Christopher, Tony, Scott et Al – A Housemaster’s Diary!

9am, Friday.

Christopher announced that he was going on a hunger strike until those wretched children who’d voted against his proposal at the Boarders’ Council changed their minds. I tried to convince him that none of them would care if he starved, but he announced (a little too loudly considering that I was the only one in the room):

“I shall not eat on the lunch break, I shall not eat in the dormitories, I shall not eat in the streets, I will persist until my motion is passed; I’m not the type who surrenders.”

I did want to point out to him that eating in the streets and dormitories is against the rules, but I figured that it’s best not to reply when Christopher is talking as it only encourages him to say something else. Instead, I excused myself because I needed to go and see Joe who was a little homesick due the other boarders picking on him.

“Tell Joe that I’m right behind him,” Christopher called as I left the room. “I think the other boarders only pick on Joe because…”

Christopher really needs to learn that when people shut the door, it’s a sign to stop talking.

I found Joe sitting by himself in the Prefect’s Lounge, and asked him if he was ok.

“Ok, I’m more than ok, I’m one of the greatest biscuit monitors that this House has ever had. It’s only because all the other Prefects want to give biscuits to their friends that people have been saying nasty things about me, but it’s ok now because Tony’s told me that my job as biscuit monitor is perfectly safe.”

I told him that I understand that there were rumblings about removing David as Sports Captain because of him taking three biscuits for himself when people in his sports team were being told that they couldn’t have a biscuit until next year, and even then it’d be a stale one.

“David’s perfectly entitled to three biscuits,” said Joe. “It’s not like three biscuits would go very far if he had to share them.”

10am

Tony, the House Captain, has been asked to come and see me because he’s been having trouble with his vice-captain, Julie. Apparently there’s been a bit of tiff over her going to the Secondary Schools for a Better World meeting. Tony says that after he told her that she couldn’t go, she went and got the other prefects to vote on it, but if she was going she’d have to take Andrew with her so that he could tell people that we weren’t going to do anything that Julie said, so they might as well ignore her.

“Anyway,” he whined, “I don’t see why we need girls here anyway, so I’d be happy if she went and never came back.”

I point out to Tony that we’ve been co-ed for a few years now and his attitude isn’t very mature for a House Captain. At this point, Tony shouted that he was an adult and that he was the best house captain we’d ever had and if I gave him any more trouble he’d write to his uncle and have me sacked. I told him that he really shouldn’t make threats like that, but he stamped his foot and walked out.

11am

I check on Christopher’s hunger strike. He told me that he’d just taken some water and lemon for hydration and half a packet of Tim-Tams for energy. After telling me that he’d be continuing his hunger strike right after lunch, I confronted him with rumours going round that he was responsible for the graffiti arguing that his proposal should be backed at the Boarder’s Council.

“We’re perfectly entitled to express our point of view,” Christopher argued, “after all, we’re in charge of the paint!”

I told Christopher that the school owned the paint and when last year’s prefects used the paint he was the one who’d wanted them expelled.

“They were wasting paint. I’m using it to tell the truth.”

There’s no point in trying to reason with Christopher when he get’s like this. Or any other time. I figured it was best to just leave him and hope that he didn’t get too worked up about the Boarder’s Council. He’d tried to argue that they shouldn’t have a vote on anything because some of them weren’t even prefects.

Well, diary, that’s the morning so far. Hopefully, after lunch, they’ll all get distracted by the upcoming weekend, and I’ll get time to look for those first years that Scott has hidden somewhere. I’ve tried to gently suggest that locking them away like that is against the law, but he tells me that if their parents cared about them, then they wouldn’t have brought them here. Besides, Scott says, he’s keeping them where they are because they’re weak and vulnerable and we need stronger Boarders.

Scott can be such a grub sometimes.