The War of Jenkins' Ear. Michael Morpurgo
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for him. Sooner or later of course they would, but by then he’d be ready for them. Simpson was the one to watch. He knew how to niggle better than most. When the train pulled out at last Toby went to the toilet where he locked himself in so that the tears could flow freely, so that he could steel himself, put away the last of Toby and become Jenkins.
The carriage was unnaturally quiet when he got back. ‘And this,’ said Simpson, ‘is Jinks. He’s been blubbing. He always blubs at the beginning of term. Say hello, Jinks.’
Until then Toby hadn’t noticed him. There was a boy sitting in his seat by the window, a boy he had never seen before. His hair was longer than you were allowed at Redlands. ‘He’s a new bug,’ said Simpson. The new boy moved up a bit so that Toby could sit down beside him. ‘He’s called Christopher,’ Simpson went on.
‘Christopher what?’ Toby asked.
‘Simon Christopher,’ said the new boy quietly and he turned away to look out of the window.
* * *
‘Per Jesum Christum dominum nostrum. Amen.’ Shepherd’s pie, cabbage, and after that it would be rice-pudding. Toby liked rice-pudding, especially the skin. The first supper was always the same. Toby sat in the babble of the dining-hall and looked down at his shepherd’s pie. The others were eating already. He could not. The daddy-longlegs were trying to dance their way up to the top of the window. There were lots of them this year. ‘Always the same in a dry summer,’ his mother had told him. She’d be home from the station by now. They’d all be home, except him. Little Charley (no one called her Charlotte) would be shuffling around on her bottom, finger up her nose. His father would be back from the office (Toby never really knew what he did at the office). He’d be clipping the lawn edges, therapeutic he said; and Gran, trembling with Parkinson’s disease in her wheelchair, would still be doing the Telegraph crossword.
Toby ate the first mouthful of the first course of the first meal and swallowed without tasting. He’d had no breakfast, picked at his lunch, but he still had to force it down. You couldn’t leave anything at Redlands, only as much as you could hide under your knife. Mr Birley called out from the end of his table.
‘Jenkins,’ he said, holding up the water jug.
‘Sir?’
‘It’s empty.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Mr Birley liked him. Mr Birley had always liked him because he sang in the choir and Mr Birley liked everyone who sang in the choir. There was a care-worn, hang-dog look about him but at least he was kind, and there weren’t many like that. ‘You do remember where it is?’ He smiled as he handed him the jug and then the bread-basket. ‘And you might as well get some more bread while you’re at it.’
The dining-hall door closed behind him and he dawdled his way down the tiled passage towards the kitchen. He was alone again for the first time since the toilet on the train and he wanted to make it last as long as he could. He spent some time waiting outside the kitchen door picking the crumbs out of the bread-basket. Then he put his back against the swing-doors and pushed.
Mrs Woolland was at the sink, and there was a girl with her back to him slicing the bread. Mrs Woolland shook the suds off her arms and reached for a towel.
‘Hello, Toby, back again then,’ she said. At school hardly anyone else ever called him Toby. ‘I’ll take that.’ She took the jug and ran the tap. ‘You can help yourself to the bread.’
The bread was always kept in a deep wicker hamper in the corner of the kitchen, great towers of cut loaves, and the tallest towers were always the freshest. The girl was watching him now. He could feel it in the back of his neck.
‘You remember Wanda, don’t you?’ said Mrs Woolland. Toby didn’t. ‘She used to come up here a lot when she was a little girl, before your time I expect. Fourteen she is now, just left school. She’s giving me a hand from time to time, aren’t you pet?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ said Wanda. She blew her hair out of her eyes and threw her head back as she sawed at the bread. She came towards Toby holding a cut loaf like a concertina between her hands. She laid it in his basket and smiled at him.
‘I’ve told you, I’m Mrs Woolland when I’m up at the big house, remember?’
‘Yes, Mrs Woolland,’ Wanda sighed confidentially at Toby and helped him squeeze the last slice of bread into the basket. Her eyes held his for a moment, and Toby found he could not look away.
‘Don’t forget the water,’ said Mrs Woolland, bringing the jug over to him. The rice-puddings were laid out on the kitchen range waiting, the skins shiny-brown like rolling fields of toffee. ‘Go on then, off with you,’ she said. ‘And don’t drop it.’
Toby didn’t drop it and he only slopped the water once as he turned the corner outside the music-room. He inched his way along the corridor, the din from the dining-hall louder all the time, but now he wasn’t thinking about home or about how miserable he was. He was thinking about Wanda’s eyes and wondered if they really could be green.
The rice-pudding was as good as it looked – it always was. Toby searched for a morsel of skin in his helping, his favourite bit, but found none.
‘You like skin?’ said a voice from across the table. It was the new boy, Christopher. How he knew that Toby liked the skin Toby could not make out. ‘You can have mine then,’ said Christopher. ‘I can’t stand skin.’ He stood up, leaned across the table and scooped the skin on to Toby’s plate – not at all the sort of thing you were supposed to do at Redlands. Toby looked down the table. It was all right. Mr Birley hadn’t noticed. Toby was savouring his first mouthful of rice-pudding skin when the gong sounded behind him from the High Table. The dining-hall fell silent at once. Rudolph rose to his feet slowly, pushing himself up on his knuckles.
‘That new boy on the window table,’ he said, his eyes narrowing. ‘Christopher, isn’t it? Stand up will you. On the bench. And Jenkins, you too.’
Toby knew at once what it would be about, but he could see that Christopher was completely bewildered. Toby could feel his heart pounding in his ears as he stepped on to the bench and faced Mr Stagg. He’d only been back at school an hour or two and he was already in the middle of a nightmare.
‘I don’t know,’ Rudolph began, his voice full of acid menace. ‘I don’t know what sort of a home you have come from, what sort of a school you have come from; but here at Redlands we do not lean across the table, we eat what is put in front of us and we do not turn our noses up at Mrs Woolland’s excellent rice-pudding. “Manners maketh man” is the motto of one of our great schools, and at Redlands we set great store by our manners, Christopher. Now, as this is your first meal with us I am prepared to turn a blind eye, but just this once. If ever I see you . . .’
‘I don’t eat the skin, sir.’ Christopher spoke quietly. It was very matter of fact. There was no defiance in his tone.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Rudolph, his brow twitching with irritation.
‘I like the rest of it, sir,’ Christopher explained coolly, ‘but I don’t eat the skin. I never do.’
‘Do you not?’ Rudolph said smiling thinly. ‘Well, I’m afraid, Christopher, we will have to teach you an early lesson and it is this. Here you will do what you are told to do, not what you feel like doing. Food at Redlands is always eaten whether you like it or not and without complaint. We do not waste our food at Redlands, do you hear me?’
‘Yes, sir, I know, sir. It was the same at my last school. That’s why I gave it to him, sir, so it wouldn’t be wasted.’
No one in the dining-hall could believe what they were witnessing. It was quite unthinkable for a boy to argue the toss with Rudolph. With Rudolph there was safety only in silent, abject acceptance. Rudolph roused was a very dangerous animal and every boy in the school knew it. The staff at the ends of their tables sat amazed but secretly delighted at this unexpected challenge. Not one of them would