A LAIR FLUSHED OUT
  At the bottom of the gym wall, a row of three-foot-high plywood boards covered
the open end of the space under the gym floor. Billy sniffed at them, and
noticed a smell that he had met before. Mr.Malton reached up with a hammer to
where a diagonal girder joined a vertical girder. Everything was thick with
rust, and a tuft of grass grew in the joint. He started to chip the rust off,
suspecting that it might be cheaper in the end to build a new water tank
support. Billy suddenly started to bark loudly and continuously.
  [243] "Quiet, Billy! It's only the space under the gym floor." said Mr.Malton
pulling at Billy's collar. Billy resisted and kept on sniffing and barking.
"Crumbs, Billy, you aren't half pulling." he said, then suspected that Billy had
found not just a casual interesting smell but something suspicious. He frowned
at `MUFC OK' and a stick figure titled `teecher' - then found something else,
for, as he pulled at Billy's collar, his left foot hit one of the boards, which
moved. Most of the nails holding it on were missing, except for the heads left
for show. Surprised at this, he let go of Billy's collar. Billy pushed the loose
board aside and went in. Mr.Malton went down on hands and knees at the opening
as Billy's barking in the dark inside changed to angry growling and snarling.
Mr.Malton crawled in. The dark gradually hid his bottom and his boots and the
rear ends of his cylinders. Growls, a whine, more growls, sounds of wood hitting
brick, scuffling noises, and what sounded like a human yowl of pain, came out of
the dark. "Let my stick `and go, yer $%^ mangy cur, before I $%^ yer." said a
rough voice as Mr.Malton unholstered and lit his blowtorch. In the windowless
cavity the blue oxyacetylene light showed quite clearly the answer to several
questions.
  "You again! This explains much!" Mr.Malton said angrily.
  "I weren't doin' nuthin'" said the rough voice. Billy continued to growl.
[244] "I keep off yer works now, yer %^%$ uniformed thug. I were only dossin'.
No-one else were usin' it, or is all town yer pitch? Yer've got yer works,
that's enough pitch for yer." the rough voice continued.
  "And this is the school's `pitch', as you call it. Get out! St.Andrews - my
place - those bushes - Wernicke's - now here! Things have been going missing!
Get out!" said Mr.Malton above the noises of his blowtorch's hissing and Billy's
growling.
  A stick hit something. "Right on yer 'ead and no effect!" the rough voice
swore, "%^$#$ yer fancy riot 'elmet! Fight fair, yer fancy man with an 'ouse and
a job turnin' us out of everywhere!".
  "Dggg - get out of there you flearidden ..." said Mr.Malton, grunting as if he
was grappling with someone while saying it.
  "No I'm $%% not. Yer must go back to work. I can wait." said the rough voice.
Billy's growl changed to a whine. "Leave my dog alone, you miserable ..." said
Mr.Malton threateningly.
  "Now <you>'re pleadin' with <me>, ha ha ..." the rough voice started, then
changed into a horrible yell of pain.
  Two boys burst into a French lesson. When the teacher objected, one of the two
replied hurriedly: "Please sorry sir, Mr.Malton who wears the blowtorch on his
back, him and his dog 've gone in under the gym by the water tank and they're
having a fight with someone in there.".
  "Intruder! Go fetch Prowl (he's in the computer room) and whoever else you
can!" the teacher ordered.
  A scruffy rough-looking tramp crawled out from under the gym, moaning in pain,
limping on his right arm, with a long narrow deep flame burn through clothes and
skin on his right shoulder, blinking at the unwelcome revealing daylight. Billy
ran out after him and caught him by a wrist. Mr.Malton quickly followed.
"Captain Blowtorch!" said the tramp, "Yer $%^-in' everywhere! No peace.".
  "Catfood Joe! [see 104-114]" said Mr.Malton angrily, holding his hot hissing
blowtorch out at the tramp, "You can't stop thieving and trespassing! Ever since
that Mrs.Jones put you up to trouble.".
  "Call yer rabid wolf off, it's 'urtin'." said Catfood Joe, his wrist still
held hard by Billy.
  "Sha'n't." said Mr.Malton, "You're all the same. You say you're only dossing,
then you start pestering and thieving.".
  "Yoww, yer $%^ blowtorch, like those two thugs that turned us out of
St.Andrew's crypt [see 104]." said Catfood Joe, "I've still got a scar from
that. My skin'll 'eal, but my coat won't. People won't let me into jumble sales
to buy another, they'd rather destroy rubbish first. Let me down again, I've got
stuff down there. I were only dossin', I weren't takin' nuthin'.".
  [245] "I've no patience for you sort!" said Mr.Malton, "At my place, you
nearly burnt a parcel of valuable microchips for the fuel value of its
wrappings! And where's - the - caretaker's - bicycle?".
  "All yer fancy bits of valuable stuff. There's just five sorts of stuff that
matter: I can eat it, or I can drink it, or I can wear it, or I can burn it to
get warm, or I can sell it. Else sling it. What bike? I ain't seen no bike".
  "Where's - the - caretaker's - bicycle?".
  "You're like the cops, you don't give up! OK, I sold it to NP & AL's." said
Catfood Joe, squinting at the hissing blowtorch flame.
  "They're shut. They got put inside for stealing.".
  "Then three other men opened it again! See, yer don't know everythin'.".
  "They also got put inside. They were caught thieving at Wernicke's. NP & AL's
are shut. Try again.". [see 25-28]
  "OK, you win. I sold it at 147 Jackson Row." said Catfood Joe.
  "There's no such address! Try again!" came the electrosynthesized voice of
Prowl who had driven up behind him.
  Catfood Joe's mind clouded over. He had that hateful trapped feeling, with the
wide world near him, but him shut up in a corner of it, with no escape unless he
coughed up some wretched bit of information about something that he was supposed
to have taken or seen, endless hard questioning, every evasion or lie detected
and thrown back at him at once. His old reliable getaway, sending the
interrogator on a wild goose chase while he got away, went down under a
technologically efficient system of men and Wernicke's robots all in radio touch
over one scruffy pushbike, while scavenging-time slipped away and others picked
the best stuff. He had to tell the truth. "OK. OK. Save yer car fuel and
walkietalkie batteries. I sold it to ..." he said, cursed, and gave the address.
  "Huffer's near there. He can look at any bicycles there, and radio the
pictures of them to me. The caretaker can look at them on my dashboard screen."
said Prowl.
  "The place <is> a general dealers, and there <is> a bicycle there that answers
the description." came Huffer the transforming orange 2-axled artic cab's voice
from Prowl's dashboard.
  Catfood Joe thought briefly of running away while everybody was busy, but
Mr.Malton stopped him.
  "That's my bike!" said the caretaker, leaning into Prowl to look at his
dashboard screen. Prowl transmitted these words back to Huffer, and the general
dealer heard them and knew that he was in trouble again. Huffer unfolded an arm
from behind his cab, reached into the shop, took the bicycle, examined its frame
number, and confirmed its identity.
  "Oi!" You overgrown tin can, pay for that bike or leave it! I paid good money
for it! It's mine!" the general dealer complained.
  "It isn't. Your money's gone. Don't buy from thieves. Or find the thief and
get the money back from him." said Huffer.
  "Oh no!" said the dealer, "Likely the usual, `receiving stolen property',
fine, court costs, and I owe two fines already. Last man here got put inside for
unpaid fines, and when he came back the place had been stripped. Please! Just
take the bike! I'll even throw in the saddlebag that was on it. Only don't take
it to the courts again.".
  "<No>. Forgive thieves and they keep on stealing, and the same goes for
`fences'. Thieves can't steal to sell if nobody'd `fence' for them. Trying to
get thieves ashamed of stealing rarely works in the real world; they only listen
to force." said Huffer.
  The dealer brought a saddlebag out. "Is this your saddlebag?" said Huffer to
the school caretaker over Prowl's radio.
  "No. That's a scruffy old one. Mine was bigger and in a lot better condition."
came the caretaker's voice in reply. The dealer swore and went back in and
brought the correct saddlebag out.
  "Open it. There should be a cycling cape in it." said the caretaker.
  "Here it is for you." said the dealer.
  "No, that's a scruffy old one." said the caretaker.
  The dealer swore and went back in and brought the correct cycle cape out.
  "There should be a puncture repair kit in there also." said the caretaker.
  "Here it is." said the dealer.
  "Open it so we can check its contents are still there." said Prowl over
Huffer's radio.
  "%^& you! You don't miss a thing!, acting the big boss, your size and all
steel and could gas my shop out in a moment with your $%^ diesel exhaust pipe,
and they moan about people smoking." the dealer swore at Huffer, and went in and
brought a package out.
  "There were some sandwiches in there also." said the caretaker.
  "Ate them." said the dealer.
  "Quid for them please." said Huffer, and reached into a corner below his cab
and took out a huge collapsible handnet.
  The dealer took one look at this and decided not to try to suddenly run away.
He handed over the pound. "You're like the cops!" he cursed, and started to
whine: "Please! I've got a living to earn, and I owe money. How was I to know
he'd stolen it?".
  "Please, etc, boohoo tears very pathetic." said Huffer angrily, and revved his
engine loudly, as he laid the bicycle on his rear and put his arms flat on top
of it, "So have pleaded many honest victims of thieves for necessary items back,
for example a student's bag is stolen and he loses two years' notes, and
suchlike. People who keep stealing have to be put inside where they can't steal.
Let them off and they do it again. You go to court. Don't try telling the beak
that you can't tell who looks a thieving type and who not. You've seen enough
people bringing stuff in. For a start, how could a filthy ragged tramp afford a
good bicycle?".
  "Talking lorry telling me what to do. If you were my size you wouldn't talk so
fancy. I've a living to earn." moaned the dealer.
  "At other people's expense. The owner needs his bicycle to go to work on."
said Huffer. The police arrived and arrested the dealer.
  At the school, everybody there heard this argument over Prowl's radio. Catfood
Joe watched in familiar despair the workings of communication devices and
organization which he had no hope of equalling. "Still nowhere near that lot
letting me go, while others get all the best scavengings at the tip." he
thought, looking at Mr.Malton's overmuscular overall-encased cylinder-equipped
body, and hot hissing blowtorch flame held out at him, and Billy's growling now
joined by the school's dog, and Prowl's steel bulk.
  [246] "Never mind trying to send people on wild goose chases to gain time!
Two-way radio changes much! Find a proper honest job and leave stuff alone!"
said Mr.Malton, largely at anger at the delay to his work, for long-term tramps
are incorrigible.
  Boys arrived. "Coo, Johnny! I <told> you I heard noises below when I was in
the gym that time." said one of them.
  "Something foul in the neighbourhood? / Something poo! and it don't smell
good? / Who are you going to call? Trampbuster!" some of the boys sang to the
`Ghostbusters' tune.
  "Tramps, ghosts, nobody wants either around. We can't simply disappear. We
must live! Leave us alone." Catfood Joe moaned.
  "Fine, if you'd keep out of places and not make a mess or pinch stuff. And if
someone does give you stuff, you're all round him like flies for weeks
afterwards, until people have to call the police to you. People need their stuff
for themselves." said Mr.Malton.
  A police car arrived. Mr.Malton said to one of its crew: "Oh, police, you've
come at last. <Please> get this #$% put away this time. The security men round
here are fed up of him urging the other vagrants to trouble. People keep on
having to turn them out of different places. This time he was building a nest in
a cavity under the school gym.".
  Mr.Malton went back to mending the water tank stand. Catfood Joe, handcuffed
to railings, watched helplessly as the caretaker and two teachers went in under
the gym and cleared everything out. "I didn't take nuthin'. 'Ere we go again, to
be $% interrogated all night and not @# fed." he moaned, even as among a litter
of cartons and scavengings and old mattresses were found the missing books from
Prime Bookshops, and clothes missing from clotheslines round about, and the
missing machine sheet.
  "Take what's property or evidence, and I'll burn the rest and disinfect the
place. Enough of this nuisance. Quite a collection down here. This is all of it.
And he said he was `only dossing'." said the caretaker.
  The policemen took everybody's statements and shoved Catfood Joe into their
van and took him away.
  "Now we know who's been nosing around at night, <before> he'd' have brought a
lot more to `doss' in there." said the teacher.
  Some of the boys then sang this to the tune of `The Runaway Train':-
  "The dirty tramp went under the gym, and he stank, and he stank. [twice]
  He thought that nobody knew of him, and he stank, stank, stank, stank, stank.
  He tried to steal everything he found, and he stank, and he stank. [twice]
  He stored it in his lair underground, and he stank, stank, stank, stank,
stank.
  Captain Blowtorch came with his gas-tanks on, and they clanked, and they
clanked. [twice]
  And quickly to the place was gone, and they clanked, clanked, clanked,
clanked, clanked.
  His wolf went in and he went in, and it growled, and it growled. [twice]
  And soon from below came an awful din, and it growled, growled, growled,
growled, growled.
  His blowtorch lit the secret den, and it hissed, and it hissed. [twice]
  And made things hot for the tramp again, and it hissed, hissed, hissed,
hissed, hissed.
  The tramp ran out with a yell so shrill, and he stank, and he stank. [twice]
  And for all I know he is running still, and he stank, stank, stank, stank,
stank.".
  [247] Mr.Malton got into his van and put his blowtorch-set beside him on the
left front seat. As he drove back to his works, he thought: "This'll get me even
more reputation that I don't know whether I want it or not. Plus the inevitable
people who are themselves safe from vagrants, talking sarcastically about my
`great victory of the rich over the poor', and suchlike `teargas' - trouble is,
some things need doing! Never mind `longsufferingness', it takes too long and is
expensive in lost time and lost goods, when one strong action would stop the
nuisance and expense and loss, like when my men were just in time to stop those
tramps that time from burning that parcel of robot brain microchips from
Wernicke's for the fuel value of its wrappings.".
  The caretaker burnt the rubbish. Some of the boys remarked that the smoke had
an unusual smell. That smoke and its smell drifted downwind to other eyes and
noses, some of which recognized the smell and its meaning - of which more came
later.

        A few nights later the other tramps came across Catfood Joe. His uneasy manner
as if he would have given much to be anywhere else, clean rags and hair and
skin, and smell only of disinfectant, boded ill. He had a long narrow burn on
his right shoulder. One of them asked him: "Catfood Joe! You've been missing us!
What about the plan? When do we move in?".
  "I - er - um - in a few days - I'm not finished yet - er - " he prevaricated.
  "You mean you got caught, and the cops or the prison scrubbed you and boiled
your clothes. How did you get the burn?" another asked.
  "It's in 'and! Go there when I say and not before, when I've put all our stuff
in there. Too many people about and they'll 'ear us." Catfood Joe snapped and
went off to the tip to scavenge.
  But one of his followers disobeyed and went behind the school gym that same
night. "One of the boards is loose. The nails 'oldin' it on are only 'eads, for
show, 'cept one at each top corner. Looks real natural." Catfood Joe had told
them. But instead the space under the gym floor was now solidly bricked in, with
a shiny new locked steel door. Nearby were the ashes of a big rubbish fire. "I
knew Catfood Joe was 'idin' somethin'. We trust 'im with our stuff, and the 'ole
thing's rumbled, and we've lost the lot again. I'm not takin' any more orders
from <'im>! 'E couldn't 'ave made <that>, any more than that Captain Blowtorch's
lot could make a real flyin' saucer!" he thought. Then on the door he saw a
robot face logo which he recognized all too well, for a somewhat similar one was
on that mobile transforming refuse destructor Shockwave who had turned them out
of Wernicke's spare garage with loss of all the stuff they had then. "Wer-nick's
$%^ robots again! One of <them> made it!" he swore, "That's the last time I
trust that Catfood Joe or let 'im order me around. 'E let that silly Mrs.Jones
talk 'im into thinkin' they'd let us stay in that spare buildin' at Smith &
Malton's, then at Wer-nick's [see 104-114]; but at both places they chased us
off and we lost a lot o' stuff. What do I get in life? 'Alf each night spent
gettin' fresh cartons to sleep in, 'cos cleaners take 'em away each day, and
cops come if we try to 'ang on to 'em. Now 'e says 'e's found us a lovely new
den, and we trust 'im with our stuff, and 'e loses it. 'E can %^& off out of
<my> life! <I> found that radio on the tip, <I> 'ad to keep it in batteries, <I>
got a blowtorch burn at St.Andrews crypt when those two thugs turned us out to
store drugs and stuff they'd stolen in there. But 'e kept actin' the boss all
the time, as if it was 'is, and told me what to 'ave on it. But at Wer- nick's
'e didn't make a ^%& move to save it, although 'e were right beside it, 'that
were <my> job' 'e said, when that performin' talkin' dustcart called Shockwave
ordered us out and sucked all our stuff up.". He noticed something written in
ballpoint on the door:-
  Unwashed one unwished-for <1> went in, sought to enter.
  Plan to bring companions, plot to den the lot there, <2>
  came to_end quick unfamous. Captain Blowtorch trapped him. <3>
  Scrapyard's hissing serpent <4> struck, and, rendered luckless,
  flea's fellow's mobile leasehold fled with outcry dreadful. <4>
  Enjoyed Catfood Joe to jest no need of guesthood. <5>   --etc-- <6>
  "Oh a `pome' [= poem]." he muttered, "I can't eat it or drink it or burn it or
wear it or sell it, so leave it. 'Ello, what's that about Catfood Joe? I better
try to sort it out, to find what 'appened 'ere. %^& 'ard stuff to understand.
  <1> Nobody wants us around. As usual.
  <2> <That>'s been rumbled, or they made 'im talk. Like I said.
  <3> <'Im> again!? 'Is works is enough pitch for 'im! 'E keeps tryin' to run us
off all our pitches.
  <4> Somethin' that 'isses in a scrapyard. Blowtorch, I s'pose. Like I got
burnt by one when those two thugs that said they were workmen but they were
actually crooks, turned us out of St. Andrew's crypt that time. Those things
'urt! I bet 'e did run!
  <5> Which translated from Outer Mongolian means, I suppose, "'e 'ad nuthin' to
boast about, about 'is stay there.".
  <6> And then somethin' about a wolf. I bet that walkin' weldin' shop's
Alsatian nosed 'im out. Dogs are a $%%, wuff wuff and out come men to chase us
off. Dogs are telltales. Some schoolboy boastin' about what 'e called a `famous
victory'. That's the end of that!". He went away and told the other tramps what
had happened.
  [248] "The head had the space under the gym bricked up, and Mr.Hoist from
Wernicke's made a steel door for it." said the caretaker to one of the boys
later, "There's a bunch of tramps that `try it on' at different places:
St.Andrews crypt; an empty house; Smith & Malton's; Wernicke's; bushes in the
park; a space at the market that the market men use [see 135]; now here. They
claim they're only sleeping, then they accumulate rubbish and start thieving and
begging, and then somebody's got to move them on. At least I got my bicycle
back. (No, heel, dog! You'll get fleas!) - The bell, you'd better go to your
next lesson.".

        Life at the school went on. Mr.Grundy got flu and Prowl had to fill in for
him. "Brrrm, history now. I seem to get nearly every subject at school. Good
thing I had about enough time to learn what I'm supposed to be teaching." he
thought as he read the class's homework essays as they studied a chapter in
their history textbooks. Then his electrosynthesized voice filled the room,
sounding rather sharp. "Treswell, you've been rather stupid! He's teaching the
Third Crusade. You were supposed to write about what happened. You've not got
much sense what to choose as source material!" he said, protruding claws from
two of his fingertips and holding the offending work between them as if it was
something noxious.
  "Now what's wrong? I looked it up like he said." said Treswell as he came
forward, already beginning to realize his mistake.
  "It's obvious, isn't it!" said Prowl, "Since when did mediaeval armies have
two-way radio with an alien spaceship acting as air cover!?!! Idiot! Next time
look at proper reference books in the history section in a library, not this
sort of dead-enders' sump drainings of fact and fiction mixed that
barrel-scraping writers of trash pollute their pages with! Where - did - you -
get - this - junk - from?!?".
  "From a -er book- at home that my brother's got. It's too far to the library
and raining." said Treswell looking miserably at Prowl's steel bulk, knowing now
all too well what he had done.
  "Book, or children's trash stories?" Prowl persisted, "Or did you think I was
some immigrant fresh from the boondocks from Cybertron that wouldn't know
better?! Can't you tell fact from fiction yet? If so, I can only say this: Take
no book as true unless it's got a non- fiction-type library Dewey number on its
spine! And if it turns out that you got that stuff from a comic-strip ...".
  "Did you unload ships there?" another boy asked, misunderstanding the word
`boon-docks'.
  "No. There was no Cybertron. I was made at Wernicke's factory. `Boondocks' is
American for `backwoods country, remote area', your nose always in American
stuff, I thought you'd have known that." said Prowl irritatedly to the
interrupter. Then he turned back to Treswell and said "This is one case too many
of this. You will bring me tomorrow this miserable misguiding trash, and all
your back issues of it, and don't buy it ever again; or I tell your parents and
the headmaster about this! Or right now swear that you won't ever again take
anything in a comic or a novel or a play as true! Stick to your schoolbooks and
non-fiction library books!".
  "I left my book here - I thought -" Treswell started hesitantly.
  "You thought wrong! You should have come back for your proper book, or not
have left it in the first place!" Prowl interrupted, [249] "Brrrm! I see! School
book left here, so you makeshifted by reading it in some trash fiction! Don't
makeshift! Makeshifts usually go wrong and damage things! Enough of this.
Mr.Grundy's also sick of having war-fiction treated as source fact when he
teaches the World Wars. And another time (sounds silly, but it happened), once
he was teaching about King Henry VII; and the same week the Beano - the
<Beano!!> - had a silly story about a boy on a bicycle that got teleported back
to Henry VII's time and carried a vital message, and three of the class reported
it as fact in essays! Any more of this, and it's time some parents and teachers
visited that comic's head office! And if the editor won't let us in, we wait
outside till he comes out. Either read complete fantasy that can't be true, or
absolute truth. Not a scruffy mixture of the two. Go by your schoolbooks and
your teachers and nothing else at all! If comics start mentioning historical
events, turn the page and leave it, and stop buying the comic. Now, Treswell, do
the work again, using the proper source material only. Now, <in the real world>,
after the fall of Acre ...".
  "Owwww!" Treswell thought, "Must read it from dull as ditchwater school books,
heavy blocks of text, lists of dates and names, no pictures. When they do
mention battle, no excitement usually. School's a yawn. And chrome-head Prowl's
picked it up from the other teachers. If it hadn't been for Hasbro Toys and
Marvel Comics making the fictional characters for that man Wernicke to make real
copies of, that oversized wirebrain wouldn't exist. Him and his spare brain area
connected to a remote camera at the back of the room. The amount of <our> comics
and sweets he's thieved, when we go at them behind our terminals when the lesson
gets boring.".
  "... Thus King Richard saw Jerusalem, but never reached it and never retook
it." Prowl finished, then returned to the matter of fiction stories: "Whenever
they try to make a film or a play or a comic or a novel out of history, it's the
same. They invent characters, they invent speeches, they invent details. They
must, to make a story interesting enough to buy. In short, they're misleading.
Some are more faithful to the original than others, but none are to be used as
source material for school studying. Jackson, the games master caught you
leaving the school at playtime. Why?".
  "Mum said I must buy a large white loaf and seven pounds of potatoes." said
Jackson.
  "No." said Prowl, "You stay here till school finishes for the day. I'll not
have school interrupted for errands and housework. Tell her from me to do her
own shopping. Your schooling matters for your own future.".
  Prowl started a history test that Mr.Grundy had written. Jackson quietly
switched his terminal on and logged in, thankful that his terminal let him log
in without any betraying key-clicks or beeps or cathode ray tube starting-up
noises. He typed `SLIST ABCD' - and to his dismay the computer displayed merely
the two lines "- Oh no you don't. / Signed Prowl" and asked for another command.
  "$%^! That lovely `crib' I set up on a computer file for this history test.
How did he spot it?" Jackson thought. The reason was that Prowl also was
connected to the school computer, in systems mode so he could watch all user
activity. "Look!" he said, "Never mind trying to make me think you know things
that you don't know. You've got to learn these things some time! Some time
you'll be grown up and out of school and you'll <have> to know things, to do
whatever job you get to earn money. Money doesn't come from nowhere. Your
parents won't live for ever. Same as young hawks and owls have to learn to catch
their own food before winter starts.". Jackson silently mourned wasted effort
and started to sort through the layer of dust and comic characters and pop music
groups at the bottom of his braincase for any remnant of his history lessons
that he could scavenge and piece together.
  In the metalworking building Mr.Malton was explaining the special problems of
welding aluminium when someone rang on his acetylene cylinder with a knuckle and
a boy's voice behind him said "Headmaster wants to see you.".
  "Oi! Don't ring on my cylinders! That's not what they're for. People keep
doing that. What's he want?" said Mr.Malton looking round. At the end of the
lesson he went to see the headmaster, who thought "In he marches in his welding
kit and heavy boots and thick overalls, and blowtorch gas tanks on his back.
<Does> he have an office suit to his name?? And like most adults he'll likely
object and interrupt and contradict, no idea of `Sorry, sir.' as a boy would (or
should). The only sort of `sorry' that adults ever are nowadays is `Sorry, but
...', meaning that they won't help me.", then said "Mr.Malton, there are
complaints of an incident in metalworking class - you siding with boys against a
teacher.".
  "With due respects," said Mr.Malton, "but it was a matter that was bound to
arise some time. Mr.Allington's rigid enforcement of school uniform rules versus
industrial safety practicality, when working on or near machines. [250]
Higgins's accident was largely the result of him being ordered to unsafe working
practise as regards clothes! Myself, I won't allow neckties or anything else
loose in my machine rooms. The only place for neckties, wristwatches, jewellery,
and anything else loose, is in the pocket out of harm's way. At first Higgins
and others, sensibly, took their ties off when on the machines. But Mr.Allington
wouldn't allow it. A tieless neck's like a red rag to a bull, to him. Then as a
last attempt at safety, Higgins tried pinning his tie back to his shirt with a
safety pin in metalworking, but that wasn't allowed either.
  `Higgins! What's <this> now?' said Mr.Allington to him then, ``School ties
must be worn at all times within the borough boundary, except at school games' -
the rule's quite clear! Never mind some teachers Nelson's-eye-ing the scruffy
tramp habit of open neck shirts in hot weather! `It may get in the machine'?
Then <be careful>! Keep an eye on it! Now you've found <another> rule to break!:
`No tiepins will be worn.'. Quite clear, so you find a little cheeky symbol of
defiance. You will write a three-page essay on the tradition and respect for the
school tie and the importance of wearing it properly and not getting pinholes in
it. Metalworking, yes; you getting a workman mentality, no: overalls, loud
checked shirts, no ties, etc. No more of this!'.
  `Sir, but Mr.Malton said ...' Higgins started to reply.
  `Captain Blowtorch this, Captain Blowtorch that!' Mr.Allington interrupted,
`He rules in his factory, not here! Encouraging you boys to think it's big to
look like workmen! Fancy shoes, fancy haircuts, I get all sorts, if it's against
school rules, they'll wear it, as teenage advances. One boy even started coming
on a motorcycle in full kit looking like a spaceman. The - rules - hold!'.
  Trouble is, people <can't> <both> concentrate on their work sufficiently <and>
watch other things. Unable to do anything about his tie being loose, the
inevitable happened and while he was concentrating on some difficult work, his
tie gradually came out of his pullover and got wrapped round the rotating
workpiece.".
  "Couldn't he have just switched the machine off?" the headmaster asked,
distractedly pulling at his own hair.
  "<Not> that easy, fumbling for buttons in that sort of predicament!" said
Mr.Malton, "And even then, the motor turns several times more before stopping!
Lucky one of the boys had a knife to cut him loose just in time! Why not accept
that `circumstances alter cases'? You let them wear special clothes for games!
If he hadn't been quick with that knife, you and me and Mr.Allington'd probably
have a coroner's inquest to attend. The rules of industrial safety have been
worked out the hard way by experience.".
  "OK, OK, you win." said the headmaster resignedly, "Things arising. Parents
getting stroppy about different things. A tramp dossing under the gym. What
next? Industrial this, industrial that, intruding. OK, I better get overalls for
the metalworking class, and excuse them from ties on the job. As a matter of
wondering, what <did> you find under the gym when you turned that tramp out?".
  "Rubbish, old bedding, cartons, scavenged bits, what only a tramp would find
valuable. Also stuff he'd stolen. Dirt and fleas and smell and mess already. He
was going to set up a den for a whole lot more in there." said Mr.Malton.
  "That all? The caretaker reported a very odd smell when he burnt it." said the
headmaster.
  "All that I know. We had a good look through it, and took out everything that
was evidence or anybody's property." said Mr.Malton.