COLUMN: EVAN NAUDÉ

Late one night, the rugby posts at Vredendal High School uprooted themselves and moved nearly half a kilometre. Evan Naudé explains the reason behind this mysterious phenomenon.

“If you want to move rugby posts to a new location 300 m away in the middle of the night, you need at least four teenage boys with heads filled with more kattekwaad than common sense…”

One morning, near the end of my first year in high school, I was surprised by what I found at school: toilet paper hung from trees, posters pasted on doors and graffiti on the windows. When the matrics arrived, things got even more strange: The boys wore dresses and ribbons in their hair, and the girls wore grey school shorts and boys’ socks pulled up to their knees. This was my first introduction to Forty Days.

It’s a tradition in some places – a

#176 hangover from SADF conscription when soldiers in the 1970s and ’80s were desperate to be done with their national service. The name comes from a Cliff Richard song: “Forty Days (To Come Back Home)”.

Five years later, I was in matric myself and my final 40 days of school were fast approaching. A few days beforehand, the principal – Mr Von Zeuner – called the matrics in and asked us to behave ourselves.

“Stay out of trouble and don’t let me down,” he said.

“Yes Sir, we understand Sir,” we all promised.

But what Von Zeuner didn’t know was that we were already planning something more daring than toilet paper and graffiti…

On the night before Forty Days, we would remove the posts from the rugby field and plant them on the lawn in front of the staff room – in the quad where all the pupils gather in the mornings. The following day, all the pupils and teachers would find an unforgettable monument to the matric class of 2004.

My best friend and co-conspirator, Jacobus, determined that the shorter,

lighter posts on the B field would work best for our monument. The vertical poles were planted in cylinders in the ground and would be fairly easy to remove. We worked out that two guys could lift one vertical pole out, but we’d need a third person to hold the other vertical pole to make sure the whole thing didn’t fall over. The horizontal pole was hooked to the vertical poles – once everything was on the ground we’d be able to pull the structure apart and transport each pole separately. In summary: If you want to move rugby posts to a new location 300m away in the middle of the night, you need at least four teenage boys with heads filled with more kattekwaad than common sense. Luckily, this description applied to most of my friends. Jacobus and I soon got two more team members.

When Forty Days arrived, we were well prepared.

I snuck out of the house just before 2 am, dressed in a dark tracksuit. I met Jacobus outside. In School Street, the two other members of the Original Four joined us. Francois had tied a spade to his back and Tommy (not his real name because he was never officially there that night) wore a balaclava.

In the school quad, we found about 10 other matric boys decorating the place with toilet paper, paint and posters. It didn’t take much effort to recruit them for our cause. Many hands make light work. Ironically, our ensemble now matched a rugby team in number as we walked down to the B field. Now the fun started. We joked around as we lifted the posts out. We separated the three poles and hoisted them onto our shoulders. Four or five guys per pole, and we were off. In the parking area, floodlights illuminated the procession inching towards the school like a drunk caterpillar.

But hang on – there were lights bobbing in the dark up ahead. We were caught off guard and froze in our tracks. When we’d left the school building earlier, it had been deserted…

A sharp voice cut through the darkness: “Stop! Don’t move! Police! Don’t run!” There was a clang of metal on tar as the posts were dropped, and our takkies slapped the ground as we sprinted away.

The members of the Original Four had lots of getaway practice. In those days, we enjoyed playing toktokkie around the neighbourhood – door-bell ringing – and we’d target the same houses every weekend. Over time, you’d get to know which owner would storm out in pursuit – sometimes on foot, sometimes in a vehicle, always swearing. Our version was more intense than your standard game of toktokkie, to be fair. We were in a group and our escape plan was always to scatter in different directions to confuse our pursuer. Later, we’d meet up at a predetermined spot and share stories about who’d been closest to getting caught.

So, when the police showed up, my toktokkie reflexes kicked in. I ran up a small entrance road to the left, away from my friends. This road led to the street outside the school, and a suburb with lots of good hiding places. In retrospect, this entrance road – actually a funnel, with a wall on one side and the fence of the tennis courts on the other – wasn’t the smartest choice.

I was halfway down when a police bakkie with flashing blue lights cut me off and plugged my escape route. My adrenaline was pumping. I ran past the first police officer at full tilt – he was still getting out of the driver’s seat. But his partner in the back was wise to my moves. With a skilful tackle (a bit high, if you ask me) he pinned me against the fence.

Lots of other boys were also being apprehended, but none of them were members of the Original Four…

It was my first ride in the back of a police van. Two such vans ferried us to the police station. We were plonked in the charge office, told to remove our shoelaces and belts.

Soon Von Zeuner arrived, with a deep frown on his face. His displeasure was evident. Under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights, I looked around at my classmates. One guy’s dad was a teacher at the primary school; the other’s was a detective in this very police station! Four of us, including myself, were on the council of learners. For some reason, there was also a guy who had matriculated the previous year. The only missing faces belonged to Jacobus, Francois and Tommy. Von Zeuner’s eyes widened in surprise when he saw me. “Evan! Does you dad know you’re here?” he asked.

I was too embarrassed to answer.

In the end, the principal showed us mercy and didn’t lay a criminal charge. “I want to see each of you in my office tomorrow morning,” he said as he left. Our parents were summoned to pick us up, but mine didn’t answer the phone. I got a lift from one of the other escapees and tiptoed to bed when I got home.

When we gathered around the breakfast table the next morning, I kept quiet. My parents still had no idea what I had got up to the night before, and I decided to keep it that way for the time being. It was only when we got to school that I asked my dad if I could talk to him about something.

“Sure”, he said. “Let’s go to my office.” He got out and I followed him to his office in the school building – the one marked “Vice Principal”…

Later that morning Jacobus and Francois were standing next to me and the rest of the boys in the principal’s office. They had decided to turn themselves in in solidarity. I learnt that they had escaped through the primary school’s grounds, adjacent to the high school. (Tommy, well, he’s still at large to this day.)

Von Zeuner looked at each of us in turn, as if he couldn’t believe that it was really us – especially Jacobus whose dad was the principal of the primary school. And I sometimes can’t believe it either, thinking back to that ridiculous night…

It was my first ride in the back of a police van.

Two such vans ferried us to the police station. We were plonked in the charge office, told to remove our shoelaces and belts.