Читать книгу Fred's Amazing Holiday - Ian Higgins - Страница 5

It all begins on the day, when our teacher, Mr Brown, says he’ll give threepence to any one in the class who can find a word without a vowel. He spent a long time explaining, that every word in English has to have at least one a, e, i, o, or u.

I put up my hand first and call out, “I know! I know one!”

Mr Brown says, “Not you again!” pauses and adds, “What is your bright answer?”

I reply, “By”. Mr Brown says nothing. So I say, “Only got a ‘b’ and a ‘y’, Sir!, no a, e, i, o or u!”

“Sorry... Y is a sort of vowel. I forgot to say that. No threepence for you.’’

I say in a voice he can just hear, “That’s not fair.”

“In this room, I decide what’s fair. You be careful boy. You’re sailing too close to the wind.”

So I shut up: go into a daydream and remember. Earlier in the day I upset Mr. Brown, after he wrote on the blackboard, “1814: Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth discover a way over the Blue Mountains. Easy to remember. Just think “LBW... Leg Before Wicket. It’s cricket.” And I say, “Please Sir, it is 1813 not 1814 and I think maybe Aborigines showed them the way.” Mr Smith jerks around and says, “You’re right Jones... Just testing.”

Deep in my head, I know Mr Brown did get it wrong. I wonder why teachers tell lies, when they get something wrong. I think Mr Brown might be as big a fibber as me... He could just say, “Sorry, my mistake.” Better than the fake smile and, “Just testing.” And he says nothing about the Aborigines. Never hears what he does not want to hear. Just like what Mum says about me.

How could I forget Mr Brown’s carry on, this morning with me? I must be going loco. After I help him fix the date, he goes funny... says, “Jones from now on I’ll call you Mr IXL. Know why?” Sometimes best to say nothing. Mum says, “Say Naught.’’ I shake my head and look dumb.”

“Puzzled for once, Mr IXL? Well another Mr Jones manufactures IXL Jams. They are Export Quality. IXL means that I excel. You often act that way, Fred Jones.”

I go into a day dream about our IXL tin of Orange Marmalade. We keep it in our ice-chest. I love marmalade on toast, better than baked beans. Suddenly the voice crashes into my daydream, “Are you listening, Fred Jones?”

“No Sir! Oops, Yes Sir!” I feel like adding, “Three bags full, Sir”: but you got to be careful with Mr Brown sometimes... Doesn’t always like my jokes and helpful hints.

***************************************

The day drags on, boring, boring. Mr Brown gets onto good diet and where our food originally came from... He talks on and on about potatoes coming from Peru in South America, not Ireland like Paddy said. Then out of the blue Mr Brown says, “Hands up everybody who loves eating potatoes. They are so good for you.” I see Doug does not put up his hand; nor do I. So Mr Brown says to me, “Fred Jones, and what do you like to eat with your sausages at tea, eh?”

“Chokos Sir. We’ve got a vine that grows all over our tank stand and the dunny as well.”

“We are not interested in your tank stand, or dunny.” The class laughs at his joke. Then he says in a nasty voice, “Chokos are mostly water.”

“And you Doug, I suppose you like pumpkin!”

“You’re dead right, Sir.”

And Mr Brown is happy, real happy: gives Doug a proper smile and the lesson goes on to tomatoes from Mexico.

“What are tomatoes good for? Anybody?”

I know what tomatoes are really good for: but I am not saying anything this time. I’ll just think about that great afternoon, we had the tomato fight. That’ll help time to pass.

That day after school we go into Mr Klavocosky’s vege. garden, outside his fence, beside the railway embankment, for the best tomato fight ever: till Mr. K hears us and comes yelling at us, waving his rake, like he is a Don Quixote windmill. We run fast and get away

Later Mum is not happy with all the red stains on my shirt and shorts, even after we tried to hose them off. She is worse than Mr K then, even without a rake, or yelling. She uses that awful hard/soft voice, says she’s, “had enough” and, I am going to be, “the death of her.” All I say is “It was only a tomato fight. Nobody got hurt.” Then she gets onto the starving millions in China, once again. After the talking-to, from Mum, she shuts me in the bathroom till tea time. “So I will have time, to think about it.” Well I am still thinking about it. I’d love to go chucking tomatoes again. Tomatoes are better than chunks of watermelon rind that we throw at each other on the last day of the school year.

Now Mr Brown again, “Paying attention, Jones?”

“Yes Sir! Too right Sir! About tomatoes!”

He says, “I hope so.” Nothing more.

And now that Muriel with pig tails who sits right behind me, pokes me in the ribs, really hard with her steel ruler. I’ve had enough. So I turn around at her and do my kookaburra song right in her face.

Mr Brown is furious.

“Come out here Boy! Put out your left hand! Four cuts for you! I said your left hand not your right!”

“Sorry, Sir, but I am left-handed, and my Mum says I should get the cane on my right hand.”

“I told you before, and I will tell you again: we have heard enough of your blessed Mum for one day. We are not interested in what your Mum thinks”.

He grabs my left hand, yanks it out straight, Whack! Whack! Whack!... Gives me eight cuts across the finger tips. “Four extra cuts! For extra cheek! That’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget! Think about it!” All the time, I stare straight at Mr Brown’s face, right into his blue eyes. So Mr Brown can see I am not going to cry: no matter how hard he whacks.

“Go back to your seat, boy. And just for once, don’t say another word.”

So I don’t say a word but I do think about, “Four extra cuts for extra cheek.” Then I get it. Mr Brown listens to Little Mr Fourex, on 4BK on Friday nights, when Mr. Fourex in his squeaky little jockey voice, is giving his racing tips for the Saturday races at Eagle Farm or Doomben. On this radio program, the motto for Fourex Beer is, “For extra punch, for extra pep, Fourex beer is the logical step.” Dad drinks Fourex that comes in those big brown bottles, when playing cards with his friends on a Saturday arvo. He says, “Fourex is the best.” Grandpa says, “Bulimba beer is Best!”

At last! The lunch bell goes. Freedom at last!

***************************************

First thing after lunch, Mr Brown begins dictation ... I hate dictation. He looks up over his glasses, sees I am not writing, “Stand up, Fred! Just why aren’t you writing?”

Stupidly, I think this is a real question, “I told you, Sir! I am left-handed. Now my left hand doesn’t work right. So I can’t write!”

“Brought it on yourself. Why can’t you just learn to be normal, like everybody else in this class? Just learn to write like everybody else, with your right hand. Sit down, boy! Get writing with your right hand. That is the right one! Everybody in this class knows that, but you.’’

But I say, “Mum says, I must not be made to write with my right hand, because Aunty Muriel was born left-handed. The teachers made her do right handed writing and she stutters and Mum says that I must stay left handed no matter what.

“Really!” says Mr Brown, “Your Mum again and Aunt Muriel as well. We are not interested in what your Mum says or Aunt Muriel. You are at school now. You are in my class. You do what I say, or else”. Pauses, “Laddie, you are fast turning my class today into an episode of Yes Sir, No Sir. You are not on the radio. This is not funny.” The class laughs.

Mr Brown adds, “Sometimes I think I should call you Bluebottle.’’ The class laughs again.

I say quickly, “Didn’t know Bluebottle was left handed, Sir.”

That gets him! He goes really mad. “I have had enough of you Fred Clever Jones who can never stay still, or be quiet. You are just like what Miss Swan said about your mother, when she was here at school... You never stop talking, on and on and on; always got some smart remark, always interrupting. You waste my time. You waste the time of the whole class.”

I think. As if the other kids care.

“You’ve got a lot to learn. Just leave the room. Take all you books with you. Put them in your bag. And wipe that inane grin off your face. Then go and pick up any rubbish you see lying around in the school yard, till the last bell goes. Then get your bag and go home. Just keep out of my sight. I have had enough for one day.”

I know Mr Brown is not happy, but this punishment is better than the cuts, better than running messages for him. Off I go, quick as I can... almost a whole free afternoon out of his sight, not copying stuff off the board.

It’s great to be out in the fresh air. I hum songs, well the bits I know off by heart. “Life is great in the sunshine state.” The sun is bright. There are some big clouds, like bright white pop corn. The magpies are happy. I love the way they sing. Just wander around picking up bits of brown paper bags, squashed half-eaten sandwiches, watermelon peel, and other rubbish. I look at the puffy clouds, glimpse a brown and yellow butterfly, and see a big khaki grasshopper, which jumps. Wish I could jump like that grasshopper.

The bell goes at last. (Grab my bag...Get out of the school ground, faster than Flash Gordon.)

I am so happy. Got out of a whole afternoon of school, out of Mr Brown’s sight and best of all out of hearing boring words, no dictation, no long boring notes to copy off the board, about the dead Kings and dead Queens of Great Britain. Who cares about them, except boring Mr Arthur Mees?

I walk home full of songs, moving in step with myself, singing, “I had a good job for thirty five bob and I kicked the manager in the gob and I left, right, left.” And, “The Maggots walked down Pitt Street with their boots on...”

At teatime Mum says, “How did school go?”

“Alright”

“Alright is not good enough. And what’s wrong with your hand?”

So off I go and tell her the lot.

In the end she says, “Well, tomorrow, I’ll be off to see the Head Master and Mr Brown to give them a piece of my mind. As for Miss Swan, well she was my teacher. She knows I have always been a talker. She and I are friends, not like that Mr Brown.”

We eat our sliced Lady Finger bananas with sugar and fresh custard Mum made on the gas.

Mum starts again. “The Professor of Education at the University is an old friend of the family. Not long ago I had a chat with him about left-handers and you. He said it is no longer policy to change left-hand writers into right–hand writers. So I will have something nice to say to that Mr Brown tomorrow. Don’t you worry.”

Well actually I do worry. It won’t be nice. I do not need anything more to make Mr Brown pick on me.

“It’s alright Mum. I can look after myself. I will always stay left-handed. You don’t have to go to school. It’s okay.”

All Mum says is, “When I make up my mind...” (and finishes there).

Well, looks like Mum will be off to school tomorrow, but maybe I could have a holiday.

Gran walks in. for a cup of Bushel’s tea with Mum. Gran has her latest Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage. She’ll start reading that, once Mum gets back into her big book, The Timeless Land. Funny name but Mum likes it.

Mum says, “Best you go to your room and do your homework.”

So off I go but try to hear what they are saying. Lucky Mum has a penetrating voice. Gran is harder to hear. They are joking about the name of Mr Brown’s house “The Nest”” and that Mr Brown and Mrs Brown have no kids. “The bird can’t lay eggs.” says Mum. Gran says, “Maybe the rooster is a dud. You never know.”

Better give up listening. Might strain my ears. Better start to put my plan into action.