Spud - Learning to Fly by John Van De Ruit

before handing me my first ever yellow slip for Loitering in the Bogs and Surrounds. He then crept back into the toilet stall to wait for his next victim.
    Before Spike’s thrashing last week for Bad Form in the Bogs and Surrounds, Vern’s blue chits were a minor nuisance and mostly quite funny. In these suspicious times who knows what a new yellow chit might dish up? If Vern gets me thrashed for investigating a pimple, that might be the last straw.

Tuesday 25th February
    Mom called to say that the house is being fumigated as of tomorrow. This means I’m staying elsewhere for the long weekend. There seemed to be an argument going on about whether Mom and Dad were staying at Marge’s or Frank’s. I told Mom I would rather stay at school than have to sleep in the same house as the girl who gave me consecutive Valentine’s bat and has ruined my fragile self-confidence. Mom obviously knew about Mermaid dumping me again because she didn’t ask any probing questions. My mother ended the call rather abruptly because she said she had just spotted Dad leaping off the top of a ladder and disappearing into Amber’s garden armed with a 5 metre long pool scoop.
    On a more positive note Dad has just bought an M-Net decoder so that he can watch the Cricket World Cup. My mother is naturally terrified that Dad’s going to have another attack if things don’t go well with our cricket team down under. Mom’s also not sure how Dad is going to pay the monthly instalments for the decoder since he hasn’t worked in months – she suspects that he’s squirrelled away a sizeable nest egg somewhere in the depths of his garage.

Wednesday 26th February
    Pleased to announce that South Africa have thrashed Australia in the opening game of the Cricket World Cup. Thanks to M-Net holding all the rights and Australia having nonsensical time zones, the games aren’t screened in the common room. I have to rely on word from Simon who mysteriously knows the cricket score no matter what time of day or night.
    Dad was ecstatic about thumping the Aussies and phoned again in the afternoon to share the joy. He sounded quite sloshed and sang the first line of Shosholoza before forgetting the rest of the words and then set off on a dirty song about Australian sheep farmers, which he had just learned from Frank.

Thursday 27th February
    Pike and Spike mugged Vern in the bogs and roughed him up pretty badly. To add insult to injury, Pike set fire to all of Vern’s yellow and blue chits. I’m not sure what the Pikes did to Rain Man but I heard him sobbing quietly into his pillow after lights out. I asked him if he was okay but he didn’t reply.

Friday 28th February
    REASONS FOR FEARING LONG WEEKEND
    1) Our house is now a gigantic circus tent
    2) I could be living with my ex-girlfriend
    3) I will then have to see her new boyfriend
    4) This will make me fall in love with her again
    5) Mom and Dad will definitely have a fight
    6) I’ll be forced to visit my grandmother
    7) Tomorrow is Feb 29th meaning this is a leap year ( Fatty said dark stuff will definitely go down tomorrow)
    8) General creeping fear of impending doom
    Pike was on the Durban bus. He forced some second years out of the seat behind me and then spent the next two hours tormenting me. I tried to ignore him but it was like sitting in front of a giant blood-sucking mosquito. When we reached the bus stop, I noticed Plump Graham charging across the road to where his tearful mother was waiting. They hugged for so long that Pike eventually shouted, ‘Get a room, fat boy!’
    Mom met me in the station wagon and showed me some large scrapes on the side door of the car. Apparently Blacky completely freaked out when Dad tried to load him into the car en route to the kennels. My father only made the situation worse when he lost his temper and chased Blacky around the garden with the hosepipe. Blacky then had some sort of emotional dog breakdown, which made Dad emotional because he was feeling guilty