MORNING SERIAL
‘WHY, miss, do you like wasps?’ one asked, his mouth full. ‘Do you want stinging?’
‘No, of course not, and don’t be rude, but I don’t want them to suffer. Do you know what the cook just said to you?’ ‘Nope.’
‘He said it’s inhuman to torment animals.’
Actually, he had not quite said that. She returned to high table, having scraped the remains of the wasps into the glass with a knife. He had said Unmensch. How did you translate that? Subhuman?
‘What have you got there?’ ‘Medicine for Patterson,’ said Issie. ‘If he ever Donitzes me again.’
‘No, you won’t get another dose. That’s your initiation. The kids in my block are busy initiating each other every night — the big ones scrag the little ones. And there’s a quick turn-over, what with their being constantly posted, a steady supply of new victims. I like to think that the real bastards go off and get beaten up at some other dump. It satisfies my sense of justice. Well,’ Lynne dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin, ‘there’s Darwin for you.’
‘They’re so horrible to one another,’ said Issie wonderingly. ‘I mean, well, children are cruel and all that, but these ...’
‘Think the toffs are any gentler at Eton or Harrow?’
‘Well, no, but ...’
‘It’s their parents,’ stated Lynne, as a sociological fact which did not admit dispute. ‘They don’t know any better.’
‘But they haven’t got parents around. If they had parents ...’
‘They’d be just as vile, but the parents would join in the bashing.’
‘But it’s some kind of mass bereftness. They’re like parttime orphans all driven in on one another. I found a lass this morning
in the lav — Rachel — her eyes were almost closed with crying and when I coaxed her out she wouldn’t get dressed. I found out why. Her back was bruised. And she wouldn’t say who’d done it.’
‘Report it,’ said Susan curtly. ‘And toughen up. You soon won’t notice it. It’s just normal. All part of their education.’