Stephen Fry - The Liar

'We make as many runs as possible before we're all out.'

'Sir, suppose they can't get us all out?'

'That's when you have to declare, dear. Make sure you judge it so that there's time to put them in again, bowl them out and then pass their total before stumps. We don't want a draw.'

'When are stumps?'

'Narborough's Mr Cartwright and I agreed on seven o'clock. I'll have to ring the school and check with the headmaster. You'll be late for bed of course, but it'll all be the most super-duper fun.'

The whole school turned out to watch after lunch. As Adrian had feared, Narborough's leg-spinner, Ellis, completely baffled his boys. Once they had got used to the ball bouncing and spinning one way, he would send down top-spin and undetectable googlies that made the ball fly off to the waiting close field. Chartham was all out for thirty-nine after an hour and a half of tortured embarrassment. Hugo looked very smug as Narbor-ough prepared for their second innings.

'We're only twenty-five ahead,' said Adrian.

'That's all right, isn't it, sir?' said Rudder. 'If we get them out for fourteen again we'll have won by an innings and eleven runs.'

'If.'

The Narborough openers stalked to the wicket looking determined and confident. They were playing in front of their home crowd now and had experienced the satisfaction of seeing the Chartham team writhe.

Rudder's first ball was a wide. Adrian signalled it, with raised eyebrows.

'Sorry, sir,' said Rudder with a grin.

His next ball was driven to the mid-off boundary, the next was hooked for six. The fourth, a no-ball, was late-cut for two which became six after four overthrows had been added. The next two were both glanced for four. Rudder turned to Adrian to collect his sweater.

'Two more balls yet, Simon.'

'Sir?'

'There was a wide and a no-ball in there. Two more balls.'

'Oh. Yes, sir. I forgot.'

The next two were each smacked for four over Rudder's head.

'What's going wrong, sir?'

'What's going wrong is you're not bowling properly. Line and length, darling, line and length.'

For the next two hours the opening pair batted freely and fiercely, putting on a hundred and seventy-four, until one of the batsmen, the same man Rudder had clean bowled first ball of the morning, retired to let some of his friends enjoy the slaughter.

Hugo's merriment was unbearable over tea, for all the whiteness of his teeth and the sparkle in his eyes.

'Well that's a bit more like it,' he said. 'I was beginning to get worried this morning.'

'Dear old friend of my youth,' said Adrian, 'I'm afraid you've discovered our principal weakness.'

'What, you can't bowl you mean?'

'No, no. Sympathy. My boys were simply devastated by your glumness at lunch, so we decided to cheer you up by letting you have some batting practice. I take it you're declaring over tea?'

'You bet. Have you out of here, tail between your legs, by half past five.'

'Is that a promise?' said a voice behind them. It was Professor Trefusis.

'Certainly, sir,' said Hugo.

'What do you think, Mr Healey?'

'Well let me see . . . two hundred and thirty-nine to make before seven. I think we can do it all right, if we don't panic'

'Ellis isn't tired, you know,' said Hugo. 'He can bowl for hours at a stretch.'

'My boys were beginning to read him by the end,' said Adrian. 'We can do it.'

'I have just placed a bet with my nephew Philip,' said Trefusis. 'Two hundred pounds on Chartham to win at odds of five to one against.'

'What?' said Adrian. 'I mean . . . what?'

'I liked your entrance papers, most amusing. I don't see how you can fail.'

'Well,' said Hugo, as Trefusis ambled away, 'what a bloody idiot.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Adrian, popping a sandwich into his mouth, 'smart investment if you ask me. Now, if you'll forgive me, I have to go and brief my platoon.'

'Want a side bet?' Hugo called out after him.

'Right,' said Adrian to his team. 'There's a man out there who is so sure, based on the evidence of what he's seen, that you can do it, that he has bet two hundred pounds that you will blow these bastards out of the water.'

They were padding up in the pavilion, forlorn but brave, like Christians preparing for an away match against Lions.

'But what do we do about Ellis, sir!' said Hooper. 'He's impossible.'

'That's a trough of piss. You step up to him and you cart him all over the park, is what you do. Just don't get pushed against your stumps. Aim for the close-in fielders, if you miss the ball you might manage to belt them with your bat on the follow-through.'

'Isn't that a bit unsporting, sir?'

'Arseholes. Whistle, hum, look unconcerned, look bored. When he's ready to bowl, you step forward and say you're not ready. Disturb his rhythm, demonstrate contempt. Don't forget, I'm out there, and he'll want to bowl from my end because of the slope.'

'You won't cheat will you, sir?'

'Cheat? Good heavens. This is an amateur cricket match amongst leading prep schools, I'm an Englishman and a schoolmaster supposedly setting an example to his young charges. We are playing the most artistic and beautiful game man ever devised. Of course I'll cunting well cheat. Now, give me my robe and put on my crown. I have immortal longings in me.'

Out in the middle, little Ellis took the ball and flipped it from hand to hand, with the disturbing competence of a born spinner of the ball.

Adrian patted his head.

'Good luck, little chap,' he said. 'Don't get upset if they punish you a bit. It's only a game, eh?'

Ellis looked puzzled. 'Yes, sir.'

A sporting round of applause from the Narborough boys welcomed Chartham's opening pair to the wicket.

'Here they come now. They're both rather savage hitters of the ball, I'm afraid. But if you don't lose your head you should be able to cut it down to ten or so an over. A word of advice, though. Try and do something about disguising that googlie of yours a bit better . . . sticks out like a sore thumb.'

Ellis tweaked the ball out of the side of his hand uncertainly.

'Thank you, sir.'

'All right, here we go. Don't be nervous.'

Frowde and Colville, the openers, had certainly taken the game-plan literally. They surveyed the field with lofty disdain and smiled faint patronising smiles at the short leg and silly point crowded around them, nicely blending admiration for their physical courage and doubt for their mental capacity. They were welcome to stand there and be cut in two, but they had been warned.

'Play!' said Adrian.

Ellis stepped forward. Frowde at the other end threw up a hand and bent to do up his shoe-laces.

'Sorry!' he called. 'Won't be a sec'

Ellis turned back to his mark and waited.

'All right, Frowde?' said Adrian.

'Fine thank you, sir. Just don't want to get tangled up when I start running.'

'Quite so,' Adrian dropped his arm. 'Play!!' he boomed.

Ellis bowled a full toss which Frowde hooked straight over the boundary. The short leg fielder glared at Ellis: the ball had nearly decapitated him.

Adrian signalled a four to the scorer.

'It was a six,' said Hugo at square leg.

'Sorry?'

'It was a six!'

'Are you sure?'

'Of course I'm sure! It went clean over.'

'Well if you're sure,' said Adrian, signalling a six. 'I didn't want to give ourselves two extra runs. That was a six, scorer!' he yelled, just as Ellis next to him was catching the return from deep mid-wicket. The blast in his ear made him drop the ball. Adrian picked it up for him.

'Try and get them to bounce on the ground first,' he said helpfully. 'That way it's harder for the batsman to hit quite so far.'

Ellis's second was a long hop square-cut for four.

'You see?' said Adrian. 'That's two fewer already.'