» School Days

Shorts and Piss Trough Outrage

In my days a stripling, while toiling away within the walls of the local C of E, I reckon I served under the banner pretty faithfully, my conduct and bearing being (on the whole) rather becoming of the better self. There was one notable occasion when I let the code slip however, and it remains particularly green in the memory.

It began one afternoon when I took a break from the customary playtime spazaround to take on water at the fountain in the boys’ toilets-cum-changing rooms, and found myself alone in there except for a forgotten pair of sports shorts hanging on a peg. Not a set-up that readily speaks of mischief I grant you, but it was enough to wake the sleeping fiend in me.

Unhooking these shorts, setting them afloat in the flowing urinal and pissing all over them for good measure was with me the work of a moment, and for a few seconds I was lost in a heady fog of my own naughtiness, face-a-glow and eyes-a-sparkle with impish delight. But these intoxicating mists soon cleared and I was left with a nasty feeling that what I’d done was perhaps a bit too French, and that unless prompt steps were taken through the proper channels, I’d be in the soup.

The only sensible thing I could think of was to find a teacher and start lying my head off, so this is exactly what I did, swiftly making a report of an ‘innocent discovery’ of the shorts-and-piss-trough outrage, and colouring the performance with a nice touch of moral indignation and offended sensibility.

The Headmaster took it big, and after narrowing the suspects down to the male half of my class (I forget how exactly), left us not uncertain of his displeasure, insisting through foam-flecked lips that we would stay in every break until someone owned up.

I decided to sit tight, especially as nobody suspected me, a fact that has never ceased to amaze. I mean it’s the old, old story isn’t it – he who smelt it dealt it and all that? But no, it seemed as though I was to be written out of this drama at the end of act one, which was fine with me. It meant the road to safety lay ahead – and if all they had to throw at me was a bit of silent detention – I was already tootling along it.

But nasty news was in the offing. The following day the Headmaster announced that we could forget Friday afternoon football if the culprit failed to come forward and I don’t mind admitting that this bulletin had much the same world-altering effect on me as an unexpected kick in the stomach from a seaside donkey. Believe me when I tell you I know. Things went black and sort of swam before me. Football, you see, was my thing, and I wouldn’t have missed it to please a dying relative. With an awful feeling of being caught in the machinery I now realised that I was the only person who could own up, and that if I didn’t, the ban would rumble on.

I didn’t much fancy revealing myself as the fiend in human shape whose hidden hand had caused all this break time captivity, and naturally recoiled from thoughts of all the askance looks and cold shoulders my fellow inmates would soon be hurling my way, but I had to put this out of mind. Now was the time to gird the loins, remember my fighting ancestors and let the preux chevalier in me prevail. It was time to confess.

It was nothing like I had imagined. No gnashing teeth. No frothing at the mouth. Not even a tapping foot or censorious finger waggle. And in place of the expected ‘shove him into a dungeon with dripping walls and see to it that he is well gnawed by rats’ was just a sotto ‘thank you’, so mild it even gave me the fortitude to ask if l could play football that afternoon (it was Friday by now). He said I could. Clouds parted, birds chirped, the sun shone and I revived like a watered flower, feeling never so strongly that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.

Although I kept the details dark, I quickly ferried news about the lifting of the ban around the place, so was surprised that afternoon to find both changing room and pitch conspicuously empty of classmates (I wasn’t alone – there were three other classes that took football alongside mine). This left me a little mystified, but I’d had it straight from the Head that we could play, so just shrugged the shoulders and got on with it, scoring (if memory serves) a juicy hat trick into the bargain.

I would later discover that the absentees were still chained up in the classroom, copying out passages from the bible. The Head, wise to my enthusiasm for the beautiful game, didn’t buy a word of my confession and even thought it partially motivated by a desire to make a noble sacrifice in the interests of the greater good; subjecting his prisoners, so I heard, to some lengthy twitterings about how I was made of the right stuff and set a fine example each of them would do well to follow.

They had to pick litter up every break time for a term. I was made captain of the football team.

I think that’s what they call a result.
(Mon 2nd Feb 2009, 12:44, More)