Spud (33 page)

This latest news didn’t lead us any closer to the truth. Once he had completed his synopsis, Fatty looked at us all intensely and said, ‘Unless we have a seance under the very beam from which he hanged, we will never know the truth.’ There was a pause and then we voted.

It was a landslide – seven against one. The only dissenter was Simon, who shook his head and raised one of his crutches into the air.

Fatty was chuffed. The date was set. Saturday 19th of August. The birth date of Macarthur. Nobody need ask what time. All spooky stuff always goes down at midnight!

Cross-country trials. Thanks to the school’s positioning in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountain range, there are plenty of serious hills/mountains for some sadistic athletics master to include in the seven kilometre cross-country course. Simon and Fatty, armed with their doctors’ certificates, smiled smugly as a huge bunch of us boys galloped across the athletics field, over the stream and up into the hills. After about half a kilometre Gecko vomited in a nearby hedge and decided to walk the rest of the way. Rambo had bulleted to the front and Vern and I were running at a slow jog. Vern foamed at the mouth when he ran and made a sick-breathing sound like Darth Vader. (At this stage even dodgy company was better than no company.) Mad Dog gave up and disappeared into the bush with his catapult, saying that he would join us when we came back past and we’d run
the last half kilometre back to the school together.

That was the last we saw of Mad Dog until the finish. There he stood, grinning sheepishly and holding a medal. Sparerib shook his hand and thumped him on the back, as did Luthuli, Julian, Earthworm and Gavin, the prefect under the stairs.

It turns out that Mad Dog had lost track of time after stalking a blue-headed lizard through the bush and thought that the runners had already passed him. He trotted out of the bush, down the hill and then sprinted across the empty athletics field to break the junior cross-country record by seven minutes and twelve seconds! The idiot was too scared to fess up so he just shrugged his shoulders and enjoyed all the congratulations.

Full day rehearsal with the girls. Amanda and I practised our song together during the lunch break and then got into a serious debate about politics. She seemed impressed that I was planning to be a freedom fighter and told me that her father is an activist and a lecturer at the university in Pietermaritzburg. She didn’t look too impressed when I told her my dad ran a small dry-cleaning business.

The play is back on track and Kojak didn’t scream at me once today. It’s easy to perform well when you’re trying to impress someone.

08:00   For the second time this year Mad Dog was called up during assembly. (This time his fly was up.) The Glock shook his hand warmly to thunderous applause and whistling (none of it genuine).

Splendid lunch with The Guv, who is like a new man. We devoured a succulent roast beef between us, and The
Guv sipped on a ginger ale. He and his wife were like teenagers and kissed and giggled every time they laid eyes on each other. After lunch The Guv shouted at me for not reading anything in ages.

‘Stop trying to be a f@)!$$%∗ freedom fighter and read something you enjoy! For God’s sakes, man, you’re divorcing yourself from literature to try and impress some private school slapper!’

I was angry. How dare he call her… I stopped. I took a moment to unclench my teeth and my fists. Why was I angry? Am I perhaps…?

I can’t even bear to write it. I may need to see a psychiatrist myself!

Rambo’s birthday. The day we’ve all been dreading. The question is, do we turn a blind eye like cowards and pretend we don’t know? Or do we brave the storm and give Rambo his birthday present? Through a series of secret negotiations led by Boggo, it was decided that something must be done. At the very least, a dunking in the fountain.

And so suppertime came along. An army of boys were rounded up and lay in ambush for the rippling Rambo. As he sauntered back from dinner, Boggo issued the call to arms and we all swarmed into the quad, dived on Rambo and chucked him in the fish pond. Mission successful. In fact he took it with fairly good grace (apart from hurling his shoe into the face of a third year called Whittaker).

20:45   Rambo was absent from the house meeting. Sparerib made a note on his clipboard, before beginning a long-winded story about toilet roll conservation.

Rambo reckoned that he’d missed the house meeting because he had to get his birthday present from Eve. He
didn’t say what it was. We could all imagine.

Dad has caught Innocence in the act of selling booze. He is still deciding what to do with her. Innocence apparently threw herself on the ground in front of him and begged for her job.

Mad Dog’s first cross-country practice ended up a total farce. After a few hill sprints under the guidance of Mr Williamson, the idiot vomited and collapsed. Sister Collins put it down to too much lunch and gave him the all clear for Saturday’s inter-school cross-country meeting.

Gavin, the prefect under the stairs, beat Rambo for letting Victoria the house snake out of her cage. The greedy reptile devoured an entire box full of cockroaches and died.

The stench in the dormitory is Vern. He confessed that he hasn’t showered since returning from the holidays and is adamant that he will never shower again. In typical Rain Man form he wouldn’t explain why. Rambo threatened him with death if he didn’t shower. Vern made a funny noise and then disappeared for the rest of the day. The trapdoor under the crypt where Vern has spent many of his nights has been sealed so I would assume that he’s searching for other accommodation. Trust my luck to have a stinky psychopath sharing my cubicle.

Julian skipped across the quad, squealing and waving a bright pink envelope.

‘Guess who’s the lover boy? Looks like you don’t have to have ball hairs to be a Romeo!’ He slapped my bum and dropped the shocking pink envelope into my hands.

‘What’s his name?’ smirked Pike. ‘Another one of your bum rusher buddies, Spud?’ Devries cackled like a hyena and sprayed bits of his sarmie all over Gecko who he had ordered to tie his shoelace. One look at the handwriting and I knew…

Barely slept and when I did I dreamed that I was lying in bed with Amanda and the Mermaid and they were both screaming at me. My mind is in turmoil – could I be on the verge of a breakdown as well? Spent the morning deep in thought and then fell asleep.

Mad Dog pulled out of the inter-school cross-country race at Kings College with a strained hamstring. If only Mr Williamson had seen Mad Dog sprinting across the quad to the dining hall for supper…

Amanda barely gave me the time of day at rehearsals. She spent lunchtime talking and laughing with Geoff Lawson. I confess I was jealous and hardly spoke to either of them in the afternoon.

20:00   Reunited with the African Affairs society and Mr Lennox. We watched a BBC video on the violence in Natal between the IFP and the ANC. The presenter looked wickedly worried and signed off by saying that South Africa was on the verge of a bloody civil war.

Luthuli jumped in immediately and blamed the IFP under Buthelezi who he said was funded by the Nats and an apartheid puppet. Linton Austin sucked on the end of his pen, licked his thin lips and then crapped on about economic fundamentals and something called government parastatals, which took the wind out of my head of house’s sails. I asked Lennox what I could do to help. He turned to me and told me that an improvement in my history essay writing would be a start. Everyone laughed and I felt like a wally with a bright red face. But never fear – freedom fighter Spud will be back!

I have taken an enormous step and made an appointment with the school counsellor, Dr Zoodenberg. 14:30 tomorrow. I refuse to have a nervous breakdown!

Lunch. The Guv has given me Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and ordered it read by next Monday. It’s not a very thick book. (Obviously he thinks that I’ve slipped into cretmdom!)

Mom phoned and told me that Dad felt sorry for Innocence and let her stay. However, he’s charging her a levy of 20 cents on every bottle sold. Innocence agreed and immediately put her price up to R1.20.

14:30   Dr Zoodenberg is a complete weirdo. He has a thick hedge of knotted brown hair, a huge woolly beard and owl glasses from behind which his beady little eyes peer out. He also has the irritating habit of whistling all his s’s and c’s. Rumour has it that he used to work at the Town Hill nuthouse near Pietermaritzburg. Before we began, he told me that he was a Freudian by training and asked if I had a problem with that. Not knowing what a Freudian was I told him it was fine by me. He seemed relieved and jotted something down on a pad of paper.

There was silence. I suddenly wished that I hadn’t come. It seemed the silence would last forever so I started telling him about my relationship problems. He jumped up immediately with his hands raised and ordered me to stop.

‘Now, Mr Milton,’ he said mysteriously, ‘you will learn that every action has a cause and effect and every action has a reaction.’

I nodded a little nervously. Zoodenberg closed the
curtains, took off his jacket and settled into an armchair with an accountancy pad and a fountain pen poised to scribble down my psychological disorder. His beady little eyes were blazing with excitement and he licked his lips repeatedly like he was about to devour a double cheeseburger.

‘Mr Milton, let us start at the beginning. What is your earliest childhood memory?’

By 16:00 we hadn’t progressed past 1979! (Which was no help to my problems of 1990.) Dr Zoo, as he asked me to call him, seemed very pleased with my first session and diarised me in for the same time next week. As I left, he told me that he was working on a sociology thesis and that since he was now moving on to studying group behaviour, I should try and persuade the Crazy Eight to join me next week. The words ‘sociology thesis’ produced enough whistles to attract Roger, who miaowed loudly and scuttled along the corridor with his tail raised. I noticed a huge bald spot just above Roger’s tail. This is a strange place indeed.

Gecko and I took an afternoon stroll up to our warm rock and vantage point. Gecko has called it Hell’s View. (As far as he’s concerned, school is hell and this is the best place to view it from.) I told him about my relationship trouble and my visit to Dr Zoo. He laughed uproariously, with his shrill cackling laugh, as I imitated the nutty psychologist. Gecko reckons that Zoo was once admitted to a nuthouse in Siberia but managed to escape to South Africa. He says that most boys are too scared to go to him for counselling and the only other boy who has seen him is Vern – enough said.

Gecko reckoned that I should play ‘hard to get’ with Amanda and be friendly with the Mermaid, without laying it on too thick. Gecko (in all his wisdom) has
pinned Amanda as a man-eating flirt and, like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, will screw me and then boil my rabbit. (I don’t have a rabbit – I suppose she would have to settle for Roger.)

I shall write a friendly letter to the Mermaid and play the cold fish on Sunday (not that she’ll even notice). My path is clear and hopefully before long Amanda will fall madly in love with me and become a threat to my friends’ domestic pets!

A cold wind picked up and the mist swirled around us before sinking into the valley. Gecko and I ended our discussions on breasts and ball hairs and strolled back down to school.

Posted a friendly letter to the Mermaid that was warm and comforting. I signed it ‘me’ and took special care to leave out anything that looked remotely encouraging. Phase one complete.

Returned to the house after a singing rehearsal to find the dormitories in uproar. While I was practising Consider Yourself at Home, the prefects had launched a house search and found eleven pairs of underpants in Vern’s laundry bag. The problem was that none of them were his! After the discovery Vern was marched off to Sparerib’s office where he spent the next hour. Presumably the time was spent trying to make some sense out of Vern’s behaviour.

Upstairs Luthuli, Bert and Earthworm were having some difficulty trying to stop a riot. For the first time ever, Pike and Rambo were in agreement – Vern is a nasty little faggot and needs to be destroyed, or at the very least, maimed. Rambo was particularly miffed because two pairs of his underpants were in the laundry bag. Pike just liked the idea of maiming the poor demented Rain Man. Greg Anderson seemed to be the
only person springing to his defence. He was wickedly brave in defending Rain Man. Then again it’s probably easy to be brave when you’re a first team rugby god.