Free Not Bad for a Bad Lad by Michael Morpurgo Page A

if I was sometimes, she said, “a wee bit over-enthusiastic”.

    Then Miss West left the school – I don’t know why – and that made me very sad. I still played the drums whenever I could, and I was still Drum Cupboard Monitor, but none of it was nearly so much fun without Miss West. I never forgot her though, andyou’ll see why soon enough.

    I was that keen on drumming by now that I began to find ways of doing it out of school. At home I’d play the spoons all the time, and drive Ma half barmy with it. When she sent me out, I’d do it with sticks on the railings, or on dustbin lids. Dustbin lids were best because if I banged them hard enough I could make a din like thunder that echoed all down the street, and sent the pigeons scattering.

    Some people, like Mrs Dickson who kept the shop on the corner, had two dustbins outside, so I could stand there and bang away on two dustbin lids at the same time, then I could pick them up and crash them together like cymbals. You should have heard the racket that made! But Mrs Dickson was a bit of a spoilsport. She’d come running out of her shop and tick me off. She’d shoo me away with her broom, and call me “a bad, bad lad” – and other things too that I’d better not mention.
     
    Then I went and did something really stupid.
    I stole an orange from a barrow in the market. And what did I do? I only ran round the corner, smack into PC Nightingale, who also told me I was a bad lad. He took me back home, tweaking my ear all the way, and told Ma what I had done, and that I needed a right good walloping. So she said I was a bad lad too and smacked me on the back of my knees. The day after that, things only went from bad to worse. 

    In school the next morning, at assembly, Mr Mortimer told us he’d got a very serious announcement to make, very serious indeed. He said that PC Nightingale had been in to see him with some very bad news, about an orange. I knew I was in for it now. He held up the orange I’d nicked, or one just like it, and told everyone that they had an orange thief in the school. I knew what was coming. He called out my name and pointed right at me with his yellow nicotiney finger. Everyone turned round to look at me, which I didn’t much mind – actually, to be honest, I quite enjoyed that part of it – you know, the fame part, the recognition . After all, I was the school’s chief troublemaker. That was what I was good at, being a troublemaker. I was proud of it too. I had my reputation. I was someone to be reckoned with and I liked that.
     
    Mr Mortimer got me up there in front of everyone, and told me to hold out my hand, and then he whacked me with the ruler – which I did mind, because this time it was with the edge of the ruler, on the back of my hand, on my knuckles, and it hurt like billy-o. And, yes, you’ve guessed it, he told me I was a bad lad, and how I’d bought shame on myself and on the whole school.

    Worst of all though, he said I wasn’t Drum Cupboard Monitor any more, and that I wasn’t going to be allowed to play on the drums any more, nor on the cymbals, nor even on the silly triangle, not ever. Well, that was it, the final straw, that and my bruised knuckles. Now I was mad, really mad – and I’m not excusing myself – but that was why I went and did something that was even more stupid than nicking the orange in the first place.
    Because I’d been Drum Cupboard Monitor, Iknew exactly where the drum cupboard key was kept, didn’t I? On the hook in the back of the teacher’s desk. So at break time I took the key, opened the drum cupboard and pinched the biggest drum of the lot, my favourite. Then, banging it as loud as I could, and with the whole school watching, I marched through the playground, out of the school gates and down the road. I went on banging that drum all the way home. I got expelled for that, which was all right by me, because without Miss West there I hated the place anyway.

    The other schools Ma