Behind The Scenes

It was morning break. Two senior boys walked briskly down a deserted corridor towards the hall. The pocket of one bulged suspiciously, and the other cast a careless glance over his shoulder as they swung left through the hall doors.

At the refreshment counter one of the school caretakers was having a cup of tea. He glanced up incuriously as the boys struck diagonally across the hall for a small door at the far end beside the stage. They ignored him - he would not say anything as long as they looked as if they were on official business. They let themselves through the door, and paused to draw breath. So far so good; they had been quick and self-assured, and the only person who had seen them had not suspected anything. Already their classmates were making their way to the gymnasium for the P.E. lesson. But these boys were not going to any P.E. lesson.

Nobody - not in their form anyway - particularly liked P.E. It made them hot and tired, and nobody who is hot and tired can feel very much like work. At least, so they thought, and several developed the habit of spending the lesson reading in class, or doing overdue homework, or doing that night's homework; or perhaps doing nothing at all. But it became rather embarrassing when a master walked in. He might not realize that they had a lesson, and might just leave them in peace. If he knew they had a lesson, they would plead all sorts of injuries which would prevent them doing that honest exercise.

But sometimes the master might check on this, out of curiosity, to see if the P.E. master knew of his absentees. It was surprising the number of times he did not. However, for ten minutes immediately following their discovery, he took rather a special interest in their welfare.

Thus it became rather a risk to spend the P.E. lesson very far from the gymnasium. Gradually the number of absentees dwindled, until very few of the 'old crowd' were left.

But these two boys were intent on leaving the gym solely for the use of the "athletic types". The athletic types, irreverently called "physical jerks" by the weaker brethren, made up for the absentees by their enthusiasm and so a roll call was not considered necessary, besides the fact that it was rather undignified for a senior form. They were trusted!

As the door creaked and closed behind them, the boys stood for more than half a minute while their eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness, and then as an added precaution one of them reached into his pocket, and the suspicious bulge disappeared, as he drew out the torch. They mounted the six steps carefully into the wings and turned to their right. The torch clicked on and they made their way carefully across the stage; it would not do now to bump into the scenery or knock over a chair. Far away in the school a bell rang, to end morning break. They had timed it well. They were out of the way before the corridors filled with observant schoolboys, and yet their noise and bustle as they returned to class would effectively mask any noise these two might make.

Now they glided softly down a short flight of steps, into a corner of the wings on the opposite side of the stage from where they had entered. On this side no door opened into the hall; nobody could come on them unexpectedly. Suddenly one of them bent down. There was a loud click and a small door about two and a half feet high opened in the side of the stage. The leading boy caught the lintel and swung himself through. He turned, took the torch from his companion, and switched it on. Then, shielding it with his hand, he inched cautiously forward. The other, bigger and heavier, clambered awkwardly through and pulled the door to behind him. Then he followed.

Squeezing awkwardly through pieces of scenery, pushing others aside, climbing over pipes and sliding through tiny gaps, they made their way to a solid-looking rectangular piece of velvet curtain, draped from ceiling to floor - a distance of about three and a half feet. Tables, chairs, thrones, boxes and benches were strewn in orderly chaos under the stage; pipes criss-crossed the ceiling - these they had to be careful of, for one boy had nearly brained himself colliding with them - and these two had been architects of this deliberate confusion.

The boy with the torch flicked the curtain aside, and plunged into a small 'room', carpeted with an old piece they had found wedged under a throne. The area was about six feet by four, and they were wedged comfortably in at the back of the store; the wall was beside them, with hot water pipes running along it, and all around them they had placed heavy chairs and tables, with all the pieces of scenery they could find to camouflage their hideout. The route to it was devious and obscure, but easy enough if you knew it, and they knew it.

The two of them drew breath once more inside, then one of them reached up and flicked a switch and three tiny bulbs came to life - not very powerful, but quite bright enough for such a small area. The bigger boy smiled in satisfaction, and patted the big black accumulator tucked in to the wall under the hot water pipes. They charged it off the school supply.

The clatter and banging of boys, dispersing to morning classes died away, and they each took out a book and began to read.

It had become obvious that to successfully absent yourself from a lesson you had to have somewhere to go where you would not be in danger from wandering masters. After a little thought this particular hideout was built. Like Rome, it was not built in a day. At first, the shell was built. During break times they made a space and built up piles of scenery round it. "Junk" they called it, but it served its purpose. Then they found the big dark blue velvet curtain. The older boy brought in some screws and together they screwed it securely into the ceiling. After that, the other had found the carpet, and laid it down quite successfully. Having checked that no light escaped through chinks, they began to drag as much scenery as they could find in there to camouflage their hideout. This was a noisy job, and they did it after school, when no one was around.

For lighting they had a paraffin lamp. But it stank. It could have betrayed them, but the older boy brought, with some difficulty, a big heavy accumulator and some light bulbs. They rigged this up neatly and all was set. For some time they used their hideout regularly to escape undue physical exertion in P.E. and sometimes to avoid games on Wednesday afternoons. They had one worry. The Drama Society was active, and they might one day poke an inquisitive nose into the scenery under the stage. It would be annoying to have to move elsewhere and start again. There was a consolation here as well, however. One of the boys was in the Society and could find out any designs which might cause inconvenience.

One day he did. A festival of plays was being produced. The trap door above their hideout had to be used. The stage manager found that something was in the way. He couldn't get at the underside of the trap door; there was a lot of scenery in the way. In fact he could not see it - a big, solid looking velvet curtain hid it. He clambered out from under the stage through sliding doors which were all across the front. He told the producer that he would clear it all out the next day. It had to be opened from underneath; there was no other way.

That night after school, two boys slipped quietly through the hall. They were the same two that used the hideout. No one saw them when they went in. No one saw them as they came out, less than half an hour later.

The next day the stage manager slid back the doors, and light flooded through into the dusty, seldom-used interior. He climbed through and screwed up his eyes to penetrate the gloom at the back. There was all the scenery, and that curtain. But there also, a few feet from it, was the trap door in the ceiling. He crouched there, amazed. Whoever it was, they had done a fine job. They had cleared every piece of scenery from under the trap door, leaving it clear and ready to use. He shrugged his shoulders, and went to tell the producer.

Exactly six minutes before the end of the P.E. lesson, the boys left their hide-out. They picked their way through the scenery and pushed open the small door. Thy clambered through and straightened up stiffly. Beside them on the wall was the fire alarm bell. This also signalled the lessons. It always rang for ten seconds. They looked at their watches. In five and a half minutes it would go off automatically and the P.E. lesson would end. The younger boy nodded. The other brought a screwdriver from his inside pocket and with neat precision unscrewed the glass and frame from the alarm bell. He was careful. If he touched that big button, it would go off and never stop, and that would be dangerous. But in the corner, two inches from the main alarm button, was a smaller one. Underneath, in small red capitals, were the words TEST PUSH, one word below the other. The second hand on the boys' watches ticked smoothly round. They waited, tense. If all their classmates could not avoid P.E. at least they could be spared five minutes of it.

Firmly a thumb leant on the Test Button. All over the school bells rang. Classes finished five minutes early, as masters frowned and corrected their watches.

The glass and frame, hinged, swung smoothly back into place. Quickly the bigger boy screwed it firmly down. His companion flicked on the torch, and led the way across the stage. Quietly, they descended the six stone steps to the door leading out into the hall. The bustle and clatter of boys returning to class to get books for a new lesson masked the creak of the door as it opened slowly. Then they were through, and, yes blinking in the unaccustomed brightness of the daylight, they mingled with the crowd returning from P.E.

They had near escapes, and had once been missed from P.E. This did not deter them. Those were reckless days. They remembered fondly those last wild days before the Christmas holidays, sitting munching biscuits just behind the sliding doors of the front of the stage; a few feet away a master was conducting the choir in a carol practice.

But it had to stop. Their hideout was at last discovered, and has long been derelict, covered once more with dusty scenery. They did not mind; they had moved out. They had become sixth formers, and sixth formers must have some regard for their dignity.

Anon.


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