WORDS and THAT BAH!
POems prose Paraphernalia
Issue 13
intro •
Letter from the Editor
S
o, we’re back. Or some of us are, at any rate. A skeleton crew of the lower sixth and fifth year mans the good-ship Words and That, as it sails closer to the censoring winds than hitherto dared.
When the late upper sixth departed, no doubt their minds were on higher things: the freedom to wear garments that would raise any respectable teacher’s eyebrows; the freedom to plagiarise shamelessly this fine magazine and all that it stands for at university (you know who you are); and, of course, the freedom not to register with one’s tutor. It is the galling curse of a school that one can never develop a fixed grasp on its character. Each year, a new batch-load of timid (or not-so-timid, as the case so often is) boys joins us, and the rest are begrudgingly and/or ungraciously shunted into the next year group up. Thus, what might charitably be called the ‘feel’ of the school is forever changing, as quickly lost as it is redefined, and we find ourselves unable to cling to the reassurances of the past. Or is that so galling? To be without some of the things you want or are used to is an indispensable part of happiness. Changing circumstances that deprive us of such things necessitate and inspire creativity. Let us take the new academic year as a fresh opportunity for that creativity - to find those things we love doing: to write, to read, and to be witty. A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in hobbies. Hobbies wish to be liked, not endured with patient resignation. Whether you are in first year, or upper sixth, or are just settling in to the wonders of GCSEs, and have therefore only just discovered the chill that runs down your spine by mention of the letters “A”, “Q”, and “A” (specifically in that order), we cannot overstate the value of enjoying what you do. And for goodness sake, put more effort into those hobbies than the Science Centre’s bells put into their impressions of bells. A-level physics students will find solemn truth in the fact that there are two kinds of work in this life: first, in altering the position of matter at or near the Earth’s surface relative to other matter, and second, in being told to do so by others. The former is pleasant and ill-paid; the latter is unpleasant and highly paid. We implore you to have a predilection for the first. Yes, be aware of the future - not to do so would be foolhardy - but do not let that cloud your enjoyment of the present. A smattering of V3s in your first report from teachers who pretend to know who you are will not matter in the long-term. And whatever you do, write and think with all your fabulous imagination - we are in such a privileged position to be able to do so, that it would be nothing short of ungrateful not to. In this edition you’ll find the usual hodge-podge of prose, poetry and paraphernalia, with a particular focus on paraphernalia (sorry about that). Also featuring are special guest contributions from top writers at St Helen’s in the interests of equality, and all that jazz (and having nothing whatsoever to do with the inspection). Oh, and bah humbug to you all, of course. Hugs and kisses, Colbonous Imperator (I/C Workers’ Soviet)
page three •
school •
Prefect Guidelines
BUS PREFECT GUIDELINES Bus Prefects are asked to: • Be responsible for the discipline and obedience of the Citizens on their Bus. • Ensure good order at all times. Make a particular point of ensuring that you are conspicuous in public and that healthy respect is maintained. • Pursue any Warrants issued from Precinct Central. • Inform your Bus Leader of suspected Public Enemies. • Assist Investigation Prefects with suspect apprehension as required. • Report Civil Disturbances to the Precinct Director.
If necessary, Bus Prefects may: • Use lethal force to maintain the Party Line. • Report disciplinary problems, no matter how small, to the Ministry of Public Safety. • Report concerns over discipline to the district Prefect-Commissioner or Precinct Riot Officer. • Issue Warrants of Arrest, Warrants of Investigation, and Warrants of Execution with immediate effect. General Discipline The best way to deal with discipline is to crush all dissent with extreme prejudice. Here are a few suggestions: • Publicly humiliate the leaders in front of their peers. • Waterboarding. • Deal viciously with boys who are proving troublesome. In particular try to cause visible and painful injury, e.g. broken teeth, nose, fingers, first-degree burns. • Never try to deal with problems by negotiating. This encourages Public Enemies to think. • Lastly, and most significantly, report any difficulties promptly to the Ministry of Public Safety whom you will find very supportive.
Key to everything is to start each journey by ensuring everyone knows Big Brother is watching. If you do this then problems rarely occur… Thought for the Day: Questioning is Disobedience. Disobedience is Treason. Treason is Death.
fiction • Venice
H
ot summer rays beat down onto the dirty Venetian clay, heating the uneven bricks and making the pavements unbearable to the colourful tourists, flocking to the canal to rent a gondola. One, uncomfortable and covered with sweat, dips his feet into the green-brownish water, a relief from the pavement burning his soles. The gondola driver is a tall, young brown haired man wearing a red and white striped shirt, rolled up to his sleeves to allow for him to more easily manoeuvre his boat throughout the winding canals and stretching piers. He is wearing a straw, long brimmed hat, rounded by a red ribbon with a bow at the back of his head. The sun is fading, the dark water below reflecting the occasional neon sign, ill maintained and flickering. The flickers are reflected by the water, creating a rainbow of colours in the canal. The water ripples underneath the boat, the man swerving his oar to allow for his colleague, a similarly dressed but yet wider and shorter man to reel in his strings. Men and women in flip-flops or even barefoot drift along on the pavements, slowly flocking around a ferry rental. The smell of the adjacent restaurant spreads along the water, a pleasant lure of iced drinks as the sun sets over a reddish, old-city hotel. The shorter colleague shouts the fare values; a coarse low pitched voice booms in broken English, “50$ for family, 10$ for single, 5$ for shared”. One woman sits patiently, separate from the crowd – waiting for her turn.
She comforts her child, putting a long arm around her and reassuring her that they will get a turn before sundown. The ferry rental station features a large neon sign, flickering with the message “Great Boats for Cheap Fares”, with a caricature of a romantic couple, the man in a tuxedo and the woman in a vibrant red dress, and an oversized gondola driver singing “O Sole Mio” as the couple in the background watch the sunset. The sign sits above a pier, held up by a rickety system of planks and rope. Upon every step the splinter covered wooden pier shakes, a small reminder of the poverty of the area. The sun sets into an incredible aurora of red and yellow, layers above each other in interlocking clouds, a spectacular display to anyone on the water. The sun slowly sinks down above the old city, casting shadows within the white bordered windows, as a series begins to be opened by an uneven, elderly hand. The apartment is large and high roofed, painted in a pale beige. The elderly landlord guides her guests to the toilets; an old rustic bath sits in the centre, drawing eyes to its majestic gilded decorations. The bathroom is accessed through a large wooden door, oak by nature but scarred by damage. Across the water is a large pier, held up by firm, rounded planks of sun-whitened teak, pale high up but dark down low. A large white ferry drifts in with three booming noises, signalling to the gondolas to keep clear. With a mighty swerve of the steering wheel the ferry driver turns in, ending his daily shift.
fiction • Cakes
A
mirror at the back of the cake stall feigns variety and number – a fly is easily tricked by the sea of coloured icing, his feeble wings carrying his miniscule black body repeatedly against the greasy silver. Quiet bangs unheard under the bustle of the Cafe. Luscious fluffy creams ring around the upper face of the chocolate cakes, the spongy beige drowned in layers of thick cocoa icing. An oven at the back of the room stirs and whistles, filling the space with a steady mechanical drone. A mature female voice booms over the noise, shocking suited businessmen as they slowly sip their coffees. The sweet smell of icing and baking cakes is masked by the strong scent of Arabica and Robusta. The rounded edges form dark shadows, edging along the silvery display floor and climbing inches up the next cake, emphasizing the chocolate to the hasty window shoppers. One cake in particular stands out, an island of green in an ocean of milky chocolate. The island is extensively garnished with fruits and sweets. A marzipan
tree snakes up from the icing, the tallest item on display. A series of fluorescent orange jellies jiggle slightly in the vibrations of the kitchen staff. Their aprons are stained in intense colours and fragrances, but their sleeves are completely white, a model of chef ’s style – dirty apron, clean sleeves. The long mirror behind the display reflects the soft light of the winter sun. It pictures the smug café-goers delighted with the welcoming warmth and smell of the oven. Small fingerprints of grease hang on to the inverted plane of the display window, just inches away from their dark green A Hygiene rating certificate. The fly gives up its Pyrrhic conquest, his fragile body sustaining more pain than the cakes are worth. His tiny wings showcase this; they buzz more slowly and his fluttering body edges ever nearer to a fluorescent orange jelly. The quiet banging of the fly and the mirror has ended, now a soft droning. Winter sun and bourgeois conversation fill the room.
dystopia/utopia •
When Minions Ruled the Earth
W
hen they first set foot on the world, a result of an ungodly attempt to create life, no-one took them seriously. If only we had, then this nightmare might never have come to pass…. At first we laughed at them. After all they looked like oversized jelly beans. We made movies and documentaries, and it wasn’t long before nutty animal-rights activists pressured the international stage into giving them human rights and status, marriages, adoption, the whole shebang. Soon after, the fashion industry began to die. These minions, these three-foottall, pill-shaped, goggle-wearing demons, were not interested in fine fabrics or floral patterns or quality weave or any of that other bourgeois tat. They only wanted denim dungarees. Then came the ‘accidents’, the odd house burnt down, the occasional vehicular manslaughter. This was always blamed on them being different, not understanding our culture, or the actions of a few crazies when it was obviously malicious. No-one thought that there could be anything wrong with the whole species, and any who said that there was, were immediately labeled as ignorant and bigots. After a year or two, they were everywhere. No-one had noticed that they had bred so quickly, partially on account of
the fact that there were no notable gender differences - and who would check? It was also because they all looked the same, and we never took much notice of their nonsensical ways and words. They had covered the world, and only some of the more secretive and shady governments started planning for an organised attack, suddenly realising that they knew nothing since no-one had studied them. In the 3rd year AMA ( After Minion Arrival), the attacks began. What had been passed off as accidents became, even to the oblivious, an obvious attempt to wipe us out. In their usual chaotic manner, which we had laughed at in 1 AMA, they took out our electric grids, road networks, and water supply systems using improvised explosives. Now there are small bands of humans left, though we don’t have humanity anymore. After all, spending days running, foraging for supplies, and killing minions robs you of that. Despite the world ending, somehow the indestructible little yellow buggers still live, and show no sign of stopping breeding. Although I’m surprised to survive each day, I have hope that humanity will claw our way back to where we were, and if so, I pray we have no mercy in removing the plague of the Minions.
poetry • Motherboard Mantra
November Words
Our motherboard, who art in circuits, Hallowed by thy Script. Thy OS come, Thy code be debugged, In Beta as it is in Release. Give us this day our software updates And forgive us our errors As we forgive viruses that program against us. For thine is the wireless, the power, and the bitcoin. Forever and ever, Press any key.
I’m sure I loved you, yet ever I find What once brought the sun to heel, stars to earth, Rusts in my soul, seeps poisons in my mind For, like a worm, I let it die in birth. It was a cancer. Yet I gave it home, Nurtured, inspired, gave brazen false life to Maggots in the wound, eating through my bones Vainly hoping a corpse was worthy of you. Perhaps on a sunken sea, I’ll have lost My weakness, gained the strength to strive For you again, yet endless winter’s frost Renders you cold, colder than when alive. Was it love? No, yet not hate. Blind truth’s sting Is that I’ve found it was not anything.
School Carol Once in Royal Dawswell’s City, Stood a lowly porta-shed, Where a mother laid her Baby, In a divan for His bed: Ferocity was that mother mild, Dudley, her little Child. He came down to earth from heaven, Who’s Dudley and Lord of all, And His shelter was a high heel, And His cradle was a stole: With the Sixth, and Fifth, and lowly, Lived on earth our Saviour holy. For he is our childhood’s pattern; Pink and gold, on his fur coat; He was little, weak, and helpless, (Probably why She liked him). When we do our Prep this night, He shall save us with His light. And our eyes at last shall see Him, Through Her own redeeming glove; For that Pup so dear and gentle, Is our Lord in heaven above: And He leads His children on, To register with their Tutors.
Best Sonnet Ever Ink, bleeds forth from nib and pen, as if blood that flows out of brain and vein. Tormented---robbed of all Flair, out of my brain they flood. Oh ye cruel Muses, stone-hearted like cement. Farewell goodly Life and Peace of Mind For I will a Sonnet write, out of words Thrice-pondered and ages-bred. But Muse, kind I pray you be, lest this poem be my dirge. What Joy! Now I have the Volta passed Like Tantalus, drunk and fed. See, behold, this achievement ne’er surpassed. Hercules himself could not more proud be Now this impossible task is nigh on done. A better sonnet, there ne’er is one.
poetry • Closing Time
Slate
Drawing the blinds, letting the mist out of the room, Then turning out my lights, ending it there. Awkwardly walking ‘round where you stood in my tomb, Like bare feet with broken glass everywhere.
Still, she is standing there Always out of sight But never out of mind. This we know and we prepare To go into that night From which no one can find The people that were once known, Shadows left behind, Memories which became Romantic dreams in which, never gone, Nor lost, the lost find Salvage and the same.
I sit mourning the deaths of all my other selves, The ‘could-be’ me’s who now have been cut off, The me’s who were with the you’s are put on the shelves; The chance is dead; they’re dead, no more, enough. This week it burst, for me to end in scraps. It had Grown like a tumour over the last year. Yet then I confirmed it. What makes it all so sad Is merely how much I gave you this year. The cuts from holding your rose could now breathe freely. Instead I bandage them, clinging to you. I owe you nothing now, neither do you owe me. Yet still a debt is owed, my ransom’s due.
The memories are lies we know: The grey becomes the white. Yet in the bereft Some greys turn dark and some can go To black, black of night, And leave nothing left.
Not again. You had it all. My blues and my reds, My teal green, my cyan on navy blue. All my colour and expression is bland; ink spreads In black and white, the endless grey by you.
Do not march with death that way, Assuming they’ll see light. Memories make dawn the day But make the dusk the night.
It felt so right … At least it felt so right for me. The instant joy, the endless nights, you would Have not noticed. Yet being good could never be Good enough, but so what? I was not good. I’ve seen you in all ways, and on all pedestals. You shattered too often to feel again. I see you in numbers instead: cold, emotionless, true, You. 8 months I gave, 2 times I had a week, 3 moments Where our skins touched, and then 1 evening. The data was right but calculated wrong. Now I know. Zero – what you felt.
A
Art
world leaders •
A letter to both Queens
Your Highness,
I
wish to express my warmest congratulations on your becoming our longest reigning female monarch. I would like to express our gratitude on behalf of the community for your steadfast guidance during the years of seismic social change we have recently undergone. You have always performed with a smile through all of the pressured events that royal life has thrown at you, from the spectacular state openings of major new buildings (hospitals, schools, Wang Science Centres…) to the protection of our interests in visits to neighbouring establishments. You have weathered the slings and arrows of IRA attacks, Lady Di’s death and the Greening wing break-in in glorious fashion. And then your subjects have always enjoyed the frequent small forays you make out of your palace for no other reason than to see how the common folk over whom you so benignly rule are getting along. We count ourselves privileged to have watched you go from strength to strength, all the time with a resolute canine by your side and your faithful consort backing you up, and moving from triumph to triumph and all the time keeping us amused with your inimitable sense of humour. While we all must be painfully aware that your monumental reign must, someday, end, we feel certain that this era will be remembered as a Golden Age, and all future heads of state will be measured up against you and your leadership that can only be described as fabulous. Everybody now: ‘Send Her Victoooooooooorious, Happy and Glooooooooooorious…’
shsk poetry • Paddington At the home of the storybook bear himself I took my case and disembarked; Maps lined the off-white platform, On the ground the routes were marked. The whir-click, whir-click of card machines Resounded through the air, In the distance I saw the bronze outline Of that abandoned, well-dressed bear. There were pigeons on the rafters, I could hear their grey wings beat, And grime covered the pillars On which I saw their filthy feet. I stood in the quiet before the storm, Took in the night sky overheadA smattering of stars in the foggy black, Thin clouds like strings of thread. The station itself was all ablaze With lights and the hum of chatter, When two trains pulled in behind me And the tranquil air seemed to shatter. I surrendered myself to the turbulent wave That descended upon the place, And watched with a stupor the swarm that came. Then was gone without a trace. Strength The sun was rising overhead, Golden hope on flowers long dead, Grey skies clearing, Summer nearing. He could taste the possibilities like Metal on his tongue.
The Seeds of my Sunflower Grandmother My grandma’s nails finish on her skin. Grey, crumpled paper skin. Skin with blisters. Blisters of old. Old like the trees in her garden, like Her. She is of the soil she has grown to love, She is a sunflower in a bed of daffodils. She is the hand on door handle that Stops you from leaving. She is the one to offer Seven spices chicken soup and homemade Poppy-seed rolls. She has eyes as wide as her pacemaker heart. She has grooves in her cheeks from Polaroid-frozen photo smiles. Her lungs are paper bags that rustle when She breathes. I wonder If those dull, milky cataract eyes mean anything To the upturned corners of her witty, pink mouth. She used to give me advice on the brown side-swept hair And blue eyes I thought I loved; she said: “Love is only a facet of life. There is so much more to it Than kisses on a park bench”. Years on, when her knees were as swollen with arthritis as Her mind was with loveliness, she amended herself. She was older now, she told me, Wiser. She’d been wrong before(She rubbed her dirty silver wedding ring) “Love” she said, “is everything”.
He took the first step- steady, strong, His boot half-hidden in grass so long, A second step, then more and more; Around him the winds began to roar, His heart was pounding, Speed astounding, Blackbirds singing, Brave head ringing, Until he stepped into empty air, where the cliff finished and plunged down. His boot reached out for vanished ground, A bewildered cry that made no sound. He closed his eyes, Felt steel within, And wings broke out from his iron skin.
shsk fiction • Sophy
T
hroughout my years as a scoundrel, a marksman and attacker of the peace, the whispers of Sophy de Criste had often reached my uncensored ears and with no good kindnesses, either. Her name floated through children’s talk of murderesses; pomposity’s society talk of evil-doers; my father’s private files on disturbers of the calm waters of morality and starred in my recently deceased sister’s letters of correspondence. It gave me no surprise that a woman so revered and despised- in equal measures- should be somehow connected to myself, it now being a given that any who revelled in the art of murder and inspired such universal disgust should touch the fray of my family. Therefore, it surprised me even less when she inevitably wished to talk with me. I received a hand printed, neatly written letter, marked with the infamous dragon seal- named such for its gentle flick of fire beyond the common constraints of wax binding- and crafted onto warm cream paper, during one late evening in the overcast November of 18-. I swung it under the nose of my ageing (and therefore disposable) bloodhound to make sure it contained no sort of poison, lest any toxin but the lamented Iocane could remain on the noble woman’s paper. As ‘Sharky’ did not keel over immediately, I gave her the benefit of my illustrious doubt. The scrawl itself contained nil but the date, time and place of what
I assumed to be a meeting with the famous Dark Lady herself, on the same day I had received this letter, clearly written many months before it found its way onto my doorstep. After a quick shave and spruce up, my coat with the upturned collar found itself curled around my arm. The cane containing a small yet deadly spike rested on my paw. The sword that I carried always in my concealed scabbard was a firm and familiar presence in my grip, the smooth metal work settling lightly between commonplace callouses. Smiling briefly into my hallway mirror, I was mildly surprised when not a single crack appeared. Sophy de Criste would not know what had hit her. The densening smog that often covered the cobbles of my home now filled every particle in the air, a continuous coat of darkness that allowed criminals such as myself to pursue our work. Outside was just the silence and solemnity of London at night, the dirty pathways stretching outwards into the dark cold, the tendrils of smoke spiralling still from the homes that had happy families. The three winding side streets Sophy had described in her sharp, acidic prose took me to a den of iniquity, not too different from my own personal favourite- with which I had an outstanding tab- the Grey Lion. Now that was a place: I’d visited it ad hominem. With the same style, this too was designed to look to be a simple workman’s pub, but a cursory look at the tarred
door showed the common mark of any whore house: two women fighting each other tooth and nail, breasts spilling out of tight corsets while men like myself jeered and whooped. A tart fight. For a meeting with the Mistress of Death, there could be no other place. Inside the smog persisted, though now disguised as cigar and opium effervescence. My sharp hawk-like eyes spied the card tables in the corners and the winding stairs covered in rich red velvet carpeting, stained with substances I dare not name. Scents assailed me in twining waves. Firstly, the heady and erotic mixture of blood and ale. I recognised the scent from bar brawls and my days in the army. Nothing came more vividly from the depths of my memory than Africa’s base earth scent mixing with that of murderers. I mean heroes of course, because a hero does to foreigners what a murderer does to Englishmen. Then, the smell of excretion. Why Englishmen have always felt the need to do so in pubs, I shall never know. I made my way to the back corner of the room, as the note had specified. I passed card tables covered in fortunes of both money and women. Pretty things, but professional whores held no sport with me. Wading through the murk of human filth and fancy, passing rutting sailors and smoking fatcats in gaudy waistcoats, I finally found, in the Persian den at the back of the scope, the shrinking veiled figure of what I assumed to be an aid of the Countess of Death (catchy nickname). Assumptions be damned, I thought, sighing most dramatically as Sophy de Criste raised from her feathered bed, quickly threw back her veil and stuck a knife to my rosy throat. ‘Miss Criste, I presume?’ I asked, and quirked my eyebrow, though she could not see it. An amused huff came against the back of my neck. The knife was released with a tiny knick against my skin and I was guided to a gilded seat across from what could be described as nothing but a throne. Two ornate dragons curled around its arms, while Sophy’s curled hands rested in their jaws, and the back was made of a satin I had not seen since the Harem days. The veil was withdrawn. There was a woman almost virginal with white skin, now static and inert, cerulean-tinged lips still slightly parted. Two caterpillar eyebrows, tiny bow lips, heavily bunned hair and heavily rouged cheeks could not draw the attention from the main attraction: Sophy de Criste’s astounding eyes. My grandmother, the (so-named) Queen of Mischief, once had a cane which I became obsessed with at the tender age of six. My brother Severin locked me in a sparsely lit room with the demonic object on a monotonous Sunday. It filled me with more terror than three army campaigns, a lifetime of crime and a shot to my favourite body parts have ever given me, strange as it is. It was made of smooth white marble, swirled with gold leaf amongst the parchment-like stone, but on its top was the head of a serpent. Black marble, flitting diamanté tongue poking out, emerald eyes jutting out of the ghastly visage. Those eyes had the appearance of seeing into your deepest and most reprehensible secrets, or reading your mind, or coldly calculating your doom and waiting for a moment to strike. I spent six long hours with my freaked eye on the object, lest it strike and kill me. Severin was clearly pleased with the results. On the death of the old woman, Sev handed me the stick with a promise to use it for something dear granny would have appreciated, and I’m certain her artistic mind would have been thrilled with the way the blood and brain splattered onto the breaking serpentine ornament. Yet against everything else, those eyes that filled me with such dread remained in my mind and sprang forth, imposing themselves onto Sophy de Criste’s face. I did not shiver, I swear. A tremor perhaps, but not
a shiver. Such were the effects of these astounding eyes. They sang with the songs of worlds unknown to scum like me. They danced with the mysteries of intelligence, of otherworldly skill and talent. The colour resembled snake scales in grass, dappled with sunlight and bark. They did not shine: they were luminous. They thrilled me with a strange kind of masochism and when she caught me staring a smile appeared to match the demonic orbs, revealing a tongue as serpentine as the rest of that lithe, graceful body. For a second I entertained a terrible notionbut I decided not to act on it. ‘Colonel, you are not the man I expected. I thought you would have hidden your bald patch a little more successfully.’ Unconsciously I reached out and touched my hat. There was an almost imperceptible hole. ‘However, I’m willing to overlook that in favour of your talents. You are quite the catch, my dearest Thomas, not in the least due to your connection to the Lord of Strange Deaths.’ Ah. That. Old ‘Strangey’ and I had crossed paths back in the day, before I’d established my own reputation for brutality. The works of art I had developed with him remained some of my finest work, as well as filling the cold case cabinets of at least three international police forces. Barring the day when he’d tried to have me strangled with my own tiger pelt, we’d had quite an enjoyable partnership. But why focus on that job in particular? I’d had a good twenty year career in the art of death, so why pick out something from the start? She giggled unnervingly, tracing the hilt of the knife sticking out of her black chiffon gown, considered the weight briefly, seemed to consider bringing down the hilt on my skull, holding it close to her appendages which I had been trying not to look at out of respect. Yet, as was often the way, my eyes had betrayed me. ‘Your finest work, is it not? I’m picky, Colonel, picky as the Devil. I only want the best. So far as I have seen, you are it. Your sister and I crossed paths in the twilight, once. She told me of her factitious elder brother and his prowess with a knife. She promised me that if I ever needed someone, you’d be he. She would have kept her word, would she not?’ a strange sadness entered her eyes then and I felt that I knew her dalliances with my sibling for what they were. An understanding passed between us. I was to be a tool. A tool of finesse and practice, with more experience in my pinky than the tycoons in this harem, sharper than the proverbial wit, but a means nonetheless. Apparatus with which to achieve an end. Exactly as it should be. I lay my palm out flat as I always did at the start of a deal, a signal of trust yet unbroken in any job. She looked at it, then at me, then back at my hand. The two thin, blue-tinged lines that passed for lips thinned outwards, pulled up until they filled the entire bottom half of her face. Bleached white teeth poked out, a tiny pink tongue just visible through the unfilled gaps. She placed her own green glove, hiding a lily-white hand, upon my own. I touched the hilt of my sabre, eyes looking nowhere but at the shallowly breathing lady across from me. My sensibilities were being mangled in every sense, in ideas of love, in the idea of something no one has ever achieved in the history of the world, all for this incredible and monstrous beast of a girl. I was a scoundrel- damn these women! ‘I’m glad you agreed to this deal,’ she murmured, finger tracing small circles in my hand. ‘Thank you. I needed the money,’ I said in tandem. She let out that little high pitched squeal of a giggle again. ‘Oh, no no no, Mr Forrest. Thank you.’
school •
Departmental Flowchart Which department do you teach for?
Do you hate Physics? Yes.
Do you think science is worth £15 million?
Yes. Chemistry
No.
Do you hate Chemistry?
Yes. Physics
No.
Does chlorophyll make you a happy bunny?
Yes.
No.
Biology
No.
Is colouring in your passion?
Yes.
Geography
No.
Why use A4 when there’s A3? Do you agree?
To an extent ...
History
No. Do you actually look forward to the house singing competition?
Yes.
Music
No.
Are you Mrs Bennison?
Yes.
Psychology
No.
Do you sit on your own table at lunch?
Yes.
Drama
No. Outline the problems arising from the view that mind-dependent objects represent mind-independent objects and are caused by mind-independent objects
Semantics.
Philosophy
No. Just no.
Still undecided?
Yes.
DT
INSERT POSTER FOR INSPIRATIONAL SCULPTURE HERE
fiction • Shelley
S
helley. Her name had always sounded feminine to her. Mary, the name of her mother. Godwin, the name of her father. Made into one flesh in her, the Shelley. Her, the child born in black. Her, the scourge of her father. So Percy called her. And look where Percy was now. Dead. A countenance paler than hers. In a coffin blacker than her dress. She despised that man, her father’s protégé, the benevolent benefactor and succour to her teenage years. Drowned, they say, the most cowardly way in which a man could die. The sailors at Viareggio said when the rest of him was burned to ashes, his heart remained. Impervious to the infernal brimstone fires. Dead set to haunt her till the end of time. She imagined his touch. Still cold from the seawater, gloved in a layer of brine. The slow, listless caress. Light and gingerly. It was what she liked about him. It reminded her of Papa. He used to tuck her in at night. When the house was deserted. Emptied of broken hearts and lost souls. It was so quiet. The serenity of it all: you could hear the silent rustles of the bed sheets. The sombre figure of the Gothic mansion stood still. She looked listlessly at her father’s balding head. She loved her father. The funeral procession walked down the streets of Rome. Black steeds carried his ashes. Hired Gypsy women cried along the pavement. The rain was pouring down, drenching her black shawl, reducing it to a Tyrian purple, heavy upon her neck like a noose. She felt empty, as if all the inner bits of her had all been scraped out by Percy’s death. Not that she still loved him, but that his death seemed to have sucked the life out of her, all that she had believed in, the romantic ideas, glimpses of perfection, scenes of wavering daffodils. But what was she now? ‘Of ladies most deject and wretched’? Even her father’s name was stolen away from her. She was left with nothing, nothing but an urn of ashes. The shawl was seized by a sudden gust; it started fluttering undulatingly before her eyes. It looked like the sky that night. Like a blown up screen of darkness wrapped on top of the bright blue sky. Every second it seemed to be massaged and reformed by the restless torrent. Stars, like holes that were carelessly poked through by that rough hand. Percy stood pleadingly next to her mother’s resting place in St. Pancras’; words of wooing, tongue of gold. The torrents ploughed through his earthy locks; they fell on his untainted forehead, soft and powerless. He gazed at the forlorn headstone. His eyes seemed to penetrate the decaying vines, defiling the engraved ‘Wollstonecraft’ with his nefarious Shelleyan gaze. She observed his servile manners, soft and serpentine, like a jaguar circling its prey. An outward tenderness that did nothing but beguile a conquered heart. And her heart did tremor and exult itself upon his every move. It reminded her of Papa, the all consuming love
that subsumes all and leaves none behind. The love that murdered her mother and begot her. Mary Wollstonecraft did not die of childbirth. She ‘Vindicated the Rights of all Women’ but did not free herself from her lord’s grasp, not even in death. Looking into his bulging eyes it was the first time she saw her father in Percy. It was not love, but when he bent his knees and begged for her hand that very night, she said yes. Seized by a sudden spike of fury, her heart raved like a leaf in the storm. The cold piercing rain felt callous to her burning cheeks. The mourners’ platitudes only augmented her inner wrath. Claire Clairmont, that insidious creature. She wasn’t blind. She had seen the furtive looks she gave Percy. Scornful and shameless. Looking at Percy’s urn she wanted to kill him, a second death as it were. WIth her bare hands upon his dandy neck, a vixenly push of thumbs that would pierce his throat. She would give him one last kiss on the lips before he departed. A catharsis releasing all the energies bouncing up and down within her. Would she be free then? Had she ever been free? This raging wave brought her from one crest to another; her body was tense with fury. Her reverie was broken by the cry of a baby. Her son. Percy Florence. The ring of hell accompanied by the memory of heaven. She remembered the days in Italy. WIth Percy, George Byron, and even Claire. Those were the happiest days of her life. The rainy Genevan afternoon. The midnight games they played. Her frown broke into a smile as she came to the story of the reanimated corpse. Percy and she used to write side-by-side, him ruthlessly laughing at her every mistake. She loved it, despite outward appearances. It brought her back to that night again. The forceful hand, unsatisfied with mere holes of stars, tore a rift across the sky. A flash of light shone through, to stop her from staring into the face of God. Then followed his thundering voice. Percy stood up and shielded her with his blue suede jacket. By some divine intervention the thunderbolt struck the grave of her mother. For a second she thought her mother was resurrected, her very visage flashing in her eyes, which were blinded by the lightning. She seemed to be telling her something, murmuring noiselessly, her face in a Chinese blankness. Unable to interpret what was said she stood there petrified, ignorant of Percy’s beckoning for home. For a second her mother was as cold and alien to her as the gravestones that had been her substitute since her birth. The pale and cadaverous face. She stared into that blank face and told herself, ‘the past is meaningless to me now. Percy is not my father. I am Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, not Mary Wollstonecraft. I will make a life for myself ’. Mary looked into Florence’s face, and for the first time in her life, did not see Percy.
head’s blog •
Closing 2016! Here today, gone tomorrow!
25th December 2015 David’s day off today so I have the school to myself for once! I can now write what I actually think! Jshccxhssbhjddbdhbd! Not enjoying the editing though; thank goodness for spelll chheckk! Decided to log into 4th year pupils’ login site and TalkTalk. How could they know that I did it? Also thinking of hacking the league tables. Last place? Just because we do IGCSEs? It’s almost as much of a disgrace as when David went on a pub crawl and challenged that Glaswegian to a drinking contest. FR X 26th December 2015 On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me 12 drummers drumming, 11 pipers piping… and guess what? Much, much more! I suppose 984 presents isn’t such a bad haul. Guess who diverted all the Secret Santa gifts to Ferocity Risk? FR X 27th December 2015 Poor Dudley isn’t feeling so well! Must be the new dog food… I knew there was something a bit fishy about that Scottish smoked salmon. TalkTalk still fuming about my hack. I hope the new boy has recovered from his surprise interrogation! Miss Griffins and Mr Fieldshed ‘waltzed’ over for a chat. I sent them off, chocolates in hand. It’s always great to get extra presents after Christmas. Hint, hint, all teachers! FR X 28th December 2015 It was what I call a ‘nuts and bolts day’. Nothing important - bullying, resignations and a murder in Lower School….. FR X 29th December 2015 Onto the last of my presents. David seems to be tiring, but the World Cup fever lives on for us Kiwis! Thinking about making a film evening for the boys. They are always saying they need more rec. time, and they need to be shown my new box-set and be educated in the might of the Kiwi front row... Perhaps I should introduce dance lessons? 1000 boys doing the Haka on Upper Field. How would that be as a way to leave in style? FR X 31th December 2015 Already thinking about New Year resolutions. I think I’ll upgrade the Wang Science Centre. It just isn’t big enough. What to rename it though? Risk’s Residence or Ferocity’s Fortress? Happy New Year and I hope to write to you again soon! FR X
christmas (ugh) •
Christmas Traditions around the Wrold In Arizona, families have the opportunity to have their picture taken with ‘Santa and Machine Guns’, where they are surrounded with guns, grenades and other weapons, next to Santa. In Catalonia, the model that encapsulates the whole nativity scene is Caganer, meaning ‘crapper’, who was described as the only guy who was moving his bowels whilst Jesus was being born. In Iceland, the equivalent of the elves are the ‘Yule Lads’, who carry names which express their primary trait: Sheep-Cote Clod, Sheep-Cote Clod, Sheep-Cote Clod, Stubby, Spoon Licker, Pot Scraper, Bowl Licker, Door Slammer, Skyr Gobbler, Sausage Swiper, Window Peeper, Doorway Sniffer, Meat Hook, and Candle Stealer. In the village of La Font de la Figuera near Valencia, the local folk celebrate the arrival of a new year by stripping down to their underwear and running through the streets. However you get booed and have rotten fruit thrown at you if the underwear is not red. In Slovakia, there is a tradition that the patriarch of the family fills his spoon with loksa, a type of pudding, and flings it at the ceiling. The more he can get to stick up there the better his harvest will be for the next year.
miscellany •
the back page •
Workers’ Soviet of Editors
Colbornus Imperator (Commissar) Jonah ‘Abstention’ Walker Blake ‘Give Me Back The Tie’ Jones Sam ‘Mein’ Farrar Archie ‘I’ll Talk About Shackleton’ Williams Edward ‘Nietzsche’ Turner-Fussell Giles ‘Il Duce’ Stratton Calvin ‘Chatterley’s’ Liu-ver Iwan ‘Bake Off’ Stone
Ollie Fishpool Harry Gray Alex ‘Newbie Wan-Kenobi’ Chapman Ewan ‘You’ Watkins Farmer Yarrow Miss ‘Don’t fire me over W&T’ Vickers
Design and Editing: Blake Jones
Art and Illustration: Jonah Walker Byron Langley Ewan Watkins
Special Thanks To:
Yasmin Inkersole Isobel Flower Darius ‘Chase’ Oraeeee ???