A Busy School

School was very busy this last term. First of all we had presentations. Jane won Pupil of the Year for most individual house points, and Roman House won the House Shield. I'm House Captain of Romans, so I was well pleased with the efforts of my fellow Romans.
School actually started off fairly quietly. We have this little game that we play, called "pegging". you have to see how many pegs you can attach to a Beak without them catching on. It's not as easy as it seems because they are aware of our goals, and most of the Beaks shy away nervously if a pupil approaches within 18 inches of them. New Beaks are the easiest, because they haven't developed the highly suspicious nature of the regular ones! And then of course there is practice. You need to have a very quick, light hand to do the deed as you stroll past. My Nemesis befell me as I tried to peg Mr Armstrong. He was wearing a natty piece of gent's tailoring, a striped blazer, and we'd already chanced our luck by asking him where he had "parked" his boat. Apparently it was moored at Henley and we were to watch it. After a moment's confusion as Henley is some way up River from our venue, it dawned on us that it was our behviour we had to watch. So I strolled past with a rather nice green peg, with a tail on it, but I fumbled the pass, and I hadn't got more than two or three paces away when the words "Grant, see me straight after Assembly" stopped me in my tracks.
Once the unpleasantness was over I wriggled back to my seat, and settled down for history. We had a super lesson on ancient Romans. We learned about the structure of the Roman Army. Prof had provided lots of pictures, which we studied while he explained the difference between officers and other ranks, and all about the punishments they got if they didn't fight hard enough. We learned all about the origin of the word decimate..... fairly innocuous today, but two thousand years ago it meant the death of every tenth man in the offending legion. Scary hey? I think the other beaks were a bit surprised at how well behaved we were, but most of us were disappointed when the lesson came to an end.
We worked our way through maths and Drama, collecting entries for our Discipline Books, and having them dealt with during breaks. Tommy and I went round everyone making sure that they were all set for our major plan for the day's mischief. Mr Armstron had recently reminded us about Politeness to Teachers. At NGM, when the Beak comes into the classroom at the beginning of the lesson, we all have to stand up, and remain quiet until given permission to sit. This time, when ol Amstring came in, we stayed sitting, chatting amongst ourselves, throwing toys about etc. Sir was incensed, our books were collected and the spare Beaks assiduously wrote down our offences as we started English Grammar. In the interim I quietly turned on my Fisher's Price tape recorder which was hidden under my desk complete with specially doctored music cassette tape.
We were about five minutes into the Grammar Lesson when the tape kicked in, and the theme from the film Jaws filled the air. I put up my hand, and remarked brightly, "Please Sir, they're playing your tune!" Mr Armstrong glared around the classroom, but even he had to smile when he found us all grinning back at him, wearing the jelly fangs which Tommy mac had provided! There was more scribbling in the books!
We finished off the day with a set of Puppet plays based on the Punch and Judy theme. Vikings dropped their baby, Saxons did theirs in original Anglo Saxon which incensed Miss Livingboobs who does not allow uncomplimentary language in school, Romans did a parody of Postman Pat and his black and white cat using the Beaks as their models, and Celts wowed us all with a tale of cannibalism which won them the House Points on offer.
I checked my discipline book and found I had several entries still to be dealt with. Nothing too serious in my opinion, but Mr Armstrong wasn't very appreciative when I shrugged my shoulders at him when he called me to task for entering the kitchen without permission, and Mr Melman (Postman Pat) wasn't too enamoured of the grow your own wig which I had bought for him. Well, the weather's getting chilly, I was just thinking of his welfare, he has a broad forehead and must feel the cold! I didn't feel cold when they both finished dealing with me though. Mr Malcolm kept on blaming me for impertinence, and he nearly punished me for pegging him when I hadn't. I was telling him it wasn't me, and Ol amstring who was passing by told him that if I said it wasn't me, it wasn't, cos I am very truthful. I still got punished for cheek though, and he kept losing count I think, and starting from the beginning, cos there were several lots of six involved!
So all in all another fun day. And the next thing is boarding school! We have got so much planned for that! Unfortunately I can't give much hint of that here cos this is glanced over occasionally by the odd Beak, and we don't want to spoil the surprise! So more about that after the event providing I can settle comfortably on a chair long enough to type up the account!