

### Desperate Measures

by R. B. Baxter

Copyright 2012 R. B. Baxter

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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For my Tai-tai, Jane

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - A Great Idea

Chapter 2 - The Execution

Chapter 3 - Oh, the Shame

Chapter 4 - The Preparation

Chapter 5 - The Great Man Cometh

Chapter 6 - A Horrible Moment

Chapter 7 - The Aftermath

Chapter 8 - Epilogue

Chapter 1 - A Great Idea

As I stood there in the window naked and shivering I began to doubt the veracity of Nicky Burns' information. A cold wind fresh off the Snowy Mountains was hammering Barclay and my resolve was diminishing by the second. I was freezing and as another bout of violent shivering rattled my thin body I began to think of packing it in.

A horrible thought had crept into the back of my head a minute or so before; what if I was just another victim of one of Nicky's stupid jokes?

But that was hard to believe. I mean, surely Nicky would never do that to me. After all, I was his best mate and you didn't do that sort of thing to your best mate. Although, with Nicky you could never be sure; he was a real prankster and was entirely capable of leading me on just so he could have a good laugh at my expense the next day at school.

But what if it wasn't a joke? What if this crazy idea of Nicky's had some merit? I was cold and I felt miserable but surely I could hold on for just a few minutes more. I had to try.

But even so, that insidious little doubt kept nagging at me. Was it possible? Had Nicky been playing silly buggers? Had he been setting me up to look the fool?

I ran my mind back to earlier in the day—back to the events that had led me, Owen Finnegan, to stand on my bed in the middle of an open window, stark-naked and sopping wet at seven o'clock on a frigid Tuesday night in winter.

### * * *

I raced full-bore across the playground of St Joseph's Catholic School with Nicky hot on my heels. Chucking half-a-dozen zippy little sidesteps, I dodged the marauding nuns dotted here and there among the sea of students in the quadrangle and then barrelled around the corner of the church trying to not to slip over on the loose white gravel.

We had just scoffed our lunches and were heading for our favourite place in the school-yard to play marbles. It was a good sunny position hard up against the wall of the old church where the ground was flat and firm. It was an especially good spot in the colder months as the century old, red brick wall reflected the winter sun and warmed us as we played. The angle between the wall and the thick abutment that jutted from it sheltered us from the cold wind that always blasted along the quadrangle kicking up a barrage of stinging gravel and knocking over kindergarten kids.

But there was another reason we favoured this position, the most important reason of all. It was off the quadrangle and away from the nuns as they performed their endless circuits of the playground, prowling shark-like among the children. The nuns of Saint Joseph's in Barclay were always on the alert, ever ready to leap in and prevent someone from committing a sin. They could zero in on a potential sinner in much the same way as a white pointer could pinpoint a drop of blood in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The circle we'd etched in the hard soil at recess was still visible so in no time at all we were deep into our first game. Nicky, as always, was not doing well. He was a hopeless marbles player and since at his insistence we normally played for keeps, it meant that over the course of a week Nicky lost a lot of good marbles to anyone he played against. Today was no different and within ten minutes Nicky had lost a handful of his best shooters to me. It didn't worry him too much though since it was only Tuesday. That meant his marble bag was still fairly full.

Nicky's father owned a successful car dealership and over the years business had been good. With the wealth came all the trappings such as the palatial family home with two cars in the driveway—an oddity in rural Australia in the sixties. The children of the family received generous allowances which meant plenty of the latest toys and games. But for Nicky, it meant he could stock up on new marbles over the weekend and gird his loins for the hidings he would receive over the coming week.

A short, bandy, pugnacious little bloke, Nicky had a thick crop of loose black curls atop a head that bobbled about continually as he talked. Of all the children in the Burns' household he was the one that had inherited his father's quick wit and acumen. He fully embraced the world of the car salesman, and why not? He was a natural. He could talk underwater. He could talk the leg off an iron pot. If there was nothing to talk about then Nicky would talk about it. And he did too, constantly, and always at a million miles an hour. There was never any doubt about what Nicky Burns would do when he grew up. He would sell cars just like his father.

Unfortunately none of this made Nicky a better marbles player and week in and week out he lost marbles by the bagful. But every weekend he would replenish his supplies and turn up at school on the Monday with a marble bag that was bursting at the seams. He didn't stint either. There were none of the regular cheap and nasty bits of glass and paste from Coles we other kids had to put up with. No sir! None of that rubbish for Nicky. He bought his marbles from Mr Andrew's toyshop in Barrow Road. Every Monday morning Nicky's marble bag bulged with all sorts of new bodgies and glassies. He had Cat's Eyes and Aggies. Bottle Tops and Froggies. Blue Moons, Sunsets, Beach Balls, Blood Alleys and Claypots; every sort of new marble you could ever think of. He even had Olympics which were hard to get and far too expensive for the rest of us.

Then over the course of the week we would watch as Nicky's marble bag steadily lost weight. He would bear these losses with good grace and a positive attitude until around about Thursday. Then he would decide he couldn't take it anymore and would have to do something to stop the haemorrhage.

That was when the rot would set in.

I doubt there could be anything worse in the world than watching Nicky Burns, a sixth-class kid, trying to con the kindergarten and first-class kids into a game of keeps in order to bolster his dwindling marble supply. Anyone could see that he was only trying to take advantage of them. But even with these little tots Nicky found he had to be careful. Being five or six years their senior often made not one skerrick of difference when it came to marbles. They may have been barely out of nappies but some of these kids had eyes like a hawk and could shoot a fly off a dogs bum at ten paces.

Nicky always kept an extra special eye out for a small girl with pigtails and a pair of thick, oversized glasses perched right on the tip of her freckled nose. Not much more than six-years old, she was a tiny little thing. She didn't even come up to Nicky's shoulder and he was built close to the ground as it was.

The first time he had noticed her she was sitting alone on the church steps clutching a pink marble bag covered in little pastel teddy bears.

Nicky smiled. He immediately figured that since she was only in first-class and judging by the specs she wore, as blind as a bat, she could not possibly play well. On top of that she was a girl! Girls were just not interested in marbles and if they were they were never any good. And she had teddies on her marble bag! Who in their right mind had teddies on their marble bag?

With that sort of lopsided logic forming the basis of his reasoning Nicky challenged her to a game. He could barely conceal his excitement when she accepted and his confidence soared to heights never before attained. He began to strut around like a bantam rooster, throwing out his chest and proclaiming loudly just how many minutes it would take before he took every marble this little girl owned.

"I'll have no trouble cleaning out this little four-eyed, pig-tailed baby," he yelled, not caring a whit about the girl's feelings.

She didn't seem rattled in the slightest however. She just stood there and watched him caper about like a lunatic. She studied him closely in much the same way as one studies a new species of stink-bug; with that cautious curiosity that compels you to keep looking but warns you not to get too close in case it farts.

"I'm not gonna stop until that stupid pink bag with its stupid little teddies is nothing but a limp hanky in her hand," Nicky bellowed.

Attracted by all his noise a crowd formed which pleased Nicky enormously. All the more witnesses for what was sure to be a magnificent victory.

Nicky told me later that before the game began he'd been planning what he would buy with his pocket-money on the weekend since for the first time in a long time there would be no need to spend it on marbles. Images of comic books and milkshakes, sherbet cones and musk sticks had drifted tantalisingly through his mind while the little girl squatted down to take the first shot.

She cleaned him out completely in less than a minute. She was utterly ruthless. She fired her taw off the tip of her index finger, a method of shooting called _knuckling down_. Nicky's marbles were flying from the circle as though shot from cannons.

_Knuckling down_ is a fast and accurate method of shooting and was common in the playgrounds of every school across the country. Most of the kids used it but Nicky had no answer for it. He never could learn to shoot in this fashion reduced instead to firing his taw from the crook of his curled index finger, a source of great embarrassment to him.

Nicky had slipped up. His arrogant assumption that this little girl was an easy mark had cost him dearly. But he was gracious in defeat.

"She played well," he said to the appreciative crowd attracted by his initial bravado and all his big talk about reducing the little girl's marble bag to little more than a hanky. Then he lifted his own now-empty marble bag up and after taking a huge breath, blew his nose into it.

But today was Tuesday and that meant that Nicky would not be subjecting himself to the pain and misery of challenging any of the infants for a few days yet.

While he was lining up a shot I told him how desperate I was to take the following day off. That was when the new Archbishop was coming to visit the school and I just knew it would not go well for me. These things seldom did. Our new Archbishop had a reputation. It was the worst sort of reputation; the kind that sent nuns into a panic of swirling habits and clattering rosaries and had the likes of me bolting for the horizon in outright panic.

Our new Archbishop was the most educationally oriented Archbishop the Catholic Church had ever seen and he was famous for his scholastic excursions. He travelled from parish to parish visiting schools but he wouldn't simply visit a school in general, he visited every classroom within the school. And if that wasn't already bad enough, he would hold a quiz session in each class as he went along. Pointing at some poor unfortunate he would rattle off a quick question which the poor unfortunate had to answer and come hell or high water the poor unfortunate had better get it right because standing there right behind the Archbishop with murder in her eye was the poor unfortunate's teacher. If the wrong answer was forthcoming then the poor unfortunate's life from that point on would be a misery.

I was certain that I would be the only poor unfortunate in sixth-class unable to answer the Archbishop's question. And the question could be anything. It could be "seven times nine?" or "name the Patron Saint of children?" or "what is the fourth station of the cross?" These were all things I had no answer for and I just knew that at some point in his visit the Archbishop would jab an ecclesiastical digit in my face and demand a response of some sort.

My teacher, Mrs Payne, one of only two lay teachers in a school populated by nuns, would be disappointed in me when I answered incorrectly but it wasn't her that worried me. It was the principal, Sister Francis, who shook me up.

Because of a few silly misunderstandings scattered across the earlier part of the year I was figuring pretty highly on her current hit-list. I could not afford to get into any more strife. Sister Francis saw anything like not knowing the answer to one of the Archbishop's questions as a slight against her and even worse, against the school she loved so much. Answer incorrectly and I knew that while the Archbishop was present she'd be all smiles and bonhomie, but as soon as he was safely on his way she would go completely berko.

For a while I had thought about bunging on another sickie but I knew that wasn't going to work. Mum was wise to that now. The last time I'd tried it she was not receptive at all. I'd prepared myself as usual; I messed up my hair to make myself look ruffled and tired; I rubbed my eyes to make them red and weepy; I spent a good minute or so rubbing furiously at my forehead with the flat of my hand so the friction made it feel all hot and feverish. And then, I sallied forth.

I staggered into the lounge room where mum was sitting on the sofa reading a magazine. I had a hand clutched to my belly and was moaning as though only seconds from a horrendous death. Mum looked at me for a few seconds and then leaping to her feet she applauded loudly. Then she grabbed the figurine she kept on the mantelpiece and presented me with an Oscar.

I realised at that point she had twigged.

With the chance of securing some sick leave being pretty much zero and no clear alternative presenting itself, I was getting desperate. So when Nicky happened to mention that he knew of a sure-fire way to get a couple of days off, possibly even a week, I scrabbled for it like a drowning man reaching for a life-preserver.

"It will take an enormous commitment," said Nicky, as he took a shot at my favourite Cat's Eye and missed.

I smiled at the way he said it. Being the product of the world's best salesman and motivator a lot had brushed off, but I would listen to him since Nicky only ever spoke like this when he had something important to say. Even so, I tried to be cagey. It seldom paid to be too eager around Nicky. I waved my hand dismissively.

"I'll do whatever it takes."

Regardless of my offhand manner a note of desperation must have crept into my voice because Nicky eyed me for a few seconds before saying anything further. As I squatted to play my shot he adopted a businesslike attitude and let his voice become a little more imperious than usual.

"You know, this information is powerful stuff. You can't expect me to give it out willy-nilly and get nothing in return."

He winced as I fired at a particularly nice Blood Alley of his, cannoning it sharply from the ring.

"I need to get something out of this as well," he continued.

I looked at him. "Okay. Name your price."

His smile made me nervous and gave me an inkling of what was coming. He gestured to the twenty or so marbles in the circle on the ground in front of us, about three-quarters of which were mine and a good many of them, my favourites.

"I want all the marbles you have out here on the ground and then I'll tell you The Secret."

I had expected it but even so it shook me. It was a high price, one that deserved a quick snort of derisive laughter and a kick in the bum for the one cheeky enough to put it forward. I was desperate. No doubt. But was I that desperate? I looked down at the marbles on the ground between us.

When playing marbles for keeps you normally play with your roughies; your older, less favoured marbles that are so battered and ordinary you don't mind too much if you lose them. But Nicky was such a hopeless player you could afford to be a little arrogant and play him using some of your better marbles. That was what I'd done on this occasion and that meant there was a fair bit at stake. If I paid his price it would mean losing my favourite Cats Eye. The Orange Sunset I was fond of was also there along with the Sapphire Star I'd won from Frankie Allen in a hard-fought battle only the day before. The price was high, too high, and I started to protest but Nicky cut me off.

"Well if you don't want to know The Secret that's up to you but my price is firm. I will not negotiate. This very generous offer will be off the table at the end of lunchtime today."

I goggled at him. He had definitely been around his father too much of late. Nicky bent down and began to gather the few remaining loose marbles in the circle that were his.

I frowned. He obviously thought he had me. To pick up his marbles halfway through a game of keeps showed an edge of arrogance and ruthlessness I didn't know old Nicky possessed. He was trying to force my hand and I didn't like it one bit. I was just opening my mouth to tell him to bugger off when, still squatting, he played his trump card.

"Of course you could spend the whole night studying all there is to know about the saints; all their feast days and their history and all that sort of thing." He looked up at me. "You might even learn enough to squeak by tomorrow when the Archbishop asks you a question or two."

He stood up and pulled the drawstring closed on his marble bag with an emphatic jerk. He had me this time and he knew it. The prospect of a night with my head buried in theological texts attempting to glean all there was to know about every saint that had ever lived from those dull and boring pages was enough to make me want to vomit. I knew I wasn't up to that.

I gritted my teeth. "Okay. Take the marbles."

Nicky grinned and squatting down, gathered all of my marbles and dropped them into his overstuffed bag. Only when they were safely inside and the bag securely tied did he tell me The Secret.

It was so ludicrous that at first I refused to believe him and I threatened him with the most painful headlock in the entire world if he did not give my marbles back right away. But over the next ten minutes or so Nicky did what he did best. He convinced me. By the end of the lunch-break he had not only persuaded me that the plan would work, he had me champing at the bit, keen to get home and put it into action.

Chapter 2 - The Execution

The peal of the school-bell was still echoing from the hills as I burst through the school gates and ran flat-strap for home brimming with excitement. I knew The Secret and I was going to have a week off from school.

It was a twenty-minute canter from the school to home but I was so excited I hardly broke a sweat. Once home though, I had a long wait ahead of me. My mother worked most evenings at the local club and normally left the house at six o'clock. As soon as she was out the door I bolted straight down the hallway and into my bedroom eager to put Nicky's plan into action.

I was so excited at the prospect of some time away from school that I danced as I crossed my bedroom floor. I hummed as I climbed onto my bed and I sang as I threw open the window.

The cold air hammered into the room and tore the breath from my lungs causing me to take an involuntary step backwards.

Bloody hell! It was freezing!

This pleased me enormously and I laughed from the sheer joy of it. Dancing and capering about on my pillow for a few seconds I let the frigid air play across my quickly freezing skin. A wind was getting up. It was from the west, straight off the snow. That meant it was going to get even colder.

This was excellent!

Situated under the window my bed was at such a height that I could stand exactly in the middle of the window frame. You beauty! This was going to work. I took a deep breath and then turning, leapt down from the bed and began to take off all my clothes.

I undressed, the cold knifing through me like a razor. It would have been enough to stop most people there and then but my resolve was strong. I refused to be shaken. There was far too much at stake. I was driven. I had a goal and had accepted that there needed to be some large sacrifices in order to achieve it.

The whole situation along with the discomfort that came from standing naked and trembling in that frigid air caused me inexplicably to think of something Mr McDonald had said.

Mr McDonald was the man the nuns brought in from 'outside' to coach the football teams at school. This happened because the consensus was that since the nuns were women they obviously weren't capable of doing it themselves.

Sister Vincent vociferously debated this point at every opportunity. She was a sports nut and often played tip-footy with the boys at lunchtime. Pulling her habit up through the broad belt at her waist so it hung only to her knees she would fly across the playground in enthusiastic pursuit of whoever had the ball. Her excess habit hung in flaccid loops around her middle and flapped about as she ran which gave the impression that she was some sort of bizarre tumbleweed with arms and legs.

Sister Vincent loved all sports. She kept a small transistor radio with a white earplug lead in her desk and throughout the summer months she would surreptitiously listen to the cricket as she taught the fourth-class.

Sister Vincent strongly believed that she had what was needed to coach the football teams regardless of her sex and vocational calling but because she was a nun, and a woman to boot, the opportunity to try was denied her. As a result Sister Vincent decided to hate Mr McDonald and was openly hostile towards him.

This was strange because in all other respects she was a nice person even for a nun. In fact she was the nicest of all the nuns at St. Joseph's and the only one that actually seemed to like boys. Most of the nuns hated us to varying degrees and did little to disguise the fact.

Mr McDonald was a short, squat, oily little man who communicated mostly through a series of catch-cries and proverbs. He was Scottish and he always wore a long, grey trench-coat regardless of the weather. He would call out a bevy of strange expressions from the sidelines as we ran around training. He peppered us with his peculiar brand of barroom sapience which, because of his thick Scottish brogue and his habit of rolling his 'Rs' to the point of agony, remained mostly incomprehensible. He didn't so much speak the language as chew it thoroughly and then spit it out. It took weeks for us to figure out what the man was saying.

Gradually we came to understand the accent but often, the meaning behind the words continued to elude us. They were wonderful little couplets and included such droplets of wisdom as; "All tings good t' ken, are harrd t' learn!" "Gaet stook in yerr wee gomerils!" "Be tooff lads! Tooff! Bearrr in yerr minds; th' anvil fearrs nay blow!" "Allus give a hunnrren-n-ten perrrcent lads! Rr'member ... don't fall aforre yerr push't!"

He had a million of them and we heard them all over the course of the football season. So much so they stuck in our heads and for a bit of light relief we often threw a few of his more repeatable ones at each other throughout the course of our normal day.

In this, Nicky shone. He was an excellent mimic and he dressed these sayings up beautifully with a remarkably accurate impersonation of Mr McDonald. He would stand there, feet spread well apart, leaning forward at an almost impossible angle. He would throw his head back, raise his forefinger to the sky and let fly with a plethora of McDonaldisms. "Av' ye coom t' fish or t' cut bait?" and "Fust deserrrve, n' then desirre." And Nicky's personal favourite which he delivered with even more relish and enjoyment than the others; "Use yerrr enemies' hand terr ketch th' snake, lads!" He always kept this little treasure until last and finished it off by bringing his finger down from the heavens, lining it up at the side of his face and tapping himself squarely on the side of the nose while nodding sagely to the group before him which by now were rolling on the floor holding their sides and screaming with laughter.

I suppose Mr McDonald thought that he was instilling a sense of purpose and direction in a bunch of aimless kids who wanted to play football. But we could never figure out a particular couplet's relevance to whatever situation was currently at hand.

But now, as I stood there naked and shivering from the cold in the middle of my bedroom floor, one of Mr McDonald's most oft said sayings popped into my head. It was one of his favourites but I had never been able to comprehend its relevance.

Until now.

No pain—no gain!

Suddenly I knew not only what the phrase meant but in what context it applied. Of course if you wanted something badly enough you had to work hard to get it even if it hurt. It was so obvious.

No pain—no gain!

I rolled the words around in my mouth a few times as I stood there shivering on the rug and then spoke them out loud. I liked the way they sounded as they echoed around in the frigid air of my small bedroom and I realised that they applied most aptly on this night.

I stepped across to the bedroom door. The cold wrapped around me like an icy shroud and I could almost hear the goose-bumps appearing on my skin. My teeth chattered and I tried to stop myself from thinking about how much worse it was all going to get a few minutes from now.

I stuck my head out into the hallway and looked around. The coast was clear.

Taking a breath I made a run for the bathroom. Luckily it was just across the hall, a matter of only a few metres so there was little chance of discovery. Even so, I decided I'd best be careful. It would only take one of my brothers or sisters to step into the hallway at the wrong time to ruin everything.

The hard tiled floor of the bathroom was cold beneath my feet and I hopped from one foot to the other as my shaking fingers fumbled a match from the box kept there on the windowsill to light the old water heater.

This was normally a frightening task since this old water-heater was notoriously cantankerous and would not light before sufficient gas had built up in its belly. On almost every occasion however, too much gas would collect inside it before it could ignite meaning that when it did finally catch, it exploded with the force of a decent sized bomb. The possibility of copping a third-degree burn was real and bath-time normally found me cowering hunched and naked in the hallway while mum lit the heater for me.

On this day though, I had no choice. If I wanted this to work I had to grit my teeth and do it myself.

I turned on the gas and struck the match and then holding it between the tips of two trembling fingers, closed my eyes tight and shoved it into the access hole in the side of the heater. For a long second there was nothing and I was about to open my eyes for a look when the thing suddenly lit.

The bang shook the whole back of the house and an enormous rush of heat enveloped my body. In the cold of the bathroom it felt lovely but I knew there was a good chance that I had just burned myself badly and was now turning into a giant blister.

I had heard a story once about a man caught in a burning house who had received severe burns to his hands and arms as he fought his way out. He said later that at the time he had felt no pain at all. With this in mind I quickly turned and looked in the mirror.

I couldn't see any obvious burns or charring of the skin and it took only a second to convince myself that I didn't need my eyebrows anyway. They were a small but worthy sacrifice to make for the greater good. The end result would be worth it.

After all; no pain—no gain!

I climbed into the tub and stood under the shower enjoying its delicious heat. I turned the cold water down as low as I dared without scalding myself and allowed the steaming water to cascade onto my head and run in thick warming sheets down my body.

I had made the water so hot that in less than a minute the interior of the bathroom was a solid block of steam and the walls ran with condensation. I turned off the shower and stepped out of the tub.

I found that if I squinted hard I could just make out my reflection in the mirror. I grinned. I was as red as a tomato. _You beauty,_ I thought. _It's working._ Everything was going according to plan. Now for the final stage.

I didn't want to cool down at all and so decided not to take the time to use a towel. After opening the door a crack and checking to see if the hallway was clear, I zipped back to my room.

It was as if a big pillow of steam carried me swiftly across the hallway and deposited me gently outside my bedroom. I opened the door and skipped inside.

The frigid blast from the open window stopped me in my tracks and for a second I worried that my heart would seize up from the shock of it. I'd also heard of that sort of thing happening. But I paused only for a second. The promise of time off from school was enough to drive me on.

Dripping wet I ran across the room, leapt onto my bed and moved as far into the open window as I could go. The cold here seemed even worse and my teeth chattered with such vigour I was sure they would break. The wind ripped through me as I stood there on the end of my bed holding on to the edges of the window frame. I had a brief moment of indecision when I realised that I was still very wet from the shower. The water was running down my legs and soaking into my mattress but once again the thought of a week off from school obliterated any misgivings.

But the cold was much worse than I imagined it would be and the first dents in my resolve began to shape themselves. Was this really going to work? Nicky's grand plan had seemed so logical and foolproof when he had outlined it at lunchtime but standing here now trying desperately hard not to die from exposure, I was suddenly not so certain. Surely Nicky had not been having me on.

Nicky's idea had come from something Mr McDonald had bellowed at us a few weeks earlier at footy training. Interspersed among the normal glut of proverbs and adages he hurled about with abandon was the occasional valuable bit of information. You only needed to recognise its worth at the time. On this particular occasion, Nicky did.

We had just finished our session and were preparing to go home when Mr McDonald let fly with yet another of his droplets of perpetual wisdom.

"Allrright lads, now lessen oop. Make surre y' allus puts a joomper on afterr yerr trrainin' or playin' sport rr'garrdless of how hot and sweaty yerr may be."

"Why is that Mr McDonald?" This from the full-back.

Mr McDonald smiled. He liked to be asked questions like this. It made him feel important.

"Because when y' roon aroon't, yer gaet all hot and sweaty like. The porres in yerr skin open rright up like, like manholes, an' t'ey lets in all th' coold airr an' yerr ketch a chill. And frrom that yerr'll ketch a bad cold n' surely die."

I had heard him say it at the time but was busy getting my kit together so I had completely missed the significance. But Nicky hadn't. Something in that sharp little salesman's brain took that innocuous piece of information and stowed it away for future use.

Earlier in the day when Nicky had outlined his idea to me he had quoted Mr McDonald word for word. He had made it all sound so logical. It came down to one simple thing; you would catch a bad cold and have time off from school if you cooled yourself down too quickly after you'd heated yourself up. Nicky pointed out that it didn't take a genius to see that heating yourself up under the shower and cooling yourself quickly would achieve the same result. And that was why I was now standing naked on my bed in the open window dripping water onto my mattress.

Running through it all again did the trick. The misgivings and doubts wilted and disappeared. I was feeling confident again. This would work. It was logical. All I needed was hot and cold. The shower supplied the heat. Good old Mother Nature supplied the cold.

Our town was not too far from the snowfields and when the westerlies blew as they were tonight, the temperature plummeted. It was barely above freezing point out there tonight and with good use of the scalding shower, I had heated myself up good and proper.

But the cold! Oh, God, the cold! I wondered if I could stick it out.

I looked at my old bedside alarm clock. Three minutes. I groaned. I had put up with this pain and discomfort for only three minutes! It felt like a lifetime. Still, three minutes wasn't too bad I thought as I leapt off the bed and shivered my way across the floor to the doorway. I figured it was the first few minutes that were the most important anyway; the rest was just for insurance.

The hallway was clear and I scooted into the bathroom and started the water heater again. This time the price was my fringe. I promised myself it'd be worthwhile.

After all; no pain—no gain!

It was harder to drag myself up onto the bed this time. The cold, vicious and insidious, permeated every square inch of me and I began to lose all feeling.

This time I lasted only two minutes. I tumbled back down from the bed, dragged myself across the room. Not giving two hoots as to whether the hallway was clear or not I blundered into the bathroom for another confrontation with the water heater.

It bloody near incinerated me this time but I didn't care. Who needs hair anyway? I was going to get sick. I was going to have a week off from school and for something as special as that you had to make sacrifices.

After all; no pain—no gain!

I squelched my way back up onto the end of my bed and stood there naked and dripping in the window once again. I looked down at my mattress. It was soaked. I would have to sleep at the other end of it tonight. I had decided this would be my last time. Surely three excursions to the shower were enough. I looked forward to being able to wrap myself in a warm towel after my fourth and final hot shower for the night. Then I was going to dress in my warmest pyjamas and curl up beneath a large pile of thick, warm blankets. I looked so forward to it I ached.

It was about then my brain started doing weird things. I became aware of a warm feeling starting deep in my body and moving outward. I began to feel relaxed. This cold wasn't so bad. I could put up with this.

I also became quite self-aware and for a brief second, experienced one of those flashes you can sometimes have; a sort of mental picture of what you must look like from someone else's point of view. It was so weird! Like some sort of bizarre snapshot. It showed a dark house with light coming from only one window. Standing framed in that window was a naked twelve-year-old boy dripping water and shivering vigorously from the cold. It must have been exactly what I looked like from the road in front of our house and I must admit it looked pretty strange. At least I'm sure that's what old Mrs Simpson would tell mum the next morning. It was her voice that snapped me from my reverie.

"Owen Finnegan! What are you doing there?"

I snapped out of my trance with such force my head hurt. I looked out to the road and died. There were half a dozen women standing in front of our house looking at me. Mrs. Simpson's _'Walk for Health'_ group!

Oh hell! I had forgotten all about them. They orbited the neighbourhood on a regular basis and there was little those six pairs of prying eyes saw that wasn't reported with great gusto to all and sundry by way of the back fence the following day.

I dived off the bed and commando-rolled across the room to snap the light off. Then I scuttled into the gap between my bed and the wardrobe and concentrated on making myself as small as possible. My heart was hammering and I felt sick with embarrassment. I could hear shrieks of laughter coming from the road and I knew with certainty that my life was over. Old Mrs Simpson would tell everybody and that level of embarrassment was nearly always terminal for a twelve-year-old.

But worse still, she would tell Mum who would then have to tell Dad in case he heard about it from someone at work. He was always hearing things of an unsavoury nature about us kids at work and by the time he got home he would be in a right old temper.

The shrieks of laughter faded as the women walked on up the road. When I was sure they were gone I crept out of the small alcove I'd hidden myself in, dragged myself to my feet and after pulling down the window and the blind, turned slowly towards the door.

I trudged across the hall to the bathroom taking absolutely no precautions at all about being seen this time. I didn't care anymore. Not one bit. My life was over. Mrs Simpson had seen my willy. There was no recovering from something like that.

This time even the water heater seemed to understand how bad things were. It started with the gentle whoosh it was supposed to. I showered quickly, massaging the heat deep into my frozen joints. Then I dried myself with a thick towel and dragged myself back to my room.

I put on my pyjamas and crawled into the bottom of my bed. My pillow was dry but my mattress down at the window end was sopping. If I stretched out, my feet lay in a freezing cold puddle but I barely noticed it. My guts were still churning with the embarrassment of being seen in the nuddy by six of the neighbourhood's nosiest and most talkative mothers.

I covered my face with my hands and moaned. I was never going to live this down. The only consolation was that when I woke up in the morning I would be so sick with a cold I couldn't possibly go to school for at least a week.

I brightened as the realisation suddenly sunk in. A week off from school! Not only would I miss the Archbishop's visit but it would probably be enough time for any queries about why I was dangling my bits and pieces out the front window of our house to blow over.

That would be excellent.

Suddenly I didn't feel so bad. I smiled. My guts were no longer churning. The embarrassment was fading. Things were starting to look up.

Who knows, maybe my cold would be so serious it would progress into Asian flu. I'd need at least a fortnight off with Asian flu, surely. Or it might turn into whooping cough. That would be great! I wondered how long you'd get off school for whooping cough.

I ran through the whole list of illnesses I could expect to contract and by the time I finally closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, pneumonia was looking like a very welcome possibility.

Chapter 3 - Oh, the Shame

The small town of Barclay nestles comfortably in the foothills of a large tableland that runs through the centre of New South Wales. Situated at the end of a valley, the town looks out over a verdant ocean of rolling hills dotted here and there with thick corridors of trees.

A cool, green river meanders casually around the eastern edge of the town. It dallies for a short while in a series of small billabongs before ambling lazily off to the ocean some thirty-kilometres distant.

Standing on the high side of town and looking east you'll see that this glorious valley empties out onto a patchwork-quilted plain that stretches all the way to the coast. It is truly one of the most beautiful views in the whole country. If you catch it at dawn as the mist lies softly over the plain like a thick bunny-rug and the sun paints the whole scene with that special, crisp, golden hue of loveliness it reserves for early risers—well, the sight just takes your breath away.

With a population of some five thousand people Barclay is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful and picturesque small towns in the country. The residents certainly think so. We count ourselves among the luckiest people on the planet for having the wisdom and good fortune to live here.

Surrounded as we are in Barclay by so much beauty and serenity it is fair to say that the suicide rate in the town is low. In fact, to the best of local recollection, it's nonexistent. You could plod through every bit of the town's well-documented history and you'd be hard-pressed to find mention of someone who upon deciding they couldn't take it anymore, had callously disregarded the dazzling dawning sun and the gorgeous bunny-rug of morning mist that lay atop the verdant landscape, and promptly blown their brains out.

No, it had never happened.

But that was quiet possibly about to change.

I awoke feeling ridiculously fit and well. For a second or two that fact didn't bother me in the slightest because even though my body had clawed its way into consciousness my brain was doing what it did every morning when I first woke up; it was being pathetically slow on the uptake.

I was just wondering why I had decided to sleep the wrong way round in my bed last night when my feet touched the cold wet portion of my mattress and I was instantly transported to the events of the evening before. I groaned in anguish as a wave of humiliation crashed down on me, wrenching at my guts and making me feel like throwing up. It all came rushing back and the shame and embarrassment almost killed me on the spot.

Mrs Simpson had seen my willy. She, and her _'Walk for Health'_ group, had seen me in the nuddy. Six pairs of the biggest never-miss-anything eyes attached to the most enormous have-you-heard-the-latest mouths ... oh, it was no good. I knew I was dead.

This was exactly the sort of thing that travelled well via the back fence and I knew it would be all over town by breakfast time. Pointless to go on living really. Might as well go into town when the shops open, buy a gun, and end it all right there and then on the footpath. That would be best, surely. I mean, no twelve-year old had ever suffered such humiliation before and lived to talk about it. Why should I be any different?

I went into the bathroom and studying myself in the mirror, performed a comprehensive system check. I searched for any sign of a sore throat or headache. I poked and prodded, praying for an aching joint or two. But it was no good. I was completely hale and hearty. God! It was so depressing!

I was just trying to come to terms with the fact that I had no choice but to go to school and face the Archbishop as well as deal with any fallout from last night's shenanigans when Mum called me for breakfast. I slumped against the bathroom wall. I was certain my mother would have heard all about it by now. Old Mrs Simpson takes her gossiping seriously and believes in an early start especially when the topic is fresh and there's a reputation or two to tarnish before the day is out.

I trudged up the hallway searching for an excuse to counter whatever verbal attack Mum would launch at me when I entered the kitchen but I was having no luck at all. Nothing would come to me. Regardless of how slowly I walked I could not think of a single thing.

The kitchen smelt of toast and coffee and I had no sooner entered and looked around than Mum was pushing me into a seat and plopping a bowl of hot porridge on the table in front of me.

"Get that into you and don't mess about this morning. Remember, it's an important day today." She pushed back the remnants of my fringe and gave me a quick peck on the forehead. Her smile turned to a frown when she noticed my lack of eyebrows and my heart froze for a second. Then she smiled sadly and looked into my eyes.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here to light the heater for you last night, love, but I'm afraid things are a bit tight at the moment. I have no choice. I have to work." She gave me another quick peck on the forehead and tousled my hair. "You understand don't you?"

I smiled gamely, brave little trooper that I was, and she patted my cheek and hurried back to see to the kettle that was whistling on the stove.

Guilt savaged me severely and what little appetite I had deserted me. I felt rotten that my singed eyebrows and fringe had made Mum feel bad but I was also relieved. She obviously didn't know anything yet. I wondered why? It wasn't like Mrs Simpson to get off to such a late start.

The answer came to me in the form of a cough from outside. As soon as I heard it I knew straight away. Dad! He must be on a late start at work today. I leaned over and hitching the curtain back from the window, looked outside. Yep. There he was on the back veranda leaning on the balcony. Dressed in only trousers and a singlet he was impervious to the crisp cold air as he stood there smoking a cigarette.

Relief cascaded through me and I breathed a silent prayer of thanks. Dad hadn't even dressed for work yet so I knew that Mrs Simpson would not be dropping by until after we kids had left for school. Mrs Simpson's devotion to gossiping and slander irritated my father. He had no time at all for her back-fence-waffle as he called it. He hated her and her gossiping friends and referred to them collectively as The Vultures. He said on many occasions that they had done more to ruin some perfectly good marriages with their rumours and innuendo than had the actions of the people involved.

Because our house was on the prow of a hill Dad was clearly visible from just about anywhere in the neighbourhood as he stood out there. But he was especially visible from the Simpson house which was in the gully just below. A small glimmer of hope peeked over the bleak horizon of my morning. Things suddenly looked a little better and with my appetite miraculously restored, I attacked my brekkie with gusto.

Because of Dad's undisguised loathing of her, Mrs Simpson was scared to death of him and would stay well clear of our place if he was likely to be home. In earlier times, before she had picked up on how Dad felt about her, she would drop by before he was even out of the shower. He would come out to breakfast and see her sitting at our dining table, hands around a half-empty teacup, talking a mile-a-minute about some poor bugger who had no hope at all of defending himself.

Dad would frown and look dangerous. Then he'd mutter rude things about stupid old busy-bodies and horrible harridans which embarrassed Mum no end. It didn't take long for Mrs Simpson to realise that as far as Dad was concerned, she was about as welcome in our house as a dog's fart. On the other hand Mum was always nice to Mrs Simpson even though she didn't like a lot of what she had to say. But that was typical of Mum. She was the sort of person who would give anybody in the world the time of day and a cup of tea to go with it whereas Dad would not suffer fools gladly.

But even Dad's presence could not put Mrs Simpson off completely. Like all good purveyors of rumour and innuendo she was persistent. Normally she would wait until Dad had left for the day but sometimes the news was so juicy and fresh the urge to gossip would push her to strike when the smallest opportunity presented itself. She would lay in wait, sweating on these opportunities.

Mum was well aware of Mrs Simpson's devotion to her vocation but even she was surprised one morning to hear a shuffling of feet outside the backyard dunny as she sat there on the loo. Thinking it was one of us kids, Mum was about to yell out that she wouldn't be much longer when she heard the customary clearing of the throat and the, "Now then Margaret..." which preluded any of Mrs Simpson's gossip sessions.

When she got over the shock Mum found this hilarious and just about fell on the floor with silent laughter. She said later that she'd been in exactly the right place when Mrs Simpson had first spoken because it made Mum laugh so hard she would have peed herself if she had been anywhere else.

These weird little backyard visits from Mrs Simpson while Dad was still in the house took place a couple of times and may well have continued had he not finally caught her.

One morning he went out onto the back veranda to shout out to Mum and tell her that he was leaving for work when he noticed Mrs Simpson's big bum sticking out from behind the corner of the fibro dunny. He knew immediately what was going on and roared on top of his voice:

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?"

We kids ran to the window as soon as we heard Dad's yell and looked out in time to see Mrs Simpson jump like an epileptic cat. She shot a horrified look at Dad who was already moving down the back steps. Her only avenue of escape was up the side of the house via the driveway but that would mean going past Dad and there was no way she was going to do that. Instead we saw her do something that had us rolling on the floor with laughter.

Mrs Simpson lit out across the yard like her bum was on fire darting quick little glances over her shoulder at Dad as she went. Then she began to climb the fence!

We couldn't believe it and neither could Dad. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared. This fence was six-feet high and would have presented a problem to just about anyone. But Mrs Simpson, all of five-foot-two on tip-toes, had hold of the top of the palings with her scarlet tipped talons and was trying desperately to hitch her right leg up and over the top of it. She was not doing well. We kids, experienced fence climbers that we were, could have told her that she needed to hoist herself up first before swinging her leg over but we were too engrossed in the scene unfolding before us to worry about enlightening her.

Mrs Simpson, her weight supported by the death grip she had on the top of the palings, lay back on a forty-five degree angle and threw her right foot repeatedly in a serious of pathetic little kicks in the general direction of the top of the fence. Her foot was falling a good three-feet shy of its intended target every time.

Without breaking tempo she looked back over her shoulder at Dad standing there at the bottom of the steps watching her. A look of desperation flickered across her face and shutting her eyes tight she turned back to the task at hand and doubled her effort. Her right foot scrabbled and rattled against the palings still a good three-feet or so below the top of the fence and she began to sag as exhaustion started becoming a factor.

Then Dad began moving towards her.

We kids, who up until this point had been a hopeless giggling mess fighting and pushing for the best view of the proceedings, became absolutely silent as we watched in morbid fascination waiting to see what Dad would do.

Mrs Simpson glanced back over her shoulder again and seeing Dad moving her way, let out a whimper. She turned back to the fence and attacked it with even more vigour but it was to no avail. She was not going anywhere.

Dad strolled up slowly until he was right behind her whereupon he stopped and, placing his hands on his hips, studied her closely.

Mrs Simpson pretended he wasn't there and actually tried harder still to get her leg over the top of the fence. She had added a little bobbing hop to her repartee and her right foot was almost a blur now as it pumped desperately up and down still well below the top of the palings. She was fading fast and it was obvious to all that she had no hope of ever climbing this fence. Suddenly Dad bent down and getting his hands right underneath her, heaved her up.

With a squeak, Mrs Simpson rose high in the air. Her right foot suddenly found itself over the top of the fence right where she had wanted it to be. It took only the slightest twist in Dad's action to have the rest of her over the fence as well and she fell down on the other side in a jumble of arms and legs. In no time at all she was on her feet and without saying a word or stopping to brush herself off, she scuttled up the driveway of the neighbour's house and out into the road.

Dad watched her go. Then he turned and dusting his hands together as though he had just taken out the garbage, strolled back across the yard to the back steps. He was smiling and it was plain to see that he had enjoyed himself immensely.

Later on though, Mum gave him heaps saying that Mrs Simpson was not a young woman any more and that Dad might have hurt her badly and wasn't it a good thing she was wearing slacks and he should think himself lucky if she doesn't sue.

Dad took all this good-naturedly and conceded that he may have been a bit hasty and that it might not have hurt to be a bit more patient and neighbourly. But when Mum suggested he apologise you could tell that even she knew she had pushed too hard.

Dad went ballistic and in the voice he kept for just such occasions bellowed that he would apologise only when the Pope said Easter Mass clad in just a jock-strap and sandshoes and not before. Then he turned and stormed out of the house and took himself off to work.

We kids didn't understand what he had meant by that but we knew it was funny because Mum laughed for ten minutes afterwards. And we laughed right along with her.

I turned back to my breakfast. Dad's presence had brought me a temporary reprieve but I knew there was no staving off the inevitable. By the end of the day anybody with two ears and the time to stand and listen would hear about the display of living art I'd put on in my bedroom window the night before and there was absolutely nothing I could do about that. But for this morning at least I was trouble-free. I knew enough to go ahead and enjoy my breakfast while I could. After all, my life would probably be painted an entirely different hue by the time I got home this afternoon.

Chapter 4 - The Preparation

You didn't see many lay-teachers in Catholic schools in the sixties but Saint Joseph's in Barclay had two of them. Mrs Handley, a dangerously cranky woman who taught the third-class was infamous. Her volatility was legend and stories about her accuracy with the metal whistle she kept on a long key chain struck fear into the heart of any who went near her. With the speed of a striking funnel-web spider she would swing this chain and whack you hard on the knuckles with the whistle. She swung it with such sudden viciousness that often the only warning you received was the ominous warble the whistle made the instant before it struck. That warble was made by the wind rushing by the whistle's mouthpiece as it cut through the air at lightning speed. Mrs Handley, exuding always an aura of pernicious intent, was definitely a woman to stay well clear of.

The other lay-teacher was my teacher, Mrs Payne. Mrs Payne was nice and although she had her homicidal moments, she normally refrained from trying on a daily basis to maim children. Because of that, and the fact that she was remarkably predictable and unflappable, she was not particularly well-known within the school for anything much at all. But by the end of the day of the Archbishop's visit things would be very different.

For the six weeks leading up to the great man's visit the school had been in an uproar. Unlike other visiting dignitaries before him the Archbishop was not satisfied with simply meeting our local priests at the presbytery and then enjoying tea and bikkies with the nuns later on. He was driven by entirely different forces. Expressing a desire to plumb the depths of these young people's knowledge and to ensure that they were being well indoctrinated into the teachings of the Catholic Church, he had expressed a desire to walk about and chat with all the students in their classrooms.

His request had been made innocently enough and to the uninitiated it would be perceived as such, but the nuns knew otherwise. The Archbishop's keen interest in how well the kids of his diocese were being educated made him quite famous and word of his predilection for visiting every classroom on his scholastic tours and holding small spontaneous quiz sessions raced around the Catholic school system at supersonic speed and threw every principal into a teeth-gnashing frenzy.

Because of that, an enormous militaristic operation swung into action at St. Jo's. First of all a great shuffling of desks took place as those students thought most likely to offend through ignorance, appearance, or objectionable personal habits—or in the case of Clive Barnett, all three—were moved into the less conspicuous corners of the classroom.

The nose-pickers in particular were herded so far into the back of the room as to be almost invisible. The principal visited every room checking to see that everything was as it should be. Casting her eye over the new seating arrangements in our room, she was nodding her head in satisfaction until she noticed Clive. You could see her confidence immediately dissolve. Regardless of where Mrs Payne put him, Sister Francis was never going to be happy. The mere presence of Clive Barnett was a cause of major concern to her.

Sister Francis stood and thought for a long while and then placing her hands behind her back, strolled slowly among the desks, wending her way to and fro between them until she had made her way up to the far corner of the classroom to where Clive had been relegated. Upon arrival she turned to see just how far he truly was from the front of the classroom and you could tell by the way she furrowed her brow and bit her bottom lip that she felt it wasn't far enough. The other side of town wouldn't be far enough for Clive as far as the principal was concerned.

Turning around she looked down at her nemesis who was sitting there staring cow-eyed back up at her. Then letting her gaze slide off him she ran her eye along the back wall of the classroom finally stopping when it lit upon the tall storage cupboard situated midway along its length. After a slight pause she strolled across and began appraising it up close.

It was a large cupboard, more of a wardrobe really, designed to hold a lot of stuff. In fact, even now it held most of the school's meagre supply of sporting equipment. It was big enough to hold anything you might turn your mind to and it was not hard to see Sister Francis's train of thought as she stood there stroking the varnished timber of the battered old door:

" _It's a large cupboard, nice and roomy, certainly big enough for a young boy. Perhaps if he were made to lie down? Why, we could even put in some blankets and possibly a pillow or two. I'm sure he'd be quite comfortable..."_

But then she shook her head, gave a deep sigh and moved slowly back out to the front of the classroom. The reason for her behaviour was simple. Clive Barnett was anathema to the nuns of St. Joseph's school in Barclay and especially to its principal.

Clive's parents owned a small lump of dirt on the edge of town and were market gardeners. At this they barely survived and were it not for their young son, imbued as he was with a work ethic completely foreign to the Barnett elders—both of whom liked a drink—they would have lost everything and been in the poorhouse long ago.

As it was Clive rose every morning at five and put in three hours of backbreaking labour among the carrots and cauliflowers, slogging away at the sort of work that would give a man twice his age and three times his size reason to groan and moan. Then he would run back to the house, scoff a quick breakfast consisting of pretty much anything he could lay his hands on and take himself off to school. After a full day of scholarly pursuit he would tear back home and throw himself upon the rows of vegetables with a vengeance until it became too dark to see anymore.

Because Clive was always pushed for time he cut back wherever he could. He eliminated from his routine those things he considered unimportant and likely to clutter up his already hectic day. Since he saw little value in bathing, a regular shower was the first thing to go. He lived with a constant grey smudge of grime across the back of his neck and his fingernails did not bear looking at.

Clive had to sit with Arnie Grace because Arnie had failed to get his head out of the way of a six-stitcher that was in the process of travelling to the boundary at the speed of a bullet. It hit him plumb in the face and the resultant broken nose had never healed properly. Because of this Arnie had lost his sense of smell. He was therefore the only kid who could sit beside Clive in our two-seater school desks and not whinge constantly about the smell.

Clive's disdain for personal hygiene was bad enough but it wasn't that that upset Sister Francis the most. Clive was a chronic nose-picker and it was this more than his general state of filthiness that gave Sister Francis pause. Gouging away at his nasal passages with a filthy index finger was a practice that Clive Barnett took seriously and he could be spied more often then not with a digit buried deep inside one nostril or the other.

Even more unsettling for the principal and the other nuns was the fact that Clive didn't seem to care one bit where he was or who he happened to be around when he did it. If the urge struck, up went Clive's finger and to hell with the social niceties.

Many of us could never understand why the principal did not request that Clive's parents find him another school. There was always the local government primary school on the other side of town. A perfectly acceptable school, albeit one populated by hundreds of non-Catholics and other assorted heathens, but they had to accept him there. They had no choice. It was the law. They had to take anyone who applied. But Mum reckoned that Sister Francis tolerated Clive because she admired the way he dealt with his difficult lot in life. Mum was probably right. The principal certainly was more patient with him than she was with many of the other kids.

But the mere thought that Clive might suddenly get the urge to start tickling his sinuses while in full view of the Archbishop was too much for Sister Francis and she began to formulate a plan to get Clive out of the way for the day. I heard she had even considered telling Clive's parents to keep him home from school that day which I thought was horrendously unfair. If the simple act of picking your nose could score you a day off school I would have been digging away like a goldminer long ago.

But I need not have worried. Instead of taking such a drastic step the principal decided Clive should simply go and sit in the church for the duration of the Archbishop's visit. In there he could pick his nose to his heart's content and with the possible exception of our Lord, Jesus Christ, no-one would see him.

With all the _undesirables_ moved up to the back of the room, the _presentables_ were then moved into the front rows and while I had no desire to be placed amongst the nose-pickers, I had even more fear of being cast amongst the brainiacs at the front of the class. Anyone sitting up there would fall directly under the Archbishop's gaze as soon as he walked in. And stuck up there in such a prominent position he may even ask you more than one question!

My qualifications on the academia front were obviously lacking however because when the dust settled I found myself nicely situated somewhere around the middle of the room.

For a fortnight beforehand we practised rising from our desks to stand at attention and chant in perfect unison: 'Good morning your Grace and may God bless you.' A sharp rap on the knuckles with a ruler could be expected if you were even the tiniest bit out of sync.

It was during these practise sessions that I realised with spleen-chilling horror that when we stood to attention I was taller than many of the kids around me. This of course made me all the more conspicuous and that was not a situation I was happy with. I had to do something.

At home, with nobody watching, I experimented with various postures in an effort to make myself as small as possible while standing and as a result, perfected the ability of crouching to attention. Now when we rose to bellow our greeting I caved in my chest, hunched my shoulders forward and bent my knees slightly. It made me look like a constipated Quasimodo but it reduced my height by a good half a foot or so. It was murder on my back, thighs and knees but I didn't care. If it made me less noticeable and less likely to be singled out by the Archbishop then a few sore muscles and a stiff back was a small price to pay.

The amount of time we spent on our daily recitations of the times-tables doubled and the length of the boy's hair and the girl's hemlines were microscopically studied. A boy's hair had to be a least an inch from the top of his collar. This created all sorts of problems for Fatty Parker who, while endowed with a generous surplus of chins, had no neck at all to speak of.

Fatty adored Mrs Payne and the nuns in general and he always did whatever they told him to do promptly and without question. But no matter how hard he tried he could not come up to the mark on this occasion. Regardless of how many short-back-and-sides he got that week from a bemused Mr Plumpton, the local barber, the hair on the back of his neck would always touch the top of his collar. He solved the problem by shaving the back of his neck almost up to the crown of his head which, with his pasty red face, made him look like a fat, pink toilet brush. When Mrs Payne first saw him, she stared for a long time before finally shaking her head and muttering to herself; "Stupid, stupid boy".

The girl's were made to kneel on the floor as their hemlines were scrupulously measured. The hemline had to touch the floor or else it was home to mum with a note demanding that the offending garment be lengthened immediately. Although they were not directly in the firing line our parents grew to dread the long and detailed notes, blistering in their criticisms, which were sent home regularly with their children. Hardly a day passed without some sort of missive being dragged out of a bag or lunch-box and handed across to a pale and apprehensive mother.

One note from Sister Francis reminded all who read it that every child without exception must be in full school uniform on the day of his Grace's visit. This of course meant wearing a tie, the absence of which the nuns, even the stiff and school-proud Sister Francis, normally turned a blind eye to.

I hated my tie and had not worn it for ages and there was a moment's panic when it couldn't be found. I tracked it down eventually however. It was wedged deep down behind my wardrobe and emerged all mildewed, cobwebbed and wrinkled. It was in such dreadful shape it looked as though the cat had wiped its bum on it. It took some serious sponging and a concerted effort with a hot iron to get it looking half-way decent.

Over the final week we were given the task of memorising the names of all the saints just in case the Archbishop asked something unanswerable like "Who was St Francis of Assisi and what was he famous for?"

It was an odious task and mind-numbingly boring. I had no hope of ever remembering even a handful of them. The only saint I had no trouble remembering was Saint Jude and that was only because he turned out to be the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes. If ever there was a hopeless cause when it came to remembering any of this stuff it was me so I made sure that any of the daily prayers I had to say at school in the lead up to the Archbishop's visit were pointed squarely in this bloke's direction.

Chapter 5 - The Great Man Cometh

Mum made sure we were all up early that morning, her plan being to feed and bathe us and still leave plenty of time for us to make our way to school without hurrying.

The walk to school was a long one which meant there was plenty of time for a kid to get good and filthy before they got to the school gate. This normally didn't worry Mum too much but on this day we left the house under a promise of terrible retribution should we got dirty or do anything at all in front of the Archbishop today that would embarrass her.

But the Archbishop was the last thing on my mind as I finally approached the school gate. I wasn't sure if word of my escapades from the night before would have reached the ears of the playground this early but as soon as I saw Nicky standing by the gate waiting for me, my stomach sank. It was obvious by the look on his face that it had and his first words confirmed it.

"What the hell did you get up to last night?"

I couldn't hold back since I blamed him for the situation I was in. After all, it was his big idea in the first place. I jabbed him hard in the chest with my finger.

"I was putting your stupid bloody plan into action, that's what I was doing."

He rubbed the sore spot and glared at me. "Are you retarded or something? Why would you stand in one of the front windows of your house where everyone in the world can see you?"

"Well, I had to cool down after heating myself up, didn't I?"

Nicky sighed. "Yes, but opening the bathroom window and exposing yourself from only the waist up would have done the job just as well. Any fool knows that." He suddenly pushed me, hard.

"And don't poke me again. It hurts."

"Not as much as this, I'll bet." I punched him firmly in the shoulder.

"That's because regardless of which window I stood in last night, your grand plan didn't work, did it? I'm as fit as a Mallee bull even after all the bloody guarantees you gave me yesterday."

Nicky rubbed his shoulder and sulked. We gave each other the silent treatment for the minute or so it took to cross the playground but Nicky was never one for holding grudges. It wasn't long before he was looking at his watch.

"We still have half-an-hour before school starts," he said, holding up his marble bag. "Fancy a game?"

As we set everything up I asked him how he'd come to hear about things so quickly.

"Mrs Simpson called Mum early this morning for a chin-wag. She told her and when Mum finally stopped laughing, she told us."

I groaned. Of course—the phone! It wasn't the most common of household items in the sixties and since we didn't have one in our house it was easy to forget there were others in town that did. If Dad or Mum wanted to make a call they simply wandered over to one of the neighbours who did have the phone on, paid their five cents, and made the call from there.

I shook my head. What a boon the telephone was to someone like old Mrs Simpson. I could just imagine it. Early morning would be spent on the telephone contacting the previously unreachable members of her web; the ones who lived in the far-flung corners of the town. When she had exhausted her store of telephonic listeners (eager or otherwise) she would then hit the road, visiting a surprising number of houses over the course of the afternoon.

I knew our house would be the first one she'd hit today since she obviously had something lovely and juicy to report. And I knew just how she'd frame it. Mum is not normally a gossipy sort of person and as a rule won't put up with Mrs Simpson's toxic confabulations for very long. But Mrs Simpson, the old cow, knows this. She knows exactly how to open the conversation so that Mum will want to hear more.

"Oh Margaret, that son of yours ..." At this point she would hold her hand over her mouth and laugh as if amused by the antics of an innocent young child. Then she would continue on: "... he's such an amusing little fellow."

Now Mum is no different to any other mother. If a child of hers is the topic of conversation she's going to want to hear more. I also knew exactly how the rest of the conversation would go and that did not bear thinking about. In fact it was so off-putting I couldn't concentrate and as a consequence lost a few good marbles to Nicky which put him in a cracker of a mood for the rest of the morning.

The day was not starting well but I was thankful at least that everybody else in the playground was busy in some way and had not come running over to taunt and jeer. It would come, I knew that, but the longer it took the better it was for me. School kids are like hungry wolves; once one jumps in for a bite the rest pile in and before you know it, it's a fully-fledged smorgasbord.

The bell went and we all lined up. It was here in the close-quarters of the morning assembly that I expected the jibes to begin and was surprised when nobody paid any attention to me at all.

This was confusing. If my antics from the night before were all around the school, and I very much suspected they were, then I expected to be on the end of a barb or two. I quietly asked Nicky what he thought was going on.

"I think the nuns have made everyone too nervous about the Archbishop's visit. Everybody's too wrapped up in their own thoughts and worries to be wasting time thinking about you and your silly bloody antics." He snickered quietly. "I should think you'd be happy to delay the ribbing you're sure to get."

I held my hands up in mock surrender. "I am. I am. Don't worry—I was just wondering that's all."

The principal, Sister Frances, did not keep us long, just long enough to verbally paint a lurid image of the sort of punishment we could expect if any of us were to bring dishonour upon the school—her school—in any way, shape or form while the Archbishop was present.

"Such a thing will be an embarrassment to me and my fellow sisters and teachers and will not be tolerated." She followed this statement up with one of her trademark, steely glares which left the whole school in no doubt about how much she meant what she said.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity under that cold, malevolent glower, she dismissed us and we all trooped off to our respective classrooms.

The morning dragged on with everybody in the classroom, Mrs Payne included, repeatedly turning to look up at the large clock on the back wall of the room as our nerves became more and more jangled.

The Archbishop was due to begin prowling the hallways straight after recess and as there was every chance that more than one of us would get filthy in the twenty-minute break, any thought of outside activity on this day was quietly cancelled. Instead, our daily dose of government-issued milk was to be taken in our classrooms. The crates were dragged inside and deposited in the wide hallway so that each class could troop out in turn, grab a bottle and return to their desks to drink it.

Mrs Payne, consumed with the fear that a spill was inevitable, kept a hawk-like vigil over the entire class as we sipped from the wide-mouthed bottles. She was just beginning to relax when Matt Jones cracked a joke which made Ian Richards burst into sudden laughter. Unfortunately Ian was loaded to the gills with banana milk at the time and because of his burst of spontaneous laughter, he spat the lot all over the front of Matt's jumper.

Silence dropped like a lid on the room as thirty small heads turned in unison to Mrs Payne to see how she would react when faced with such sudden adversity. But Mrs Payne, with more than thirty-five years of teaching experience behind her was more than equal to the task. She grabbed both boys and whipping their jumpers off, put Ian's on Matt and rolling Matt's milk-sodden one into a tight ball, lifted the hinged top of his desk and jammed the sodden mass deep into a corner.

This deft, almost balletic passage of movement took place so quickly we hardly saw what happened. The whole thing was rounded off beautifully by Mrs Payne delivering a sharp clip to the back of Ian's head with her usual unerring accuracy. We'd been back at our desks only a few minutes when we heard a chorus of voices from the room next-door.

"Good morning Your Grace and may God bless you."

A blanket of deathly silence descended over the whole class. The Archbishop was just in the next room! That meant we were next! The tension was unbearable and some of the less stalwart among our group were already showing signs of cracking. Brian Ferguson began to whimper while Wendy Jones cut straight to the chase and started to cry.

Mrs Payne's desk, a large, lift-top affair—really just a larger version of our own—was situated on a raised platform giving her an imposing and imperious overview of the whole classroom. It was strategically placed on the far side of the room from the door meaning that anyone entering the room had to cross the whole floor to get to her desk. They were under her watchful eye every step of the way. She used the desk's position, height and size to her advantage at every opportunity and this time was no exception. Leaning forward in her chair she hissed at us through clenched teeth:

"If you do not pull yourselves together immediately and sit up straight and be quiet, I will deal with each and every one of you individually after the Archbishop has left the school." She followed this up with a firmly delivered assurance that we would not be able to sit down for a week afterwards. The implied violence did the trick and we all snapped to attention, clasped our hands together primly on the desk in front of us, and stared silently and fixedly to the front.

Mrs Payne eased herself back in her chair and smiled. "That's better."

We stayed that way for about another ten minutes and the longer we waited, the worse I felt. Why won't they hurry? I asked myself repeatedly, feeling sicker and sicker in the belly as the minutes ticked away. It wasn't that I was anxious to get started or anything. I just wanted to get the whole sorry thing over and done with. The longer the Archbishop took to get here the more likely it was that I'd vomit from sheer terror.

I groaned aloud and was just beginning to think I really would throw up when the chorus of voices from next-door sounded again.

"Goodbye Your Grace. Thank you and may God bless you."

Oh-no! He was coming!

The ball of ice in my belly sat even heavier. The atmosphere in the room was so charged you could almost hear it crackling. The sudden thump of footsteps in the wooden corridor between the rooms heralded his arrival. He'd be here in seconds.

I snapped a quick look at Mrs Payne. She was feeling the pressure too. She sat bolt upright, her hands clasped white-knuckled and claw-like on the desk in front of her. A faint glow of anticipation was evident on her cheeks while desperation blazed like a bushfire in her old, grey eyes. She swallowed nervously.

I turned back to the doorway in time to see three figures step into the room. The school principal, Sister Francis; Monsignor James, our parish priest; and a third man, surprisingly young-looking and curiously under-dressed I thought, in dark trousers with a light jumper over a collared shirt with no tie. This had to be the Archbishop.

Mrs Payne played her part well, at least initially. She stood and holding her arms out as though to a long-lost relative, addressed him cheerily.

"Ah, Your Grace. How lovely of you to visit us here today," and completely forgetting that her desk was on a raised dais, she threw out her left leg like a steeplechaser and launched herself into what she'd obviously intended to be a brisk, no-nonsense march across the floor whereupon she would grasp the Great Man by the hand and welcome him warmly.

Instead, where it had expected some flooring, her foot found only thin air and she pitched into a nosedive that would live forever in the school's folkloric history; the story being retold in the playground for generations to come.

The crash as she hit the floor was enormous as was the gasp that leapt from every throat in the room. Mrs Payne was not a small woman and she hit hard enough to shake the old wooden floorboards alarmingly. Owing to the angle she had pitched on, she had the added indignity of her dress flying up and covering her head as she lay there dazed. This afforded everyone present a wonderful view of the poor woman's capacious knickers but with the shock of what had happened no-one seemed to notice.

Sister Francis and Monsignor James froze in horror but the Archbishop was a man of action. Three enormous strides had him across the room and helping a dazed and mortified Mrs Payne to her feet and back into a chair.

The immediate response from the class was varied. Some of the girls began crying and hyperventilating badly. Janet Higgins began to pray fervently and Archie Collins was heard to say "Christ Almighty!" quiet loudly; an exclamation that would have earned him six of the best and a week of Stations of the Cross as penance on any other occasion.

Fatty Parker, the class do-gooder who adored all the teachers, suffered worst of all. The shock of seeing not just one of the teachers, but _his_ teacher come to such grief and at such an important time was too much for him. He sat there stiff and unmoving, his eyes like dinner plates, his mouth opening and closing like an obese goldfish.

My response I'm sad to say, was different.

About two years earlier, through the medium of Saturday afternoon matinees at the local picture theatre, I had discovered a deep appreciation of the slapstick and pratfall comedy of the Three Stooges. To see Larry, Curly and Moe in full flight was a sight to behold and the tripping, punching, pinching, eye-poking, face-slapping sorts of gags that their movies were peppered with had me in stitches. I was a hopeless case; a devotee, a connoisseur of all things Stooge and as such, my humour-response gene had devolved to a point where I had developed a hair-trigger response to anyone else's misfortune. It was an embarrassing thing and something that had seen me get into trouble before.

I was horrified to realise that this time was no different. I could feel it coming and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I lowered my head to my desk, clamped my hands over my mouth and tried to think of other things, but it was to no avail.

As soon as Mrs Payne went head-over-heels off the edge of her desk and the initial gasp of shock from all present had faded, a paralysing silence enveloped the room. Outside of Janet Higgins's muttered prayers and Archie Collins's blasphemous exclamation you could've heard a fish fart.

And then a short, stifled, nasally snort of laughter cut the silence. It wasn't loud but it was unmistakable to anyone who caught it and many didn't.

But chief among those that did was Sister Francis. Her head snapped around and she fixed me with a viscous, shark-like glare that was dripping with the promise of a hell-on-earth when this was all over and the Archbishop was safely off the premises.

I sat there and tried to look as innocent as I could. I even put a look of disgust on my own face and looked about me to see who the heartless bugger was that had snickered at poor Mrs Payne's misfortune. But when I turned back to the front again the principal was still glaring, raptor-like at me. She was showing her teeth now in a sort of silent growl and a vein in her left temple was throbbing.

Obviously she was not going to be deflected. I knew that killing me was suddenly the most important thing in her life and I'm sure that had the Archbishop not been there, she would have closed the gap between us in a heartbeat and be wailing the hell out of me already.

I swallowed hard. There was no doubt about it. I was in for it this time.

Chapter 6 - A Horrible Moment

Owing to Mrs Payne's unfortunate tumble the Archbishop's visit to the sixth-class had degenerated into a ridiculous debacle. Plainly the only thing Sister Francis and the good Monsignor could do now was hurry the poor man away to some other part of the school far from incompetent teachers and their howling, snot-nosed charges. Only then could a semblance of order and respectability be returned to the occasion of the Great Man's visit.

I knew I was in a whole world of trouble already for having laughed at Mrs Payne's misfortune. But as long as I wasn't forced to display my ignorance in front of the Archbishop and more importantly, Sister Francis, there was still a slim chance that her retribution would not be too severe.

I thought it through and realised that while I was going to cop it good for my cruel and untimely snicker it was still possible the Archbishop hadn't heard me. And if he hadn't heard me then maybe, just maybe, Sister Francis would let it go. But if I was to be asked a simple question by the Archbishop and then get it wrong, Sister Francis would be even more ropable. When it came to answering any questions correctly I was under no illusions. I knew with certainty I had no hope. So while everyone in the room saw Mrs Payne's fall as a disaster, I began to see it as my possible passage to freedom.

But I had underestimated the Archbishop. Being a kind and gentle man, he spent a full two minutes attending to Mrs Payne giving her his undivided attention and refusing to break away until he was sure she was completely at ease.

At this point, Sister Francis leaned forward and whispered something to the Archbishop that had me leaning so far forward in my seat in an effort to overhear that I almost fell out of my chair. Whatever it was it was too low to be overheard by anyone beyond the group of four adults at the front of the room but it was obviously devastating to Mrs Payne because she snapped her head around and looked at the principal in horror. She was opening her mouth to object when the Archbishop straightened up and laughed loudly.

"Ha-ha-ha. Nonsense my dear Sister, nonsense! We came here to meet this good lady and her wonderful charges and that is exactly what we shall do."

My heart sank. All hope of a final-minute reprieve disappeared and the icy ball of impending doom formed once again in my belly. Obviously Sister Francis had tried to whisk the Archbishop away to more sedate surroundings as I'd hoped she would, but he was having none of it. He was made of stern stuff this bloke and was determined to wrest a good and wholesome experience from the ashes of catastrophe.

The Archbishop turned and throwing his arms wide addressed the class.

"All rise."

Hesitantly at first, we all stood. I remembered at the last minute to crouch and had the Archbishop been looking my way at that moment he would have noticed one kid suddenly get a half-head shorter.

The Archbishop stepped up close to the front row of desks and in a strong clear voice, began to speak.

"Good morning children."

We all dutifully answered exactly as we had been practising these last two weeks.

"Good morning Your Grace and may God bless you."

The Archbishop then threw a monkey-wrench into the works by telling us all to sit down again. This shook me badly because my plan of concealment and inconspicuousness had depended entirely upon us all standing. Sister Francis had said that we were to stand throughout the duration of the Archbishop's visit and Mrs Payne had trained us all that way.

I looked around in desperation. Everyone was taking their seats with not a care in the world. Fatty Parker hadn't even left his seat even though it was the Archbishop that had ordered it. He was still catatonic as a result of the shock he received in seeing Mrs Payne fall. I oozed back into my seat and wondered what I could possibly do now. The reason for my concern was sitting right in front of me. Aaron Pattison!

Overall Aaron was about the same height as me but because he had ridiculously long legs which seemed to end just below his earlobes his whole torso was remarkably short. Since I was one of the long-bodied varieties whenever we sat down there was suddenly a height differential of more than a foot.

This meant my head was jutting up above the rows of pupils like a pumpkin on a stick and could easily be seen by anyone at the front of the room. The thought of remaining inconspicuous was fast becoming ridiculous.

Trying to relax the muscles in my torso and liquefy my backbone, I allowed myself to melt down in my seat as low as I could but it was no good. I could still be seen clearly and plainly over the top of Aaron Pattison's dandruff-speckled locks.

I tried swaying surreptitiously in such a way as to keep Aaron between me and the Archbishop as His Grace strode to and fro across the room but there was no joy in this quarter either. It just made me look as if I was suffering from a severe case of piles. It was no good. Aaron Pattison was just too damn short. I finally gave up deciding instead to give Aaron Pattison a bloody good kick in the bum at lunchtime.

The Archbishop was striding backwards and forwards across the room in front of the class, his large voice booming out with the bell-like clarity for which he was known. He was talking about the value of being a good Christian; of saying your prayers; of staying clean and never swearing; of being respectful to your teachers and obedient to and mindful of your parents; and always being on the lookout for sin.

"Remain vigilant at all times and keep your mind pure," he said shaking an admonishing finger at the room in general.

It was all good, clean, Catholic stuff and we'd all heard it many times before from the nuns and priests that came and went on a daily basis in our lives. But we had never heard it before from someone so much closer to God than any of the other ecclesiastical figures we had dealt with in the past and so we listened.

The Archbishop spoke in this way for almost five minutes and I was just beginning to convince myself that a short speech was probably going to be enough for him before he trotted off to the next class when he suddenly launched into his first question. There was no fanfare. No announcement. He just began.

He pointed at Janet Collins in the front row. "Can you name three of the apostles?"

She answered so quickly I thought she cheated. "Peter, John and James, Your Grace."

"Correct!"

He pointed again, this time to the second row. "How many Stations of the Cross are there?"

"Fourteen, Your Grace."

"Correct!"

The ecclesiastical finger found its way in my direction now and for a bowel-loosening second I thought it was going to stop on me, but it didn't. Instead it went all the way across and pointed deep into the back corner of the room which just went to show that contrary to Mrs Payne and Sister Francis's creative manipulation of the seating arrangements, nowhere in the room was safe.

I was beside myself with worry. The questions so far had been difficult and I was thankful they had not come my way but I knew with gut-churning certainty that it was only a matter of time.

The theological digit continued its rounds of the classroom, jabbing at apprehensive, but never wrong, students.

"The sum of eight and twenty-seven?"

Suzie Holmes: "Thirty-five, Your Grace."

"Correct! What are verbs?"

Peter Grimes: "Doing words, Your Grace."

"Correct! Which is the feast day of Saint John the Baptist?"

Colin Jacobs: "The twenty-fourth of June, Your Grace."

"Correct!" What is the square root of one hundred and forty-four?"

Karen Atkins: "Twelve, your Grace."

"Correct!"

The questions came faster now and were answered with alarming alacrity and skill. Even Nicky fielded one. It was thrown at him at a million miles an hour and he didn't bat an eyelid.

"Who said this famous line? 'Let my people go.'"

"Moses, Your Grace."

"Correct!"

The tempo increased to a fever pitch and it was while the pace of the proceedings was at its most frenetic that the inevitable finally happened.

The Archbishop pointed at me.

Time seemed to slow and a roaring sound, not unlike the sound you get when you hold a large seashell to your ear, filled my head. At first I thought I hadn't heard the question. All I had noticed was the man's finger dropping into a kind of a slow motion movement and take on ridiculous, comical proportions as it pointed directly at me. I saw his lips move as he formed the words but I had no recollection of him actually saying anything. It was as though my ears at that exact moment had suddenly switched themselves off and the icy ball of dread that had been sitting heavily in my gut for most of the morning, finally burst.

The first tendrils of real panic began to snake their way through me and I was giving the idea of a quick sprint for the door some serious consideration when something soft and hollow reverberated deep in the back of my head. It sounded all weird and drawn out; like an echo on its last legs. And then suddenly I knew what it was.

It was the Archbishop's question.

It had got in! I hadn't been struck deaf after all.

My heart was hammering as the Archbishop's question percolated thickly at the back of my brain, was processed, and duly presented for my immediate attention.

"Six times five?"

My grey matter went into processing mode again, digging deep into my seldom-used scholastic memory, searching for any hook or snag that may have by chance, sometime in the past, managed to grab and hold an answer that would fit.

If all went well it might even be correct.

But this was taking too long! Surely people would notice.

Then suddenly, almost without trying, it was there.

The answer!

It was pushed and shoved right up to the front of my brain by the various synapses and impulses that were sick and tired of always being blamed by the nuns for my chronic gormlessness.

It sat there fat and juicy, ready for immediate delivery.

My heart soared. I couldn't believe it. I knew this one! I felt like laughing out loud and I imagined the whole class breaking out in spontaneous applause as I bellowed the answer.

"Thirty, Your Grace."

"Correct!"

There was a roar in the back of my head as the reality came racing home to me. I had answered correctly! I had got it right! I was fantastic! I was great! What was all this stupid worry and concern about the Archbishop asking questions? This was easy. There was nothing to worry about. They should do this every day.

By now the whole class, caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment, were clamouring for attention. Kids were bouncing in their seats, throwing their arms violently in the air and pleading

"Pick me, Your Grace. Pick me."

I was right in there with them, shooting my arm towards the ceiling like a piston and bouncing so hard in my seat that my bum hurt. Carried away by my enormous success I was sure I could answer anything the man threw at me.

But finally the questioning ground to a halt and the Archbishop stood there, hands on hips, and declared that we had all done very, very well and we should all be very proud of Mrs Payne for doing such a fantastic job with us.

This extraordinary man had pumped us so full of enthusiasm that we all spontaneously threw our heads back and roared;

"Thank you Mrs Payne," at the top of our voices.

Mrs Payne turned a deep crimson and was so overcome she piped an eye. This morning, because of a little over-eagerness and a miscalculation on her part, she had tripped and fallen and her world had shattered in the immediate, soul-crushing embarrassment of the moment. It was obvious to everybody how she must have felt.

Sister Francis and the other nuns, along with our three local priests, had put such a heavy emphasis on how well this visit must go that even a creaky floorboard in the hallway or a stray dog meandering across the playground would be seen as the damnation of us all.

The moment she had fallen, Mrs Payne would have been certain she had wrought irreparable damage to the school's good name; that one thing that Sister Francis considered above all others to be the most unforgivable of acts.

But then this remarkable man had stepped forward and taken charge of the situation with all the tact and chivalrous charm of your proverbial knight in shining armour. Never again would any living, breathing being be able to utter a disparaging remark about the good Archbishop while within earshot of Mrs Payne. The consequences would be just too awful to contemplate.

She gazed now with adoration at the Archbishop as he turned from the class and stepped back to the small group of adults clustered at the front of the classroom. He spoke quietly to Sister Francis and the Monsignor, both of whom were smiling broadly and nodding and it was plain to everyone present that regardless of Mrs Payne's fall, the visit had been a resounding success.

I felt good. Surely with such a successful visit behind us Sister Francis would be loath to punish anyone for any indiscretions which, when all was said and done, were really quiet minor after all. I mean, it was just a spontaneous burst of laughter, quickly stifled. There was no harm done and certainly no malice intended. With all that had been going on that first moment after Mrs Payne's fall it was doubtful it had been heard by the guest of honour anyway. What was the big deal? It wasn't as though I had set fire to the desks or pulled the Archbishop's daks down. No! I felt confident that this very small and insignificant indiscretion on my part would be allowed to slide on by regardless of the thunderous look and wordlessly communicated promise of unimaginable pain Sister Francis had directed at me at the time.

And besides, hadn't I answered the Archbishop's question quickly and correctly? Well, maybe not that quickly. I wasn't sure about that. I know I felt as though I had taken a long, long time before finally answering but when you're a bit panicked, time does weird things. I would have to ask Nicky at lunchtime.

But the fact remained, I had answered the question correctly and it was one of the hard ones as well. By my estimations I had done nothing to tarnish the name of Sister Francis' precious school in any way.

It was time to leave and so the Archbishop gave a cheery wave and blessed us all. In response we kids all dutifully stood and shouted to the rafters;

"Goodbye Your Grace and may God bless you."

He threw back his head and laughed and after shaking Mrs Payne by the hand and thanking her, he made his way out of the room closely followed by a beaming Monsignor James and a relieved and happy looking Sister Francis.

The room was completely silent for about fifteen seconds and then it erupted. Every kid there—except for Fatty Parker who was beginning to look as though he would need severe shock therapy along with years of intense psychoanalysis to help him get over the shock of suddenly realising that teachers were indeed fallible—burst into a jabbering recount of how nervous they had felt and of how great the Archbishop had been and of how much like a normal man he had appeared and of the look of horror on Sister Francis' face when Mrs Payne had fallen and of how hard their question had been compared to other people's, and so forth and so on.

While all this was going on I noticed Mrs Payne sneak into the small anteroom just off the side of the classroom where all the supplies where kept. She was gone for a good while and what was strange was that the noise in the room had long since elevated to a level that would normally have her bursting back into the classroom like a rabid rhino ready to dismember the first kid she could get her hands on.

Instead, when she did reappear, she was quiet and reflective and sat benignly at her desk. She had a distracted but curiously contented look on her face and seemed relaxed. I noticed she had a large, white bandage on her left knee.

The euphoria I had been sharing with the other kids disappeared and I felt bad for having laughed at her. By now the other kids had noticed her return, and the bandage, and were beginning to quieten down. A few of the girls bustled forward and made a fuss over her asking after her leg and offering to nip out and get a cuppa for her. She good-naturedly waved then away and continued to sit there quietly.

The kids began to talk amongst themselves again so I took the opportunity to creep up to the front of the room and approach Mrs Payne. When I got to the edge of the desk she looked up at me, one eyebrow raised in query.

"I'm sorry I laughed at your accident," I mumbled.

She looked at me in an odd way for a while and I was just beginning to think she was not going to answer me when she smiled and said,

"Don't worry about it Owen. I'm sure it looked pretty funny from where you were sitting."

"No it didn't Mrs Payne. It looked awful and painful and I don't know why I laughed. All I know is that I shouldn't have and I'm sorry I did."

She smiled again and patted me on the arm. "Don't worry about it Owen. Thank you for coming to apologise to me. That was very good and proper of you and don't worry, I will be sure to inform Sister Francis at lunch time of your noble apology. Now go back to your seat because the chatter and hullabaloo in this room is becoming unbearable and it is time for me to lower the boom on a few of the more rowdy individuals."

She said this softly but there was a twinkle in her eye as she reached for the yardstick and I knew that things in Mrs Payne's world were returning to their normal, well-ordered positions.

I hurried back to my desk and prepared myself for the onslaught. In a few seconds she would swing that yardstick hard sending it crashing into the blackboard creating an explosion of sound that would quiet the room instantly and ensure that she had every single individual's absolute and undivided attention.

I smiled, as the warm feeling of satisfaction I had previously felt upon correctly answering the Archbishop's question soaked through me once again. It was re-enforced by the knowledge that I had done exactly the right thing in owning up to Mrs Payne and apologising. Not only had I received her forgiveness but there was absolutely no way in the world Sister Francis could punish me for snickering now.

I was sure of it.

Chapter 7 - The Aftermath

At lunchtime I was pleased to hear from Nicky that my response to the Archbishop's question had not slowed proceedings at all. He assured me I had answered just as quickly as everyone else even though at the time I felt a year had passed between His Grace asking the question and my actually getting round to answering it.

I smiled. This was great news. What had I been worrying about? The whole thing had been a total doddle. No problem at all. In fact, now that I thought about it, my whole morning had been pretty much perfect. I had answered His Grace's question quickly and correctly; Mrs Payne had accepted my apology for laughing at her misfortune; I had not heard a single peep from anyone about the unfortunate 'naked-in-the-window' thingy from the night before. Life just couldn't get any better.

My smile broadened into a full-fledged grin. I had worked myself into a state for nothing. But now it was all over and the relief was enormous. I felt so happy I laughed out loud causing Nicky to look up from his fishpaste sandwich and ask me what was up.

"Oh, nothing much. I was just thinking about how things never really seem to go as badly as you think they might. Whenever you expect the worst it often turns out to be completely fine."

Nicky looked at me in silence for a few seconds and then smiled sardonically.

"What you mean is, you were lucky enough to get away with a simple apology to Mrs Payne and no-one has teased you yet about your nature-boy shenanigans from last night?"

I started to protest but Nicky put his hand up, palm outward, and continued.

"Don't you think it's possible that everybody was just a wee bit too caught up in all the hoopla surrounding the Archbishop's visit this morning? Too busy in fact, to worry about paying out on some silly bugger that likes to half drown himself and then stick his todger out a window?"

I began to splutter another protest but again he held up his hand and stopped me.

"And in case you're thinking that not many people have heard about this little episode of yours last night then you'd better think again because believe me matey, it's all over town."

Finally, he dropped his hand and let me speak.

"Are you finished?"

He frowned, stuck out his bottom lip and stared skywards pretending to think hard for a second. Then he looked back at me and nodded.

"Yep! I reckon that about does it."

"Well you can go to buggery," I said. "No-one has teased me about last night and I don't think anyone is going to and on top of that, Mrs Payne has forgiven me for laughing at her. I'm feeling good about how things have worked out and I'm not gonna let you ruin it."

Nicky shrugged and laughed. "Suit yourself."

We bolted the rest of our lunch and then hurried across to the area on the edge of the quadrangle where we liked to play marbles. Over the half-hour or so we had to play before traipsing back into class again I managed to win back the marbles I had lost to Nicky that morning and win a couple of brand-new shooters as well.

Then suddenly the bell was ringing and we lined up with the rest of the sixth-class students. This post-lunch assembly was normal procedure and was simply a means of controlling the way the tidal-wave of kids entered the large building that housed all the classrooms. Announcements were not normally made at this assembly. The only verbal utterances were restricted to Sister Vincent screaming at the top of her lungs such orders as: "ATTENTION! AS YOU WERE! AT EASE! RIGHT TURN! LEFT TURN! ABOUT FACE!"

But regardless of what she roared out her orders always culminated in: "BY THE CLASS—KINDYS FIRST—MOVING OFF ON THE LEFT ..."

All of this shouting was something Sister Vincent clearly enjoyed and I expected to see her standing there at the head of the stairs limbering up for a really good bellow. Instead it was our principal, Sister Francis, who stood there glowering down at the churning sea of students as they hurried to line up in the orderly ranks she expected of them. I guessed that in light of a successful visit from the Archbishop, the principal wanted to address the school and tell everyone just how wonderful they had been. The Archbishop had left just prior to lunch and so this would be the most obvious point in the day to do this.

Sister Francis stood there unmoving, waiting as she always did for the absolute silence she expected before beginning to speak. Since the high church wall cast a shadow right across the quadrangle dropping the already cold winter temperature a further few degrees, everyone present wanted to get the proceedings over and done with and move inside to the relative warmth and comfort of their classrooms. Because of this, silence descended quickly.

Even so, a full minute later Sister Francis had still not begun speaking. You could almost hear the time passing and I was beginning to wonder just how much quieter it could possibly get when she finally began.

Starting with a general acknowledgment of all those involved today, Sister Francis asked for a show of appreciation for all the work put in by the teachers and prefects in preparation for His Grace's visit. A boisterous round of applause echoed across the quadrangle punctuated by the occasional cheer.

Sister Francis then went on to thank the students in general saying that almost to a person, everyone had been excellent in their behaviour in the lead up to today's very important event.

As a murmur of approval and self-congratulation rippled through the ranks of students, a slight feeling of uneasiness began prickling at my spine and creeping across my scalp. Unlike most of the other kids there, I had not missed the emphasis she had placed on part of what she had said: _"Almost to a person,"_ What could she mean by that?

The principal continued, throwing her head back and speaking loudly:

"As always, at times like this, things never go completely as you wish and small things happen that threaten to send all of your best-laid plans awry. These things are inevitable and most of what happened over the last day or so with the potential to mar this very important visit by His Grace, the Archbishop, to our school today, was easily dealt with. Even so, there are some things that have happened that bring the name of our school into disrepute and in so doing, damage the reputation of every single person fortunate enough to be able to attend this wonderful institution every day. When these events are caused by the actions of a single selfish individual, I will not tolerate it."

By now I was feeling distinctly uncomfortable. My scalp was prickling like crazy and despite the coolness of the air, rivulets of sweat began to seep out of the top of my head and snake their way through my hair threatening to track their way down my forehead. I did not know why but I was certain she was talking about me.

When I had made the horrendous mistake of snickering at Mrs Payne's misfortune, Sister Francis had turned and glared at me. Perhaps she really had marked me for extermination there and then. Never mind the fact that afterwards I had apologised to Mrs Payne and that apology had been accepted. Perhaps that wasn't good enough for the principal. Maybe she wanted her pound of flesh regardless.

I knew that Sister Francis was enormously proud of this school and viewed even the slightest misdemeanour as a personal slap in the face. I also knew how serious she was when it came to dishing out punishment. Of course she was talking about me, I was certain of it, and she had decided she was not going to let me off.

A second later my worst fears were realised.

"Owen Finnegan, come up here now."

The sweat from my scalp fairly gushed and my heart rate doubled. Its pounding was like a bass drum sounding deep in the back of my skull.

I stepped out of line and began to walk, head lowered, through the ranks of students. The silence already blanketing the quadrangle, thickened considerably. The only sound now was the steady _scrunch-scrunch-scrunch_ of my footfalls on the white gravel as I made my way to the front of the assembly. The sound resonated through the quadrangle, bouncing off walls and windows and coming back to me about a half-second after my foot hit the ground so that to me there was a disconcerting offset between the sound and its cause. It was as though my whole world had suddenly become weirdly off-kilter. My head began to swim and for a second I feared—I hoped—I was going to faint.

I stepped onto the concrete path and without looking up at the principal, made my way to the foot of the stairs. Only when I mounted the bottom of the ten or so steps I had to climb did Sister Francis continue addressing the assembly.

"You all know the high regard I have for this school and for all of its students and teachers. I have never made a secret of it and I am not about to start now."

I had climbed about a half-dozen steps and now for the first time I looked up. Sister Francis was standing ramrod straight with all the other teachers lined up behind her. She stood in that curious way that the nuns had of standing; with their arms crossed in front of their bodies and with each hand tucked reverse-ways into the opposing arm's sleeve. They did this even in the hottest of weather. She was looking out over a pale sea of upturned faces that were hanging on her every word as she continued on about personal honour and respect for others.

Sister Francis did not look at me and I was grateful. A withering glare from her at this point would have turned my legs to rubber and I would either drop like a rock or turn and run screaming for the playground gate. The urge to bolt is strong in me at the best of times and it took all of my reserves to keep on going.

I stole a quick look at Mrs Payne. She was watching me come up the stairs from the corner of her eye and I could see that she was just as perplexed as I was.

I came to a stop at the top of the stairs right beside Sister Francis who carried on addressing the assembly as though I wasn't there. It was as if I didn't even exist and for a mad-minute I was seriously thinking that I had misheard her and that she had not called me up. In fact now that I thought it through, I was certain I had made a mistake and since that was the case, what could I possibly do to get myself out of the dangerous position I had just recklessly dropped myself into?

I began sifting through the myriad of possibilities that began coursing through my brain. Each involved various fantastic manoeuvres that only a person of my incredible skill and dexterity could employ to extricate myself from the potentially life threatening position I suddenly found myself in. I needed something good; something well thought out. Something that was completely unexpected.

I was just settling on a particular manoeuvre that involved a quick leap to the left followed by a shoulder-roll between the Sisters Vincent and Mary. That would carry me into the hallway of the main building whereupon a lightening fast commando-crawl straight down the hallway would take me to the doorway at the other end of the corridor.

There lay my salvation.

I played out the scenario in my head, the image culminating nicely in the group of teachers gasping theatrically in shock at my sudden disappearance.

I smiled to myself as in my imagination I moved skilfully, completely unseen, across the playground towards the school gate and freedom, while a bevy of nuns cast around futilely searching for _'the boy who was no longer there.'_

Oh, this plan was flawless! I was sure I could pull it off with no-one noticing anything and I was just about to leap into action when the principal finally turned and impaled me with a needle-sharp glare.

"I'm pleased to see that you find this funny Mr Finnegan."

My blood froze. I quickly erased the remnant of the smile that had lingered from the pleasure that came from playing out my dramatic escape in my head. Oh bugger! I was dead now, that was for sure. If Sister Francis thought I was laughing at her and at what she had been saying, Mum would be collecting my remains from the morgue later on this afternoon.

I began to stammer out an excuse. "Ohh n-n-no, s-sister. I wasn't laughing. R-r-really I wasn't."

"You were so, Finnegan. You were standing there with a grin the size of a small country on your face."

She leaned in putting her face so close to mine I could smell the coffee she had drunk at lunchtime on her breath.

"You find everything I say funny, don't you, Finnegan? You find it absolutely hilarious. Don't you?"

We were entering dangerous territory now; I could tell by the way she was talking. She was speaking airily and with very little volume and I knew from firsthand experience that when nuns talked to you like that, they were only seconds away from becoming completely homicidal. A caning in the very least was now inevitable and there was little I could do but pray it would all be over quickly.

I was growing desperate and as I repeated my stammering denials the panic squeezed my vocal chords to such a degree the words came out as high-pitched squeaks.

"N-n-no sister, n-no I w-wasn't."

Again, I toyed with the idea of making a sudden break for it. Bugger the quick leap to the left followed by the shoulder-roll into the hallway and the quick commando-crawl to freedom. I decided instead on simply turning and running like hell for the nearest street-exit screaming my head off the whole way.

But there was something in the way that Sister Francis glared at me that fixed me in place and regardless of how hard I tried I could not get my legs to move. I was frozen!

My panic, which until now had been threatening to spill over into uncontrolled hysteria, suddenly began abating and a curious sense of acceptance and inevitability was growing in its place.

I remembered an article I had read in my beloved _'Junior Encyclopaedia of Knowledge and Understanding'_ about how mice and rabbits and other furry members of nature's food bin often froze under the cold, malevolent stare of certain snakes. They would sit there unmoving as the snake simply glided up and began to eat them. Suddenly I knew exactly how they felt.

Sister Francis straightened up and as if by magic produced her favourite cane. My blood chilled when I saw it. It was a long rod of bamboo-type material which screamed as it cut through the air. The playground was thick with stories of this legendary cane and it saw regular duty with some of the high-school boys. But until now it had never been used to punish a primary-school student simply because it was doubtful they would live through it. Obviously Sister Francis was so near the end of her tether she no longer cared if I lived or died.

I swallowed hard as I looked at the metre and a half of pain and anguish the principal brandished before me and at the edge of panic, I played a desperate card.

"B-but Mrs P-P-Payne accepted my apology."

For a second I thought I had made an impression. Her face clouded with confusion and she began opening her mouth to speak. But then she snapped it closed again and shook her head.

"You stupid boy," she hissed. "This has nothing to do with the rude and selfish behaviour you exhibited when you snickered at Mrs Payne's misfortune."

She swished the air a few times with the cane revelling in the sound it made and enjoying the effect the noise had on me.

"This has to do with the shame you have brought upon this school."

At this she turned back to address the rest of the students still standing there quietly before her, their faces upturned, determined not to miss a thing, the blood-thirsty little savages.

"As I have said on many occasions, I will not tolerate anyone bringing shame to the good name of this school. If you are out and about after school hours, you must always be aware that you are identifiable by your school uniform and that your actions reflect on every single individual in this school, teacher and student alike. Remember, I long only to hear good reports about my students—never, ever bad."

At this point she gestured towards me with her cane.

"This boy has brought shame on this school by his selfish and despicable actions and because of this he will be punished. The rest of you would do well to learn from his mistake."

She turned back to me. "Hold out your right hand."

I raised my hand slowly and using the tip of the cane, she fine-tuned it into the position she wanted.

"Two on each hand should do I think," she said matter-of-factly. She was just raising the cane to the top of its arc and preparing to bring it down when I spoke:

"But s-s-sister. What did I do?"

She stared at me open mouthed, then after a second or two lowered the cane.

"I thought by now that would be abundantly obvious. You have brought shame and degradation to this fine school."

I was confused. She had just said that if you brought shame on the school and were identifiable by your uniform then you could expect to be in strife. But I had absolutely no recollection of being out and about in my school uniform and then doing something that the principal would take a dim view of.

"Sister I haven't done anything. I p-p-promise."

She leaned back clutching at her throat and gasping loudly. Her face began to redden and her eyes became a couple of icy bullets.

"How dare you stand there and tell me such an evil and barefaced lie."

I knew I was making it worse for myself but I was desperate. I couldn't stop. Judging by what she had said, I'd been identified by my uniform and reported for doing something. But I had no idea just what it was she was accusing me of. I honestly could not think of any time when I might have done something that she would disapprove of.

"But sister," I pleaded, "I don't know what I've done wrong."

Sister Francis' eyes widened and she stepped back, her mouth opening and closing silently as she wrestled with the rage that coursed through her. She was so red in the face by now that I thought she was going to pop. She leaned close once again and the anger in her voice was awful as she hissed at me in a savage whisper that was meant for my ears only.

"Do you deny parading naked in the front window of your house last night, exposing yourself to the good, Christian ladies of your neighbourhood in a most vile and disgusting manner?"

It felt as if ice water was gushing through me as I suddenly realised the depth of Mrs Simpson's network of rumour and innuendo. The woman was so completely thorough in her spreading around of the juicy bits that even a nun, the principal of the local Catholic school for God's sake, was part of her network. I knew now that all was lost. Even as I played my last, weak card, I knew it would do no good.

"But Sister, I wasn't in school uniform at the time."

Sister Francis's eyes widened to such an alarming degree that for a minute I thought they were going to fall out of her head. Then suddenly she sucked a huge quantity of air noisily through her teeth and screamed point blank into my face:

"THAT IS PRECISELY THE POINT YOU STUPID BOY!"

Over the next few seconds it was touch and go as to whether or not she would throw the cane aside and simply beat me to death with her bare hands. Judging by her facial contortions the internal struggle was enormous but eventually she straightened and in a quiet, steel-tipped voice, ordered me once again to put out my hand. And again she teased it into the optimum position with the tip of her cane.

"A slight change is called for I think." She said staring fixedly at me with her shark-like eyes. "Six of the best is more in order I think. Wouldn't you agree Mr. Finnegan?"

The question was rhetorical in the purest sense of the word and I knew that if I so much as opened my mouth to respond my school days would be over. I nodded almost imperceptibly and watched in terror as she raised the cane high above her head. It hovered there for a brief period before she brought it screaming down.

The pain was white hot. It shot up my arm and into my body with such force that the shock of it ripped the air from my lungs. I squeezed my eyes shut and willing the tears not to come, began to recite in my mind the line-up of the Australian cricket team which was currently contesting the Ashes in England.

" _Bill Lawry; Ian Redpath; Bob Cowper; Ian Chappell; Dougie Walters; Paul Sheahan; Brian Taber . . ."_

I was working on the premise that putting my brain to such a test would take my mind off the other five cuts to come. It didn't work, although I became aware of a sort of disembodiment by about the fourth cut and became so fascinated by how quiet the sea of school kids looking on had become that I hardly felt the fifth and the sixth.

Sister Francis dismissed me with a curt order to return to my place in line. I felt vastly relieved to be scrunching my way back across the gravel once again. I was also quite pleased with myself, not only for having survived the best the principal could throw at me, but by doing so completely dry-eyed. I had not cracked and while the opportunity to go down in school folklore as _'the boy who wasn't there'_ had been snatched away from me, resuming my place in line as _'the one who'd been to the brink and survived'_ was just as good.

I stepped back into line and as Sister Vincent began to scream for everyone to stand at attention I stood there steely-jawed and heroic, frowning manfully as I stared determinedly straight ahead. It was obvious to anyone looking my way that here stood a man of steel. You could tell by the heroic determination in the set of his shoulders; the devil-may-care casualness of his stance; the no-nonsense tint in the cold, grey eyes. Here was one who would not crack; one who could take anything they threw at him; one who was in short, just too damn good for them.

The respectful stares and nods of approval began and I knew it was only a matter of time before someone hissed the inevitable question.

"Did it hurt?"

Of course it bloody-well hurt but I wasn't going to tell them that.

Chapter 8 - Epilogue

Mum went ballistic of course.

Mrs Simpson had knocked on the door within minutes of Dad leaving for work and by all accounts things went exactly as I had forecast. The old harridan had even embellished the story. She told Mum I laughed like a madman while waggling my dangly bits at the women of her _'Walk for Health'_ group who, according to Mrs Simpson, suffered the vapours for hours afterwards and looked like taking quite a while to recover.

Mum took all that in her stride. She assumed there was more than a little hyperbole in what the old bag was telling her so she took a pretty philosophical view of the whole thing. But when I arrived home from school and handed her the note that Sister Francis had written her, everything changed.

The principal's note outlined with remarkable clarity the shame and degradation I'd brought upon her beloved school through my thoughtless disregard for other peoples' feelings. And the fact that this had happened on one of the most important days in the school's recent history was in short, unforgivable.

I had considered 'losing' the note on the way home but Sister Francis had promised that my life would not be worth living if I didn't deliver it to my mother as instructed.

When Mum read it she hit the roof. She didn't much care about my offending Mrs Simpson but Sister Francis was another story. Mum said she had no idea just how she'd be able to hold her head up in front of the principal ever again.

Dad didn't help matters. Mum filled him in as soon as he arrived home from work. She had obviously expected him to be just as outraged by my lewd behaviour as she was and to respond accordingly by administering a sound thrashing followed up with a thorough talking-to.

Unfortunately Dad hadn't read the script and he reacted in exactly the way she thought he wouldn't—he laughed uproariously. This made Mum even angrier and resulted in her grounding me for a whole month.

And what a month it was. Complete misery. Straight home from school; no going out on the weekends; no footy; no cricket; no lollies or sweets after dinner—I swear, the punishment did not fit the crime. Even the fact that I'd done so well in front of the Archbishop failed to gain me any leniency. Mum would not relent at all. She was determined that I would serve my time to the absolute minute and that time just dragged and dragged.

Fatty Parker steadily recovered from the state of catatonia brought about by his shock at seeing Mrs Payne fall. By the end of a fortnight he was back to his normal dull and sycophantic self. Sister Francis elected him Class Prefect for a spell and we all suffered. He waddled around with a small notebook into which he scribbled everything that transpired regardless of whether it was good, bad or otherwise. He filled scads of these books and dutifully reported to the principal three times a day.

I think Sister Francis realised her error in appointing him when he reported one of her fellow nuns for farting in the playground. It was Sister Bernard, a very old and venerable woman who was so incapable of the transgression Fatty was accusing her of as to be beyond reproach. Besides, we knew the truth. It was actually Arnie Grace that had let one fly. He happened to be standing behind the good sister at the time and she, being true to form, had pretended she hadn't heard. Fatty had turned upon hearing the raucous bottom-burp and from his point-of-view had seen only Sister Bernard.

Now whether you're a nun or just a student, farting in the playground is hardly a reportable offence but Fatty made a note regardless. It was the reporting of this event that made Sister Francis realise that she had created a monster. She stripped him of his commission that afternoon and as a result Fatty had a relapse becoming catatonic again, but only for a short while.

Ever since the "naked-in-the-window" thing, Sister Francis had decided that I was someone who definitely needed watching. It didn't seem to matter where I was at school—playground or classroom—all I ever had to do was turn around and there she was, hovering in the background, running her cold, malevolent eyes over me in that hawk-like way she had. She had always operated on a hair-trigger but ever since Mrs Simpson had planted the idea in her head that I was the sort of individual who would dangle my wobbly bits out a window in order to frighten the good Christian women of my neighbourhood, our principal had become downright obsessive in her watchfulness.

I knew that I now held pride of place at the top of Sister Francis's current hit list and I also knew that there was nothing I could do about that. No doubt as other issues cropped up that needed dealing with she would focus less on me but for the moment her overt watchfulness was wearing thin. In the meantime, I just had to keep my head down and make sure I didn't mess up. She was so primed and ready to explode that even the smallest misstep on my part would be sure to tip her over the edge and I didn't like to think about just how extreme her reaction would be this time. I only had a couple of weeks to go until the end of term and then there'd be a two week holiday. I was sure she would have forgotten all about my transgressions by the time we got back to school.

And that two week break was going to be fun. I could meet up with some of the neighbourhood kids and play cricket or football, or go fishing or eeling. I could walk over to Nicky's place for the day. He had plenty of great games that we could play or we could head down to the river and go swimming. But the best thing about the two week break was the fact that I wouldn't have to worry about the principal and her constant vigilance.

Of course there was always the ghastly spectre of Mrs Simpson looming on my horizon. She would cause me all sorts of grief given half the chance and she'd enjoy every single minute while doing so. But that was fine. I knew what that horrible old harridan was capable of, and as for any sort of problem she might decide to cause for me... well, I'd just have to cross that bridge when I came to it.

THE END

Thank you for taking the time to read _"Desperate Measures"_. I hope you've enjoyed it. There are more Owen Finnegan stories coming soon so please keep an eye out for them.

R. B. Baxter

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