Free The Day Our Teacher Went Mad and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls by Christopher Milne Page B

Mum suggested we go and play in my room. Play what? Rip my head off and see if it hurts?
    ‘This is all a load of bull,’ said Bazza, slumped back on my bed. ‘I’d do a runner from here, nick off, except they’d throw me back in the slammer.’
    Bazza explained that the slammer was a place where kids who’d been in heaps of trouble were locked up and looked after at the same time. I can’t see how that would work too well.
    ‘All right, so what do you want to do?’ asked Bazza.
    ‘Not sure,’ I said, shaking.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bazza. ‘I’m not going to hit you. Not unless you annoy me.’
    ‘Oh. Thanks,’ I replied. ‘Do you feel like playing PlayStation?’
    ‘Rather stick pins in my eyes,’ said Bazza. ‘Got any money?’
    ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Still got forty bucks from my birthday.’ Then I thought, Why did I say that?
    ‘Give it to me,’ said Bazza.
    ‘What if I say no?’ I replied.
    ‘You don’t want to know. Anyway, I’ll give it back to you. One day,’ said Bazza. ‘I’m no rip-off artist.’
    So I did.

    The day dragged on, with Bazza bored stupid and me scared witless. At last, it was night. But that brought with it new fears.
    ‘I thought Barry could sleep on a mattress in your room, Nick,’ said Mum.
    This is it, I thought. I was meant to die young.
    But as I lay there, waiting to be bashed as soon as I fell asleep, I thought I heard a crying noise.
    It was Bazza! How could a tough guy like Bazza be crying?
    ‘You OK?’ I whispered.
    ‘Leave me alone!’ he sobbed.
    There was no way I was going to ask again, but then it seemed Bazza wanted to talk.
    ‘It’s all right for you!’ he said. ‘You’ve got oldies who love you. And a house.’
    ‘But Mum and Dad said you’re welcome here any time,’ I replied.
    ‘Oh yeah, that’d be right,’ said Bazza. ‘I’m a stinking street kid remember? No-one ever means it. Just makes them feel good.’
    ‘What if I wanted you to come back?’ I said.
    Bazza didn’t reply. He tried to muffle it into the sheets, but I could tell he was crying again. I felt so sorry for Bazza.
    ‘Why do some kids have such terrible luck?’ I asked my dad quietly the next morning.
    ‘Mainly because of our greed,’ he said. ‘There’s enough money and food and love and support to look after every one of us, if we wanted it that way, but we prefer to be selfish. And then we complain about violence and rising crime. It’s a joke!’
    I didn’t get the joke but I thought I might leave it at that.
    And so Bazza left that afternoon, with us all saying he must come back sometime. But I could tell in his eyes he didn’t believe we meant it.
    As Bazza walked off slowly with his head down, carrying his little bag of clothes, I felt sick. Sick and angry and guilty. But what could I do? Nothing right now, I supposed.
    Later, I decided, when I got older, I was going to help kids like Bazza.
    Or is that what we all say? ‘Later.’

    About two weeks had passed when I suddenly saw Bazza hanging around the train station with some really tough-looking guys.
    He pretended not to see me. But strangely, although I was scared to the back teeth, I found myself walking over and saying, ‘Hi Bazza, how’s it going?’
    ‘How’s what going?’ sneered Bazza.
    ‘This guy bugging you?’ asked one of his mates. ‘I’ll punch his face in.’
    ‘Nah, nah, cool it,’ said Bazza. ‘Just a loser I ripped a few bucks off one time.’
    ‘You said it was a lend,’ I said. ‘Like friends.’
    ‘Friends?’ they all shouted, laughing. ‘A lend? Ha ha ha.’ And off they went.

    It was another three years before I saw or heard of Bazza again.
    I received a letter. With thirty-eight dollars inside. This is what it said:
    Nick ,
    Just got out of the slammer. Again. It’s taken a while for me to realise, but it took a lot of guts for you to come over that day at the train station. Sorry I had to act like such an idiot. You know how it is.
    I’ve learnt to