Arthur & George Read Free

just for something to do. George has never seen boys fight before. As he watches, Sid Henshaw, one of the rougher boys, comes and stands in front of him. Henshaw makes monkey faces, pulling at the sides of his mouth with his little fingers while using his thumbs to flap his ears forward.
    ‘How d’you do, my name’s George.’ This is what he has been instructed to say. But Henshaw just carries on making gurgling noises and flapping his ears.
    Some of the boys come from farms, and George thinks they smell of cows. Others are miners’ sons, and seem to talk differently. George learns the names of his schoolfellows: Sid Henshaw, Arthur Aram, Harry Boam, Horace Knighton, Harry Charlesworth, Wallie Sharp, John Harriman, Albert Yates …
    His father says that he is going to make friends, but he is not sure how this is done. One morning Wallie Sharp comes up behind him in the yard and whispers,
    ‘You’re not a right sort.’
    George turns round. ‘How d’you do, my name’s George,’ he repeats.
    At the end of the first week Mr Bostock tests them at reading, spelling and sums. He announces the results on Monday morning, and then they move desks. George is good at reading from the book in front of him, but his spelling and sums let him down. He is told to remain at the back of the form. He does no better the next Friday, and the one after that. By now he finds himself surrounded by farm boys and mine boys who don’t care where they sit, indeed think it an advantage to be farther away from Mr Bostock so they can misbehave. George feels as if he is being slowly banished from the way, the truth and the life.
    Mr Bostock stabs at the blackboard with a piece of chalk. ‘
This
, George, plus
this
’ (stab) ‘equals
what
?’ (stab stab).
    Everything in his head is a blur, and George guesses wildly. ‘Twelve,’ he says, or, ‘Seven and a half.’ The boys at the front laugh, and then the farm boys join in when they realize he is wrong.
    Mr Bostock sighs and shakes his head and asks Harry Charlesworth, who is always in the front row and has his hand up all the time.
    ‘Eight,’ Harry says, or, ‘Thirteen and a quarter,’ and Mr Bostock moves his head in George’s direction, to show how stupid he has been.
    One afternoon, on his way back to the Vicarage, George soils himself. His mother takes off his clothes, stands him in the bath, scrubs him down, dresses him again and takes him to Father. But George is unable to explain to his father why, though he is nearly seven years old, he has behaved like a baby in napkins.
    This happens again, and then again. His parents do not punish him, but their evident disappointment in their first-born – stupid at school, a baby on the way home – is as bad as any punishment. They discuss him over the top of his head.
    ‘The child gets his nerves from you, Charlotte.’
    ‘In any event, it cannot be teething.’
    ‘We can rule out cold, since we are in September.’
    ‘And indigestible items of food, since Horace is not affected.’
    ‘What remains?’
    ‘The only other cause the book suggests is fright.’
    ‘George, are you frightened of something?’
    George looks at his father, at the shiny clerical collar, at the broad, unsmiling face above it, the mouth which speaks the frequently incomprehensible truth from the pulpit of St Mark’s, and the black eyes which now command the truth from him. What is he to say? He is frightened of Wallie Sharp and Sid Henshaw and some others, but that would be telling on them. In any case, it is not what he fears most. Eventually he says, ‘I’m frightened of being stupid.’
    ‘George,’ his father replies, ‘we know you are not stupid. Your mother and I have taught you your letters and your sums. You are a bright boy. You can do sums at home but not at school. Can you tell us why?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Does Mr Bostock teach them differently?’
    ‘No, Father.’
    ‘Do you stop trying?’
    ‘No, Father. I can do them in the book but I