Its Colours They Are Fine. Alan Spence
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of you who have jerseys,’ she went on, ‘put them back in the box. The boys from next door, go back to your class. The rest of you sit down and get out your arithmetic jotters. Hugh and Leslie, stay where you are. I hear you were the worst offenders.’ She reached into the desk for her belt.
‘Actually brawling!’ she said. ‘Just think yourselves lucky I don’t send you to the headmaster. Right Leslie, you first. Cross your hands.’ She belted them both twice. She sent Les back to his seat and told Shuggie to pick up the box of jerseys.
‘You will take these jerseys,’ she said, ‘and put them back where you found them, and I will hear no more about football from any of you.’
They were numbed. She had pronounced sentence, and they knew that it was final.
‘Right!’ she said, turning to the class. ‘Arithmetic.’
Gypsy’s Touch was a sadistic kind of tig-game that had been dreamed up by Shuggie. Somebody would accidentally or deliberately brush against Les or another gypsy, and jump back as if contaminated. The aim of the game then was to transfer the infection, by touch, to somebody else who would try to pass it on again.
Now that they all blamed Les for the collapse of their dreams of having a football team, the game was more popular.
Shuggie jostled Les in the dinner-hall queue and recoiled.
‘Gypsy’s Touch!’ he gasped out, clutching his hand to his throat, then poking somebody else and beginning the game. The queue broke up in disorder as they chased and ran, ducked and climbed, desperate to avoid the Touch.
‘D’ye know whit happens when ye get Gypsy’s Touch?’ shouted Shuggie.
They delighted in trying to imagine.
‘Ye turn intae a gypsy an they come an take ye away!’
‘Ye go aff yer heid an kill yer maw an da!’
‘Ye get covered in plooks!’
‘Yer skin turns green!’
‘Ye get scabies!’
‘Warts!’
‘Worms!’
‘Nits!’
‘Boils!’
‘Dysentery!’
‘Leprosy!’
‘Black Death!’
‘THE DREADED LERGY!’
And at this last, the ultimate affliction, they all joined in a strangled cry and gave up trying to better each other, because no more could be added. There could be nothing worse than the Lergy. It included all the rest, and more.
And all Les could do was turn away from them, and try to let none of it touch him, for the playground was their territory, and no place for him to get into another fight.
On Friday night Shuggie and Aleck set out early for the shows. On their way down to Govan Cross for the subway, they stopped in at Louie’s fish supper shop and they each bought a bag of chips for their tea. They walked on, eating greedily, the chips at first burning their fingers and their tongues.
Shuggie brought out a long skinny slithery chip, slimy with vinegar and grease. Part of it was uncooked where it had been stuck to another chip. It was green at one end.
‘Look at that,’ he said, dangling it between finger and thumb.
‘Yich,’ said Aleck. ‘That’s enough tae scunner anyb’dy.’
‘Lik a big snotter,’ said Shuggie.
‘Lik a fat worm,’ said Aleck.
They looked at it, Shuggie making it squirm.
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