I used to love the Jennings books by Anthony Buckeridge when I was a kid. They were set in fee-paying independent school where the children actually lived at the school and went to bed there every night! My very worst nightmare scenario as a child since I hated school enough as it was! But I loved the Jennings books. What follows is an extract from the first Jennings book, Jennings goes to School (there were about 24 books altogether). I might have hated schools, but scenarios like the following made school almost enjoyable!
Heavy footsteps could be heard approaching along the corridor; there was never any need for a lookout when Mr Wilkins was due to take a lesson.
“Get our your geography prep.,” he called, while still some five yards from the classroom door. There was a note of confidence in his voice, but it passed unheeded in Form Three.
Venables put up his hand as Mr Wilkins took his seat.
“Did we have to write our prep. in our books, sir?” he asked.
“Where else would you expect to write it; on the ceiling?”
“No, sir. I mean, I wondered whether we just had to learn about Australia and not write an essay.”
Mr Wilkins glared.
“So you haven’t written an essay, eh? Very well, then, if you’re looking for trouble—”
“Oh, but, sir, I have written one.”
“You said you hadn’t.”
“No, sir. I just wondered, that was all.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Mr Wilkins. He called Jennings up to the master’s desk and inspected his efforts.
“ ‘In Austeralia,’ ” he read aloud, “ ‘there is wheat but the rabits are a pest like rats so the farmers get very cross because the rabits eat the wheat in England rabits are not a pest you can have chinchla and angora mine was white with some brown fur on and his name was Bobtail and so I got a tea chest and put straw down and made a hutch…’ ”
Mr Wilkins stopped reading “Of all the muddleheaded bone-heads—!” Words failed him for a moment. “What d’you mean by serving me up with nonsense like this?”
“But, sir, it’s not nonsense,” Jennings protested “It’s true. My rabbit was brown and white; m’uncle gave him to me for my birthday.”
“But I set an essay on Australian wheat growing, not the life story of some wretched rodent!”
“Bobtail his name was,” Jennings corrected.
“I don’t care if his name was Moses,” Mr Wilkins expostulated. “It’s not the point; it’s not geography; it’s—it’s not—”
“My father would say it was ‘not germane to the issue,’ sir,” Darbishire put in helpfully.
“That’s enough, Darbishire.” Mr Wilkins turned back to the rabbit fancier. “You illiterate nitwit, Jennings, can’t you see that your essay’s miles away from the subject? It’s a perfect example of—er—of—”
“Juvenile delinquency, sir?” suggested Darbishire.
“Be quiet, Darbishire.” Mr Wilkins turned on him angrily.
“Sorry, sir,” Darbishire said meekly.
“The trouble with you, Jennings, is that you’re half-asleep. You need waking up. Go and put your head under the tap in the wash-room and see if that’ll clear your brain at all.”
“What, now, sir?” Jennings asked.
“Yes, now, and perhaps you’ll come back a bit brighter. Go along.”
Jennings departed to the wash-room, and Mr Wilkins called Darbishire up to his desk and began to read his essay. He read,
“ ‘The grandiose splendours of the Australian countryside unfold a never-to-be-forgotten scenic pageant that remains a priceless jewel in the memory for all time. Fair and fragrant is the vast undulation of the plains stretching relentlessly to the horizon, where in the declining rays of the setting sun, the eye of the observer is entranced to behold…’ ”
Mr Wilkins looked up, but, unlike the observer, his eye was not entranced with what it beheld. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that this is all your own work?” he said.
“Well, no, not entirely,” Darbishire confessed; “but I went to a lot of trouble and did research and stuff, sir.”
“And what about the wheat growing?”
“Oh, that comes later,” Darbishire explained. “Much later actually; in fact, I haven’t quite got up to writing it yet. All this early part is just to put the reader in the right mood, sir.”
“It’s putting me in a mood, Darbishire,” Mr Wilkins admitted; “but it’s not by any means the sort of mood you’re aiming at.”
The door opened and Jennings appeared. His visit to the wash-room had made him brighter of eye, but his head bore no signs of immersion. Mr Wilkins looked at him narrowly. This was deliberate disobedience. Very well, he was ready to meet it.
“You’ve been very quick, Jennings,” he said, with studied calmness. “Come here.”
Jennings came.
“Did you put your head under the tap as I told you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr Wilkins produced his ace.
“Then do you mind telling me,” he inquired patiently, “do you mind explaining why your hair is quite dry?”
“Well, sir, you never told me to turn the tap on.”
For the second time that morning the class rocked with laughter. Natural hearty laughter to start with, but, after a while, this was exhausted and they had to fall back on pantomime. The genuine laughter of schoolboys doesn’t take the form of knee-smiting and thigh-slapping, but in their efforts to give the impression that their mirth was uncontrollable, they rolled about in their seats and smote their knees and slapped their thighs; then they smote their neighbours’ knees and slapped their neighbours’ thighs, and gave each other coy and playful pushes—anything to focus the spotlight of attention upon their counterfeit glee. Speech came through tears of merriment.
“Oh, sir, isn’t Jennings smashing! Jolly g. answer, wasn’t it, sir?”
“You asked for that one, sir. A real priority prang!”
“He was more awake than you thought, wasn’t he, sir?”
“Sir, you should have told him to turn the tap on, sir.”
“Sir, did you forget to tell him to turn the tap on, sir, because if you didn’t actually tell him to turn the tap on, sir, he wouldn’t know he had to, would he, sir?”
Mr Wilkins waited—grimly, quietly patient. He could afford to wait, for very soon the tables would be turned. Silence came at last, and Mr Wilkins spoke in tones unusually quiet for a person of his forceful nature.
