Spud - Learning to Fly (28 page)

6:00 Once again I was woken by shrill giggling and sniggering in the common room. Then I heard my door creak slightly before a dark brown eye appeared in the crack.

‘Do you want some tea, Spud?’ said Brenda.

I said thanks but my voice came out as a croak. She giggled and disappeared. I turned over and nearly fell asleep again but was then awoken by a sharper voice from the crack in the door. ‘Does Vern want tea?’ This time the eye in the crack was blue.

‘He doesn’t drink tea in the morning, he only has hot water,’ I replied. There was a pause before Penny shouted, ‘Does Vern want some hot water then?’

‘Yes,’ I croaked again.

‘Hey, keep it down!’ came Boggo’s anguished cry from next door followed by loud banging on the wall.

‘Sorry!’ hollered Penny in a shrill voice.

There was more groaning from the other room and then the sound of clinking coffee cups from the kitchen. Then I heard somebody getting out of bed and the door opened. ‘Hey, girls,’ said Rambo, ‘watch out – Boggo’s got a ruler in his pants again!’

There was a loud squeal from the kitchen and the girls tore out of the common room in fright.

‘All clear!’ Rambo called out, and the enormous figure shrouded in its white sheet followed by Boggo with three towels wrapped around his waist, tore out of the room for the bogs. Rambo grinned to himself and sauntered casually after them.

The girls returned eventually and made us our tea/ coffee/hot water. Fatty emerged from his room looking surprisingly fresh and clean. Penny passed him his coffee and then pulled a bundle of choc chip cookies out of her bag. The bundle had been carefully tied with a pink ribbon with a small heart stuck to the end. ‘Um … Fatty …’ Penny began to blush. Pink at first and then scarlet. ‘I made these in Home Ec yesterday. I thought you might want them.’ Fatty’s eyes glazed over as he stared at the cookies. He then looked up at Penny with a look of such love that I nearly became emotional.

‘Thanks,’ said Fatty as he gently took the cookies from her.

‘Hope you don’t think they’re gross,’ said Penny, twisting uncomfortably on her feet.

‘They look delicious,’ said Fatty, feverishly working away at the knot of the pink bow. He pulled open the bundle and then carefully slid a biscuit into his mouth. After three chews he closed his eyes and groaned with joy.

‘You’re an actor. How do I know I can believe you?’ said Penny, acting coy and flirty. Fatty didn’t answer. Instead he shoved two cookies into his mouth at once and collapsed into a chair to focus on his munching.

‘He really does like them,’ Penny said in amazement and beamed at Brenda who gave her an excited thumbs up. Fatty didn’t utter a word until he had eaten every cookie in the bundle. Then he rose up from his armchair and informed Penny that they were the finest choc chip cookies in the world. Penny blushed again and twisted some more on her feet. Then Fatty began blushing as the rest of us dissolved into loud mockery and cruel jibes that sent the girls racing out the room again and shouting for us to follow.

Fatty marched ahead at a breakneck pace. Not sure if he was still hungry or whether he was trying to catch up to the blonde cookie maker skipping along in front of him.

15:30 ‘It’s bullshit,’ whined Boggo as he prodded the teabag floating in his mug. ‘They said this place was meant to be like Sodom and Gomorrah, with orgies kicking off left, right, and centre.’ He flung his teabag into the bin and called Wrexham a disgrace.

Fatty grunted in agreement and slowly ate his way through another bundle of Penny’s choc chip cookies.

‘I mean …’ continued Boggo, after furiously stirring his tea and making it slosh over the sides of the mug, ‘besides classes and rehearsals and meals, we never even get to talk to a chick!’

‘Shocking,’ agreed Fatty and fed himself another cookie.

‘And it’s not like we can socialise and spade during classes and rehearsals either,’ responded Boggo.

‘Mr Owen will get you every time,’ said Fatty with a mouth full of biscuit and a sympathetic nod.

‘Exactly,’ snapped Boggo. ‘This place is like a prison. And the only girls we ever talk to are Penny and Brenda who were like still wearing nappies last year.’

Fatty didn’t answer and instead pretended to be consumed with dunking his cookie.

‘What do you think, Spud?’ asked Boggo suddenly.

‘Dog show,’ I replied and shook my head gravely. This seemed to satisfy Boggo and he nodded back at me respectfully.

‘You see – Spud knows his shit. This is classic apartheid divide and conquer tactics!’ He then took a giant swig of tea and said, ‘My oath to God.’ He took another sip and said, ‘It’s sexist.’ Boggo switched the kettle on again and said, ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, having unlimited tea is pretty cool, and Penny and Brenda are fairly efficient.’

Fatty nodded again in agreement. ‘The hottest slaves I’ve ever seen.’

Boggo paused in opening a new milk carton, and then spun around accusingly at Fatty. ‘What do you mean they’re hot?’

Fatty blushed and quickly tried to counter. ‘No, no, no, I didn’t say they were hot … But I like meant they were hotter than, say, other slaves … like Plump Graham and Rowdy and …’

‘You shouldn’t be looking at the Fragile Five in that way, buddy. It’s not normal,’ said Boggo and clicked his tongue as if deeply disappointed.

Poor Fatty tried to justify himself but with every word he said, he buried himself deeper in the manure.

‘So what you’re basically saying,’ said Boggo in conclusion, ‘is that Penny is hotter than Meg Ryan’s Son, who is hotter than Rowdy, who is hotter than Plump Graham?’

‘Does Meg Ryan’s son go to your school?’ asked Brenda in amazement.

Fatty lurched out of his chair, a look of horror on his face.

‘Don’t you knock?’ enquired Boggo and looked distastefully at Brenda. ‘You can’t just sneak in. We could be planning something.’

‘What are you planning?’ asked Brenda.

‘We’re planning something big,’ said Boggo seriously.

‘Really?’ said Brenda with wide eyes.

‘But it’s going to take a few sacks of cookies for me to open up.’

Brenda giggled and then stared fiercely into my face. ‘You’ve got a phone call, Spud,’ she said. ‘It sounds like a girl who’s really upset!’

‘A girl?’ I replied in some shock.

‘Well, it sounded like a girl,’ said Brenda. ‘But it might have been a boy with a high voice.’

‘Hang on, hang on,’ said Boggo sipping frantically away at his third cup of tea in twenty minutes. ‘Did this girl ask to speak to Spud, or Spud, Vern or Fatty?’

Brenda stared guiltily back at Boggo and then nodded her head.

‘Then, Brenda,’ said Boggo in a scornful tone, ‘that girl you spoke to on the phone wasn’t a girl but a garlic.’

With that Boggo shouted, ‘Follow me, gentlemen, it’s time for the daily Garlic wind-up.’ He slammed down his tea mug and ran from the room on his long, pale, furry legs.

‘Hey, Brenda,’ said Fatty in a low voice once Boggo was gone. ‘Where’s Penny?’

Brenda looked him directly in the eyes and said, ‘Her duties have been moved to another house. She can’t come back any more.’

‘What?’ gasped Fatty, his face falling.

‘JOKES!’ shouted Brenda. ‘She’s at hockey practice, you dork! She’s coming to get you for supper and she told me to tell you that she’s bringing a surprise.’

Brenda turned and marched out with a triumphant look on her face. Fatty heaved a great shuddery sigh of relief and then a naughty smile spread across his face. He looked at me and seemed to be on the verge of saying something. Instead he slapped me on the back and said, ‘Come on, Spuddy, let’s go wind up Garlic.’

After a weekend of non-stop rehearsing with The Guv in the library I feel ready to perform in front of an audience, even if that audience is only the rest of the cast. The mechanicals’ scenes, thanks to The Guv’s direction, are becoming sharp and pacy. With The Guv’s Bottom leading the way with a brilliant comic performance, we just follow and everything seems to fall into place. The only negatives are that Vern is still prone to slipping back into gibberish Zulu and loud clicks. I can’t see what his Lion looks like because in the play the Lion is chasing me and I have to run around as Thisby screaming like a girl. Judging by the laughter, we’re doing okay. The Guv has calmed down to his usual self and the only time he behaves in an odd manner is when Mr Owen is around. There is, however, one serious problem – Boggo seems incapable of remembering his lines. He plays the part of Peter Quince who is the leader of the mechanicals and has been entrusted with directing the play within the play for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess and the Athenian lovers.

I’m not sure if it’s stage fright, or his general unhappiness with Wrexham, but he hasn’t got it right once in rehearsal and yet when we practise in the common room, he never gets a word wrong. Boggo denies he’s got stage fright and has blamed his various blunders on:

Shakespeare

Vern distracting him with sudden movements

Hayfever from the dust on the library books

Being temporarily blinded by the neon lights

The library floor is uneven

My high-pitched Thisby voice making him laugh and putting him off

Fatty’s silent farting that only Boggo could smell

The noise outside the library

The lack of a director

Rehearsing in the library

A pigeon roosting in the eaves

I’ve been wondering why girls are always opening letters and packages at breakfast. This morning I solved the mystery. At Wrexham your daily post is delivered directly to your table setting … and there it was: my first post – also the first out of all the boys.

The square cardboard box was covered in shiny red paper, and had already created a stir around our section of the dining hall. I couldn’t help but notice traces of butter on the inside fold of the wrapping paper where Boggo had tried to molest my package with his knife. The surrounding tables of girls were also watching me with great interest as I sat down casually with my French toast and freshly squeezed orange juice.

‘What are you waiting for – open it,’ demanded Boggo in a desperate voice.

‘It must be from a chick!’ said Fatty as he licked globs of peanut butter off the ends of his fingers. Rambo snorted and pretended that he wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in my mystery package.