Netherswell - By Jack Cummins
We crowded into the huge manor and tea was ready. I began munching cheese and tomato sandwiches, having not eaten the ghastly meat stew school dinner. Tim said, 'The sandwiches are gone. I only had one quarter.' I had seven. No one noticed because they had been devouring crisps. I kept a guilty silence.
The teachers liked my tadpole drawings but I felt so cold beside the pond. My ears ached. The next day I felt shivery and unable to get out of bed. Mr Kant took my temperature, 'You have a fever.' I was moved to the teachers' dormitory, wearing my Kung Fu pyjamas.
The week seemed an eternity and I was relieved to go home. I felt the teachers had a grudge against me forever. It was a dawning realisation of not blending and always standing out like a red, ugly, inflamed thumb.
The teachers liked my tadpole drawings but I felt so cold beside the pond. My ears ached. The next day I felt shivery and unable to get out of bed. Mr Kant took my temperature, 'You have a fever.' I was moved to the teachers' dormitory, wearing my Kung Fu pyjamas.
The week seemed an eternity and I was relieved to go home. I felt the teachers had a grudge against me forever. It was a dawning realisation of not blending and always standing out like a red, ugly, inflamed thumb.
Comments (14)
This came out of the blue for me.
Our hero needs to give us more hint to warrant this thought about "grudge against me forever". Just a small, important detail does it.
I like it that the process of drawing the tadpole was live, instead of copying from a picture.
If it were a longer story, it would have suffered from too many details, but as it was, a got the gist, or geist, as it were.
I remember a similar feeling in grammar school, where the art teacher thought me creative and interesting, but most others just as a cut up. I think that bothered them more than me though.
Well. I had no idea this was a real place. Netherswell Manor in Bedfordshire.
What a pity the trip described by the author was less than happy :fear:
Quoting Bedfordshire Live - the school trips everyone will remember
Quoting Caldwell
I bet Tim did notice as he complained he only had a quarter of one. Already, there is a difference. The comparison/judgements being made as to the other children. The hero is feeling shame...but keeps it all inside. No sense of camaraderie.
A good artist but not one for en plein air. A weak and fragile child with his own grudge for being forced to be somewhere he felt out of place, cold and hungry. The illness. Is it real or psychosomatic?
He was transferred to a better place - to the teachers' dorm.
Kung Fu pyjamas. Were they commonly worn or was this another difference?
I can imagine a week being an eternity, especially if suffering from homesickness.
He perceived the teachers as having a grudge against him forever.
Well, they would, wouldn't they?!
A sickly child sharing their dorm. No :party: parties for them, poor dears. It would seem like eternal damnation to them too! Mr. Kant...hmm...
Quoting Caldwell
This surprised me. I had thought that this realisation would have been earlier. Though perhaps more concentrated and obvious in the circumstances. No escape home at the end of the day.
'A red, ugly, inflamed thumb' - the result of comfort sucking? A response to stress and anxiety.
***
I like this story. It feels real; a bad memory shared. Childhood can be a miserable time. Not all are able to join in. Unlike the hearty, joyful experience of being part of a group, there is no desire to reminisce.
Thanks, author. Whether it was real to you or not, you painted a painful perspective perfectly!
Perhaps, the narrator is just feeling sorry for himself. He had been greedy, eating more than his share of the sandwiches, after not wanting his dinner. The question may be whether he is sickly or attention seeking, getting sick and having to be moved to the teachers' dormitory and lying in bed in his kung fu pyjamas. The question may be do you have sympathy for him or loathe him, especially when he winges that the teachers have a grudge against him after he messed up the week? I am not sure that I like him.
They're interesting in similar meanings in the sense to get the gist is to understand the spirit of the thing, yet the etymology of gist (French/Romance) references the ground, as if to understand the underlying structure of the thing.
Curious how one references the ground (the earth) and the other the spirit (the heavens) (geist/ghost) (German/Germanic) yet the similar meanings.
My suspicion is a common Indo-European root.
Still, I like that the heavens are found in the grounds. Look at your feet (your ability) for God, not the skies (God's intervention). I like that thought.
Deep thoughts right?
I don't dislike him (I'm assuming our hero is a he). I think his outlook of himself was harsher than how the people around him viewed him. This is all his thoughts full of negativity. I was delighted to read he drew a tadpole by the pond. haha.
Also, eccentricity is not a strange thing to me, so the description is not a problem. lol. :cool:
It may be an example of an unreliable narrator because a person's perceptions of what is happening, especially of others' opinions, can be extremely distorted.
Thank you for your extremely detailed analysis. It was a disastrous week. I felt really miserable about having to go be in the teachers' dormitory because I wanted to be with my friends. As for whether the illness was psychosomatic, it probably was not entirely that because I had an ear infection. A teacher had to get me to a doctor and I was given antibiotics. However, I did see a link between the illness and feeling guilty over eating too many sandwiches. It was probably the fact that I didn't admit to it, but, of course, once I had eaten them I couldn't uneat them. Generally, after the first meal I barely ate anything for the rest of the week.
You queried whether others had Kung Fu pyjamas and no one else did. They were unusual because they were like a Kung Fu outfit but with designs of Kung Fu fighters printed on them. When I went back to school the next week a friend thought it strange seeing me in uniform rather than the pyjamas.
I see your looked up Netherswell and it is a place where so many school groups went. The good thing was that a few years later I did go back there for an art weekend and I did enjoy it the second time, which made up for the first experience.
I think I read this one on limited sleep, as when I re-read it now I find I like it a lot. I really like the economy of language, and there's a really deft flow of events, like here:
Quoting Caldwell
I found that really well done within the 200 word limit.
I also find it interesting that most of your stories seem to blur the line between fiction and non-fiction, based on your own descriptions of them. You seem to find plenty of material in your own life for stories, which I like. Most of mine have some degree of autobiography, but not to this extent, if I understand you correctly. It's a unique approach.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Yes. I tend to look at a title first to glean any clues.
This time it paid off. It looks quite magnificent. Really glad you enjoyed the art weekend.
The tadpoles now all growed up...