More About Boy: Roald Dahl's Tales From Childhood by Roald Dahl; Quentin Blake

Author:Roald Dahl; Quentin Blake [Blake, Roald Dahl; Quentin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Juvenile Nonfiction, dahl, 20th Century, English, Roald - Childhood and youth, General, Literary, Great Britain, Authors, Biography & Autobiography, English - 20th century, Juvenile literature, Biography
ISBN: 9780374350550
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Published: 2009-09-01T04:39:08+00:00

Nanny, who in my eyes was filled with more wisdom than Solomon, replied, ‘Whenever a bristle comes out of your toothbrush and you swallow it, it sticks in your appendix and turns it rotten. In the war’, she went on, ‘the German spies used to sneak boxloads of loose-bristled toothbrushes into our shops and millions of our soldiers got appendicitis.’

‘Honestly, Nanny?’ I cried. ‘Is that honestly true?’

‘I never lie to you, child,’ she answered.’ ‘So let that be a lesson to you never to use an old toothbrush.’

For years after that, I used to get nervous whenever I found a toothbrush bristle on my tongue.

As I went upstairs and knocked on the brown door after breakfast, I didn’t even feel frightened of the Matron.

‘Come in!’ boomed the voice.

I entered the room clutching my stomach on the right-hand side and staggering pathetically.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ the Matron shouted, and the sheer force of her voice caused that massive bosom to quiver like a gigantic blancmange.

‘It hurts, Matron,’ I moaned. ‘Oh, it hurts so much! Just here!’

‘You’ve been over-eating!’ she barked. ‘What do you expect if you guzzle currant cake all day long!’

‘I haven’t eaten a thing for days,’ I lied. ‘I couldn’t eat, Matron! I simply couldn’t!’

‘Get on the bed and lower your trousers,’ she ordered.

I lay on the bed and she began prodding my tummy violently with her fingers. I was watching her carefully, and when she hit what I guessed was the appendix place, I let out a yelp that rattled the window-panes. ‘Ow! Ow! Ow!’ I cried out. ‘Don’t, Matron, don’t!’ Then I slipped in the clincher. ‘I’ve been sick all morning,’ I moaned, ‘and now there’s nothing left to be sick with, but I still feel sick!’

This was the right move. I saw her hesitate. ‘Stay where you are,’ she said and she walked quickly from the room. She may have been a foul and beastly woman, but she had had a nurse’s training and she didn’t want a ruptured appendix on her hands.

Within an hour, the doctor arrived and he went through the same prodding and poking and I did my yelping at what I thought were the proper times. Then he put a thermometer in my mouth.

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘It reads normal. Let me feel your stomach once more.’

‘Owch!’ I screamed when he touched the vital spot.

The doctor went away with the Matron. The Matron returned half an hour later and said, ‘The Headmaster has telephoned your mother and she’s coming to fetch you this afternoon.’

I didn’t answer her. I just lay there trying to look very ill, but my heart was singing out with all sorts of wonderful songs of praise and joy.

I was taken home across the Bristol Channel on the paddle-steamer and I felt so wonderful at being away from that dreaded school building that I very nearly forgot I was meant to be ill. That afternoon I had a session with Dr Dunbar at his surgery in Cathedral Road, Cardiff, and I tried the same tricks all over again.

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