Читать книгу Birthday Boy - David Baddiel - Страница 17

When Sam got to his class, Mr Barrington, who was also his form teacher, said:

“Right! OK!”

He used his usual schoolmasterly tone, but then found himself saying – almost against his will, it seemed: it was like someone else was making him say it – something not very schoolmasterly.

“So. Right. Well … because it’s Sam’s birthday again today” – he glanced at Sam, who was sitting at the front of the class – “he is going to choose what subjects we do!”

“Really?” said Sam.

“Yes,” said Mr Barrington, although he looked as surprised as everyone else about it. “Ahem. I suppose. I seem to have said so now, anyway. So. What would you like? English? Maths? History? DT?”

Sam thought about it for a moment. He was beginning to realise something about the way this worked. Something powerful.

“Silly Words!” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Silly Words!” said Sam. “A lesson on which words and phrases are the silliest!”

A noise came up from the rest of the class. One that sounded like a combination of “Yes!”, “Definitely!”, “That sounds fun!” and “Let’s do that!”

Sam wasn’t sure where that idea had come from, although if he had to pin it down it was probably something to do with Grandpa Sam and his funny swearing.

“No, no. I meant … you know … the usual subjects …” said Mr Barrington.

Sam raised his eyebrows and said what he was now starting to realise were the magic words.

“But, sir: it’s my birthday.”

“Bottom!” said Morris. For the fifth time.

“I’ve told you, Morris, we’re not allowing rude words.”

“Bottom isn’t a rude word, Mr Barrington!” said Fred.

“Well, it can be …”

Mr Barrington held his magic marker up to the whiteboard. The way the lesson worked was this: members of 6B put their hands up, said a silly word and, if the general response was that the word was silly enough, Mr Barrington wrote it down on the board. In no particular order, although there was a sense that at the end of the lesson there would be a vote on the silliest. Word, that is.

So far, written up, were the words:

stickleback

portion

muckle

knickers (just got under the rude bar, apparently)

ballyhoo

stinky

nosehole

flappy

blubber

hodgepodge

shrub

“Lukas?” said Mr Barrington, in response to a hand going up.

“Fart?”

“Definitely rude,” said Mr Barrington. “Ellie?”

“Puddleduck?”

“Hmm. That’s a name.”

“Of a duck, sir.”

“Yes. But still. A name. A surname, in fact. Are we allowed proper nouns, Sam?”

“Sir,” said Sam, “it’s your lesson. I just suggested the topic …”

Mr Barrington considered for a moment. A part of him seemed pleased that, at least, in amongst all the silly wordage, there had been a moment of grammar.

“I think … not,” he said. “Any more for any more?”

“BOTTOM!”

“That’s it, Morris! Detention!”