The Boy Who Was Afraid of Butterflies - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 11+

A year later I get a shock of a different kind. Since my seventh year I have been attending the local Junior School, barely a stone’s throw from the terraced house where I live with my parents and younger sister, Jill. Every year, at report time, I wait impatiently to see the outcome of my rivalry for academic honours, played out against the local chemist’s son. Last September I reaped my due reward and was made ‘Head Boy’, an honorary title that requires little of me, but confers status among my teachers and the other parents and scant respect from my peers. Like my classmates I have taken the 11+ exam in the winter - and I’m now awaiting the results. The grown-ups have no doubts and assume I shall be attending the Grammar School in the autumn. I wish I had their confidence and I’m getting very nervous as Easter draws near and there is still no word from officialdom.

Then, two days before we break up for the Easter holiday, the blow strikes. Boys nearing their eleventh birthday will be transferring at once to the local Secondary Modern School in West Molesey, irrespective of any impending exam results. This scenario had not occurred to me; I was totally unprepared for it. Gone was my comfortable world where I was the centre of attention and affection. Lost is the security of values imbued by the Headmaster of the Junior School, the continuity of which I anticipated at the Surbiton County Grammar School for Boys, where my father, twenty five years ago, had been a pupil.

The Secondary School, within a week, had born out all my worst nightmares. My will to please, my scholastic competence, my niceness, are veritable vices in the topsy-turvy chaos, where only an ability to excel at sport or a talent for telling the crudest of lavatory jokes and ditties are accorded any respect by either pupils or teachers. It is the failure of the school’s establishment to uphold any standards that I recognise, that unnerve me most of all. I am not used to being sneered at by a teacher, because I am the only boy who actually bothered to do the homework that had been haphazardly set for the class. I am adrift in a world where no tests are given, no work is marked or corrected, no-one seems to care whether I learn anything or not. Sport is sprinting and throwing, weightlifting and boxing - things I cannot do well. No-one can be bothered with long distance running where I might have a chance. Because I cannot do the so-called basics, no-one has even let me try to get into the cricket team, the one sport about which I am enthusiastic, and spend hours practising, alone, bowling a tennis ball up the garden path against our own back door.

One hot May morning our class has been planting potatoes in the school garden under our classroom wall. We are meant to be learning about horticulture, but augmenting the school dinner budget seems to be top priority. Faced with the low degree of skill infusion required in his charges, Edwards, the florid educationalist who doubles up as maths tutor when the regulars have had enough, has retreated to the shade of the staff room - for a tipple, according to the form ‘know-all’. About five minutes before the lesson is due to end, he reappears and leans against the wall, flushed and bad-tempered. One of the older lads - who seems huge to me, but can’t be more than twelve at most - thrusts his spade in the earth, and resting an elbow on it, swears insolently at the teacher. When Edwards lurches forward, the boy continues to goad him, until the man’s face contorts in purple anger and he rams his fist deep into the boy’s abdomen. The boy drops like a stone in surprise, then hauls himself up swearing under his breath as the man steps back awkwardly, confused. The boy steps forward, malice twisting his face, and stamps with all his might on the man’s outsize shoe. The whole class is now agog, watching open-mouthed in a semi-circle. Edwards, after grunting involuntarily as his foot is injured, makes as if to retaliate, then turns abruptly and stomps away from the scene. Nothing more is ever heard of this incident.

A few days later we have been outside practising athletics, ready for the Sports Day that is the only annual event at which parental interest is encouraged. At the end of the afternoon, we all troop back to the changing rooms and strip off our vests and shorts, make hurly burly for the showers, shouting ribaldry at each other. I’m shy and I do not want to expose myself, and I hesitate and hang back but the games master follows us in - apparently he always stands there gawping at us until we turn the showers off, while some of the boys show off lewdly to him. He tells me in no uncertain terms to stop messing about and get into the shower. My timid entrance into the wet-tiled area is noticed by a gang of twelve year olds who immediately taunt me about my weedy physique, then pinion my arms behind my back and laugh at my body hairlessness. Twisting out of their grip, I turn my back on them and step cautiously under the shower, making sure to keep my head out of the water, letting the spray spatter about my shoulders.

“I say, Maidment doesn’t want to get his hair wet!” rings a chorus from a couple of the boys who have been tormenting me and they pounce, their slithery arms encircling and crushing my chest as they pull me under the flow of water, and shove my head into the jet until the cold liquid streams into my eyes, my nose, my mouth, choking me. After I have coughed and retched sufficiently to satisfy their sadistic curiosity, they grow bored and let me stagger back, trembling, to the changing room, where my clothes hang from a hook and my towel should have been folded under the slatted bench.

It is gone, of course. Four leering pairs of eyes watch me over the partition that separates the showers from the changing area, and laugh mirthlessly as I search with increasing panic under the wooden bench and along each hook in turn. I appeal helplessly to the other boys busy drying themselves, but they don’t want to get involved and ignore me, dripping all over the floor. I’m nearly in tears, and throw myself back into the hopeless search, if only to avoid the embarrassment of standing like a nude statue, a stationary target for all the abuse being hurled at me over the shower partition.

When the older boys grow bored of their initial ruse, the ringleader, a thickset tough little monster with a crew cut, known to all and sundry, including the teachers, as ‘Plank’ (I think his real name is Wood), comes at me, flicking his towel viciously at my buttocks and legs. I squirm out of the firing line as best I can, but the other naked boys, contemptuous of the droplets of water spraying from their bodies, harry me, obstruct my escape, so that, to protect myself, I am forced to turn my back and take the mocking blows.

A hissed warning round the changing room indicates that the games master is coming back puts me out of this torment, for Plank suddenly hurls the towel over the partition and the obstructing wall of boys suddenly melts to let me creep into the deserted flooded shower area. I see my crumpled towel lying in the corner with a sense of relief, then, as I pick it up, I realise it is sodden as it has fallen into a puddle of water. Frantically I try to wring it out, hidden from the others so they don’t see my distress. I dab at the water droplets still clinging to my skin, but the towel is useless and I slink back to the changing room to pull my vest over my clammy body. I am aware that Plank and company are still watching me with interest, so I try to pull on my clothes without giving away that I am still wet. Then I realise that they haven’t finished with me yet. My peg, beneath my shirt, is empty. They’ve pinched my pants and trousers and are now watching with a gloating nastiness to see what I’ll do next.

“Let me have my clothes back, please,” I plead, fighting not to show my tears. But the jeering continues and they begin to toss my pants across the room, holding them just out of my reach as I try to grab them, then fending me off and throwing them to an accomplice. This game of ‘piggy-in-the-middle’ continues amid raucous laughter until only I and five naked tormentors are left, with me darting ineffectually between them in a vain attempt to recover my belongings. Plank has got my pants now and instead of throwing them again, he holds them just out of my reach.

“What’ll you give me for them? What’ll you do to get them back? he sings out in a patronising sneer. He sticks his thumbs in the flimsy cotton and yanks hard and there is a ripping sound.

“No, don’t.” I shriek, “you’ll get me into trouble!”

“Oh, look, boys. He’s got a hole in his pants, what’s he been doing?” And so saying, he sticks his finger through the tear and enlarges it further.

This is the last straw. I crawl onto the slatted bench, tuck up my knees and begin to sob. Satisfied that they have achieved their objective, the other boys now dry themselves and dress with startling rapidity and depart leaving only Plank himself and me, snivelling, with the torn pair of pants lying on the bench in front of me.

“Shut up, shitbag, and get dressed. And what’s more,” he adds threateningly, “don’t you dare tell tales or it’ll be the worse for you.”

At that moment the games master returns once more, presumably to survey the state in which the changing rooms have been left; seeing the two boys still present, and correctly surmising what has been going on, he dismisses Plank and turns to me.

“You’ve got to get tough, boy. Can you box?”

“No, sir.”

“It’s the only language they’ll ever learn. Here, hit me!”

“Pardon, sir?”

“I said, ‘hit me’. Here,” he says pointing to his stomach, “as hard as you can.”

I stand up in my shirt tails and embarrassed and bemused, aim a feeble punch at the man’s proffered belly.

“Useless, lad, useless.”

He grabs my wrist and flexing it like a piston, drives it into his own flesh three or four times, so that it makes my arm ache with pain.

“Have another go, lad, try to hurt me. Pretend it’s Plank’s nose you’re hitting!”

I shut my eyes and drive my fist with all my might into the teacher’s stomach. The man just laughs.

“You’ll have to do better than that, lad, or Plank and his cronies will have sport with you for ever.”

“Can’t you stop them, sir?”

“It’s up to you, boy. You should learn to look after yourself. Now get dressed and get off home.”

I’m very bewildered. I pull on my torn pants and retrieve my trousers from where Plank has dropped them. I blow my nose and try to mop up my face to hide the fact that I’ve been crying. The school seems silent now, everyone has gone home. It feels as though I’m in danger of being locked in, so, still sticky and uncomfortable, I dash out of the changing room straight into the bulk of the headmaster.

“Where are you going in such a tearing hurry, young Maidment?”

“Home, sir.”

“Come into my study a minute. I hear you’ve had a bit of bother.”

At last, someone is going to take me seriously and give me some protection. I follow the big man nervously into his lair and wait while he sinks back into his swivel chair and lays his feet upon the desk.

“Well, Maidment, how do you like it here?”

I hesitate, caught off-guard by the unexpected question. Eventually I stutter, honestly:

“Not very much, sir. I find everything a bit frightening.”

“Frightening, boy? Do you want to stay here?”

“I’m hoping to go to Surbiton County Grammar School next term.”

“That’s a namby-pamby school. That’s your trouble, Maidment. You’ve been to too many namby-pamby schools. Have you ever been beaten, boy?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you good. Make a man of you.”

I’m silent, embarrassed at the topic of conversation. I don’t know how to respond to this unnerving man. The headmaster suddenly rouses himself from his chair, walks over to the corner and picks up one of the canes leaning against the wall, returning to seat himself on the table-edge in front of me.

“See, lad, feel it. We use it here a lot. It cures everything. Do you want to try it?”

“No, sir.”

“Pity, I feel like a bit of exercise.” The headmaster leans forward and slaps me playfully a couple of times on my bottom. “Then get used to life here and don’t complain. Don’t make yourself different from the others. Learn to fight back. And be warned, I’ll use this on you before you go to that sissy school of yours. I’ll make a man of you yet!” The headmaster tosses the cane back into its corner with a clatter and grins at me. I’m petrified.

“Now be gone, and don’t come running to me or any of my teachers with more of your tales.”

All the way home, luckily now along the deserted Fulton Way, I try to come to terms with what I’ve just been told. I can understand the bullying even if I’m afraid of it. The reaction of the masters is incomprehensible. I don’t want to tell my parents, would they think I’m sissy too? I sense that it would only make my mother cry and I shrink from anything that will cause an emotional scene. What am I going to do about the tear in my pants? How am I going to explain it? It’s too big to say it’s just worn. I can’t just lose the garment - I don’t have enough clothes for that, mother will count them, know something is missing and ask me. I will have to find some excuse, ready when challenged, to blame myself; say I caught it on a nail in the changing room.

Then, as I get nearer home, and the familiar street enfolds me, I feel more confident. Perhaps I should tell my mother about the bullying, about the attitude and behaviour of the teachers. My parents will tell me what to do.

I glance up the alleyway to the sidegate of our back-garden, checking that there are no hovering butterflies and run indoors. My mother is there, with a brown foolscap envelope in her hands.

“David, it’s come. Here, have a look.”

I take the opened envelope and tear, trembling, at its contents. Through blurred vision I read:

“David Maidment has passed the 11+ entrance examination and has been allocated a place at Surbiton County Grammar School for Boys. Term will commence on…….” I see no more. Relief floods through me, a great weight is lifted from my shoulders. I scarcely stop to react to my mother’s congratulations. I toss off my blazer, pick up a tennis ball and begin to bowl against the back door. I ran up further and bowl the fastest I have ever done, hurling the ball with unusual accuracy, until my mother is forced to ask me to refrain from the rhythmic thumping on the door as it is giving her a headache.

And I think no more of confiding about my unhappiness at school. I can bear it now. There is light at the end of the tunnel, I will hang on and I’ll keep my secret.