Stillways by Steve Bisley

Author:Steve Bisley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Big trouble

The headmaster’s name is Mr Egger, so of course he’s called ‘the Goog’. The deputy headmaster is Mr Ferguson, known as ‘Mousey’ because he has the look of the rodent about him.

Gary Grant and me are standing outside the Goog’s office, which can only mean one thing: trouble. I don’t know why we’re here and if Gary knows, he’s not saying. I rack my brains to see if I can remember anything I might have done, but I come up empty. We’ve been summoned here from the first period after lunch. Earlier in the day we’d been given half a period off before the morning recess to prepare tea and biscuits in the teachers’ staffroom. I’d done it several times before and it’s a bludge.

I’d unpacked the biscuits and arranged them on a large white platter. There are twenty-five teachers and at two each, that’s a lot of biscuits.

Gary was over by the sink filling the two large iron teapots from the silver urn and with twenty-five teachers, that’s a lot of tea. The bell sounded to signal the start of recess. I quickly filled the two large glass jugs with milk from the fridge, placed them on the table and we were done and gone, easy.

We wait outside the office. Time saunters on. Maybe it’s about the half-pack of Arrowroot biscuits we knocked off before we left the staffroom. No, couldn’t be that. Who would have known? Who would have cared? I check my lips for crumbs.

‘Bisley, Grant!’ It’s Mousey, the deputy, a small neat man. ‘Inside!’ Small and neat maybe, but vicious with the cane.

We go in. The Goog’s at his desk, with a hand supporting his chin as he reads from a stack of papers. We stop in front of his large dark desk. Mousey stands beside Mr Egger. Bad cop, bad cop. The Goog reads on. More waiting, just like at home, in the shed.

School sounds leak into the office and swell and fade and swell again. The trill of a whistle from the oval, ten times tables droning in the distance, a door slamming somewhere and another somewhere else, magpies arguing in the trees outside the tuckshop and far off a clarinet played badly pipes and squawks to a thankful end.

The headmaster screws the lid on his delicate gold-tipped fountain pen and places it neatly beside the squat blue ink bottle, his fingers the colour of washed oysters, his nails trimmed to perfection. He slides the stacked papers sideways, leans back into the plush leather of the chair and stares at us.

Mousey cuts the silence like a rapier. ‘You boys were assisting in the preparation of the teachers’ morning tea today – is that correct, Bisley?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I reply, puzzled.

‘You, Grant?’

‘Sir?’

‘You and Bisley were assisting in the preparation of the teachers’ morning tea today, yes or no?’

I shoot a glance at Gary. His face is reddening and his gaze is fixed on a spot on the floor.

‘Grant?’

Nothing.

I’m still looking at Gary and can’t understand why he’s not responding.

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