3f#17 – tradition
He tried to make his muscles un-clench, but it was like moving sandbars with teaspoons: too many muscles, too much tension. His comrades had impressed upon him how much more the cane would hurt if he fought it, just as the prefects waiting for him in the library would slaughter him if, as Antony put it, he brought his infernally awkward self along to the interview. Antony had been right about everything so far. His people were among the Coll’s first, not exactly its founding fathers, but among its founding sons. Antony’s surname could be found on any number of bronze plaques and silver cups in the cases lining Long Corridor. The prefects, Antony explained, itched to demonstrate their power. They would lounge across armchairs in the vaulted-ceiling library, monopolizing the chamber from five o’clock onwards. It was traditional to face prefectorial inquisitions there, the twelve idly flicking through newspapers while you trembled across the vast Persian rug. Whether or not you possessed a valid defense, it would never move a murder of prefects. By the time you received a summons to the library, your arse, as Antony put it, was a fish on their hook, fit only for the fire.
It was tradition, Antony said, for a new band of prefects to make an example of one boy from each form. Their handiwork had been on display in the changing rooms all week. The IIIrd always got it last.
It was going to hurt. He had to relax. Now.
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August 24th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Nice description of one boy’s looming confrontation with history and tradition.