Read Online The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy) by W. E. Mann - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: W. E. Mann
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around us. “It’s disgusting in here!”
“This
bathroom gives me the heebie-jeebies,” came another, deeper voice.
“Me
too,” said a third, very similar. “I can hear footsteps in here at night.”
There
was a pause.
“Anyway,
we’d better get downstairs, chaps,” said Vanderpump. “Hey listen, how about a
dorm raid tonight? One o’clock, soon as we’re back from Night Ops?”
“Sounds
great,” replied one of his companions enthusiastically.
“Yeah,”
said the other. “Which dorm?”
I
had a pretty strong hunch which dorm Vanderpump would want to raid tonight. A
dorm raid involved a number of senior boys armed to the teeth with pillows,
creeping into a junior dorm after lights-out. They would generally begin by
upending (or “lamp-posting”) as many of the beds as they could. Half-asleep,
unarmed boys would tumble out into an eiderdown apocalypse as they and their
dorm-mates would be pulverised with pillows until the whole room was snowing
feathers.
Usually
dorm raids were conducted in good humour by the Seniors as an end-of-term
dare. But occasionally, if a Senior had a score to settle, things could get a little
nasty. During the Michaelmas Term, for example, one of the boys in West Ante,
Tarquin Chorley, was hit so hard about the back of the head with a pillow that
he cracked his forehead on the corner of the mantelpiece and had to go to hospital
to have eight stitches.
“I’m
thinking...Portico,” said Vanderpump, pretending to select a dormitory at
random.
“Wizard
idea!” enthused one of the others. “It’s out of the way, so we’re a lot less
likely to be caught.”
Inevitably
I had been right. Portico was Freddie’s and my dorm and Vanderpump was clearly
planning his revenge. Freddie looked at me, wincing. But strangely I didn’t
feel at all nervous. I mean, it wasn’t as if I’d never taken a beating before
and at least this time I could be well prepared. Also, I was far too shaken by
what we had heard downstairs to be worried by a dorm raid.
Gas.
Barrington had said he was going to gas some of the boys. There had been
strange rumours about people being gassed to death in the Eastern Reich, but we
had been told not to believe them. There had been other rumours that
scientific experiments were being conducted on the physically handicapped and
other Asoziale to make them think differently. I wondered with dread whether
Barrington had been told to carry out this kind of experiment on some of the
boys at Talltrees.
“Keep
it under your hats, chaps,” said Vanderpump. “We certainly don’t want them
finding out before we arrive, eh?”
“Not
a word,” stated one of the others, as the three of them left the dorm. “I had
this idea about putting something hard into my pillow, like a book or a rock or
something...”
We
waited for a few moments after we could no longer hear them, just to ensure
that they were gone. We then emerged from behind the shutters.
Creeping
through Wolfhall, I asked Freddie who the other two with Vanderpump might have
been.
“The
twins,” he replied ominously.
That
was bad news. The twins were Angus and Amos Bearbaiter, the two prop forwards
for the Talltrees 1 st XV. They were enormous, hulking behemoths
with buzz-cuts and body-hair. Apparently they had both started shaving when
they were nine years old. They were also renowned school-wide for being
mind-numbingly stupid. I heard that one of them (it didn’t matter which because
they were both the same) had managed to score just one per cent. in his
Geometry exam last term and he only got that because he had managed to spell
his name correctly at the top of the page. What an idiot!
We
crept down the corridor, making sure that Vanderpump and the twins were a good
distance in front of us before they headed down the Spiral Staircase. Then we
ran as fast as we could to the Junior Bathroom, quickly cleaned our teeth and
hurried
“This
bathroom gives me the heebie-jeebies,” came another, deeper voice.
“Me
too,” said a third, very similar. “I can hear footsteps in here at night.”
There
was a pause.
“Anyway,
we’d better get downstairs, chaps,” said Vanderpump. “Hey listen, how about a
dorm raid tonight? One o’clock, soon as we’re back from Night Ops?”
“Sounds
great,” replied one of his companions enthusiastically.
“Yeah,”
said the other. “Which dorm?”
I
had a pretty strong hunch which dorm Vanderpump would want to raid tonight. A
dorm raid involved a number of senior boys armed to the teeth with pillows,
creeping into a junior dorm after lights-out. They would generally begin by
upending (or “lamp-posting”) as many of the beds as they could. Half-asleep,
unarmed boys would tumble out into an eiderdown apocalypse as they and their
dorm-mates would be pulverised with pillows until the whole room was snowing
feathers.
Usually
dorm raids were conducted in good humour by the Seniors as an end-of-term
dare. But occasionally, if a Senior had a score to settle, things could get a little
nasty. During the Michaelmas Term, for example, one of the boys in West Ante,
Tarquin Chorley, was hit so hard about the back of the head with a pillow that
he cracked his forehead on the corner of the mantelpiece and had to go to hospital
to have eight stitches.
“I’m
thinking...Portico,” said Vanderpump, pretending to select a dormitory at
random.
“Wizard
idea!” enthused one of the others. “It’s out of the way, so we’re a lot less
likely to be caught.”
Inevitably
I had been right. Portico was Freddie’s and my dorm and Vanderpump was clearly
planning his revenge. Freddie looked at me, wincing. But strangely I didn’t
feel at all nervous. I mean, it wasn’t as if I’d never taken a beating before
and at least this time I could be well prepared. Also, I was far too shaken by
what we had heard downstairs to be worried by a dorm raid.
Gas.
Barrington had said he was going to gas some of the boys. There had been
strange rumours about people being gassed to death in the Eastern Reich, but we
had been told not to believe them. There had been other rumours that
scientific experiments were being conducted on the physically handicapped and
other Asoziale to make them think differently. I wondered with dread whether
Barrington had been told to carry out this kind of experiment on some of the
boys at Talltrees.
“Keep
it under your hats, chaps,” said Vanderpump. “We certainly don’t want them
finding out before we arrive, eh?”
“Not
a word,” stated one of the others, as the three of them left the dorm. “I had
this idea about putting something hard into my pillow, like a book or a rock or
something...”
We
waited for a few moments after we could no longer hear them, just to ensure
that they were gone. We then emerged from behind the shutters.
Creeping
through Wolfhall, I asked Freddie who the other two with Vanderpump might have
been.
“The
twins,” he replied ominously.
That
was bad news. The twins were Angus and Amos Bearbaiter, the two prop forwards
for the Talltrees 1 st XV. They were enormous, hulking behemoths
with buzz-cuts and body-hair. Apparently they had both started shaving when
they were nine years old. They were also renowned school-wide for being
mind-numbingly stupid. I heard that one of them (it didn’t matter which because
they were both the same) had managed to score just one per cent. in his
Geometry exam last term and he only got that because he had managed to spell
his name correctly at the top of the page. What an idiot!
We
crept down the corridor, making sure that Vanderpump and the twins were a good
distance in front of us before they headed down the Spiral Staircase. Then we
ran as fast as we could to the Junior Bathroom, quickly cleaned our teeth and
hurried
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