Night-time Frolics.

One of the most exciting parts of boarding school are the Midnight Feasts, and after Lights Out mischief that we get up to.
On the first night we were all really tired. We had a small confab, and decided that we would go to bed and go to sleep for the first night, to recharge our batteries. In actual fact, Chris crept downstairs after Lights Out and left about four plastic cups, with a trace of alcohol and a number of sweet wrappers on the common room floor. The rest of us slept on, wrapped in innocent slumbers! I gather that Miss Livingstone did try and keep awake, listening for us, but to no avail. On Saturday morning we were asked about the "Midnight Feast" but of course we all looked blank, and genuinely asserted our innocence!
Saturday night was different. We gave the Beaks plenty of time to get to sleep and duly crept down the stairs. We had to get down the first set of stairs from the pupils' floor to the Beaks' floor, then creep down the main staircase to the ground floor. We decided to have our Feast in the Staff Room. Although it was out of bounds, it was much more comfortable than the pupils' common room, and we were being so naughty anyway we thought we might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. We had lots of scrummy nosh, pork pies, biscuits, crisps, sweets, and nice things to drink, I had wine with lemonade, and there was beer and cider. We were chatting away, putting the world to rights when the door suddenly opened and Mr Melman appeared. It gave us a bit of a fright, I can tell you. We tried to incriminate him by offering to share the food and drink with him, but he was having none of it. He told us to pack everything up, then put us over the bench for six strokes of the strap before sending us back to bed. All in all it was worth it........
The following night we thought we might be safer. Mr Melman had had to depart to real life earlier that evening, and once Mr Malcolm was asleep nothing would waken him.
We still had a fair bit of food left over from the previous night's feast, plus more alcohol, so we got stuck in. There were fewer of us, as some of the pupils were just too tired and had stayed in bed asleep. We were a bit tired too, so we decided that we would try and get back to bed by 1am so as to get a few hours unbroken sleep. We had decided we would try the ultimate in naughtiness, and throw noise makers into Miss Livingstone's room and outside Mr Malcolm's room on the way back up to our beds. However, the best laid plans of mice and men..........
We were just about to pack up when the door opened and Miss Livingstone stood there, warmly clad in a dressing gown, and clutching a cane. There wasn't really an awful lot we could say, except ouch when we were over the bench getting six...... Michelle, Sarah and I arrived on the first floor first, Tommy was explaining cider to Miss Livingstone downstairs at the time. We decided to hide in Mr Melman's (empty) room and chuck noisemakers in the beaks' rooms. Unfortunately Miss L came bounding up the stairs. Michelle was caught on the landing, I was just coming out of Miss L's room and Sarah had dived into the bathroom. Sarah tried to tell Miss L that she had had an urgent need for the loo, but unfortunately that bathroom didn't contain a toilet, that was in a separate stall next door! So that was another six and an order to get to bed.
We trotted upstairs, and hung about for another ten minutes or so. Tommy was up and ready, Michelle had just popped to the loo and Sarah was still in the dorm when I crept along the top corridor. I'd suggested that we went down both sets of stairs, so that at least one of us would make it to the Beaks' floor. I opted to go down the far stairs and clutching a noisemaker in my hands I scuttled along the corridor to the top of the stairs. You can imagine my horror, dear readers, to find Miss Livingstone standing on the bend of the stairs, with a face like a gorgon. I legged it back down the corridor to my dorm yelling "Cave, Beaks" but Miss L followed me relentlessly. I had to go over the end of the bed, and received a further six which entailed me having to lie on my tummy for about five minutes before I could roll over and go to sleep! We did get the noisemakers into the lobby by Mr Malcolm's room, but he didn't appear, thankfully, and we had to wait until after breakfast before we received retribution for that! Midnight Feasts are such fun!
Bethany