Spud (26 page)

Viking strode onto the stage and told us it was appalling.

During the lunch break Amanda sat alone on the grass outside reading a book called Waiting for the Barbarians. I couldn’t see who the author was. Amanda has a definite DO NOT DISTURB aura about her. I munched on my apple and gazed at her from behind the fountain. Geoff Lawson sauntered up to her and tried to chat but she kept reading and nodded to him while he was crapping on about some boring old anecdote. Eventually, he gave up and came and sat with me behind the fountain. Together we spent the rest of the lunch break watching her read. I think she’s more beautiful than life itself.

20:00   African Affairs focused on Mandela. Lennox began by reading the statement that Mandela had read at his treason trial in 1963. We then watched a documentary on the great man and debated his future. It was agreed that, barring assassination, Mandela would be South Africa’s first black president. What nobody was prepared to predict was exactly when he would achieve this and what would follow thereafter. When the issue was thrown open to the floor I pretended to have a mouthful of scone and passed over to somebody called Gerald who then made a complete arse of himself by saying that apartheid wasn’t as bad a thing as everyone made out.

Linton Austin said that thus far Mandela has shown no sign of rage or anger (a bit strange after being locked up for twenty-six years!). Lennox expressed concern at the escalation in violence between Buthelezi’s IFP and the ANC. Luthuli reckoned there was every chance of a black-on-black civil war. Lennox shook his head and scratched his reddy beard and shook his head some more. I left the meeting full of worry and fear. Would I have to fight in a civil war? Who would I fight for? Judging by what is said, Mandela has more street cred than Buthelezi and you can at least understand what
he’s saying in his speeches.

21:00   I strolled back to the dorm full of worries and questions about our country. But most of all I was stung by the image of a girl in a black coat and hat who, five hours before, had flashed me just the slightest hint of a smile before strolling across the quad and disappearing onto the bus.

I awoke thirty minutes before the siren, wracked with bone-mangling guilt over the Mermaid. I spent geography writing her a letter, telling her news and letting her know that I can’t wait to see her over the long weekend.

The Guv didn’t touch a drop of booze at lunch. I asked him about Waiting for the Barbarians. He said it was a splendid South African novel written by JM Coetzee. He pulled the book from his shelf and handed it to me. The Guv seemed much happier about life in general and didn’t mention his wife once. He reckons the play’s going to be brilliant and that if I didn’t shag at least three girls over the next three months I should consider myself a closet homo. I laughed despite my embarrassment – still no sign of becoming a man. I was hoping my birthday scrub down would have kicked my lunchbox into action.

I cornered Geoff Lawson on the way back from the laundry. We took a detour over the cricket fields. I pretended to be interested in whether he scored the gold-digging brunette (which he hadn’t) and casually tried to slime his great-grandfather into the conversation.

Like the day at his farm, he didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about his family and turned the conversation back to rugby. After rabbiting on for a while, I threw caution to the wind and asked him directly about his great-grandfather. Without batting an eyelid he said his
great-grandfather died in the War. He didn’t seem to be lying.

So it seems that Geoff’s parents have been keeping him in the dark. Yet another sinister twist to the Macarthur mystery.

18:00   It takes a certain kind of person to get excited over baked beans for dinner, but for Fatty these beans are a passport to setting a new school farting record. (According to Fatty, the unofficial record of twenty-four seconds was set by a guy called Alf Thompson in 1981.) Fatty wolfed down six bowls filled with baked beans and then declared himself ‘carbo-loaded’.

His first major test was to hold himself back until after lights out. He seemed a bit worried about getting more finger-tongs from Bert if he let one go by mistake during prep.

By the third session of prep Fatty was straining to contain himself. He was terribly bloated and his cheeks seemed puffier than ever. Miraculously, he held himself together and announced that the record fart would be let off at 22:00 in the comfort of his own cubicle.

21:55   The Crazy Eight, plus cat, gathered around Fatty’s cubicle. Both Simon and Rambo held their stopwatches at the ready. Fatty was perched on about four cushions looking like some sort of grotesque buddha. After a few minutes of excited chatter Fatty silenced the crowd and said he was aiming for the thirty-second barrier, and that he was dedicating his fart to the memory of Macarthur. He then seemed to concentrate incredibly hard, lifted his giant backside slightly and breathed deeply. There were two beeps from the stopwatches. At first there was a low rumbling groan, like a big dog moaning in pain. The groan grew into a loud rumble. The loud rumble grew into something terrible.

Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two… And on it went, only to be believed if heard. Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Fatty’s face turned purple. He lifted his bum even higher. Simon and Boggo raised the stopwatches, ready for the end. And then BEEP BEEP A new school farting record of thirty-three seconds! Fatty was ecstatic.

I leaned forward to shake his hand but leapt back at the rancid smell. Suddenly there was a mad rush to open windows. Eight tins of deodorant were let loose on the atmosphere, but still the awful smell of Fatty’s fart seeped into every nook and cranny of our living space, as it would for most of the night and probably the following week. Gecko vomited out the window and I nearly followed.

Fatty was delighted with his performance and demanded that I write a full account in my diary. The above account was posted (with my permission) on the noticeboard and serves as an official record to a legendary moment in the school’s history.

Still feeling guilty about Julia Roberts – I had a dream about her last night (Amanda, that is, not the Hollywood actress). To ease my guilt I called the Mermaid and chatted for about ten minutes. I didn’t know whether to bring up the depression thing or not, so I opted for the easy route and told her the highlights of Fatty’s extraordinary farting performance instead. Surprisingly, she wasn’t that interested and seemed a bit distracted so I said I would see her soon and then hung up.

14:30   The grand rematch between the under 14Ds and the lowly Es proved more embarrassing than last week’s grand title bout. This time we lost 32-12 (and they had only fourteen players, one of whom was Vern). Mr Lilly said he was in a hurry to get to his etching class
and left abruptly after the match. (I think it’s fair to say that the coach has at last jumped the sinking ship.)

Simon and Rambo waited until Julian had gone to dinner and then conducted a thorough search of his room. Simon is Julian’s slave, so there was no real risk of being caught out. Much to their dismay, they didn’t find the missing underpants, but they did manage to come up with two pairs of women’s panties, a pair of lacy stockings and a bicycle pump! (A bit strange since Julian doesn’t own a bicycle.)

22:15   Lay awake watching Vern having a conversation with his towel. At one stage the towel must have said something funny because he burst into fits of moggy laughter. Even Roger thought it was a bit weird and jumped onto my bed until the madness passed.

23:00   In addition to the usual candles, Fatty now had four mirrors planted around his cubicle for what he called ‘an enhanced visual effect’. We all approached the scene with some hesitation – even Roger hung back (perhaps sensing the presence of the supernatural). The windows and doors were ordered closed (a pity since Fatty’s school record still lingered strongly). We gathered around the big man’s cubicle in respectful silence. Fatty produced two shiny glass balls which he rolled around in his hands. He then placed his forefinger to his lips to indicate absolute silence and began kneading them around in his hands. He let out a low hum as if meditating and closed his eyes. Mad Dog had to wrap his hands around his mouth to keep from laughing and Boggo smirked and shook his head like he thought Fatty was bonkers.

Suddenly Roger sprang onto Fatty’s locker, his fur standing bolt upright and his eyes wide like blazing
comets. He was staring savagely at the dormitory wall on the chapel side and then he let out a terrible moan. Vern instinctively reached out for his cat but Rambo stopped him. There was a bang and we all jumped as Simon’s cricket bat fell to the floor. Then one of the candles sizzled and burnt out.

I squeezed my legs together to stop myself wetting my pants.

As quickly as it began, the moment was over. As if by magic, the strange energy of the room disappeared and Roger set about grooming himself as if nothing had happened.

A raging debate flared up between the believers (Fatty, Simon, Gecko and Vern) and the non-believers (Boggo and Rambo). Mad Dog and I were on the fence. For the believers, what had just occurred was the ultimate proof that the ghost of Macarthur had just visited the Crazy Eight. The non-believers said that the cricket bat, which was leaning against the locker, had simply fallen, the candle had burned out and Roger was deranged and neurotic. To prove their point, Rambo tried to relight the candle and couldn’t, and Roger spent the next ten minutes pouncing on and trying to eat his own tail.

As always in these Crazy Eight debates nothing was ever resolved. If I had to choose, I think I would side with the believers. In my view the likelihood of these three incidents occurring over a few seconds seemed a bit more than a coincidence. Also the look on Roger’s face and the way his fur stood on end certainly wasn’t natural. True or false, ghost or no ghost, interest in Macarthur has never been so intense. A truce was eventually called and we all went to bed – although I doubt anyone slept.

Mad Dog found a dead cat while out hunting guineafowl.
He reckoned it was killed by a dog or a jackal. Just after prep he strung the carcass up above Vern’s bed and we waited for Vern to return from the bogs.

Unfortunately, the gag didn’t exactly work out as planned. When Vern saw the hanging cat he freaked out and had some sort of epileptic fit, no doubt thinking that Roger had been assassinated. Then Bert stormed in, seized Vern, and tried to hold him upside down to prevent him from swallowing his tongue but succeeded only in dropping Vern on his head. With a thunk Vern crashed onto the concrete floor which knocked him out cold. Julian ran in, saw Vern and the cat, screamed and fainted. Gecko charged into the dormitory, took one look at the swinging cat, turned pea green and galloped towards the window. He didn’t make it and vomited on Mad Dog’s bed. Mad Dog then charged after poor Gecko with his hunting and filleting knife, only to be stopped by Sparerib, who blew a fuse and gave Mad Dog a week of hard labour. Ho hum. Another day in the life of the Crazy Eight.

09:00   Speech and drama. Eve dressed Rambo up in a Shakesperian actor’s costume and insisted on him wearing a gigantic codpiece. (Like a cricket ball box but bigger and stiffer!) She kept fiddling with Rambo’s pants and adjusting his codpiece, much to the delight of the snickering class. For the first time this year Rambo blushed a bright crimson.

Long weekend

Sat next to a second year boy called Morgan Govender on the bus down to Durban. He told me he was leaving the school because his parents are emigrating to England before the revolution begins. I told him Mandela would
see us right – he just laughed and invited me to his house for curry.

Mom picked me up in the station wagon, which looked like it had been sat on by an elephant. She told me the handbrake had failed and the old goat had roared down the driveway and crashed into the old acacia tree at the bottom of the garden. Dad is beside himself as he’s just had the car souped up. Apparently, the tree got away unscathed.

17:00   Visited the Mermaid. I found her lying in bed, dressed in her pyjamas, staring vacantly out of the window. She looked awful. In fact it took me a while to recognise her. She was horribly thin and wickedly pale. Her eyes were sunken into her head and they were badly bloodshot. There were dark rings around her eyes and her lips were pale blue in colour.

I kissed her gently on the cheek and then she began to sob and sob… and sob. She was like a frail old woman dying of some horrendous disease. Where was the beautiful girl of my daydreams? Where was the firefly that lit up my world? She was gone. My Mermaid was gone.

I sat on her bed, holding her sweaty hands, and told her every story I could think of. Gone was the giggling beauty of before – now she could only frown or nod at my stories (even the funny ones). She refused to talk about herself, except to say she was fine. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was anything but fine. It looked to me that there was something terribly wrong with her.

After what seemed like ages Marge came in and said it was time for me to go. She kissed her daughter and so did I. The Mermaid started sobbing again as we left. Marge shook her head sadly and told me that she’d hoped I might spark some life into her. Marge drove me home and thanked me again for trying. I smiled
and thanked her for the lift but we were both feeling sad and disappointed because my visit hadn’t made any difference to the Mermaid. I walked slowly up the driveway wishing that I had witnessed the unmanned station wagon tearing down the driveway on its date with the acacia tree. Now that would have been something!

09:00   I took a stroll down to the shopping centre to browse around and find a present for the Mermaid. I finally decided on a light prism that reflected all the colours of the rainbow. (It certainly wouldn’t rate as a useful present, but might make her feel better just to look at it.) I strolled back towards the entrance and stopped dead in my tracks. I could feel the blood draining from my face; my tongue lolled about uselessly in my mouth. Once I had recovered the use of my limbs, I bolted into a nearby biltong shop. From my hideaway I peered around the door just to check that my eyes weren’t deceiving me – unfortunately, they weren’t.