard him saying that he was going to murder the Darryl by inserting a toilet plunger up his bum and then sucking out his insides. The Darryl spent the day crying on his bed and phoning home.

Tuesday 6th August

The Juniors’ dance is just over two weeks away and we have to invite a date! I became so agitated when I heard the news that I had to breathe deeply and make a list. (I only really know two girls so it turned out more like a shortlist.) Boggo and Fatty also looked a bit stressed, while Vern says he is definitely inviting Anneline Kriel. We have to send our invites in by next Monday or else we have to attend the dance alone which, according to Rambo, means you’re either ugly or a fag.

The second Darryl has bitten the dust. For the first time this year he was all smiles as the Normal Seven helped him carry his trunk and bags down the stairs. Anderson tried to shake his hand as he was leaving but the Darryl was having none of it and stalked off towards his mom who was waiting outside Sparerib’s office. Poor Sparerib was trying to put on a good show for the Darryl’s mom but he was looking awkward and shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. We were all hiding behind the house door trying to peep around the corner to see what was going on. Vern had pole position and was checking out the action from the crack in the door. Mad Dog chose that moment to make a deafening baboon call and pushed Vern through the door and into the main quad.

Sparerib wasn’t impressed and called Vern over to apologize to the Darryl’s mother for behaving like an animal. Behind the house door we were cracking up at Vern who was blushing blood red and shaking hands with everyone. Vern then stood back and furiously picked his nose. Sparerib told him to get lost so he saluted the Darryl and strode past the Crazy Eight and spent the next twenty minutes staring at the house urinal and jotting down pages of notes in his pocket notebook.

After lights out the Crazy Eight (including Roger) paid what Rambo calls a ‘hospitality visit’ to the first years. Rambo told them that now that they only have six members they can’t be called the Normal Seven anymore. Spike pointed out that the Crazy Eight only has seven members and is still called the Crazy Eight. Boggo poked Spike in the eye with a ruler and reminded him that Roger was the eighth member. Barryl then stood up and said he thought that the Normal Seven should have a new name. JR Ewing argued that the whole school knew them as the Normal Seven and if they changed their name now they they would lose their identity. Rambo glared at JR and said, ‘But you pricks have no identity. That’s the point!’ Fatty interrupted and argued that if you’re famous for being boring, you’re still famous. He filled his mouth with dried fruit and said, ‘Take Naas Botha.’ There was a lot of arguing and eventually there was a vote. Or rather two votes. Firstly, the Normal Seven all voted for their name to stay the same, except for Barryl who said he wanted a change. The Crazy Eight all voted for a new name for our first years. Since we are more senior, the Crazy Eight won the election. Within minutes our first years were rechristened the Sad Six.

THE SAD SIX

Spike

Thinny

JR Ewing

Darryl (the last remaining)

Runt

Barryl (the black Darryl)

Rambo tried to psyche up the Sad Six with a fiery speech about seizing the day and not being a bunch of girls. It didn’t seem to help because after he had finished they all got straight into bed without saying a word. As we trooped back into our dormitory after yet another boring first years hospitality visit, Fatty shook his head and looked at us sadly. ‘You know, okes, they just don’t get it. Here we are trying to open up their horizons and it’s like you’ve got to check if they’re still breathing. I mean, what thanks do we ever get?’

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 513