More About Boy(34)

Dobson’s desk was almost touching mine. I thought I would risk it. I kept my head lowered but watched Captain Hardcastle very carefully. When I was fairly sure he was looking the other way, I put a hand in front of my mouth and whispered, ‘Dobson … Dobson … Could you lend me a nib?’

Suddenly there was an explosion up on the dais. Captain Hardcastle had leapt to his feet and was pointing at me and shouting, ‘You’re talking! I saw you talking! Don’t try to deny it! I distinctly saw you talking behind your hand!’

I sat there frozen with terror.

Every boy stopped working and looked up.

Captain Hardcastle’s face had gone from red to deep purple and he was twitching violently.

‘Do you deny you were talking?’ he shouted.

‘No, sir, no, b-but …’

‘And do you deny you were trying to cheat? Do you deny you were asking Dobson for help with your work?’

‘N-no, sir, I wasn’t. I wasn’t cheating.’

‘Of course you were cheating! Why else, may I ask, would you be speaking to Dobson? I take it you were not inquiring after his health?’

It is worth reminding the reader once again of my age. I was not a self-possessed lad of fourteen. Nor was I twelve or even ten years old. I was nine and a half, and at that age one is ill equipped to tackle a grown-up man with flaming orange hair and a violent temper. One can do little else but stutter.

‘I … I have broken my nib, sir,’ I whispered. ‘I … I was asking Dobson if he c-could lend me one, sir.’

‘You are lying!’ cried Captain Hardcastle, and there was triumph in his voice. ‘I always knew you were a liar! And a cheat as well!’

‘All I w-wanted was a nib, sir.’

‘I’d shut up if I were you!’ thundered the voice on the dais. ‘You’ll only get yourself into deeper trouble! I am giving you a Stripe!’



These were words of doom. A Stripe! I am giving you a Stripe! All around, I could feel a kind of sympathy reaching out to me from every boy in the school, but nobody moved or made a sound.

Here I must explain the system of Stars and Stripes that we had at St Peter’s. For exceptionally good work, you could be awarded a Quarter-Star, and a red dot was made with crayon beside your name on the notice-board. If you got four Quarter-Stars, a red line was drawn through the four dots indicating that you had completed your Star.





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After Roald Dahl’s essay on ‘A person who has lived in 1827 suddenly entering life now’, Mr Corrado wrote, ‘It seems to me that the spelling of 1827, old gentleman, has also changed, very much.’



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Roald Dahl won a prize in 1927 for earning fourteen Quarter-Stars in one term.



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For exceptionally poor work or bad behaviour, you were given a Stripe, and that automatically meant a thrashing from the Headmaster.

Every master had a book of Quarter-Stars and a book of Stripes, and these had to be filled in and signed and torn out exactly like cheques from a cheque book. The Quarter-Stars were pink, the Stripes were a fiendish, blue-green colour. The boy who received a Star or a Stripe would pocket it until the following morning after prayers, when the Headmaster would call upon anyone who had been given one or the other to come forward in front of the whole school and hand it in. Stripes were considered so dreadful that they were not given very often. In any one week it was unusual for more than two or three boys to receive Stripes.

And now Captain Hardcastle was giving one to me.

‘Come here,’ he ordered.





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The records show that Roald Dahl was awarded a Stripe by Captain Lancaster in June 1926 for ‘3 warnings in a week’.



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I got up from my desk and walked to the dais. He already had his book of Stripes on the desk and was filling one out. He was using red ink, and along the line where it said Reason, he wrote, Talking in Prep, trying to cheat and lying. He signed it and tore it out of the book. Then, taking plenty of time, he filled in the counterfoil. He picked up the terrible piece of green-blue paper and waved it in my direction but he didn’t look up. I took it out of his hand and walked back to my desk. The eyes of the whole school followed my progress.

For the remainder of Prep I sat at my desk and did nothing. Having no nib, I was unable to write another word about ‘The Life Story of a Penny’, but I was made to finish it the next afternoon instead of playing games.

The following morning, as soon as prayers were over, the Headmaster called for Quarter-Stars and Stripes. I was the only boy to go up. The assistant masters were sitting on very upright chairs on either side of the Headmaster, and I caught a glimpse of Captain Hardcastle, arms folded across his chest, head twitching, the milky-blue eyes watching me intently, the look of triumph still glimmering on his face. I handed in my Stripe. The Headmaster took it and read the writing. ‘Come and see me in my study,’ he said, ‘as soon as this is over.’