The Mighty Slide Read online

  From Henry Mayhew's

  London Labour and the London Poor,

  Vol. IV (published 1862)

  The Scariest Yet

  * * *

  There was rain at the windows

  And wind in the yard,

  And the clock said a quarter past three.

  The children complained

  That their work was too hard,

  And the teacher said, ‘Right – I agree!’

  Then, quick as a blink,

  The books disappeared

  And desk-lids machine-gunned the air.

  The children sat smiling,

  A few of them cheered

  And the teacher leant back in his chair.

  ‘Tell us a story!’ the children said,

  ‘Like The Tale of the Two-Headed Man,

  Or The Mad Professor's Daughter,

  Or The Terror of Turkestan.

  Tell us a story like Marley's Ghost,

  Or The Ruffian on the Stairs,

  Or The Girl who got Boiled in a Barrel of Oil,

  Or The Boy who got Eaten by Bears!’

  There was fish in the fish-tank

  And chalk on the board

  And waste in the waste-paper bin;

  And joy in the hearts

  Of the Class Six horde

  When the teacher said, ‘Right – I'll begin!’

  This story is one I've not told before;

  I think I might call it The Boiler-Room Door,

  Or The Beast from Below, or Stan in a Sweat;

  But one thing's for sure – it's the scariest yet!

  (The children, meanwhile, settled back in their places,

  An ‘Oooh!’ on their lips, a flush on their faces.)

  And it all began in the Second World War,

  February, nineteen forty-four;

  In a school much like ours, with kids much like you;

  And it's horribly strange, and it's utterly true.

  Well, really those were the bad old days

  When we were deprived in a hundred ways.

  Sweets were rationed, bananas rare;

  You couldn't get oranges anywhere.

  Chicken and cheese were in short supply;

  We made do with whalemeat and rabbit pie.

  You fancied ice-cream? Y'hopes were slight;

  There were queues in the morning and bombs at night.

  And I think you lot would've gone demented;

  Fish-fingers hadn't been invented!

  So, there you are, just a few ideas

  Of what it was like in those earlier years:

  The rations, the queues, the bombs, the war;

  And on top of all that, there was something more…

  One night a boy named Stanley Fox

  Pulled down his cap and up his socks,

  Kissed his mother and cuddled the cat,

  Drank his Oxo in seconds flat,

  Grabbed his torch and his threepenny subs,

  And hurried off to the Rolfe Street cubs.

  The streets were dark, though the moon was out,

  And Stanley didn't hang about.

  He called for his best friend, Sidney Poole,

  And together they raced to Rolfe Street School.

  Sidney was plump, with his arm in a sling

  (From fooling around on his sister's swing).

  Stanley was older and taller and thinner,

  Which was hard to believe when you saw his dinner.

  They had been best friends since the war began,

  And were generally known as Sid ‘n’ Stan.

  As they shone their way down the blacked-out street,

  Other beams converged to meet

  In the gap that was once the old school gate

  (Now melted down for armoured plate).

  Other voices, other boys;

  Shouts and shoving; laughter – noise!

  Then through the gap or over the wall

  They jostled and whooped in the infants’ hall.

  Then followed the usual ‘dibs and dubs’,

  The singing of songs, the paying of subs,

  The tying of knots, the reading of maps,

  The jokes about Germans, the jokes about Japs.

  Towards the end, Akela said,

  ‘We‘ll have a few games, then home to bed!’

  So they played British Bulldog and Pig in the Ring,

  All except Sid on account of his sling;

  And hide-and-seek – they scattered and hid;

  Akela joined in, and so did Sid.

  From force of habit he followed Stan.

  It was just about then… that the trouble began.

  ‘Five – ten – fifteen – twenty!’

  The places to hide in that school were plenty.

  It was old – like ours – well, older really.

  (‘Older 'n you, Sir?’ ‘Yes – well, nearly.’)

  But Sidney and Stanley were trouble bound,

  For the place to avoid was the place they found.

  Not the cloakrooms, the stage or the P.E. store,

  But the steps leading down to the boiler-room door.

  The boiler-room was below the school;

  The caretaker kept it locked as a rule.

  However, this particular night,

  When nothing for Sid ‘n’ Stan went right,

  The door was ajar – ‘What a place to hide!’ –

  And with hardly a thought they went inside,

  Confident no one ever would find them,

  And shut the heavy door behind them.

  ‘Ninety-five – a hundred – coming-ready-or-not!’

  It was pitch-dark in the boiler-room, dusty and hot.

  ‘You there?’ said Stan. ‘I can't see a thing!’

  ‘Nor me,’ said Sid; then: ‘Mind me sling!’

  ‘More steps, I think,’ Stan said. ‘Watch out!’

  Then he lost his footing and gave a shout.

  Sid fumbled his way and followed the sound,

  Till he fell over Stan where he lay on the ground.

  ‘Damn it!’ said Stan. ‘Sod it!’ said Sid.

  ‘You thought of this!’ ‘I never!’ ‘Y’ did!’

  Sid rubbed his knee; Stan rubbed his head.

  ‘I think I've cracked me skull,’ he said.

  Then – slowly – still rubbing the painful bits,

  Sidney and Stanley recovered their wits.

  As their eyes grew accustomed to the dark,

  They could see the glow (and occasional spark)

  From the flickering flame at the furnace door,

  And vague shapes, too, on the boiler-room floor.

  Some boxes, perhaps, and a window pole;

  A pile of, maybe, coke or coal;

  A sack of something – a bucket – a mop;

  A table with a chair on top.

  Meanwhile, in the corridor, clattering feet

  And echoing voices: ‘Got y'Pete!’

  Stan felt a sudden flutter of fear:

  Whatever made us come down here?

  The hair rose up on the back of his neck;

  He turned his head, and – ‘Bloody heck!’

  Stan's throat felt strangled, his voice a croak,

  As over the pile of coal or coke…

  (He clutched Sid's arm, and caught his sling)

  Came a huge and shapeless, lumbering thing!

  Sid struggled to speak (he'd seen it, too),

  But the best he could manage was, ‘S-Stan!’ and ‘Oow!’

  They jumped up then and tried to run,

  Which, of course, was easier said than done.

  They scrambled and staggered and stumbled and fell,

  And what would've happened, it's hard to tell.

  (For behind them ‘whatever-it-was’ was near;

  Its appalling breathing plain to hear.)

  Well, what did happen was, suddenly – bang!

  The door flew open and Freddy Lang

  Yelled down th
e steps, ‘I see you, Sid!’

  Then leapt aside – good job he did –

  As out of that cellar came Sid 'n' Stan

  Like shots from a gun or Superman.

  They slammed the door, grabbed hold of Fred,

  Said not a word, but turned – and fled.

  There was steam on the windows

  And sleet in the air,

  And the clock said twenty to four.

  The children protested

  ‘Oh, Sir, it's not fair!’

  ‘Don't stop now!’ ‘Y'can't!’ ‘Tell us more!’

  ‘Yes, what happened next?’ the children said.

  ‘Did it get 'em and eat 'em up?’

  ‘Did it crunch their bones in the blacked-out streets?’

  ‘Did it drink their blood from a cup?’

  ‘Was it Dracula, Sir, or Frankenstein –

  This lumbering sort of creature?’

  ‘The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, perhaps?

  King Kong or –’ ‘Got it – a teacher!’

  And they said, ‘Oh, Sir, you swore!

  We're going to tell on you.’

  ‘You said “bloody”, we heard you, Sir;

  And “damn it” and “sod it”, too.’

  While the teacher, putting his coat on,

  Said, ‘Swear – no, I never did.

  It wasn't me – come on, home time!

  Oh, no – it was Stan 'n’ Sid.’

  There was ice on the windows

  The following day,

  And the sky was frosty and pale.

  Class Six settled quickly

  From afternoon play,

  And the teacher continued his tale.

  So Stanley Fox and Sidney Poole

  Got the shock of their lives at Rolfe Street School;

  Put in a panic and scared half to death

  By a shadowy shape and the sound of breath.

  They told Akela, ‘Its face was sort of hairy!’

  They told the others, ‘Its hands were sort of claws!’

  They told their mothers, ‘Its eyes were sort of starey!’

  They told themselves, ‘It crunched coke in its jaws!’

  For already their memories embroidered the scene,

  Mixing the truth with what-might’ve-been.

  (This often occurs just after a fright;

  Although, as it happens, this time they were right.)

  However, Akela was meeting a friend,

  And hurried the pair of them home in the end;

  While their mothers more noticed the bruises and dirt:

  ‘Just look at y'jumper!’ ‘Y’scamp – does it hurt?’

  Thus bathed and bandaged, confused, relieved,

  Unpursued but unbelieved,

  They climbed the stairs to their separate beds,

  And pulled the bedclothes over their heads.

  When Stan woke up the following morning,

  Eyes full of sleep, mouth full of yawning,

  His curtains were open, the sun was high,

  There wasn't a single cloud in the sky;

  His clean clothes lay on his bedside chair

  And a smell of breakfast filled the air.

  In a world so golden and shining and clean,

  It was hard to believe what he thought he'd seen;

  Then he felt the bruise on the side of his head,

  And shivered in his cosy bed.

  When Sid came round at half-past eight,

  Stan's mum declared, ‘You're in a state!

  Arm in a sling and a bandaged knee;

  You're worse than him, if you ask me.

  Have you been seeing monsters, too?’

  And Sid smiled weakly, ‘Well – a few!’

  As they left the house at twenty to nine,

  Sid said, ‘Your mum's as bad as mine.

  Mine hardly believes a thing I tell her;

  Especially monsters seen in a cellar.’

  Stan nodded his head, he had to agree.

  Then: ‘I wasn't all that scared.’ ‘Nor me!’

  ‘I'd go down again, if you bet me a quid.’

  ‘I'd go for a couple of bob,’ said Sid.

  ‘Mind you, it was big – well, I think it was big.’

  ‘And covered in hair, like a bloomin’ great wig!’

  And so they rehearsed a description to fit it.

  And, of course, they were scared, but scared to admit it.

  In the playground with the other kids

  There was further talk of bets and quids.

  For the news, as you might expect, had spread.

  The rest of the cubs, especially Fred,

  Had told the tale, or what was known,

  And even added bits of their own.

  ‘Look out, who's here?’ ‘It's Sid ‘n’ Stan!’

  ‘They got chased by the Bogeyman!’

  ‘King Kong, it was – or Doctor Death!’

  ‘They seen his face!’ ‘They felt his breath!’

  ‘It's true!’ said Stan; ‘We did!’ said Sid.

  ‘Bet you a tanner!’ ‘A dollar!’ ‘A quid!’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die!’

  ‘Monster, my foot!’ ‘Monster, my eye!’

  At this point Sid had a worrying thought:

  ‘We never warned old Mr Short!’

  (He was the caretaker, first name Jim.)

  ‘What if whatever-it-was gets him?’

  ‘I shouldn't bother,’ said Albert Crump.

  ‘Old Jimmy Short'd make him jump.

  Besides, I saw him shifting a bin

  Just a minute ago, when I came in.’

  ‘I seen him, too – it's true,’ said Fred.

  ‘He didn't look nice, but he didn't look dead.’

  Later that morning, at half-past ten,

  When the kids were back in the playground again,

  Playing marbles, five-stones, tick,

  Hopscotch with a bit of brick,

  Swopping fag-cards, swopping punches,

  Telling jokes and eating lunches,

  Sid ‘n’ Stan just sat about,

  Saying little and full of doubt.

  The perfect health of Mr Short

  Remained for them a disturbing thought.

  A comfort, of course, but puzzling, too:

  What had they seen? What should they do?

  Just then a crowd went haring past,

  With Fred at the front and Albert last.

  Fred had a rope and an apple core.

  ‘Hang on!’ yelled Stan. ‘What's all that for?’

  ‘Brainwave!’ cried Albert. ‘Me and Fred –

  We're going fishing – for monsters!’ he said.

  ‘We'll dangle the bait through the coal-chute grid.’

  ‘You're barmy!’ cried Stan. ‘Wait for us!’ shouted Sid.

  Minutes later, the ‘fishing’ began,

  Watched with mixed feelings by Sid ‘n’ Stan.

  (Plus the owner of the skipping rope,

  A second-year girl named Sophie Cope.)

  Like Eskimos round a hole in the ice,

  They eyed the line and offered advice.

  ‘Give it a wiggle!’ ‘Give it a jerk!’

  ‘My rope's getting dirty!’ ‘It's not gonna work’

  ‘Here, monster!’ said Fred. ‘Here, bogeyman!

  I've got you a present from Sid ‘n’ Stan!’

  Then, thinking to give the others a fright,

  He pretended he'd actually got a bite;

  Hauled on the line, ‘A whopper!’ he said.

  Then – suddenly – scared himself instead.

  For the bait had gone and the line was shorter.

  A ‘shark’, it appeared, was patrolling the water.

  The boys were amazed and appalled and thrilled.

  Their flesh was crawling, their blood was chilled.

  ‘It's ate the apple and – bloomin’ hell –

  It's ate the wooden ‘andle as well!’

  Yes, t
he boys were amazed, but the girl was mad:

  ‘Me rope!’ shouted Sophie. ‘I'll tell our dad!’

  While Sid looked at Stan and muttered, ‘Strewth!’

  I suppose after all we was telling the truth.’

  There was fog at the windows,

  Suspense in the room

  And a class on the edge of its seat.

  Their faces were white

  In the gathering gloom,

  And their hearts were missing a beat.

  ‘And then what happened?’ the children cried.

  ‘Did it reach its paw through the grid?’

  ‘Did it grab a hold of Albert Crump?’

  ‘Did it take a lump out of Sid?’

  ‘Could they hear it breathing down below?’

  ‘Could they see its eyes in the dark?’

  ‘What was that bit about Eskimos, Sir?’

  ‘Did it really bite like a shark?’

  There was noise from the corridor,

  Noise from the hall

  Where the fourth years were having P.E.

  The teacher just smiled

  And said nothing at all;

  Only, ‘Maybe,’ and, ‘Wait and see.’

  Well, what happened next (he eventually said),

  Was the whistle went and Albert and Fred

  And Sophie and Sidney and Stanley and Co.

  Trooped back into school for an hour or so,

  To learn about fractions and Francis Drake,

  Practise handwriting and bake a cake.

  And talk about monsters and similar shocks

  (A ghost in the youth club, a raid on the docks),

  Talk in the toilets and under desk-lids,

  Dare a few dares and bet a few quids,

  Talk about Spitfires and Messerschmitts,