Jennings and His Friends

by Antony Buckeridge

  Jennings and His Friends

  Antony Buckeridge

  Книга для чтения на английском языке для общеобразовательных учебных заведений (адаптация М.И.Дубровина). Книга `Дженнингс и его друзья` повествует о забавных и увлекательных приключениях школьников.

  Antony Buckeridge

  Jennings and His Friends

  Chapter One

  Many happy returns of the day!

  For one minute after Jennings opened his eyes that morning he could not understand why he had woken up so early. Then he remembered. It was his birthday! He wanted to jump out of bed and tell the boys about it. But all the boys in the dormitory of Linbury Court Boarding School were still sleeping.

  Jennings got up and looked at the next bed along the line where Darbishire was sleeping. Darbishire was his best friend, though Jennings was a lively boy and his friend was very slow in all he did.

  "Wake up, Darbi, wake up!" said Jennings.

  "What's the matter?" Darbishire opened his eyes.

  "It's my birthday today!"

  "Yes, of course. Many happy returns of the day," said Darbishire. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep again.

  "Oh, wake up, Darbi! Let's dress quickly and go and meet the postman. I'm going to get a birthday parcel from my parents."

  Jennings went to the washbasin and began to wash. He cleaned his teeth, washed his face and hands, his neck and ears - it was his birthday! - and dried them on the towel. Then he turned from the washbasin and saw that Darbishire was still in bed.

  "Get up, quickly, Darbi!"

  "I'm coming," said Darbishire.

  The bell rang and the boys in the beds near the washbasin, Venables, Temple and Atkinson, got up.

  "I say, you don't know what day it is today," said Jennings.

  "It's Friday," answered Venables, a tall boy, too tall for his twelve years. "It's Friday and we are going to have fish for breakfast. We usually have fish for breakfast on Fridays."

  "Yes, but what else?" asked Jennings.

  "What else? Tea with milk."

  "No, I don't mean that. It's my birthday."

  "Many happy returns," said Atkinson

  "We are going to have a birthday cake today, aren't we" said Venables.

  "Certainly," said Jennings. "My mother is sending me a wonderful cake. I'm going to the hall to see if the postman is coming."

  But when Jennings ran up to the door, it opened and the teacher on duty came into the dormitory. It was Mr Wilkins.

  Mr Wilkins was a large and strong man. He could be pleasant when he wanted to, but he was not a patient man and he did not understand why the boys of twelve could not behave like teachers, for example.

  "Why are you making that noise, Jennings?" asked Mr Wilkins. "And why have you already dressed? You know very well that pupils must not get up before the bell."

  "Yes, of course. But I hurried to the hall to see..."

  "You know well," repeated Mr Wilkins, "that you must stay in bed till the bell rings. Very well, you will stay in class during football this afternoon and do some work for me"

  "Yes, sir," said Jennings, but to himself he said: "Boys who have birthdays in the holidays don't know how happy they are."

  "Please, sir! Mr Wilkins, sir!" It was Darbishire with one sock on and the other in his hand.

  "What's the matter, Darbishire? Hurry up!" said Mr Wilkins.

  "It's Jennings' birthday today, sir, and he wanted to go down to the hall to meet the postman."

  "Oh! Well, if it's his birthday... Well, let's forget about it."

  Mr Wilkins looked angrily at those boys who were not celebrating a birthday that morning and left the dormitory.

  "Thank you, Darbi," said Jennings. "It was very nice of you to tell Old Wilkie that it was my birthday. I didn't want to stay in class during football on my birthday."

  "All right," said Darbishire. "You can call it my birthday present to you if you like."

  "Thank you very much. Now put on your left sock and we'll go down to the hall and see if the postman has come."

  Darbishire put on his left sock, then his spectacles and the boys hurried to the hall where they saw three letters for Jennings and three parcels

  "The big parcel is my birthday cake. But what is in the other two?" said Jennings.

  They opened the parcels at once. There was Jennings' birthday cake in the first parcel, of course. When they opened the second parcel, from his father, Jennings was very happy.

  "A camera! That's what I wanted to have for my birthday! We can do a lot of things with a camera, can't we, Darbi?"

  "Yes, we can," answered Darbishire, "but let's not do a lot of things with the camera. Let's take photos with it."

  "That's what I meant. I can take a photo of you when you are standing up, for example, and then you can take a photo of me when I am sitting down, and then I can take a photo of you when you are sitting down, and you can take..."

  "There's another parcel," said Darbishire

  "Oh, yes, of course. From Aunt Angela."

  Chapter Two.

  The Junior Printing Outfit.

  When the boys opened the last parcel they saw a square box.

  "The Junior Printing Outfit!" read Darbishire.

  They opened the box and saw letters made of small pieces of rubber and a pair of tweezers with which they could take the letters and put them in the printing block.

  "How wonderful!" said Darbishire. "Now we can print our names on all our books."

  "Yes, but the first thing that I'm going to use it for is to answer all these birthday letters," answered Jennings, "because I usually write the same things to my father, mother and Aunt Angela."

  Darbishire took a row of rubber letters with the help of the tweezers from the box and began to look at them. But he could not see much because his spectacles were too dusty.

  "I can't see whether these letters are e's or a's," he said. "My father says that..."

  But at that moment he pressed to hard with the tweezers and all the little rubber letters were at once in the four corners of the big hall.

  "I'm very sorry," said Darbishire.

  The breakfast bell rang.

  "What are we going to do?" asked Jennings.

  "I don't know," answered Darbishire. "All those letters were the same - e's or a's."

  Jennings looked in the box and saw that Darbishire was right. There was a row of a's, a row of b's, a row of c's, a row of d's and there wasn't an e in the box!

  "We'll come back after breakfast," said Jennings.

  But after breakfast it was too late. When the boys came back to the hall they saw no letters on the floor: the floor was clean.

  "Somebody has cleaned the floor with a vacuum cleaner," said Jennings.

  For a moment they stood and looked at the clean floor. Then Jennings turned and went to the common room. Darbishire went after him.

  "How am I going to write my letters now?" Jennings said.

  "You can write something which doesn't have e's"

  "Don't be funny," said Jennings.

  "During breakfast I decided to print a Form Three wall newspaper. We can print all the news about Form Three in it and hang it on the wall."

  "That will be wonderful."

  "Yes, but we can't print any news which has an e in it. Well, I can ask Aunt Angela to send me some e's."

  After tea that evening Jennings sat down at the table in the common room to answer his birthday letters. He wanted to try his printing outfit on his letters before he could begin to print a wall newspaper. He put x's in place of e's and
soon the letter was ready. When Darbishire went into the common room Jennings showed him the letter.

  "I say," Jennings said. "All that I must do now is..."

  "Yes, but I have something to tell you," Darbishire began

  "Never mind! Look at this!"

  "I was only going to say...

  Jennings put the letter under Darbishire's nose.

  "Not bad, is it?" he asked. "Of course we must get these e's before we begin to print our well newspaper."

  Darbishire began to read the letter.

  "Dxar Aunt Angxla! Thank you for your birthday prxsxnt. I likxd all thx birthday prxsxnts which I had. Fathxr sxnt mx a cavxra and..."

  Darbishire stopped and said: "Well, I know what you bean, of course, but..."

  "You mean these x's. but I've written P.S. on Aunt Angela's letter. She will understand it."

  Darbishire read: "P.S. Plxasx, sxnd mx somx of lxttxrs which comx bxtwxxn d and f."

  When Darbishire finished reading the letter he put his hand into his pocket and took out some rubber letters.

  "These are the e's that I lost this morning," he said and he put them on the table.

  "What?"

  "Yes, I've taken them out of the dust bag of the vacuum cleaner. Now you can write your letters using all the letters, can't you?"

  "I can, but now that we have all the letters we must begin a Form Three wall newspaper."

  Chapter Three

  Jennings and Darbishire go to the Harbour

  All the pupils of Form Three liked the hobbies' hour because during the hobbies' hour they could do what they liked and how they liked.

  During the hobbies' hour after tea on the next Monday Jennings and Darbishire sat at a table with some paper and pencils in front of them. They sat between Atkinson who was making a toy for his sister's birthday and Venables who was making a great noise.

  "Now, Darbi, let's give our wall newspaper a name," Jennings began. "Let's call it the Form Three Times"

  "That's a good name," said Darbishire.

  Then they decided to print the first issue of the Form Three Times next week.

  When the other boys heard the news about the wall newspaper they came up to Jennings and Darbishire.

  "If you want some news you can come to me for it, Jennings," said Temple. "I'm not pulling your leg. There was a disappearance."

  "Who has disappeared - Mr Wilkins?" asked Darbishire.

  "No, my left football boot has disappeared. And if you want to know how a burglar could do it I can tell you. He left his car in the school yard when we were all in the classroom and... "

  "Why did he take only one boot?" asked Jennings.

  "Maybe he has only one leg."

  "If he has only one leg how can he play football?"

  Temple could not answer that question.

  "Well," Jennings turned to Darbishire, "if we want to make our newspaper interesting we must take some photos and put them in the newspaper."

  "Yes," said Darbishire, "I can take a photo of you when you are sitting down and you can take a photo of me when I'm..."

  "No," said Jennings. "Who will want to see you when you are sitting down. We must take some interesting photos. We can go to the harbour and take a photo of a ship, for example."

  "All right," said Darbishire, "let's ask permission to go to the harbour next Sunday."

  When Sunday came it was raining. But after breakfast the sun came out and Jennings and Darbishire went to Mr Carter, the teacher on duty. They asked permission to go to the harbour. When Mr Carter gave them permission the boys took the camera and hurried to the harbour.

  Soon they came to the harbour. It was a small harbour and there was only one fishing boat there that afternoon. The name of the boat was "Sainte Marie".

  "It's French," said Darbishire when he saw the name of the boat.

  Five Frenchmen sat on deck mending their nets. The boys stood looking at them for a long time. At last Darbishire said: "Why are we standing and looking at them? Let's go and ask permission to take a photo of them. My father says you must strike while the iron is hot."

  "All right, let's go," said Jennings. And they went to the fishing boat.

  "Excuse me," said Jennings when they came up to the boat.

  There was no answer from the boat. Five pairs of hands were working quickly.

  "Excuse me," repeated Jennings loudly.

  The hands stopped working and the five fishermen turned their heads towards the boys.

  "My friend and I want to ask permission to come on deck and take some photos of you for our newspaper," said Jennings.

  No answer. The fishermen looked at the boys with surprise.

  "What I mean is there will be a wonderful picture of you mending your nets."

  "Comment?" said one of the fishermen.

  "What did he say?" asked Darbishire.

  "I don't know. Something like 'come on'."

  "No," he said, 'comment' means, 'how many', or 'what' or something else in French."

  "I will tell him that I want to take only one photo," Jennings said to Darbishire. And he said loudly, "I want only one photo."

  But the fishermen did not understand Jennings.

  "Comment?" another fisherman asked.

  "It can't mean 'how many'. I've told him that I wanted to take only one photo and now he has asked again. Maybe he means 'come on'. Let's go," Jennings said to Darbishire.

  Soon the boys were on deck. The fishermen smiled at their visitors, but did not say a word because they did not speak English.

  "Good afternoon, it's very nice to be here," said Jennings.

  "Comment?" asked the third fisherman.

  "We can't come on. We are already here," said Jennings.

  "They don't understand English" said Darbishire.

  The fishermen began to speak French, and then one of them said something in French to Darbishire.

  "Maybe he says that they don't speak English and that you must talk to them in French if you want to take a photo," said Darbishire.

  "Me talk to hem in French? But you are one of the best pupils in the French class. Ask them if we can take their photo," said Jennings.

  "I can't. I don't remember the words."

  "Please, Darbi, say something."

  Darbishire thought and said what he could.

  "Attention, mes braves! Nous voulons du poisson... No, no! What I mean is..."

  But the fishermen began to smile: they understood at last! They turned and hurried below deck.

  Jennings looked at them in surprise: "Where are they all hurrying to?"

  "Well.. you see..." began Darbishire, " I think I've made a mistake. I didn't remember the French for 'fisherman' and said 'poisson' which means 'fish'"

  "Do you mean you called them 'fish', and they got angry and ran from the deck?"

  "No, I think I said we want some fish."

  "How could you say that?"

  Darbishire did not answer.

  "Never mind," said Jennings. "I've taken a good photo of them. They don't know I took it because they were talking to you."

  "That's good. Let's go home then. I'm happy it's all over."

  But when they turned to go they saw the five fishermen again. They were coming on deck with fish in their hands.

  "Thank you very much," said Jennings, "but..."

  "C'est pour votre maman," said one of the Frenchmen.

  Darbishire understood. "He says that we must take the fish home to our mothers," he said.

  "Tell him we don't have mothers at boarding school. Thank them and tell them we don't want any fish," said Jennings.

  "I can't. There are too many words there that I don't know. Let's take the fish and go."

  "But we don't want it. What can we do with it?"

  "We must take the fish. It is a present. The fisherman think we have come here only for fish. They are happy to give it to us. They will not like it if we don't take the fish."

  "All right," said Jennings and took the fi
sh from one of the Frenchmen. Then the others hurried to the boys and gave them the fish they had in their hands.

  After that one of the fisherman took a newspaper out of his pocket and made up a big parcel of the fish. Yes, the men from "Sainte Marie" were very kind people.

  Chapter Four

  Jennings and Darbishire meet Mr Carter.

  "We can't take the parcel to school," Jennings said when the boys left the fishing boat

  "Why not? There is no rule about it, is there?" said Darbishire.

  "There must be. I think Matron will get angry if we came to tea with the fish. And if there isn't a rule, there soon will be one. Rule number nine hundred and ninety-nine: Any boy who comes to boarding school with a parcel of fish shall stay in class during football."

  "Well, let's leave it somewhere before we come to school."

  But this was not so easy. There were no trees or bushes on their way to school, and an old woman with a dog was walking behind them.

  "We can't leave it here," decided Jennings. "Well, what shall we do with it?... I'll tell you what, Darbi. We'll take it to school and put it in my tuck-box."

  "Yes," said Darbishire, "and then we can take it home to our mothers when we go on holidays." Jennings looked at his friend angrily:

  "Sometimes you don't think before you speak."

  "I see what you mean. But then why take it with us?"

  "To eat, of course."

  "What - raw! Thank you, Jen. I'm not a cat."

  "I'm not going to eat it raw. I'm not a cat either. What we'll do is this. We'll get up early tomorrow and develop our film in the school dark room. There is a gas-cooker there and we'll fry a nice fish breakfast."

  "What shall we fry it in?"

  "In developing dishes, of course."

  "Where can we get butter?"

  "I'll think about that," said Jennings.

  Darbishire thought it was a good plan: teachers do not come into the dark room when pupils develop the film there.

  When the boys were near the school Jennings sent Darbishire to see if there was anybody near the building. Jennings put the parcel on the ground. At that moment Darbishire ran back.