Molesworth

by Geoffrey Willans

  ‘If there is another sound i shall keep the whole klass in. Molesworth, go outside and remove that disgusting objekt.’

  It is too horible. i struggle to awake but the nightmare continue.

  It is still the same lesson and i am the master. Everything is normal i am feeling a trifle lazy and set the boys some geom propositions to get on with. Before me is a pile of uncorekted exercise books i pop outside for a quick cig and return to study a book on grips and tortures for boys, i am immersed in this when i hear a sound.

  ‘Sir,’

  (A spasm of anoyance run through my frame, i pretend not to hear.)

  ‘Sir, sir, sir please sir.’

  CURSES! Is the child not to be put off? am i never to be rid of his importunity? Wearily i raise my bespectakled face and gaze at him over a mountane of exercise books and bottles of red ink.

  It is me, molesworth 1 chiz chiz chiz – i am teaching myself.

  ‘Well, wot is it molesworth?’

  ‘Wot is the verb-noun infinitiv, sir?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The verb-noun infinitiv, sir. It sa in the Shorter Latin Primer…’

  ‘All right all right, i heard you the fust time’ (thinks: verb-noun infinitiv? i dunno. search me.)

  Open lat. grammer under cover of books, shufle shufle. Sweat pour from my brows i must play for time, i cover my action with stinging words.

  ‘So molesworth you do not kno the verb-noun infinitiv? Wot crassness, wot ignorance ect…’

  Masters ushally keep their cribs and answer books in the dark depths of their desks and wot a collection there is in there – kanes, beetles, chalk, thumscrews, old tin soldiers which hav been confiskated, fotos of gurls, bat oil, fleas and cobwebs.

  in here i find the lat. grammer. i prop it against a tin of pineaple chunks and find the answer. My blak beak’s heart is filled with relief. Also i thirst for revenge, i switch to geom and make the chalk squeak with the compass on the blakboard until all howl it is worse than molesworth 2’s space ship.

  SCREE SCREE SCREE SCREE delicious torture! i draw a collossal Angle A and make it equal to Angle B. Gloat Gloat. Wot does it matter if it is half the size? pythagoras could make an elephant equal to a flea…

  Restlessly i toss from side to side in my bed. Can it be that i have eaten too much skool cheese? Why can i not awake? The nightmare continue…

  am i popular? Do the boys like me? O grief. perhaps they do not. i will do anything. tomow i will read to them. i will give them the water babies that always sla them. it sla me too. Poor tom. And yet…are they making enuff progress? perhaps it should be the confidential clerk by t.s. eliot. But will that make me popular hem-hem?

  THE BELL! The BELL!

  I am telling a story about how i won the war. WEEE PING EEEAUOOWOO. Men, there is a nest of pea shooters under that map of the world i want you to silence them. CHARGE TA-RAN-TA-RA. BANG BONK BISH. Who zoom past then? it is molesworth 2 beating us up in his super-jet speed hawk ur ur ur ur. Take cover, Sigismund, these boys are fiercer than the mau-mau and many look like them. This is rebelion and the boys mean business. Give me my kane i will die like a man.

  THE BELL.

  Why have not mrs grabber given me the ushual 50 cigs for an xmas box? Where are my yelow socks and pink tie? i am alone the skool is empty. Where are the boys? Gone. it is the old story, caruthers, too many masters chasing too few boys. Too many…

  THE BELL.

  And this time it is the skool bell bidding me rise and face the chalenge of the new year hem-hem. Sun shine, birds sing, skool sossages frazzle in the kitchen – hurrah hurrah i am not a master after all. I stride forth with new knoledge e.g. even masters hav their problems, i will remember that in future.

  MOLESWORTH WOT ARE YOU DOING WITH YORE HAIR UNBRUSHED YORE SHOES UNLACED AND WEARING ONE FOOTER SOCK ECT? DO 1000000000000 LINES.

  So you see. There you are. There’s nothing you can do about them.

  2

  HURRAH FOR EXAMMS

  Do examms hav any teror for you, clots? Are the II-plus, G.C.E., common entrance ect preying on your tiny mind? Are you posessed with a feeling that you may fale? HAV YOU NOT WORKED HARD ENUFF IN THE PAST, EH? Perhaps you may not enjoy a briliant future as an atommic physisist?

  It is strange that i, molesworth, the goriller of 3B, do not share these fears with you. Observe with what confidence i stride into the examm room with new sharpened old h.b., bungy, ruler and a stop watch on ye olde chippendale desk. And wot then? I take off my coat, roll up my sleeves and fold my stout arms awaiting the q’s with impatience. Not for me the worried frowns of les autres, those careworn looks. When the Beak bring round those papers which smell so swetely of printer’s ink this is wot i sa:

  Q.1. Complete the following series TR. S.G.P.

  Me: Potty!

  Q.2. Write the nex 3 numbers in this sequence: 1.79. 232. 6 billion.

  ME: Larrfably easy!

  Q.3. A stupid old man walked 6 paces to the east, 12 to the north, stood on his head, then ran 100 yards at 100 m.p.h. Where is he?

  ME: Too simple for words!

  And so it go on. Of corse, criticks may point out that i occupy the lowly position of 9th out of 9 in 3B and am in some danger of relegation to div. 3. Why dost thou always put the obj in the nom, clot, aussi? Alas i canot deny the truth of these harsh words. Wot, then, is the sekrett of my sucksess in examms?

  Hist, cave, come close felow skolars and suferers of the world of space and listen with all thy mitey ears, which, no doubt, hav not seen a towel for years.

  My sucksess is not due to any stroke of good fortune but to careful planning in the past in association with my grate chum and felow research worker hem-hem wet peason. The results of our activities can now be anounced to the world i.e.

  1. The molesworth/peason electronick brane which is disguised as a stop-watch. This amazing gadget can answer the most dificult question in a matter of secs enabling the skolar to sit back after 5 minutes with a look we kno so well in others which sa, ‘That’s pappy ect.’ Any fule can use it and no beak will suspeckt.

  2. The molesworth/peason portable roving eye. This is an intrikkate system of mirrors which can be flicked out of the poket (along with fluff, beetles, old cig. ends, stamp swaps ect) when the Beak is not looking and, in the space of 1/8 secs can obtane the answers from all the other candidate’s papers. The portable roving eye hav one serious operational defeckt, however. It hav been known to get 15 diffrent reports, all of which sa Puellam amas puer, which, for some reason always get a cross aganst it and o marks.

  3. Another triumph of science is the new molesworth/peason very high frequency radio set so that all boys can talk to each other on a wave length so high that no Beak can hear i.e.

  CALLING BADGER ONE, CALLING BADGER ONE. HOW DO YOU HEAR ME, EH?

  The molesworth/peason portable roving eye hav one serious defeckt.

  THY SWETE VOICE IS LOUD AND CLEAR, NIT-WIT WOT CAN I DO FOR YOU ?

  CALLING BADGER ONE. WOT IS THE ANSWER TO NUMBER THREE ?

  X TO THE POWER OF A OVER BETA, CLOT, AS ANY FULE KNO. WOT DO YOU MAKE OF NUMBER ONE?

  NOTHING.

  SAME HERE WE HAD BETTER CALL UP FOTHERINGTON-TOMAS WHO ALWAYS KNO.

  O.K. BADGER ONE. OUT.

  So, by a carefull system of cross-checking each boy in the examm can get exactly the same answers.

  Two further inventions upon which me and my emminent colleague are working are a magnifying glass for thumbnale cribs and a pill which send the Beak off to slepe. So why be worried, restless and iritable as examms approche? Give your mater and pater the poor skoolmasters confidence by yore calm attitude. These epoch-making products are on the market now, so send for catalog at once.

  KO-EDDUKATION AT ST. CUSTARD’S

  Hay ho! Wot a lot of problems we dere little chaps of the 20th century hav to face – there are H-bombs, missiles, spacemen, russians, yanks, electronick branes, headmasters, apart from the weedy ones in the arith books. Now as if t
hese various chizzes are not enuff there is another i.e. i rede that in the society of the future there will be no such thing as boys skools and gurls skools. This can only mean ko-eddukation and already there are millions and trilions of brave noble and fearless boys who are being submitted to this fearful torture chiz chiz.

  IT IS TIME THE SKANDAL WAS EXPOSED!

  It is easy to immagine wot hapen at these ko-eddukational skools and we must rite it down fearlessly. It is time the people knew. Pause while this scruffy scribe draw the CURTAIN aside.

  Scene: a klassroom. This is much as ushual with blotch in the inkwells, ice cold radiator, railways carved on the desk, portrate of caesar crossing the rubkon (1896), bits of aple core and beak’s desk bulging with artikles which he hav confiskated. A klass is in progress with all the boys gating out of windows with their mouths open and all the GURLS looking intent, eager, keen ect.

  THE BEAK: molesworth, wot is the first rool of the 4 concords in lat.

  (No repli.)

  THE BEAK: MOLESWORTH!

  ME: eh? Were you perchance adressing me sir?

  THE BEAK (with a vane effort at control) i was asking you the first rool of the 4 concords, rat.

  ME: Cor, stone the crows, search me!

  THE BEAK: Perhaps some other boy will oblige with the answer – peason, gillibrand, fotherington-tomas? Is any boy reddy with an answer?

  (Silence meanwhile the gurls giggle and go mad with xcitement. Finally, the beak turn his beetling brow to them and his xpression become sudenly soft, his stern eye mild) ‘Mavis,’ he whisper, ‘perhaps you——?’

  MAVIS: The first of the 4 rook of concord in lat is that a Verb agrees with its subjekt in number and person.

  THE BEAK: Excellent, mavis!

  MAVIS: Xamples are tempus fugit. Time flies.

  THE BEAK: Bravo, now—

  MAVIS: Or Libri leguntur. Books are read.

  THE BEAK: Thank you, mavis, thank you.

  MAVIS: (continuing, nothing can stop her) The second rool of concord is that an adj or participle agree in gender, number and case with the substantive it qualify. Xamples – Vir bonus bonam uxorem habet. The good man has a good wife.

  ME: A highly debatable statement, if I may sa so, sir.

  We get a bit of a larff for this but the day is lost and mavis continue to the bitter end. And she is only one becos ermintrude, matilda, mary and peggy are all branes of britain, junior quiz champions ect.

  Another thing GURLS have difrent standards of behaviour in Klass i.e. if i thro a bit of bungy at peason he will bide his time and thro an ink bomb back which hit me splosh on the nose. But wot hapen if you pull mavis pigtail, eh? You get a speech like this;—

  MAVIS: I feel it my duty, sir, to report a trifling incident which hav just taken place. I feel that it will be for the good of the klass as a whole that i should do so. (Cries of ‘sneke,’ ‘sneke’) i am not alarmed by doing wot i conceive to be my duty, (loud cheers and interjektions of ‘sit down,’ ‘sit down) Sir, these vulgar cries do not dismay me – nay (A member: ‘Back her for the Derby’) nay, nay (The price is slipping, six to four the field). This klass, sir, hav always had a reputation for clene living, decency, deckorum, and the preservation of behaviour-standards as recomended in the last phamplet by the min. of edukation obbtainable at the h.h. stionnery office, price 3 gns.

  GURLS hav difrent standards of behaviour in Klass.

  Wot (sa Mavis) Wot is the result?

  A vulgarian whom i do not wish to name (Cries of name him, molesworth, who were you with last nite ect) A vulgarian whom I feel should be brought to book hav now sullied the honor of this mixed klass and brought to o the good name of the skool. By doing wot? He have pulled my pigtail.

  Ow! (Once agane the molesworth touch bringeth ressults)

  OW! OW! OW!

  And now i am glad to sa that mavis turn and swing with a short uppercut, following with a rite cross to the jaw. Human at last! She is once more champion of the world.

  Well, there you are. Does ko-edducation work? Who will pla tag with me in the break, eh? Many people point to America and Russia and sa they hav had gurls and boys at skool together there for years. Does that make it any better? We venture hem-hem to think not. Hurrah for st custard’s!

  TENIS ANEBODY?

  ‘Hullo, clouds, Hullo sky,’ sa fotherington-tomas, skipping weedily by. ‘Who’s for tenis?’

  i frown with anger, for i am looking at ye olde television chiz and robin hood is in a v. tuough spot indeed i.e. the sherif of nottingham is about to torture him with red hot irons, which is something we little tots are very used to. Anyway, i sometimes hav a feeling of sympathy for the sherif of notingham wot am i saing? Outside, of corse, it is a briliant, fine sumer day with bees buzzing, birds twittering ect.

  ‘Who’s for tenis?’ repete fotherington-tomas, waving his racket.

  ‘Go away, clot, You are standing in front of the serene, i can only hear the grones of agony.’

  ‘Go on, molesworth, o you mite.’

  ‘If i want tenis i can see it on the television,’ i repli. ‘Besides, it is a game for gurls.’

  This is a new thing for the galant boys of the younger generation, they are always being told to pla tenis. Why is dais? It is worse than criket becos at criket you can at least get bowled out but at tenis you hav to go on missing agane and agane and agane. i mean i expect it is all right if you can pla like those fierce people at wimbledon who go, well, you kno

  PUNG! PING! PING! PING! PUNG! HURRAH!

  If i pla there is dead silence becos i never hit the pill at all they are all air shots chiz. Besides, am i likely to play a game at which fotherington-tomas can beat me, eh? i hav some pride.

  Acktually fotherington-tomas is super at tenis, as he hav been coached by a pro at home i.e. he twiddle his raket and sa ‘ruff or smooth?’ and when he win he consider the direction of the wind, position of sun, met. forecast for next twenty-four hours, trend on the stock xchange, his horoscope for the week and sa finaly, ‘i shall pla aganst the kool shade of the aple trees.’ This mene that i am blinded by the sun and can only see fotherington-tomas crouched like a tiger on the other side of the net. Gosh, it take a bit for him to look like that it is strange wot a tenis raket can do. If i get a pill over at all he warn it back at 90 m.p.h. so there is not much of a game at all.

  It is strange wot a tenis raket can do.

  Gurls, of corse, pla a lot of tenis at skool so i expect this explane the matter.

  You kno wot hapen at gurl’s skools they always discover a gurl who is the uggly duckling who can get into the skool six when pritty antonia trumpington brake her leg. Need i add that the olde skool de mademoisells always win the match?

  ‘O, you juggins,’ sa miss trent, the games mistress, crossly. Mavis bit her lip and faced the next ball with determination written all over her freckled face. Miss trent’s powerful serve came into action agane but this time mavis faced it calmly and swept the pill into the far corner. On the next serve it hapened agane, then agane. ‘Bravo, mavis,’ cry miss trent. ‘Well plaed, sir!’ ect.

  Personally i think in reel life miss trent would probably be furious if any gurl swept her best serve into the far corner but that do not seme to hapen in books. Insted, miss trent put mavis in the tenis six and due to her briliant pla ect well, you kno.

  Now that they hav pro tenis, in fakt, it would be a joly good wheeze if mavis and fotherington-tomas plaed a world tenis circus. Everyone would be agog when the skore stood at 499 matches each. Which will win the decider? Over to humphrey, the wet, in the commentator’s box.

  ‘mavis is serving. She hav thrown up the pill. It is still going up, up, up. Now it is in orbit. No, it is coming down. Plunk! Wot’s this? O, ha-ha. v. funny i must sa. It landed on mavis head. They’re picking her up now. Second serve and the ball is up. Lovely style, mavis has. Now it’s coming down. Oh dear, dear me, that is bad luck. It hav landed on mavis head agane.

  GAME TO FOTHERINGTON-TOMAS.


  fotherington-tomas to serve and he is standing on the tips of his toes. He semes fascinated by clouds and sky. Bends to pick up the ball. Goodness gracious, how unfortunate. He hav split his trousis. He is covered in confusion and that is all. But who is this uncooth skoolboy who is roaring with larfter at the poor little chap’s plight? Who can it be?

  i give you 1 guess it is me, molesworth, the goriller of 3B, delited at the fate of ickle pritty fotherington-tomas. It is a hard life to be a tenis star and, if mavis is an xample, you need a thick head which make me wonder why i am no good at the game. Oh well, back to the telly i must have mised 2 murders, 3 suicides and a few loonies. Still, we’ll be getting them tomorrow.

  MIND MY BIKE!

  Well i mean to sa gosh chiz wot next, eh? Wot next? Sitting in the old skool bibliotheque among the cobwebs and reading the newspaper as is my wont my eye leave the strip-cartoon and i see a headline. ‘TESTS FOR CHILD CYCLISTS,’ it sa.

  ‘GAD!’ i exclame, crumpling the paper into a ball and buzzing it at ye old mappe of the world which adorn the walls. ‘GAD!’

  Peason look up from the chair where he hav been drawing beetles on his knee.

  ‘Don’t you kno there is a Silence Rool in the lib, molesworth?’

  ‘There is also a rool aganst chucking books, aganst building forts out of the colekted works of lord macaulay, aganst shooting peas at the bust of w. shakespeare. Probably there is a rool against drawing beetles on the knee also, thou weedy wet.’