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  Then Rambo pulled out two bottles of vodka and four litres of Sprite. Fatty pulled out two loaves of bread, cheese, tomatoes and a whole roast chicken. The feast was on! Unfortunately, Rambo said that we could only eat dinner after drinking five shots of vodka and smoking a cigarette. Simon told everyone to get stuffed and sulked in his tent. The rest of us shot back the vodka. It was like setting fire to your throat. Why would anyone drink it unless they were forced to?

  Vern downed a cup of neat vodka, lit his cigarette at the wrong end and then vomited on the fire. The smell of burning Vern vomit was awful and everyone ran for cover. In the commotion I made a break for the bushes and threw up in peace against the trunk of a tree. Only Mad Dog, Fatty and Rambo were able to reach dinner without throwing a cat.

  I was hoping that the release of the booze might mean that it wouldn’t affect me. However, I found it very difficult to stand up and everyone kept laughing at my voice, which was not only slurring but knackjumping badly as well. Vern passed out on Mad Dog’s veranda while Rambo led us on a raid on the Larson Losers who had set up camp near the dam. Fatty launched himself like a jumbo jet and managed to completely flatten two Larson tents in one fell swoop. The others sprinted away into the bush so Boggo pissed all over some poor guy’s sleeping bag and Fatty stole their food rations.

  19:00 A drunken debate broke out about how everyone was planning on getting back to school tomorrow. Fatty said he would rather commit suicide than walk the 26 kilometres back. It seems that Joseph has to drive to Pietermaritzburg tomorrow so he won’t be able to drive us around. Mad Dog told us that if we walked seven kilometres in a north-westerly direction we would find a tar road from where we should get a lift to school. Mad Dog then announced that we (him and I) would be walking back over the Seven Sisters (also known as the Seven Bitches). I didn’t argue in case Mad Dog slit my throat while I was sleeping.

  Friday 10th May

  05:10 Mad Dog shook me awake. I felt awful. My head was throbbing and I still felt groggy. I tried to puke again but nothing came out. I sat on the grass trying to convince my body to wake up while Mad Dog flattened the tent. It was still dark and the early morning mountain breeze made my teeth chatter. I desperately wanted to sleep some more and then get a lift back to school with a kind hearted farmer or a hot farmer’s wife. I was also terrified that Mad Dog would torture me again and murder more wildlife. I approached Mad Dog while he was cleaning his cooking equipment and told him I was feeling ill and that my left leg had gone lame. He pretended not to hear me and carried on with his cleaning. I repeated my speech again but Mad Dog walked away without even listening. I tried a third time and this time he just handed me my backpack and said, ‘Let’s hit the road.’

  In my sorry state I followed Mad Dog up a steep slope that never seemed to end. I couldn’t see where I was going but it felt like torture and I kept stopping to vomit but nothing came out. In that moment I made a solemn vow to myself:

  I WILL NEVER DRINK AGAIN!

  Thankfully, Mad Dog didn’t torture me today because he was too busy killing wildlife.

  MAD DOG’S MIDLANDS MASSACRE

  A purple crested loerie

  10 doves (which he had baited with bread)

  2 guineafowl

  3 blue-headed lizards

  1 stray cat (Mad Dog said it was a stray cat but he did shoot it within a hundred metres of a farmer’s yard. It also had a blue collar and a bell.)

  If Fatty’s theory about Karma is true then Mad Dog is in serious trouble with the man upstairs.

  We staggered into the school grounds (I was staggering, Mad Dog was still marching along) just in time for war cry practice.

  17:00 The first war cry practice of the year was pretty intense. Anderson got so fired up in his captaincy speech that he told us to not only destroy the Blacksmith College rugby teams but to ‘mangle their broken bodies and spit on their corpses’ as well. This seemed to go down well with the school because there was screeching and sounds of horror from the backbenchers (matrics who don’t play rugby). Pike showed his school spirit by hurling two of the Darryls off the top of the stands and then bleating like a sheep. Luthuli didn’t look impressed and didn’t swing his flag around with as much passion as he used to. After the practice I saw Luthuli having some serious words with Anderson behind the scrum machine.

  22:45 The rest of the Crazy Eight came stumbling into the dormitory like they’d spent a year in the desert. In actual fact they had been on an 80 kilometre round trip thanks to a deranged chicken farmer who drove them all the way to Mooi River. Fatty was so exhausted he collapsed onto his bed and asked Mad Dog to put him out of his misery. Mad Dog pulled out his knife and looked quite keen to oblige until Rambo had to explain that Fatty wasn’t being serious. Mad Dog looked a little disappointed and sheathed his knife before returning to sticking the loerie’s wings to the side of his footlocker.

  Saturday 11th May

  True to his word, Mongrel has dropped me from the under 15C rugby team. At first I was feeling hurt and embarrassed, but after watching the team lose 36-0 to Blacksmith, the sideline looked like a good place to be. Mongrel was so angry that he kicked over a rubbish bin and slapped Pig on the back of the head.

  Mental Note: Check into the san on Monday night.

  The first team won 12-5 but still didn’t look like the mean machine of last year.

  Tonight I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the Mermaid and am still wondering whether I should write to her after her birthday card. Simon reckons that if I write back to her she’ll cheat on me again one day. Rambo agrees and says that if I want to dominate a woman I need to learn to smack the dog.

  I thanked them for their help and made a mental note never to ask them for advice about girls again.

  Sunday 12th May

  I’ve been given bat by the choir!

  As I arrived in the vestry to get on my choir robes, Julian said he wanted to have a little chat. He walked me out into the rose garden and said that he wanted me to step down from the choir until my voice had settled. He said my voice had gone from ‘nightingale to toucan in just eleven days’. He then started getting weepy, so I said it was fine and went back to bed.

  PM Feeling depressed about being kicked out of the choir. I decided it was time to focus on my acting career and tomorrow’s house play auditions. I read The Glass Menagerie under the pine trees and spent the afternoon practising my American Deep South accent. I’m auditioning for the role of Tom.

  19:00 Wedged in between Vern and Mad Dog, I experienced chapel from the top of the gallery. Every time I mimed a hymn the Crazy Eight would snigger or poke me in the back and call me Milli Vanilli.

  Monday 13th May

  Runt is behaving weirdly. He keeps staring at me in a mesmerized kind of way. I caught him staring at my balls in the showers so I accused him of being a sicko and told him to get lost. Was very relieved to see that he obeyed me, although he didn’t at any stage look particularly frightened.

  There has been a house play mutiny! Julian is no longer directing and the play is now Noah’s Ark. I didn’t know the Bible story had been turned into a play? It was Pike who led the rebellion. He said there were only two roles for men in The Glass Menagerie and the play was three hours long. In the end Pike won the matric vote and Julian was kicked out. I asked Pike where I could get hold of a script for Noah’s Ark. Pike dropped his pants and showed me his backside. He then kicked the door of the common room open and disappeared inside.

  HOUSE PLAY AUDITIONS

  Seated in the prefects’ room (cop shop) was Anderson, Emberton, Death Breath, Pike and another matric from Barnes House whose nickname is Ricketts. (I recognized Ricketts – he’s big and strong and ugly and the first team tighthead prop.) Ricketts munched on a piece of Bovril toast and asked me if I was retarded. Pike then whispered to Ricketts, ‘This one’s the fag. The retard’s coming in next.’ Ricketts looked disappointed and shoved the rest of the toast in his mouth. Emberton, sensing a pause in con
versation, thrashed his sugar cane into one of the seats and told me to start. I asked him what he wanted me to perform. Pike looked at me like I was an idiot and said, ‘I don’t care, turdhole, just do something and then get out of my fucking face!’

  By the looks of things my stumbled Bible reading from Genesis didn’t impress the matrics one bit. After just three verses of my dramatized reading of Noah’s Ark, Pike told me to stop. Anderson then asked me if I did any animal impressions, so I did my dove call and they all laughed. Emberton thrashed his stick onto the chair and said, ‘Jeez, you’d think with a scholarship he could tell the difference between a bird and an animal!’

  Eventually Pike told me to moo like a cow. Unfortunately, my voice knackjumped, making me sound like a donkey instead. The seniors all fell about laughing and Ricketts told me to get lost before he vomited up his toast. I opened the cop shop door and then heard Pike calling, ‘Oh, Spud, before you leave…’ I darted back inside, hoping for some good news. Pike grinned at the others and then said, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ I closed the door on loud guffaws and mocking shouts. Standing outside was Vern, dressed in a very tight zebra outfit. He gave me a thumbs up and strode confidently into the cop shop.

  The laughter was deafening.

  Tuesday 14th May

  Boggo’s long awaited party is happening on Saturday. His girlfriend is going to pick us up from the old gates at 8pm and take us to the party which is at her parents’ cottage. We are all bunking out and hoping for the best.

  Rugby practice was sheer murder. The good news is that it looks like I will be playing flyhalf for the under 15Cs. This had less to do with my scintillating form than the fact that half of Saturday’s side didn’t pitch up for practice. I hope some of them turn up on Thursday or else we might have Vern playing on the right wing.

  I caught Runt watching me during dinner. I tried to ignore him but I lost my appetite and gave my pork chops to Fatty.

  Thursday 16th May

  The cast for Noah’s Ark was pinned to the house notice-board.

  NOAH Anderson

  GOD ALMIGHTY Devries

  NOAH’S MATES Emberton, Boggo, Death

  Breath

  BABOON Rambo

  THE FLOOD JR Ewing, Spike

  ARK ANCHOR Fatty

  GAY AUSTRALIAN SHEEP Simon

  DOVE OF PEACE Spud Milton

  THE THREE DARRYLS as themselves

  Underneath it said:

  Written by PIKE

  Directed by ANDERSON

  Prompt RAIN MAN

  Please report to the cop shop Sunday 19th/05 @ 20:30.

  From Oliver to the Dove of Peace! Worried I might be getting stereotyped as pure and innocent characters. Once my balls have dropped completely I’ll have to play a villain or a psychopath.

  Friday 17th May

  Fatty has been making a lot of noise all week about Friday the 13th, in spite of everyone telling him that it’s actually Friday the 17th. Still he reckons Macarthur’s going to appear and that there’s also a good chance of calling up Gecko’s ghost. Rambo ordered Fatty to prepare for a seance and called the gathering for 22:00.

  22:00 The seance was delayed because Roger pissed on Simon’s duvet while Fatty was trying to summon up spirits of the underworld. Mad Dog tried to catch Roger, but the wily animal jumped out Vern’s window and escaped down the drainpipe. Once Simon had changed his bedding Fatty began murmuring and humming to himself and shaking what sounded like a bag of marbles. Then Pike and Devries came in and made ghost noises and said we were childish. Pike let off a stink bomb that led to a mad scramble into the first years’ dorm. Fatty kicked JR Ewing out of his bed and set up for his seance once again. (Fatty still regards his old bed as rightfully his and frequently inspects his former headquarters.) Unfortunately one of the Darryls freaked out and thought we were devil worshipping. He burst into tears and kept repeating the Ten Commandments to himself. Fatty cancelled the seance and instead we followed Mad Dog out of the window and out onto the vestry roof.

  Mad Dog led us through the thick mist towards the dam. I ran up alongside him and asked him where he was leading us. He said, ‘This is going to blow your mind.’ He then stopped abruptly and held up his hand for complete silence. We all stopped in our tracks. In the fog it was difficult to make out the trees looming over us. Everything was creepy and lurking, like the dark spirits were following us along on our journey. Suddenly Mad Dog dived into the bushes beside the road. ‘Somebody’s coming,’ he hissed. We all followed him into the bushes sounding like a herd of stampeding buffalo running into a hedge. We crouched down, panting and shivering, and waited for something to appear.

  And then there was a very disturbing clinking sound coming from the direction of the dam. Out of the mist came a deformed creature that looked half human, half beast. It was hard to make out in the gloom but it looked suspiciously like a character of cloven hoof, limping his way to wreak havoc on the school. Then a long moaning howl rose out of nowhere and made my hair stand on end. Turned out the howl was coming from Roger who had just discovered the Crazy Eight and was announcing himself to Vern. Rain Man started calling to his cat but Mad Dog clamped his hand over Vern’s mouth and half his face. The cloven hoof figure stopped and slowly turned towards us. You could hear his heavy breathing like Darth Vader. Fatty lifted his huge silver crucifix high into the air in case the Satan creature attacked. But then the creature seemed to lose interest and limped on up the path towards the sanatorium before disappearing into the misty gloom.

  Once the creature was gone, there was a breathing out moment. Fatty turned to us and whispered, ‘I dare anyone to say to my face right now that we have not just seen the face of Satan himself. You see – what did I tell you? Friday the 13th, ous… bad shit always goes down on Friday the 13th!’ Vern started muttering the Lord’s prayer to himself but forgot the words halfway through. Boggo stood up and said, ‘Fatty, as always, you’ve cocked it up. Not only is it not Friday the 13th, but that wasn’t Satan, you tossbox. That was Morgan McMurtry from the laundry. He has a deformed leg and nasal problems.’

  Soon we all accepted that we had in fact just had a standoff with a cripple from the laundry and that we’d never mention this again.

  After thoroughly abusing Fatty, we followed Mad Dog on through the mist and after some serious bushwhacking we landed up at the foot of a big tree. It was the tree house Mad Dog had made during Adventure Club. Mad Dog disappeared up into its branches and soon there was a pale yellow light leading the way up the trunk. We held on to the ladder of nails that had been hammered into the treetrunk and one by one we made our way up to find the most amazing tree house I’ve ever seen! Mad Dog has done some serious work on it since last term’s Adventure Club lesson. The entire floor was covered with black rubber car mats. Under a canopy of leaves was a room big enough for all of us to sit in. Then there was a small veranda for two people that overlooked the forest. Mad Dog had bags of straw to use as seats and the walls and the frames were all slabs of wood tied together with rope and dry grass. Once we were all seated he said, ‘Welcome to the Mad House.’ He then looked embarrassed and kicked Vern for no reason. Mad Dog confessed that he had been working on the Mad House just about every day since the Adventure Club lesson and that all the wood, rope, building tools and car mats had been stolen from the school workshop and bus yard.

  Rambo reckons we should turn the Mad House into our own personal den – for use only by the Crazy Eight and to be kept in complete secrecy from every other living human being. Everyone was getting so excited about having our own private hideaway. It was like something out of Dead Poets’ Society except cooler and better disguised. Mad Dog said that the tree house was invisible from the ground and the only way we could ever be discovered was if we were followed or if somebody blabbed. Rambo made us shake on a vow of silence and then ordered us each to bring back a single item for the Mad House after the half term weekend. He then offered cigarettes around (nobody was allowed to refuse)
and we all officially christened the Mad House.

  And then Fatty started up with his ghost stories and we sat there smoking with the pale gloom of the moon about us and the pitch black forest below.

  Saturday 18th May

  The under 15C rugby team triumphed over Arlington 24-0. Vern scored two tries and surprised everyone by having a brilliant game. He’s developed his own technique of catching the ball and then screaming like a psychopath before charging straight at the opposition wing. Both times the opposition wing ran away in terror and Vern scored under the poles. Mongrel tried his best to look unimpressed by our performance but was secretly chuffed and certainly the most calm that he’s been all term.

  I sidled up to the opposition flyhalf after our game and shook his hand. I then asked him if somebody called Alexander Short was at his school. His eyes widened and he said Alexander Short left Arlington at the end of last term. Apparently his parents separated and he went to school in England where he’s living with his mother and grandparents. So it was ASS behind the shrubs after the aborted cricket match last term.

  Alexander Short Stay strikes again!

  In the end not a single side lost to Arlington. Just to rub it in, Mad Dog sprayed LOSERS on the back of their bus with Vern’s shaving cream. Unfortunately, the bus he sprayed belonged to our school’s wind band that was about to leave for a concert at Kings College.

  THE PARTY

  20:00 Boggo’s girlfriend was waiting for us at the old gates. She was much hotter than I expected. In fact it’s a complete miracle but she seems to really like Boggo.

  More good news is that the prefects and matrics have all gone to a big party in Pietermaritzburg. (In third year and matric you are allowed two weekends leave per term.) This means that the chances of getting bust are minimal. Boggo has already bribed the third years to cover for us at lights out by saying we are at a social at St Joan’s.