Frankie Vaughan Ate My Hamster

by Rikki Brown

  I informed him that I had no intention of telling my parents, mostly because they would have been of the opinion that I probably deserved it. No, the furthest this would go would be into the school record books and we would leave it at that. He looked relieved, thanked me and I returned to the classroom via the toilets where I ran my wrists under the cold water tap to try and take the pain away.

  Back in my seat Winker told me that Shazzan had been given the rest of the year off as he was suffering from stress. Yes, and no wonder. I did feel guilty about the whole thing but technically it wasn’t really my fault because it wasn’t me who initially shouted ‘forty-five and a quarter degrees’. I shouted ‘cabbage’.

  That January we were invited to go on a day’s skiing trip to Glenshee as guests of Knightswood Academy. Mr Menzies had a friend who taught there and I think his friend invited us to do his bit for the socially deprived.

  We were to meet at the school at six o’clock on the Sunday morning as the coach was picking us up first and then off to Knightswood, which is much nearer the Highlands than we were.

  We were all excited and in high spirits but totally unprepared for the weather that lay ahead. We were all in dufflecoats or denim jackets with about ten jerseys on underneath, the luckier ones also had woollen tammies and gloves.

  Menzies addressed us as we approached Knightswood, ‘Right, you are guests of Knightswood School and shall behave as such. I want no foul language, no threatening behaviour and no drinking. Remember you are ambassadors for your school and I want you to act accordingly. The Knightswood pupils may speak slightly differently from you but that’s no reason to beat them up.’

  Big Ally spoke up, ‘You fuckin’ sure sir?’

  ‘Yes Dixon, fuckin’ positive.’

  We pulled in at the Academy and we were all taking up the whole back section of the bus and had no intention of letting anyone encroach on our turf.

  The other lot got on in full skiing gear. They had the lot – suits, salopettes, jackets, gloves and packed lunches.

  Winker leaned over to me, ‘This lot must be loaded.’

  A couple of braver ones came up to the back, noticed that Ally and Winker were occupying two seats each and asked very politely, ‘Excuse me, is anyone sitting there?’

  ‘Aye oor feet, now piss off.’

  They looked a bit dejected and one bent down to whisper in Ally’s ear.

  Ally moved his feet and let the guy sit down, ‘You tae Winker, get yer feet aff the seat and let the boy park it.’

  I was puzzled until I heard the whoosh of a can opening. These two pupils had sneaked a carry out on and were sharing it with Wink and Ally.

  ‘We didn’t want to drink at the front in case Teach caught us.’

  Ally said, ‘Aye we cannae have Teach catching us can we?’

  Ally’s tone was laced with sarcasm but the guy never twigged.

  The journey to Glenshee took about four and a half hours during which we tried to get to know our new companions. There were a couple of crackers amongst them and Winker and myself moved in. We shuffled up the bus and got to where they were sitting.

  Winker introduced us but they just eyed us distastefully. Winker, not to be deterred, said to one of them, ‘Nice anorak doll.’

  ‘It’s not an anorak, it’s a ski jacket,’ she said nastily.

  Winker, realising that he was bombing, aimed a parting shot, ‘Tell me, do you take the hand doll?’

  ‘What!!!’

  ‘I’m just asking ye if there’s a chance of a feel behind a snow dune.’

  They started calling for some guy named Kevin. Kevin duly appeared and he was a school captain type, all teeth and hairspray.

  ‘Are these two annoying you Hazel?’

  ‘Yes Kevin, they are being very rude.’

  Kevin then said the wrong thing.

  ‘Why don’t you go back and mix with your own kind.’

  Winker head butted him and his nose exploded, covering Hazel in blood and snotters. Winker, satisfied that this was the Easterhouse version of a witty Noel-Coward-type comeback, left and went back to his seat to await Menzies who wasn’t long in charging up the bus in a blue funk.

  ‘Watson, what’s your problem boy, don’t you ever listen? That boy’s nose is broken.’

  ‘Well sir, maybe when they reset it, it’ll no be as fuckin’ far in the air.’

  Menzies explained that Kevin wanted to press charges for assault. Now this was new to us, we never knew you could get the police to fight your battles for you. Menzies’ mate came up and was about to join in the verbal barrage when Winker explained, ‘Sir, we were just having a laugh and he told us to get back to our own kind, sir the guy’s a snob, sir.’

  Menzies’ mate looked at Winker, ‘He told you what?’

  Menzies’ mate took off back up the bus and started shouting at Kevin.

  He accused him of being a snob and his remarks were only fit for the gutter. Seemed Menzies’ mate was a socialist.

  After Kev’s nose, the ice was broken and things got much better. It turned out that Kev wasn’t exactly popular amongst ‘his own kind’ and all through the day Winker was congratulated on his hard forehead.

  We arrived at Glenshee and the conditions were perfect but the bus could only take us half way up the road to where the ski slope was and we had to disembark and walk the remainder.

  As the Westwood pupils climbed off all you could hear were ‘Jesus Christs’ and ‘Bloody hells’ as the wind bit through our clothing. We had never known cold like it before. Someone asked how far would we have to walk.

  ‘About a mile and a half.’

  ‘How come sir? The snow here is up tae oor arses, can we not ski here?’

  Menzies explained that this was not a ski run, plus the place we were to collect our skis was much nearer the top, so miserable as hell we began the trek up the mountain. Every so often we’d hear swearing as someone fell down a snowcovered hole.

  We reached the top and we were issued with our ski boots, skis and sticks. The Knightswood pupils had been there before and knew the drill and had all the basics. We were a fankle of wood and metal.

  We started on the nursery slopes while the real skiers buggered off for higher ground. Our instructor, a German bloke named Hans, ordered us to form a line in front of him. We were skidding about all over the place and occasionally someone would go about four yards past him before falling over.

  ‘Dig your sticks in, ja?’

  We’d never met a German before and all we knew of his race was that we’d beaten them in the War and that they always went ‘Urgh’ when they were shot in the Commando comics.

  He asked us if any of us had skiied before. This question was met with either a ‘Aye so we fuckin’ have’ or a ‘Aye every winter my Da jets us aff tae St Moritz’.

  He then said skiing was easy and started to teach us. Because Hans was suntanned and handsome, the girls in the group were very attentive but we ‘the lads’ just wanted to have a shot.

  ‘Come on Hans can we not just try it eh?’

  Hans humoured us, ‘You are the smartarses ja, then please if you try.’

  Ally went first with a ‘nae bother boys watch this’ as he shot off down the slope. He was also shouting, ‘Look at me mammy I’m dancing,’ when he realised that he was heading straight towards a fence.

  He started shouting, ‘Achtung fencen, achtung fencen,’ before hitting it and flying over it, landing head first in a flurry of snow, wood and dufflecoat.

  Hans skiied down to see if Ally was alright and got there as Ally was raising himself up. He shook the snow out of his hood and walked back up towards us with his skis over his shoulders.

  ‘Fuckin’ dawdle.’

  Hans looked at him.

  ‘Now we learn how to stop, ja?’

  After about half an hour he let us have our first go down the nursery slope. I looked around for Ally but couldn’t see him lined up with the rest of us. I then noticed him about fifty yards aw
ay on top of this dangerously steep hill.

  Hans saw him too and was shouting, ‘Nein nein, you are off piste.’

  Ally was shouting back, ‘Naw naw, yer awright, I’ve only had a couple of cans,’ and with that he pushed his sticks into the snow and he was off. He skied like a pro and had gone about 100 yards down the hill when it became apparent to everyone except Ally that he was heading straight into the car park. When he did notice it was far too late for him to do anything about it. He shot into the car park, missing a parked car by a few inches, before colliding slam bang centre into a minibus. He stopped dead and his tammie flew off his head and over the bus. We threw off our skis and ran down the slope to see if he was alright. When we got there he was unhurt and in an argument with the minibus driver. ‘What dae ye think yer daeing parking a bus on a ski slope ya prick?’

  I picked up his tammie while Hans had him by the hood of his duffle and was dragging him back up the hill.

  ‘We see your teacher now, ja?’

  Ally was screaming abuse at him, ‘Aw aye and whit dae ye dae fur an encore, invade fuckin’ Poland?’

  As the day wore on we forgot the cold and started to enjoy ourselves. We even became sort of proficient and joined our hosts on their slope. There isn’t much to skiing, you go down and walk back up. Come to think of it, skiing is boring.

  Winker seemed to be falling over more than everyone else and I noticed that he always fell beside Hazel. Knocking her over then falling over himself is probably a more accurate description of events.

  He would then apologise profusely, help her to her feet and give her a bit of patter at the same time. I saw she was starting to laugh at his comments and was, as they say, ‘right in there’.

  Eventually weary, we trooped back down the hill and onto the bus for the journey home. The pupils were now evenly distributed on the bus thanks to all the new forged friendships. Winker had Hazel sleeping on his lap; he signalled me to come over and when I got there he asked me, ‘Any idea how I can get my zip down without waking her up?’

  By the time we reached Easterhouse we were alone after dropping off our guests and saying our goodbyes. It was around midnight by this time and we were exhausted. Menzies stayed on the bus and he was being dropped off in the city centre. As he was pulling the bus door shut to head off, he said to Ally, ‘Dixon, my office 9.15 to fill in an insurance form to pay for the dent in the minibus.’

  As the bus left we could see he was laughing. Was he kidding? It turned out he was.

  16

  LOST

  Studying for O-levels was a bind and as the school day was long enough we resented having to also do homework and would come up with elaborate excuses why we hadn’t.

  ‘Sir, the dog ate it.’

  ‘Sir, my wee brother ate it.’

  ‘Sir, I ate it.’

  and

  ‘Sir, an eagle swooped down and stole my school bag.’

  The thing was, though, most of us ended up doing our homework in detention classes just to pass the time.

  In March that year, our English teacher Mr Smart decided, for reasons unknown, to field a debating team and nominated Winker, Ally, a girl in the class called Sandra, and myself as members. None of us knew what a debating team was and in the common room we discussed it.

  Ally reckoned he knew more than most. ‘Aye well ye see it’s like an argument sort of a thing, ye get a topic and ye argue about it.’

  ‘Is that it then, we’re in a team of arguers?’

  ‘Aye.’

  We were up against Allen Glen’s, a posh fee-paying school where unless you were on a bursary, your parents would be out at least £500 a term.

  The first round took place at our school and the Glenners turned up in a brand new minibus with about ten supporters and a couple of teachers doubling as judges who were supposedly neutral. Our support comprised one teacher and the jannie who was there to lock up once it was over. Desks were lined up facing each other and we sat looking scruffy opposite a shiny team in school blazers and nice haircuts.

  The subject was Adolf Hitler – Lunatic or Genius. We drew the short straw and had to defend him. Ally, being our captain, had to start us off. He got up and said, ‘Adolf Hitler was a genius,’ and sat back down again.

  The judges were a bit taken aback having expected at least a few minutes of rambling. They faffed a bit until they found the bit of paper with the Glenners captain’s name on it and announced the floor was his.

  He patted down his hair, got up, cleared his throat and began.

  ‘How can my learned friend in the opposition state that the aforementioned despot was a genius? Adolf Hitler was a pathetic, mentally deranged, evil scourge of humanity …’

  Ally broke in, ‘Naw he wisnae and he wisnae a desktop either.’

  One of the judges banged his gavel on the desk causing Winker, who was in the process of nodding off, to jump.

  ‘Mr Dixon you have had your say and you are not allowed to interrupt the opening address.’

  The Glenner continued.

  ‘Hitler destroyed, Hitler murdered … etc … etc … etc.’ He went on for a full fifteen minutes.

  My turn came and I thought I had better make an effort of some description.

  ‘Adolf Hitler made the trains run on time and that’s not easy.’

  Winker whispered to me, ‘That was Mussolini ya tube.’

  ‘Was it, em well okay, let me see, Hitler’s army had great uniforms, he made rousing speeches and he put that siren thing on the noses of Stukas to scare the crap out of people he was dive bombing. I mean he beat Poland in three weeks and how many folk have done that?’

  As I sat down I could see Mr Smart sitting with his head in his hands.

  The Glenners then went on in great depth as to why Hitler was a nutter. They had the whys, wherefores and hows and we sat not really understanding what they were talking about.

  The only person in our team who spoke with any authority on the subject was Sandra who talked about the upsurge of the German economy in the thirties. When she sat down I said to her, ‘Where did you learn all that?’ and she told me that Mr Smart had been coaching her.

  Needless to say, we didn’t win the first round and Mr Smart declined the rematch, which gave them a bye into the next round.

  That was the end of the debating team.

  Various clubs sprang up in fifth year, not exactly clubs, more like two or three pupils having their hobby funded by the council. There was a canoeing club, a hillwalking club, a cinema club and a chess club. The chess club didn’t last very long as Winker took great delight in throwing the chess pieces out of the fourth floor common room window.

  We all joined something except Ally who was too busy running a book on what he called ‘The Biggest Tits in the School’ contest. The contenders were Angela Frame and Brenda Mathieson. Ally was trying to persuade one of their fellow female classmates to nick their bras when they were in P.E. for him to measure them so he could have an official winner. He didn’t have much luck and it was only years later at a class reunion that we found out that Angela Frame was the clear winner, well she claimed she was anyway. I tried to claim my winnings off Ally but he refused to pay up saying that officially the result was unofficial, whatever that means.

  Our first choice was hillwalking because it sounded easy. After all, how difficult can putting one foot in front of the other in a forward motion be?

  One Sunday morning the club found itself at the base of the hills behind Largs. Menzies was in charge and, including him, there were eight of us. Menzies was dressed like Sherpa Tensing and he spoke with great authority on the basics of hillwalking, i.e. map reading and survival, but I couldn’t help noticing that all his equipment, including his map and compass, were brand spanking new.

  We set off up the hill but the class Fat Boy kept lagging behind and every so often we had to stop and wait for him to catch up. This annoyed Winker tremendously: ‘Can you no walk any faster ya fat prick?’


  Fat Boy was too exhausted to answer him back.

  We’d gone about five miles in two hours when Menzies stopped, consulted his map and said, ‘There should be a crashed light aircraft here.’

  Winker told him, ‘Maybe the wreckage was so light it blew away.’

  As no plane wreckage was apparent and Menzies looked confused, he started checking his bearings. First he’d look at the map, then at the mist covered sun, then at his compass and back to the map again.

  Winker was lying on his back pulling out shafts of grass and eating them. ‘We lost sir?’

  ‘No we are not lost and stop eating the grass, sheep might have urinated on it.’

  Winker added, ‘Can you actually read a map sir? I think you’ve been watching too many movies sir.’

  Menzies glared at him. Winker got up and started walking away from the party.

  ‘Watson, where are you going?’

  Winker, without turning round, said, ‘For a joabie, I may be gone some time.’

  We waited for Winker to return before setting off in a different direction and had been walking for a further two hours when he shouted: ‘Aw come on man, that’s the rock I joabied behind – we’re going round in circles.’

  Menzies grabbed him, ‘Don’t be stupid Watson.’

  ‘Me stoopit, I’m no the one with the map.’

  Menzies warned Winker what he was going to do to him back at school but Winker just laughed.

  ‘School sir, I’d be surprised if you could find it.’

  We broke for lunch and Winker nodded furtively for me to join him.

  ‘You know what’s gonnie happen don’t ye,’ he whispered, ‘we’re gonnie end up stuck up here all night, run out of food and have to eat Fat Boy like they did in that plane crash in the Andes.’

  I thought this over and only ate half my packed lunch. The rest I was keeping for later.

  ‘But Wink, how lost can ye be in Largs?’

  ‘That prick Menzies could get lost in Safeways.’

  Winker was in no mood to spend the night in the hills. ‘Mr Menzies, what happens when it gets dark?’