MY MOTHER DIED BEFORE I COULD MURDER HER

CHAPTER 10

Up the pole.

The couple of weeks after my bar mitzvah party were pretty hectic. We were getting closer to the end of the school year and I started to study for the exams. Ralphie came over to my house to go over our notes and revise, but whenever we spent time together there was little studying, so my mom banned him until after the exams.

     I was pretty confident that I’d do well in all of the subjects, even science, which was now a whole lot clearer, since Wiggins had moved me and was open to answering my questions, albeit with short terse answers. It was obvious that he still hated me; just as obvious as the fact that my dad had scared the crap out of him. I knew that he’d decided to see this year through and have me out of his class and hopefully never have to see me again. It was strange how powerful I felt. The bastard couldn’t touch me or give me a hard time and I decided that I’d show him, and more especially my dad, that I was as good a student as any other in my class and, if given the opportunity, could score high marks. I went back over the year’s notes and tried to tie them up with the textbook, and then in revision periods would ask Wiggins to clear up what I had missed. I think, in a strange way, he too was getting a kick out of how much I was improving.

     After we wrote the exams, there was less than a week until the end of the school year. In reality the year was over; the wonderful Johannesburg summer was in full bloom, so most classes were held outdoors on the rugby field and those that were held in the classroom were mainly relaxed discussions of whatever took the teacher’s fancy.

     On Thursday morning, the day before the end of term, I parked my bike in its now usual spot at the end of the rack and made my way across the courtyard to class. A group of guys were standing near the flagpole pointing and laughing. Someone had hoisted a condom filled with water to the top of the pole. I had never seen a condom as large as this before. The only one I’d ever seen was Morris’s shorty. One Sunday afternoon, he found it in his pocket while we were at the Zoo Lake. He explained how when you had sex you had to wear a contraceptive and that there were different “crepe de chins” as he called them. His preference was a short one that slipped over the end and was held on with a very tight rubber ring. He opened the packet and held it in the palm of his hand. It was only about an inch long and the elastic band made the ring look so tight, I thought that wearing it would really hurt. “Never hurts.” Morris saw me frowning. “When you put it on and use it, the sensation is so great you don’t ever feel any pain.”

     I looked up at the top of the flagpole. The frenchie as the guys called it, was about seven or eight inches long, filled with water. Surely that was too long to just fit over the tip. I wondered how it would go all the way down; it must’ve been a real effort to put it on. A few minutes later there were almost forty students checking it out. Ralphie turned up and found the whole thing hysterical. He couldn’t stop laughing and told me how Monty would often take a frenchie out of his drawer and would love blowing it up like a balloon. I can’t explain why, but I felt kind of embarrassed by the whole incident and couldn’t really join in the fun.

     I saw Leggy standing on his own across the courtyard. He had his arms folded and a weird smirk on his face. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he hadn’t hoisted the condom or at least been involved in some way. He looked straight at me, still smirking, and I noticed the slightest of nods. I knew it! He knew about this whole episode and was telling me so. At that moment Mr. McCormack, a one-time war hero wounded in North Africa just before the famous battle of Tobruk, and now vice-head, crossed the courtyard and joined the guys at the flagpole.

     His voice was calm, but there was no question about it, he was angry. “Get away from here, all of you. Get to your classes.” He turned to one of the prefects and said, “Find Andrew,” he was talking about the handyman, “and get him to bring a sharp knife to cut that disgusting thing down.” As we walked off to class he called out. “It’s not a laughing matter, you know. You should all be ashamed; this is a reflection on our school. When I find who did this, he’ll be expelled on the spot.”