Spud - Learning to Fly (10 page)

4:30 Awoken by the nasty smell of Wombat frying fish in the kitchen. Buried my head under the pillow but could still smell it.

6:00 Wombat woke me up with a screechy, ‘Rise and shine, David!’ She placed a cup of tea on my bedside table and ordered me to bathe. The smell of fried fish was still everywhere.

7:15 Leisurely stroll up and down Musgrave Road.

7:55 Return from walk in time for eight o’clock news, weather and shipping report.

8:15 Breakfast. Two grapefruits and another cup of tea. No wonder Wombat is so desperately thin and yellow!

9:00 After breakfast Wombat called for absolute silence while she went over her daily finances.

10:00 Dad picked me up and together we sped off to visit Blacky at the kennels. Dad said that a worried woman from the kennels phoned this morning to say that Blacky has become incredibly stressed and appeared to be eating his front right paw. My father reckons Blacky is neurotic. He shook his head in wonder and said, ‘Buggered if I know where he gets it from.’

Poor Blacky looked terrible, curled up at the far end of his cage. His big brown eyes were downcast and he shrank away from the other dogs that barked and yapped incessantly in the cages around him. When Blacky noticed us at the gate of his cage he leapt up and charged towards us. He then started whimpering desperately while licking Dad’s face through the mesh wire. The woman in charge was wearing blue rugby shorts and didn’t look very impressed when Dad began to get emotional. She said that animals can sense our emotions and that the personality of the dog often takes on that of its owner. Dad sensed that the woman with the rugby shorts was calling him a nutcase so he told her that I was Blacky’s owner and that I had a drinking problem. The woman in the blue rugby shorts looked even less impressed and gave us both a stern lecture about taking proper care of dogs.

Eventually, we had to force Blacky back into his cage. The cretinous animal wouldn’t walk on its own so Dad had to carry it back into its terrible concrete home. Dad promised Blacky he would be out by Wednesday at the latest but the poor animal didn’t understand and curled itself back into a ball and whimpered sadly. Dad tried to cheer Blacky up with some loud whoops and shouts but only succeeded in creating chaos with Blacky’s fellow inmates. The woman in the blue rugby shorts stormed back out of her house to see what the commotion was all about but Dad and I were already in the station wagon screeching down the driveway, leaving a huge cloud of red dust behind us.

When I told Dad about what Wombat was feeding me, he shouted, As mean as bloody cat shit – even to her own bloody grandson!’ He then did a dangerous u-turn in heavy traffic and tore off in the opposite direction.

10:45 Once seated at the Wimpy, my father called the head waiter over and ordered me the biggest fried breakfast on the menu. He ordered himself a Castle Lager.

10:48 Dad drained his beer and called the waiter over again. He ordered another beer and demanded to know why the breakfast was taking so long. The waiter scampered off to the kitchen looking concerned.

By the time my food arrived, Dad was so ravenous that he ate most of my bacon, sausages and fries while telling me a series of stories about Uncle Aubrey’s disastrous fishing trip to Coffee Bay. I had to eat faster and faster because Dad kept plunging his fork into my plate and wolfing down whatever he stole at top speed.

17:00 FRANK’S BRAAI

Dad and I arrived to find Mom and Frank’s girlfriend Shannon in the kitchen making salads together. The atmosphere was very awkward and they didn’t seem to have much to say to each other. Obviously Shannon knew about Mom’s poor cooking skills and relegated my mother to washing lettuce.

Hysterical laughter from the braai outside meant that Frank was up to his practical jokes again. I stepped out of the kitchen to witness Frank parading a new cooking apron while my father rolled around on the grass in hysterics.

The apron read:

WARNING!!! SIZZLING BOEREWORS READY TO SPIT!

Underneath the inscription was a phallic arrow pointing towards Frank’s crotch.

Frank poured us all champagne and made a toast to Shannon, whom he called his ‘Little Squirrel’. Shannon turned twenty on Thursday. Frank placed his arm around her but she didn’t seem to be very affectionate and wriggled free of his grasp. He then tried to kiss her but she turned her face to one side before walking back into the kitchen.

What followed was a terrible silence. Dad’s eyes were darting dangerously from side to side as he desperately racked his brains for something to say. He finally came out with, ‘It’s been dry, hey?’ My father’s eyes then darted from Mom to Frank and then back to Mom again.

‘Hell of a thing,’ said Dad in conclusion.

The evening went from bad to worse when a flaming red Mazda 323 zoomed up the driveway and came to a halt on the grass next to the braai. Shannon strode out the kitchen door looking incredibly sexy in tight jeans and high heels. Dad, who was desperately trying to get the party back on track, let rip with a loud wolf whistle. Nobody saw the funny side so Dad darted into the kitchen saying he needed a pee.

Frank and Shannon then had an embarrassing argument right in front of Mom and me. Shannon said she wanted to go out with her friends to celebrate her birthday. Frank refused and then tried to compromise by inviting the crowd in the Mazda to join the braai. A guy with spiky hair in the passenger seat snorted at Frank’s invitation and said, ‘Nought, dude – this is an old ballie gathering. No offence.’ He then banged his hand on the roof and shouted, ‘Come on, Shanny, let’s hit the road!’

Frank wasn’t the same after Shannon left. He didn’t even make any more raw jokes. He drank heavily and repeatedly looked at his watch. Every twenty minutes or so, he would slip inside to check if there were any messages on his answering machine.

Oh, and how is it that Wombat knows every single word in the Anglican prayer book but can’t even remember my name?

11:06 GOLF

I’m really not looking forward to the father and son golf day. If today’s performance is anything to go by, the Miltons will be humiliated. I shot 128 and Dad, after boasting on the first tee that he was going to take the course apart, ended up carding a whopping 141 shots. Dad’s round included twelve lost balls and an eighteen on a par three where he hit six consecutive shots into the swamp. Frank laughed so much that he had to wait five minutes before teeing off because he said he’d lost all strength in his arms.

The good news is that I now have my very own golf bag and set of clubs. The bad news is that they belonged to an old geezer who died last month. Even creepier news is he had a heart attack on the 8th green of his local golf course. This means he died holding his putter …

I’ve never felt so happy to pack my bags and dress in my school uniform before. The long bus trip back to school was an absolute pleasure. I played U2’s new beast Achtung Baby twice through as the evening became night and the orange sky changed to navy blue. Sawing guitars shredded my ears as headlights and mad visions flashed by. Spud Milton on the road again …

You’re dangerous because you’re honest.

You’re dangerous; you don’t know what you want.

Because it’s Ash Wednesday our confirmation class became a bizarre hour of watching Reverend Bishop chanting in Latin. Vern, who was desperately keen to get involved in the ceremony, began chanting along with the chaplain in complete gibberish. Vern’s fake Latin didn’t fool anyone, and the chaplain asked him to pray without speaking.

After an eternity of chanting and prayer, Reverend Bishop made a cross of ash on each of our foreheads as a commitment to Christ and a celebration of Lent. Vern then spread the ash all over his face and ended up looking like a coal miner.

12:00 Lennox’s History classroom has been stripped, painted and emptied. Apparently the school has decided to turn it into the new computer room. Lennox called it ‘a forced removal’ and he taught our lesson under a tree as a sign of protest.

Fatty reckons computers are about to take over the world. He also reckons it’s already illegal in Japan to vote in elections unless you have your own computer and printer.

The new computers arrived after breakfast. A group of workmen dressed in white lab coats and gloves carried them through the quad to the computer room. Fatty said the reason the delivery company had to wear special suits is because the computers contain dangerous gamma rays that can cause brain tumours if handled incorrectly. Vern wasn’t impressed with the arrival of the computers and slunk around the cloisters making notes and drawing pictures in his notebook.

Roger’s birthday! Since he is no longer a fully paid up member of the Crazy Eight, Rain Man’s cat was spared a trip to the school fountain. Vern bought him a tin of tuna from the trading store at the station, which the stupid animal refused to eat. Fatty once again raided Plump Graham’s spastic colon friendly food stash and stole a large packet of cashew nuts and fed Roger three nuts before wolfing down the rest. Roger sniffed the nuts before devouring them like a hungry lion. This means Roger is now a vegetarian or, like me, he’s recently gone off fish.

The folks chose the perfect day to watch me playing cricket for the fifths. I took seven wickets for just 23 runs, including a hat-trick. Dad was so excited with my three consecutive wickets that he raced around the boundary with his arms held aloft and screaming for joy. Mom popped open yet another bottle of JC Le Roux and the two of them became incredibly sozzled on the deep cover boundary.

I then scored my first ever half century – although it must be said that I was facing a bowler who looked suspiciously like a girl, and I lost count of how many times I survived dropped catches. By this stage Mom and Dad were well past sozzled and entered the terrifying realm of drunk and disorderly. Then Dad began singing rude songs in a loud voice about Sparerib and Norm (I don’t believe in spinners) Wade. It was a relief when I was finally bowled for 57 because at least the madman standing on the pitch roller ceased his loud and slanderous musical tirade against the school staff.

Even Mr Ashleigh-Meyer was impressed with my day’s work and told me I was the most talented cricketer he’d ever coached. He then seemed to lose interest in what he was saying, lit up a Chesterfield and sauntered off in the general direction of the staff room.

Simon was beside himself about a brilliant run out by Jonty Rhodes in South Africa’s World Cup match against Pakistan this morning. He tried to demonstrate the missile-like dive but ended up grazing his knee and looking like an idiot. The good news is that we won the match and look a good bet for a spot in the semi-finals.

Fatty, Boggo, Garlic, Vern and I set off to the fields with our golf bags while Simon and Rambo marched off in the opposite direction because they said they didn’t want to hang around with hackers.

Boggo elected himself the group’s golf pro and gave us a thorough coaching clinic on swinging the club properly. Unfortunately, when it came down to actually hitting the ball, Boggo was worse than everyone except Vern.

Golf has to be the most frustrating game in the world. You can hit the ball perfectly with one shot and then with an identical swing the next shot can be an embarrassing disaster. Fatty hit one ball so far that it sailed over the field and landed on the tennis court, nearly killing Rowdy and Plump Graham who had just begun knocking up for a set of tennis. The rest of Fatty’s shots either scuttled along the ground or ducked off viciously to the left. Vern’s golf is embarrassingly poor. He seemed to miss the ball more times than he actually hit it. Garlic got the ball up in the air every time but it never travelled further than he could throw it.