'Please, sir, can I ask for a new pencil if mine is only one and three-quarter inches long?' It was Crosby.
When at last Mr Wilkins finished the list, he stood up from the desk.
'I'm going to the staff room to get these things for you. And you, please, write down your names on all your books and stationery,' said Mr Wilkins and went to the door.
'Sir, please, sir, how can I put my name on the eraser, sir?' It was Jennings. 'You see, I tried to write my name in pencil, sir, but it disappears every time I rub something
out.'
'I'm not taking any excuses,' said Mr Wilkins. 'Think of something!'
'But, sir...'
'Be quiet, Jennings, and do as I told you. If I find any of your things that hasn't your name on when I get back, I'll - I'll... Well, it had better have your name on, that's all,' said Mr Wilkins and left the classroom.
For some moments Jennings sat thinking. All his other things had his name on them. How could he put it on the eraser? 'And now that Mr Wilkins knows that my eraser hasn't got my name on, he will certainly want to know whether I have written my name on it or not... Shall I take a penknife and carve my name on the eraser?'
But at that moment he looked at the desk in front of him where Bromwich was gathering his books for the inspection. Near the books lay a ruler on which the name of the owner was branded by focusing the rays of the sun through a magnifying glass.
Here was the answer, Jennings decided. It was an autumn day, but the sun was shining brightly that afternoon.
'Hey, Bromo, may I borrow your magnifying glass, please?' asked Jennings.
Bromwich passed him the magnifying glass, and Jennings began to focus the rays of the sun on his eraser. Soon the eraser began to smoke. It worked! It worked! Jennings was happy.
Very slowly he began to move the magnifying glass, and soon the first letter of his name was ready. But he was so absorbed in his work that he did not notice a smell of burning rubber. But the other boys in the classroom noticed it.
'I say,' Venables turned to Temple, 'something is burning.'
'I'm sure rubber is burning somewhere,' answered Temple. He began to look around the room and soon found it. 'Hey, Jennings, what do you think you are doing? Are you trying to suffocate the whole Form Three?'
Jennings looked at him, surprised.
'I'm only writing my name on my eraser. Don't worry. I've nearly finished. I must only do another... Hey! Help! The whole rubber is on fire!'
In a moment the whole classroom was full of smoke.
'You must be crazy, Jen,' said Temple. 'What will Old Wilkie say when...'
The door opened and Mr Wilkins came into the classroom with exercise-books and stationery in his hands. But he did not go far. He stopped between the door and his desk and smelt.
'There's something on fire!' he said.
'It's all right, sir,' Jennings said quickly.
'It certainly isn't all right. I can smell it.' And he smelt again. 'Burning rubber, that's what it is.'
'Yes, I know, sir, but it was by chance. I was only doing what you told me.'
'I never told you to set fire to the building.'
'I didn't mean that, sir. I was only writing my name on my eraser, sir.'
'What! With a magnifying glass!' exclaimed Mr Wilkins when he saw the magnifying glass on Jennings' desk.
'Yes, sir. It worked well on Bromwich's ruler, sir, so I thought...'
'You silly little boy!' said Mr Wilkins and dropped the exercise-books and stationery on his desk.
Now Form Three decided to use the situation. The boys began to cough loudly.
'May we open the windows, sir?' said Atkinson,. and the boys ran to the windows.
'Be quiet!' said Mr Wilkins loudly. 'Stop this nonsense and go back to your places!'
'But, sir, we can't breathe, sir,' said Venables. 'You said yourself that the whole room was...'
'Do as I tell you and be quiet!'
When everybody was sitting down at their desks, Mr Wilkins said, 'You will have to come to the detention class this evening...'
'Oh, sir!' exclaimed Form Three.
'...if you don't behave yourselves now.'
Form Three breathed again. Mr Wilkins wasn't a bad man, after all.
'And you, Jennings...' began Mr Wilkins.
'But I was only doing what you told me,' said Jennings. 'You said I had to write my name on...'
'Don't argue with me, boy! I've had enough nonsense from you, and if I have any more I'll - I'll... Well, there had better not be any more nonsense, that's all.'
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The telephone line between dormitory 4 and dormitory 6
When Mr Wilkins went into the staff room after the end of afternoon school he found Mr Hind there.
'What's the matter, Wilkins?' asked Mr Hind. 'You look so sad.'
'You can't look happy after a lesson in Form Three. Take that boy Jennings for example...'
'Oh, yes! Jennings, as usual!'
'What can you do with a boy like that? I'm really tired of him.'
'He doesn't mean to be disobedient. But the harder he tries to be good the worse it is. We can only hope that after some time he'll learn how to behave,' said Mr Hind.
But during that week it was not quite so.
After Jennings had invented his home-made telephone the hobby spread through the whole school. Binns and Blotwell organized Form I Home-Made Telephone Line and the boys of Form I spent all their free time with tobacco tins near their mouths or ears. They sat in different parts of the common room and spoke to one another.
That was already not very interesting for Jennings. He was thinking of something new.
'It came to me suddenly in the middle of the history lesson,' Jennings said to the boys of Form Three. 'I thought we could make a direct line between Dormitory 6 and Dormitory 4. With the help of this line we can send messages after the teacher on duty puts the light out. That's the idea.'
It was a good idea, because the window of Dormitory 4 on the floor of the building was directly above the window of Dormitory 6. In Dormitory 4 Jennings and Darbishire together with Venables, Atkinson, Temple and Bromwich slept. Dormitory 6 was larger, and twelve boys slept there. Among them were Jones and Crosby who were now listening to Jennings' plan.
'When the teacher on duty puts the 1 light out,' Jennings explained, 'I'll lower (one end of the telephone out of my window to Dormitory 6. A tap of the tobacco tin on the window will tell you that I'm going to start. And you,' he turned to Jones and Crosby, 'will have to take your end of the telephone. The teacher on duty usually puts out the light in our dormitory and then goes down and does the same in your dormitory. So when I see that your window is dark, I'll begin to lower your .end of the telephone.'
'Yes, I understand that part of your plan,' said Crosby, a tall boy with red hair and freckles. 'But what messages are we going to send each other?'
That was a difficult question and Jennings knew it. 'We'll soon think of something to talk about,' he said. 'For example, you can... you can ring up and ask what the exact time it is. And we can say, 'At the third pip it will be eight twenty-seven exactly!''
'I'll do the pips,' said Darbishire.
'What else can we do?' Jennings thought. The most interesting messages were those, which he and Darbishire had during their lunar expedition.
Jennings turned to Crosby and said, 'I'll tell you what. Dormitory 4 can be Mars, and we'll pretend that you and
