81 The Second Year

Richard Kimble finally caught up with the one armed man and proved his innocence in The Fugitive. In some ways I was sorry. I’d miss seeing him get away by the skin of his teeth every week. Even when he escaped by swimming a river, he’d still have the same jacket and briefcase in the next episode.

“Another town another place, same old jacket, same old case. Some things never change for a fugitive.”

Back to school…

It always amazed me to see how some kids changed over the holidays. Some were noticeably taller, others noticeably broader. Some just looked different, though I couldn’t see why.

The new first years looked tiny compared to us. If they were nervous, I knew how they felt. Their worries were mine a year before, but we were the big kids in the lower school playground now and no longer apprehensive.

Break time: No more school milk. The government had scrapped it.

Laughter from Stanley Slaughter... fresh from a school trip to somewhere in Europe, he told a tale that had my eyes popping. An unnamed girl, low on holiday funds, had come to the boys’ room with a proposition or, as Stan put it ‘put a tanner each in the kitty and I’ll show you my tits.’

‘And?’

‘Well we did… and she did!’

More laughter from Stan and laughter from me, though mine was tinged with envy. I’d never been on one of those trips and never wanted to either, until then. How I wished I’d been on that one.

Catholics at Upbury Manor didn’t do regular R.E. For the duration of those lessons we were given a questionnaire, based on that week’s Mass sheet, to complete in the canteen. An exercise in holy time wasting I rattled it off quickly then twiddled my thumbs, and when the period was over I rejoined my class. As often as not I’d find them lined up outside a classroom, where my appearance on the corridor prompted jeers and cries of Roman Candle from the usual suspects. Roman Spastic always got a laugh, too. Besides being indicative of a more aggressive, bolder year, the insult was reflective of the times.

Stanley Slaughter, joker in the pack, couldn’t go anywhere without laughing at something or someone. Stan was his usual boisterous self on the bus home after school. Occupying a space on one of the three-seaters at the rear, he was in good form and as always, attracting attention. Facing him was Diane Wright, an Upbury senior. Though I didn’t know her that well, I knew her well enough to say hello and so I should, as she lived next door to me on Crundale Road. Hard as she tried to ignore Stan and mind her own business, Diane couldn’t avoid looking through her thick chunky glasses at the buck toothed loudmouth sitting opposite.

‘What are you staring at, Windows?

I shouldn’t have burst out laughing, I know I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help it. Sorry, Diane.