"Ben Jeapes - Pages Out Of Order" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeapes Ben)

Pages out of Order
a novelette by Ben Jeapes

"Pages out of Order" is vaguely autobiographical in that I went to a not
dissimilar school from 1978-1983. I emerged relatively unscathed but could
never take the place seriously: the chorus of the school song went "Vivat
Rex Eduardus Sextus", which I thought rather showed a lack of awareness of
current affairs.
---Ben Jeapes

Pages out of Order
Third form, Winter term, 1978
Tom's arrival in my life was preceded by the sound of his mother.
It was a sunny September weekend and most of our year had already arrived
at our new school; we had shaken off our parents and were unpacking our
trunks in the dormitory, casting covert glances at our neighbours or
making shy conversation.
Once, a summer ago, we had known who we were. Good little public
schoolboys, the future administrators of a dead empire; diehard
Conservatives, sworn enemies of Callaghan's Labour government. Two months
beforehand we were kings at prep school and the pinnacle of maturity was
the grand age of thirteen. Now we were little boys again, dwarfed even by
the mountainous fourteen-year-olds in the year above us. We were longing
for an object on which to vent our new-found insecurity, and then the
Meltons arrived.
We heard Mrs Melton coming down the corridor and suspended our unpacking
to listen better: "Is this the way? Doesn't anyone know anything? You, are
you a prefect? Can you direct us to Thomas's dormitory?"
She was a brassy woman in a fur coat, who glided in like visiting royalty
while two conscripted fifth-formers struggled behind her with a trunk.
Absorbed in this spectacle, it took an effort to notice the small,
red-haired figure in his mother's wake: misery incarnate, in a too-big
suit.
"Now, where's your bed?" Mrs Melton stalked about the dormitory, squinting
at the nameplates above each bed, and homed in on the bed next to mine.
"Here it is. Put the trunk there, will you?"
She turned to her son.
"Well, dear, I'll be off so you can settle in. Be good." She gave his
cheek a quick peck and looked around. Her eyes settled on me. "This is
your neighbour--" [she peered at my nameplate] "--William Sutton. William,
this is Thomas. Remember everything I told you, Thomas. Ask a prefect if
you need anything and if anyone offers you a cigarette go straight to the
housemaster." That line sealed her son's fate. "Are you coming to see me
off?"
We all realised, the two fifth-formers included, that we were staring at
Tom, who followed after his mother with his face a flaming red that
matched his hair. The fifth-formers tactfully vanished and left us
sharpening our claws with glee for Tom's return.

9.30 pm, Day One of term. Bed time for little boys. The ribbing had eased