Spud - Learning to Fly (16 page)

‘He’s making a killing,’ said Fatty from the toilet stall where he sat spread-eagled with a block of Gouda cheese, half a loaf of white bread and the morning newspaper at his feet. Meany Dlamini reckons Boggo’s doing a brilliant service to the house because the prefects’ rate was even cheaper than the barber at the taxi rank in Edendale township. Boggo looked thrilled that he had undercut the market and told Meany Dlamini that his new haircut was bound to get him laid. The merest hint of a smile spread across Meany’s lips and he replied, ‘Hey, Boggo, I don’t need a fancy haircut to lash chicks.’ Boggo was so impressed with Meany Dlamini’s sexual exploits that he gave him a twenty-five per cent discount on the spot.

Judging by all the dark muttering from the locked cubicle in the corner, Vern was deeply upset at the sinister new developments occurring in his bogs.

Garlic’s birthday.

15:00 Garlic may just have struck upon the only possible method to avoid a bogwash. The Malawian is the first person in living memory to actually vomit on his attackers
before
reaching the bogs. At present Garlic is hiding somewhere in the hills and still hasn’t had his birthday initiation yet. Thankfully, I wasn’t part of the lynch mob that was suddenly forced to abandon the bogwash after Garlic erupted at the foot of the stairs.

Pike was so incensed with Garlic’s dramatic escape that he ordered the Fragile Five out on a full-scale manhunt (after cleaning up the mess). He said if they didn’t return with Garlic by dinnertime then he was personally bogwashing the lot of them.

18:00 Garlic was nowhere to be seen at dinner. Rumours were flying around that he had run away and that the Crazy Eight was almost defunct with dropouts on consecutive days. Fatty was the only one undisturbed by the afternoon’s events and helped himself to piles of uneaten roast chicken and potatoes.

21:25 Pike arrived for a typically gloating lights out. He called Rambo the captain of a sinking ship and suggested he should jump before he’s pushed. He then crowed on about mentally cracking Simon and how Garlic was already halfway back to Malawi. ‘That’s two down, five to go!’ he said. ‘The big question is just who will be next?’ His mean eyes settled on mine and he grinned, before spitting more venom and switching off the lights.

Vern sketched a brilliant picture of Garlic’s empty bed lying in moonlit shadow. He then scribbled the name GARLIC underneath the sketch and stuck the artwork to his footlocker.

‘Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold?’

Garlic was first in line for morning roll call. Looking showered and fresh, he wore a great beaming smile on his face and whistled Yankee Doodle loudly and repetitively. He nudged me in the ribs and said, ‘Hey, Spuddy, I think I just beat the system.’ Pike didn’t look overly thrilled to see Garlic at roll call and read his name out as ‘Vomit Face’. Garlic shouted ‘Sharks’ and resumed his whistling.

13:30 Boggo charged into lunch looking pale and breathless. He carried a large brown box that he thumped down at the foot of the table. ‘Oh, my God!’ he gasped, and downed a full glass of orange juice, refilled it and said, ‘You are never gonna believe it!’ He then floored his second glass of orange juice, which ended in a nasty coughing fit. Fatty handed Boggo a glass of water to help with the coughing attack. Boggo downed that viciously, too, cascading water all over himself in the process. Vern thought that Boggo was issuing a challenge and began glugging water out of the jug and succeeded in drenching half the table. Rambo had enough of all this downing madness and ordered Vern out of the dining hall before Norm Wade slapped us with a punishment. Vern grinned sheepishly and left the dining hall with a drenched shirt and staring guiltily at the floor.

Boggo immediately launched into a description of the absolute beauty of Mrs Bosch, wife of our Geography teacher and the new school stationery shop manager. ‘If Eve is a six and a half, then Bosch is an eight.’ This declared, he began discussing her beautiful long legs at great length. Boggo reckons Mrs Bosch was flirting with him outrageously and that it’s only a matter of time until another member of the Crazy Eight romps a teacher’s wife. ‘Slamdunk!’ barked Boggo with a snap of the fingers, coughing loudly again.

‘So what’s in the box?’ asked Rambo, who didn’t seem very impressed with Boggo’s story. Boggo looked at Rambo like he was an imbecile and said, ‘Stationery.’

‘Stationery?’ repeated Garlic in confusion.

‘So how much did you spend?’ questioned Rambo without seeming too interested in the reply.

Boggo huffed and puffed and said that he had needed to jack up his supplies what with his business booming and exams around the corner. He also said that there was a tidy special running on dictionaries and thesauruses.

‘How much, Greenstein?’ demanded Rambo.

Boggo paled slightly and said he’d spent more than eight months’ pocket money.

A great roar of laughter echoed around the table but Boggo stared proudly down at his tomato soup and waited for the mockery to subside.

‘Business lesson number one,’ said Boggo haughtily. ‘Spend big to score big!’ He then downed his tomato soup, grunted loudly as he lifted up his stationery box, and staggered out of the dining hall.

Assembly: The Glock was in his best mood in ages. This is probably due to the return of his wife from Austria after her broken back. Garlic said he saw her walking around the rose garden with a walking stick, although it must be remembered that Garlic has never seen the woman in his life before.

The Guv was absent from class today and Mr Lilly sat in for him. Lilly read out a short note from The Guv saying that he had recently contracted syphilis from a gypsy and that he would be on his death bed until Monday morning by which time we must have read the first ten chapters of
Rumours of Rain
.

He then wrote:

Poor Lilly blushed terribly while reading out The Guv’s letter, especially the bit about syphilis and the gypsy, and spent the entire lesson unsuccessfully attempting to reload his stapler.

11:00 The rugby trial lists were posted on the notice board. I was thrilled to see my name down as fullback for the fifths. Considering there are eight senior teams and that I’m not particularly good at rugby, this felt like quite an achievement. Rambo is down for the seconds while Vern and Garlic are in the eighth team. Trials begin tomorrow at 10am on Trafalgar.

I returned to the house to find Rambo sunning himself on the bench. He had rolled up the sleeves of his school shirt over his shoulders and appeared to be tanning his triceps. ‘What do you think?’ he asked me, still admiring the muscles in his arms. I congratulated him for making the second trial team and told him that I was fairly chuffed with making the fifths. Rambo grinned and said, ‘Then I take it you haven’t read the theatre notice board in the last hour?’

I was already running. Behind me I heard Rambo chuckling and an angry shout of ‘Hey!’ from Whiteside. But I couldn’t be stopped, and sprinted across the quad and down the cloister to where a large crowd of boys had gathered.

Viking gave me the hairdryer treatment in the quad outside his office. He accused me of ‘fouling up’ his audition list. In truth I had crossed my name out three times before finally settling on an audition time. I had initially booked 15:10 on Monday, the first day of the auditions, but then Rambo said I was basically committing suicide because by Friday afternoon Viking will barely remember that I even auditioned in the first place. I then opted for 16:40 on Friday afternoon, but then Boggo said this was a terrible blunder because by Friday, Viking will be so jaded after a week of auditioning that he won’t even give me a fair shot – even if I’m brilliant. After much thought I split the difference and settled for Wednesday afternoon, but then Fatty said that he’d heard a rumour that it was Viking’s birthday on Tuesday and that it might be one of the rare occasions when he doesn’t scream and shout and threaten people. I quickly scratched my name out once again and settled on Tuesday 17:00. Unfortunately, the net result is that I did make a bit of a mess of Viking’s audition list.

‘If such indecision continues to bedevil your acting career, you’re dead in the water, Milton!’ boomed Viking at the top of his voice. ‘In fact,’ he added, ‘I have a good mind to bar you from auditioning altogether.’ There was a loud guffaw from the house bench where Fatty and Boggo were sitting.

‘You have a problem, Greenstein?’ barked Viking, his green eyes glaring at Boggo.

‘No, sir,’ replied Boggo innocently.

‘Stand up when you speak to me, godammit!’ yelled Viking with clenched fists and teeth.

Boggo moved from a slouch to bolt upright and standing beside me in less than a second. He then tried to sweet talk Viking down from his rage by asking him if it was his birthday on Tuesday. Viking’s eyes narrowed, and then he spoke in an unnervingly quiet and vicious voice, ‘Do you think a man needs constant reminding that his fiftieth birthday is fast approaching?’ Then he bashed the new audition list to his door with a pounding fist and disappeared into his office.

Boggo whistled. ‘Jeez, talk about a midlife crisis.’ He sniggered and said, ‘All right, it’s official – anybody auditioning on Tuesday is DOA!’

I took a closer look at the new audition list with many names already printed.

Once again: