Childhood
|
This is Roald Dahl as a child in 1925 at a boarding school in Wales called St Peter`s boarding school. Before going to boarding school the oldest child of the family, Astri, died when she was 7 of appendicitis because in those days the doctors were not very good and they didn't manage to remove her apendix in time. And then Roald's father died just after Astri so his mother had to look after 5 children all on her own. Roald and his friends always went to a sweetshop after school with a mean owner called Mrs Pratchett who Roald and his friends did not like. In there class there was a floorboard which was loose and the boys used to use it to hide things under the floorboard. So one day they opened it and they found a dead mouse and they decided that they would use it to play a trick on Mrs Pratchett. They would put it in one of the sweet jars and then when she opened it and put her hand in, she would get a shock. So when they left the school they went into the shop and asked for what they wanted and when Mrs Pratchett wasn't looking, Roald put the mouse in one of the sweet jars and they left the shop. The next day after school they went to the shop but it was closed and through the shop window they could see the jar which Roald had put the mouse in, smashed on the floor so they thought she was dead. When they went to school the next day the headmaster of the school asked for everyone to line up outside and they were wondering why. They realised that Mrs Pratchett was there. She walked down the line examining the children and when she got to the boys she said that that it was them who put the mouse in the sweet jar. So they all got caned. When Roald got home his mother saw the red mark where it had been caned. Roald explained to her that it had been caned but he did not tell her that it was him who put the mouse in the jar. Then she went to the school to complain. When she got back she decided that Roald should go to a different school because she did not want him to be at a school where they caned children for no good reason That was when she sent him to St Peters and Roald did not like it there so he pretended that he had appendicitis. The school doctor believed him but when he got home, his mother took him to another doctor who knew he was faking it. So he did go back to boarding school but not to St Peters but to a different school called Repton in England because he did not like St Peters.
|