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Not Too Chicken to Stone the Rooster Everyone can relate to the experience of being rudely awakened by someone or something - how it can really get up your nose and sometimes prompts you to react irrationally. I share with you a true story of an incident that occurred in class 10 boys' dormitory in Fern Hill. Mr Matthews, a brilliant Maths teacher owned a number of hens ( I can't tell you the exact number because I was never good at Maths) and a young budding rooster. Mr Matthews was also our warden. We didn't have grizzles about the chicken run except when the rooster decided to wake the dead with his crowing well before the first rays of the sun struck Tiger Hill. It was bad enough on normal school days but we felt cheated and frustrated come Sundays mornings. This was our 'sleep in' time. We discovered that roosters, like alarm clocks, cannot differentiate between week days and week ends. One can adjust alram clocks but roosters ......... There was a group of boys who intensely disliked the idea of having their morning heralded in this fashion and the incubating emotion hatched into a full blown plan to put a stop to this torment. A group of us would collect suitable sized stones. A "rock thrower" would be appointed - someone with a reputation for accuarcy. The purpose was not to terminate the life of the feathered offender but to deliver a short sharp shock to permanently discourage this foul behaviour. As the chooks did not come out at that hour of the morning, the tin roof of the chicken pen was the target. So a rock launching candidate was selected to accomplish the mission. He would have a sizeable collection of rocks to launch from upstairs at the first cocka-doodle do. Sunday morning - the whole dormitory is woken by a loud sound..... not the crowing of a rooster, not rock hitting tin roof but the shattering of glass. We sit upright to discover the "rock thower" looking disbelievingly at the window immediately in front of him. The stone silence turns to laughter when we realise that the 'hit man' has forgotten to open the window before launching his missile. Flooding into our heads are vivid images of our beloved warden deducting our pocket money. Mount Hermon - thankyou for the wonderful experiences. By : Dubs Rai Graduated : 1972 Date : 5/7/2003 23:50 |
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