| Report for Simon Mantle | |
|---|---|
| Approved stories | 3 |
| Rejected stories (hidden) | 1 |
| Summary | Reprehensible Swot |
In Year 8 we spent a few months playing the dangerous but irresistable game of Bob Baiting. Unpopular ginger-haired lonely psycho bully Bob Sheldon used to eat his lunch solo in the classroom every day. We would enter the room in a big group with a raincoat and a school tie, sneak up behind Bob, throw the raincoat over his head and quickly tie it tight around his neck with the tie (this in itself was a dangerous activity but David Harvey was nimble and stupid enough to give it a go most lunchtimes).
Bob would rise from his desk, scattering books and sandwiches, and start lumbering blindly around the room in search of his antagonists. We would all run around the room, taunting Bob, hitting and slapping Bob, dodging Bob, yelling out "Wobert got no fwiends", until someone's nerve broke and we would all make for the exit door. At this point, the trick was to SHUT THE LAST GUY IN.
The climax of the game came as we would hold the door shut from outside the room, listening while the victim trapped inside would vainly rattle the handle until Bob located and beat the living shit out of him. I never suffered this fate myself, but I was there the day that Alan Israel got locked in, and Bob broke his nose by smashing his face against the wall. This resulted in a high-level headmaster's inquiry and the eventual demise of Bob Baiting as a regular sport.
Another Bob detail: Bob had an unpleasant spitty laugh, a sort of "spllpllscchchchschschhh" that would spray his unfortunate interlocutors with saliva and bits of chewed sandwich.
I used to imitate this laugh when Bob wasn't around, so well that I'd get requests, and a new Bob-baiting game took off: run up to Bob, go "spllpllschschschschch" in his face, then sprint off.
Bob cornered me one afternoon and informed me that the development of this new sport was my responsibility, and he darkly warned me that for every kid who ran up to him and did the spitty laugh, Bob would give me a "dead leg". And so for the entire rest of that fucking year and well on into the next, I lived in constant fear of Bob stampeding out of nowhere and kneeing me in the thigh.
Bob is now a barrister.
Bob would rise from his desk, scattering books and sandwiches, and start lumbering blindly around the room in search of his antagonists. We would all run around the room, taunting Bob, hitting and slapping Bob, dodging Bob, yelling out "Wobert got no fwiends", until someone's nerve broke and we would all make for the exit door. At this point, the trick was to SHUT THE LAST GUY IN.
The climax of the game came as we would hold the door shut from outside the room, listening while the victim trapped inside would vainly rattle the handle until Bob located and beat the living shit out of him. I never suffered this fate myself, but I was there the day that Alan Israel got locked in, and Bob broke his nose by smashing his face against the wall. This resulted in a high-level headmaster's inquiry and the eventual demise of Bob Baiting as a regular sport.
Another Bob detail: Bob had an unpleasant spitty laugh, a sort of "spllpllscchchchschschhh" that would spray his unfortunate interlocutors with saliva and bits of chewed sandwich.
I used to imitate this laugh when Bob wasn't around, so well that I'd get requests, and a new Bob-baiting game took off: run up to Bob, go "spllpllschschschschch" in his face, then sprint off.
Bob cornered me one afternoon and informed me that the development of this new sport was my responsibility, and he darkly warned me that for every kid who ran up to him and did the spitty laugh, Bob would give me a "dead leg". And so for the entire rest of that fucking year and well on into the next, I lived in constant fear of Bob stampeding out of nowhere and kneeing me in the thigh.
Bob is now a barrister.
Announced in 5th year that he was the dirtiest kid in the class because his name could be loosely rendered as follows: Fat Prick Screw Sac. At a time when such terms were hot currency, this lent him definite cachet. Patrick Cusack also told me leeringly one day that if you pulled your dick for long enough, white stuff would come out the end of it. Such a practice, he revealed, was called "mestempation", and furthermore he had done it himself. I thought this was the biggest load of bullshit I had ever heard in all my life. White stuff coming out the end of your dick? Chinny on, Patrick.
Hugh Simms and Michael Torbay were the two coolest guys in our year, but had radically different styles. Simms was a cocky, stocky little cunt with a short fuse and a cruel talent for mimicry. Torbay was more your aesthetic dandy type, enigmatic and aloof.
They were pretty well neck-and-neck in the coolness stakes, until the day in Year 9 that Simms saw Torbay getting ready for a shower after gym, and noticed that instead of grabbing his t-shirt by the collar and dragging it off across his head, Torbay crossed his arms, delicately grabbed the hem of the shirt and lifted it gently up & over in a rolling motion, like a fucking girl.
Once this got around, Simms' #1 Coolest Guy status was undisputed. Not only was Torbay revealed to be a girly undresser, but the deeper implication was that Simms could draw the comparison because he himself had witnessed a girl getting her gear off.
Game set and match, Tor-GAY.
They were pretty well neck-and-neck in the coolness stakes, until the day in Year 9 that Simms saw Torbay getting ready for a shower after gym, and noticed that instead of grabbing his t-shirt by the collar and dragging it off across his head, Torbay crossed his arms, delicately grabbed the hem of the shirt and lifted it gently up & over in a rolling motion, like a fucking girl.
Once this got around, Simms' #1 Coolest Guy status was undisputed. Not only was Torbay revealed to be a girly undresser, but the deeper implication was that Simms could draw the comparison because he himself had witnessed a girl getting her gear off.
Game set and match, Tor-GAY.