Antony Buckeridge - Jennings and His Friends

For one minute after Jennings opened his eyes that morning he could not understand why he had woken up so early. Then he remembered. It was his birthday! He wanted to jump out of bed and tell the boys about it. But all the boys in the dormitory of Linbury Court Boarding School were still sleeping.

Jennings got up and looked at the next bed along the line where Darbishire was sleeping. Darbishire was his best friend, though Jennings was a lively boy and his friend was very slow in all he did.

"Wake up, Darbi, wake up!" said Jennings.

"What's the matter?" Darbishire opened his eyes.

"It's my birthday today!"

"Yes, of course. Many happy returns of the day," said Darbishire. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep again.

"Oh, wake up, Darbi! Let's dress quickly and go and meet the postman. I'm going to get a birthday parcel from my parents."

Jennings went to the washbasin and began to wash. He cleaned his teeth, washed his face and hands, his neck and ears - it was his birthday! - and dried them on the towel. Then he turned from the washbasin and saw that Darbishire was still in bed.

"Get up, quickly, Darbi!"

"I'm coming," said Darbishire.

The bell rang and the boys in the beds near the washbasin, Venables, Temple and Atkinson, got up.

"I say, you don't know what day it is today," said Jennings.

"It's Friday," answered Venables, a tall boy, too tall for his twelve years. "It's Friday and we are going to have fish for breakfast. We usually have fish for breakfast on Fridays."

"Yes, but what else?" asked Jennings.

"What else? Tea with milk."

"No, I don't mean that. It's my birthday."

"Many happy returns," said Atkinson

"We are going to have a birthday cake today, aren't we" said Venables.

"Certainly," said Jennings. "My mother is sending me a wonderful cake. I'm going to the hall to see if the postman is coming."

But when Jennings ran up to the door, it opened and the teacher on duty came into the dormitory. It was Mr Wilkins.

Mr Wilkins was a large and strong man. He could be pleasant when he wanted to, but he was not a patient man and he did not understand why the boys of twelve could not behave like teachers, for example.

"Why are you making that noise, Jennings?" asked Mr Wilkins. "And why have you already dressed? You know very well that pupils must not get up before the bell."

"Yes, of course. But I hurried to the hall to see..."

"You know well," repeated Mr Wilkins, "that you must stay in bed till the bell rings. Very well, you will stay in class during football this afternoon and do some work for me"

"Yes, sir," said Jennings, but to himself he said: "Boys who have birthdays in the holidays don't know how happy they are."

"Please, sir! Mr Wilkins, sir!" It was Darbishire with one sock on and the other in his hand.

"What's the matter, Darbishire? Hurry up!" said Mr Wilkins.

"It's Jennings' birthday today, sir, and he wanted to go down to the hall to meet the postman."

"Oh! Well, if it's his birthday... Well, let's forget about it."

Mr Wilkins looked angrily at those boys who were not celebrating a birthday that morning and left the dormitory.

"Thank you, Darbi," said Jennings. "It was very nice of you to tell Old Wilkie that it was my birthday. I didn't want to stay in class during football on my birthday."

"All right," said Darbishire. "You can call it my birthday present to you if you like."

"Thank you very much. Now put on your left sock and we'll go down to the hall and see if the postman has come."

Darbishire put on his left sock, then his spectacles and the boys hurried to the hall where they saw three letters for Jennings and three parcels

"The big parcel is my birthday cake. But what is in the other two?" said Jennings.

They opened the parcels at once. There was Jennings' birthday cake in the first parcel, of course. When they opened the second parcel, from his father, Jennings was very happy.

"A camera! That's what I wanted to have for my birthday! We can do a lot of things with a camera, can't we, Darbi?"

"Yes, we can," answered Darbishire, "but let's not do a lot of things with the camera. Let's take photos with it."

"That's what I meant. I can take a photo of you when you are standing up, for example, and then you can take a photo of me when I am sitting down, and then I can take a photo of you when you are sitting down, and you can take..."

"There's another parcel," said Darbishire

"Oh, yes, of course. From Aunt Angela."

When the boys opened the last parcel they saw a square box.

"The Junior Printing Outfit!" read Darbishire.

They opened the box and saw letters made of small pieces of rubber and a pair of tweezers with which they could take the letters and put them in the printing block.

"How wonderful!" said Darbishire. "Now we can print our names on all our books."

"Yes, but the first thing that I'm going to use it for is to answer all these birthday letters," answered Jennings, "because I usually write the same things to my father, mother and Aunt Angela."

Darbishire took a row of rubber letters with the help of the tweezers from the box and began to look at them. But he could not see much because his spectacles were too dusty.

"I can't see whether these letters are e's or a's," he said. "My father says that..."

But at that moment he pressed to hard with the tweezers and all the little rubber letters were at once in the four corners of the big hall.

"I'm very sorry," said Darbishire.

The breakfast bell rang.

"What are we going to do?" asked Jennings.

"I don't know," answered Darbishire. "All those letters were the same - e's or a's."

Jennings looked in the box and saw that Darbishire was right. There was a row of a's, a row of b's, a row of c's, a row of d's and there wasn't an e in the box!

"We'll come back after breakfast," said Jennings.

But after breakfast it was too late. When the boys came back to the hall they saw no letters on the floor: the floor was clean.

"Somebody has cleaned the floor with a vacuum cleaner," said Jennings.

For a moment they stood and looked at the clean floor. Then Jennings turned and went to the common room. Darbishire went after him.

"How am I going to write my letters now?" Jennings said.

"You can write something which doesn't have e's"

"Don't be funny," said Jennings.

"During breakfast I decided to print a Form Three wall newspaper. We can print all the news about Form Three in it and hang it on the wall."

"That will be wonderful."

"Yes, but we can't print any news which has an e in it. Well, I can ask Aunt Angela to send me some e's."

After tea that evening Jennings sat down at the table in the common room to answer his birthday letters. He wanted to try his printing outfit on his letters before he could begin to print a wall newspaper. He put x's in place of e's and soon the letter was ready. When Darbishire went into the common room Jennings showed him the letter.

"I say," Jennings said. "All that I must do now is..."

"Yes, but I have something to tell you," Darbishire began

"Never mind! Look at this!"

"I was only going to say...

Jennings put the letter under Darbishire's nose.

"Not bad, is it?" he asked. "Of course we must get these e's before we begin to print our well newspaper."

Darbishire began to read the letter.

"Dxar Aunt Angxla! Thank you for your birthday prxsxnt. I likxd all thx birthday prxsxnts which I had. Fathxr sxnt mx a cavxra and..."