Authors: Calvin Wade
“They’ve probably already asked him. They’ve already been ‘round to mine.”
“Look, Phil, if you don’t tell them what you saw, then I will. You owe it to Colin to tell them.”
Phil was looking more ashen faced by the second. My Mum called out impatiently again, I don’t know why she did that, it wasn’t as if we had an emergency meeting to go to, we were going back home. I just think sometimes parents like to make it known that their time is more precious than yours.
“I’m coming, Mum.....just tell the police, Phil,” I urged.
“Alright, alright! I’ll tell them, mate. That doesn’t mean Boffin did anything though, Simon, so don’t be going around blaming him, until you know what really happened.”
I moved towards the car.
“Thanks, Phil. You’re doing the right thing, mate. Colin would be proud of you.”
LUKE ‘BOFFIN’ BOOTH – September 1986
Some people should never have made it on to this earth. The very fact that they made it through the filtering system proves conclusively that either God does not exist or if he does, then he must be one of these peace loving hippies who would annoy the shit out of me. The sort of bloke who thinks we need variety. If there is a God, he must be an idiot. I have no respect for the sort of God who creates weaklings and oddballs, why should I? He’s flawed.
A decent God, the sort of God that would actually get my respect, would be one who recognised his own screw up before conception. A God who would abort any idea of creating weird looking creatures like Timmy Anderson. Timmy Anderson is in our year at school. He is a freak. A midget. He has stumpy little arms and legs and a huge head. Honestly, his forehead is so big the rest of our class could use it as a table rather than having to go into the canteen. Now why would a clever God create that?
We do pottery at school. If I’m honest, I’d say the Art classes we do are probably our best lessons. In pottery, if I screw up making my pot, make it too big or too little or too thick at the sides, I just grab the clay, scrunch it all together and start again. Why did God not do that with Timmy Anderson? He should have realised that he had made some defective little midget, who’s only function is to antagonise the normal ones, gone back to the melting pot and tried again. Instead of doing that, God probably got to the end of a long day of making people and was probably running short of clay. In his infinite wisdom, he must have decided he just about had enough time to make one more human, so would make the best of what he had. He probably used all the clay on the head and body and didn’t have enough left for the arms and legs. Timmy Anderson is the runt of God’s litter.
If Timmy had any redeeming features then I may have gone a bit
easier on him, but he hasn’t, none at all. I expect all midgets are hopeless at sports and Timmy is no exception. He is absolutely shit at rugby and even worse at P.E, he can’t climb the rope and I pissed myself laughing when Mr.Brand made him try to vault the pommel. There was no chance he was ever going to get over. I reckon Mr. Brand just made him do it for a laugh. I reckon Mr.Brand is like me, thinks Timmy shouldn’t even be at our school, that he should be at some school for tiny people or sent out to some island where every one is tiny like in Wizard of Oz or Willy Wonka’s factory.
Most of the kids who are crap at sports are normally swots. God has made them un-co-ordinated but intellectual, I get that. Not our Timmy though. His brain capacity is proportionate to his limbs. Tiny. I’m no genius myself but Timmy is thick and I mean really thick. As thick as the oldest oak tree in the forest.
So that’s why I bullied him. He was just asking to be bullied. What good is a brainless midget unless somebody decides to use him for their personal amusement? I think that’s why God put him on earth, for my amusement, to be my reluctant gimp.
TIMMY ANDERSON – September 1986
“Just grab the little twat by his tiny arms and legs!” commanded Luke “Boffin” Booth, to his three loyal, misguided troops.
School toilets tend to be the focal point of school bullying as it is an area that teachers will only venture into as a last resort. I had done my utmost to train my bladder to relieve itself just before school and then just after, to try to avoid the toilets myself, but this day I had reached lunchtime and knew I was going to struggle, so tried to creep in unnoticed just before afternoon lessons. I had failed.
Boffin and his three pals followed me in, the last in, Phil Moss, standing guard, to chase anyone else in there out, bar new entrants and keep watch for suspicious teachers. I was standing at one of the urinals, school urinals were very low so even I could reach, when I felt a boot in my back, pushing me sideways and making me spray urine over the floor and the bottom of my trousers. I didn’t need to turn to know who it was, I recognised Boffin’s voice and no-one else at school gave me a hard time other than Boffin’s rabble. With my back to them, I tucked my willy back in and then tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. I am guessing it would have looked like a slapstick comedy sketch as a urine soaked dwarf, zig zagged desperately under arms and between legs of his captors for a minute or two, before Luke ‘Boffin’ Booth took control, grabbed my school tie and pulled me towards him aggressively, not caring that the tie had tightened around my neck and had begun to choke me.
Luke Booth looked perturbed. He was a little smaller than average, freckle faced and ginger. He must have done weights though, as he was packed with muscles. Perhaps Boffin’s parents had read to him from Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” from an early age and it had dawned on him that his external features were likely to lead to childhood taunts. So, “survival of the fittest” as far as he was
concerned, meant he needed to be a psychotic bully who put the fear of God into every other child. Boffin also understood the concept of safety in numbers, so surrounded himself with other young thugs who tended to enjoy partaking in the chase and capture routine. Boffin meanwhile, preferred to look on and just implement the final stages of the torture. This particular lunchtime, he felt that his ground troops had let him down.
“Fucking hell lads! What’s the matter with you?” he asked as he reeled me in by the tie, like a fish on a rod.
“He’s a midget,” he continued, “he can’t weigh more than a feather! Why could you not have grabbed him, you knobheads?”
“It’s hard to grab a midget,” explained Chris ‘Pegs’ Gregory, “he’s slippery!”
“He’s not an eel, he’s just small,” was Luke Booth’s frustrated response.
“Anyway,” he continued with his brain obviously concluding it had now created a more imaginative retort, “you could have just grabbed his fucking huge forehead!”
Boffin prodded his finger against my forehead angrily.
“Look at it,” he said, “it’s massive!”
A dwarf. I was thirteen and a half and a dwarf. I hated being a dwarf, hated wearing clothing labelled aged 4-5, hated the mickey taking, the bullying, the constant feeling of being patronised, of being the freakshow and I particularly hated being called a midget. I am not a midget, I am a disproportionate dwarf.
My medical condition is known as achondroplasia, a bone growth disorder that means that my limbs are proportionally shorter than my head and abdomen. To answer the most often asked question, my parents are not dwarves. My father is just under six feet tall, my mother around five feet three. Approximately four out of five people with achondroplasia have normal sized parents.
Boffin was my nemesis. The ginger nut who snapped. He tortured me. Until this incident in the boys toilets, he had never physically laid a finger on me himself though, his henchmen had always done that. Whenever he grew bored of spitting phlegm on to the pristine jackets of the nerds or ordering the theft of their NHS glasses, so that they could be tossed, rugby ball like, amongst the physically strong, whilst they were chased by a squinting, helpless weakling, he would resort to Plan C. Plan C was humiliating Titchy Timmy, as I had been christened by my amoeba brained tormentors.
During the period that I fell victim to Boffin and his boys, a childrens TV programme was highlighting school bullying. The programme was Grange Hill and the bully was Gripper Stebson. Gripper didn’t bully a dwarf though, metaphorically and literally speaking, even he would not stoop that low. Boffin did though. As I’ve mentioned, I wasn’t his only victim, he bullied everyone that failed to conform to what he deemed as normality. If you were ugly, bespectacled, Asian, black, overly intelligent, physically weak, uncoordinated at sports or had a combination of these attributes, Boffin and his shallow friends would, in all likelihood, come calling. Those of us who were physically weak saw him most. As the smallest and weakest, I was his most abused victim.
“Oi, Mossy!” Boffin shouted over to Phil Moss, who continued to stand guard like the world’s least cuddly meerkat.
“Anyone coming?”
“No,” Phil replied before double checking.
“Good!” Boffin replied , by now he had stopped choking me with my tie and had instead administered a headlock.
“Pegs, go and have a crap in that end bog, but don’t flush it.”
“What for?”
I started to struggle, I was a step ahead of Chris Gregory, Boffin’s grip tightened.
“Just do it!” Boffin commanded.
“I don’t need a crap, Boffin, I had one before school.”
“What about you, Flanners?” Boffin asked.
Neil Flanagan was the final member of the gang. He was a year older than the rest of them, but had been ostracised by his own year group, largely for having a personality as attractive as a skunk’s anal scent glands.
“I’ll have a go!”
As befitting of his additional twelve month development, Neil Flanagan was the tallest and coolest gang member. His school tie was no thicker than the width of a shoelace and he moved like he had videoed Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever and constantly rewound and replayed Travolta’s cool walk. Flanners strutted into the cubicle and over the next two minutes, every plop and trump echoed around the old, damp room.
“Remember not to flush,” Boffin reminded him.
“I know. Can someone chuck some bog roll over from the next cubicle, there’s none left in here?”
“Pegs, chuck him some bog roll,” Boffin instructed.
Chris Gregory did as he was told before complaining he was too close to the stench and Flanners complained about the quality of school toilet paper.
“It is just literally paper,” Flanners moaned, “it’s like wiping your bum with bark.”
I persistently struggled, trying to kick my legs and to flail my arms, which was difficult when you were in the vice like grip of a physically stronger creature. It felt like the struggle of a dying onyx, when it had a tiger’s jaw attached to its neck and it was that thought that allowed me to develop a plan.
“You’re not putting my head down that bog, Boffin!”
I could feel Boffin’s body smile,
“
I’m afraid you’ve got that wrong ‘Titchy Timmy’, that’s exactly what I’m going to do!”
“No, that’s where you are wrong, Boffin!”
I may be small but sometimes that teaches you to develop your survival instinct. I dug my teeth deep into Boffin’s arm and clenched long enough for him to release his grip.
“Owww! You little bastard!”
Boffin cried out, inspecting the teeth marks in his arm and the trickle of blood, long before looking to see where I had gone. As a dwarf, I was never going to win an Olympic sprint gold, but I still shifted quickly when faced with a shit shampoo. I ran towards the exit and Phil Moss, who had been alerted to my approach by Boffin’s cry, had crouched down in a set position, ready to catch me, but I put my weight on my left foot, then sidestepped right in a move that Jeremy Guscott would have been proud of. Phil Moss grabbed out but totally missed me and I shoulder barged the door to freedom. The corridor was bustling with children, so I mixed in and shuffled my way along, knowing it would be hard for Boffin and his mates to spot me, I don’t exactly stand out in a crowd.
“Don’t you be thinking you’ve escaped me, Titchy Timmy,” was the familiar Boffin shout I heard trailing from behind me, “we’ll get you for this!”
I smiled. I knew he would get me too, but I was savouring the moment, the David beats the four Goliaths moment and almost immediately began to plan how I would evade the next one.
TIMMY ANDERSON – September 1986
“Fight! Fight! Fight!”
The all too familiar chorus of Secondary School boys rang out across the tarmac of Parklands High School. Normally, when this chorus rang out, I would stop what I was doing and run across to the fight scene as quickly as my little legs would carry me to see what was kicking off. Not this time though. This time I wasn’t a spectator, I was in the fight itself, or, to be more accurate, I was the kid being beaten up.
Luke ‘Boffin’ Booth had tormented me for long enough. I wasn’t physically capable of fighting back, but I had a brain, a better brain than his, so I didn’t want to endure the bullying without fighting back in some way. I devised a plan, but knew ultimately it would lead to a beating, but as this was already happening, it didn’t act as a deterrent. My plan was to bully him back!
Now, I suppose you are wondering how a child with disproportionate dwarfism was going to set about bullying a normal sized, ginger psycho? Well, my plan, which I have to say worked pretty effectively, was rather than to try to avoid him, to go looking for him. Bullies want to look good in front of their mates. They don’t want to look like an idiot. I wanted to do everything possible to make Luke Booth look stupid. If I was the least compliant of Boffin’s victims, eventually I believed he would look for easier prey. Petrels will try to make a meal out of a young penguin, but if the little penguin pecks them enough times, the petrel will soon conclude carrion is an easier option.
Strangely, I decided to call my plan ‘The Ha-Go Project’. In our History lessons, we had been doing about Japanese involvement in the Second World War. Operation ‘Ha-Go’ was the Japanese action to isolate and destroy Indian and British forces in Burma. My ambitious plan was to ‘isolate and destroy’ Luke Booth, so I felt ‘The Ha-Go Project’ was perfect. Well, it seemed perfect at the time anyway, now it seems a pretty ludicrous name!
My first plan of attack involved Wednesday lunch rotas. We were in the Third Year at Parklands at the time so the lunch rota worked so we were the th
ird year allowed in on a Monday, fourth year in on a Tuesday, last on a Wednesday, first on Thursdays and second on Fridays. When we were last in was the best time to attack.
Boffin had beans on toast every day. He always pushed or bullied his way to the front of the year queue, so as I was still queuing every day, I’d see him putting mountains of pepper on his beans on toast. I’m glad I wasn’t in his class, but I’m sure most afternoons he would have released gases that would have made a Chemistry teacher blush. Beans on toast
followed by strawberry sponge and custard. Every single day.
This particular Wednesday, the lunch rota was working particularly badly. I couldn’t care less that we were kept waiting for our food, I had already brought a sandwich from home that day and
eaten it at the start of lunch. I was just queuing for lunch as part of the plan. Once we eventually got into the dinner hall, I bought macaroni cheese on toast, which I didn’t even like, but it was 45p well invested. I also poured myself a glass of water from the silver jug and poured it to the brim. I carefully carried my tray over to the long, rectangular table that Boffin and his band of bullying men were sitting at and sat at the closest available seat to Boffin which was diagonally opposite. They were used to kids avoiding them, so they all stared open mouthed as I nonchalantly sat down. I am sure one of them let out a bewildered growl.
“Afternoon!” I greeted them cheerily.
“What the hell are you doing, sitting here?” Boffin demanded.
I wasn’t there to exchange pleasantries, I was there to carry out my ‘Ha-Go Project’.
I smiled, “This!”
I tipped my water over so it ran across the table and on to Boffin’s lap and before he even had time to stand up as a reflex reaction, I followed it up by leaning forward and tipping my macaroni cheese over his lap, almost instantaneously followed by Boffin’s baked beans on toast and strawberry sponge and custard. My sleight of hand would have impressed Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee. Boffin just sat there, shocked, with water, baked beans, soggy toast, macaroni cheese, sponge pudding and custard soaking into his trousers. Having accomplished my task, I wasn’t hanging around, I stood up and ran and as I did the school bell rang to signal the end of the school dinner break and the start of afternoon lessons. Loads of other kids, hundreds of them, stood up and headed out the canteen, so I just mixed into the crowd and disappeared.
As I ran back to afternoon registration that day, I knew it was only a temporary reprieve. I knew once Boffin cleaned himself up, he would come looking for me. So, in afternoon break, I hid in the school library as it was the least likely place in the whole of the school that Boffin would be. Having lived through afternoon break, home time was even more of a hazard, as it was almost guaranteed that Boffin and his cohorts would split themselves into two groups and wait outside the two potential school exit points. Luck, however, was on my side. French was my final lesson of the day and Madame Scotland was late. I sat next to Marc Harrison in French who had been tormented by Boffin a few times himself, so once I told him of my predicament, was keen to lend a helping hand. Marc had a massive school bag, so after the French lesson, we crept into the boys toilets and Marc squeezed me into it, zipped me up and then carried me out. Marc told me that, as anticipated, Boffin and his mates had split up and were guarding the exits. Marc carried me past Boffin and Phil Moss, so deliberately swung his heavy bag into their shins, as they stood with folded arms at the gates.
That night, I knew I wouldn’t survive a second day. I couldn’t go hiding in the library every break time and be carried home in a bag at the end of every day, like a pampered Chihuahua. I needed to strike again before my anticipated beating though. Spilling lunch on Boffin would not be enough to persuade him that the other victims were better options than me.
The following day, Thursday, first lesson was ‘Games’. I did football, which at three and a half foot tall, I wasn’t particularly good at. I certainly wasn’t going to score many headers from corners. Boffin didn’t do football, he did Rugby League, so our paths only crossed in the changing rooms. Thankfully Mr.Pike, the world’s most uncoordinated Physical Education teacher was around. Boffin made hand signals towards me indicating that he was going to slit my throat once he caught up with me, so I just gave him a middle finger salute back.
Football finished later than Rugby League that morning. Boffin was one of those kids who used to enjoy a long shower after ‘Games’. Some kids just ran through the showers, barely catching the spray, but others, like Boffin, used to stand under the shower for ages, admiring their own naked form. I think that day Boffin also prolonged his shower as he knew Mr.Pike would ensure every boy had a shower, but wouldn’t actually go in there himself, so in Boffin’s mind, this would provide a window of opportunity for revenge. What Boffin didn’t know though, was one of the teachers, Mr.Holmstrom, a Technical Drawing teacher, came to tell Mr.Pike that there was a phone call for him in the staff room.
“Can each and every one of you boys ensure you shower and change, please,” Mr.Pike requested before departing to take his call.
The previous evening I was trying to formulate a plan of attack, but could not have anticipated things would work out this well. I dressed quickly, ignoring the request for a shower, I was so rubbish at football, I was never muddy anyway. I went over to the corner of the changing room where Boffin had left his clothes, picked them up and headed straight towards the showers.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Tim,” I heard someone warn, but they weren’t me and if they were, they would have done it.
Boffin was in the shower with a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. He had his head tilted back, running his hands through hi
s copper hair. He loved himself. You could tell he had convinced his warped little mind into believing he was gorgeous.
“Oi, Boffin!” I shouted with his clothes tucked under my chin. I had every item he wore, his shoes, socks, trousers, boxers, shirt, tie, jumper and blazer. Confused, naked schoolkids were running past me wondering what the hell this fully dressed dwarf was doing walking through the showers carrying someone else’s school uniform.
Boffin didn’t spot me at first. He was too busy finishing his pruning routine, but eventually, once the shampoo had run off him, he opened his eyes to see my head popping out above his school clothes.
“Timmy, your head’s already too big for your body, lad, if you don’t want it to be even bigger, with a few new lumps, I would suggest that y
ou take my clothes back to their peg, right now.”
“I’m not doing that, Boffin.”
“You best had or I’ll find you and I’ll snap your neck like you’re a baby bird who’s fallen out its nest.”
“Keep picking on me, Boffin and I’ll keep doing things back to you!”
“I’d like to see you try with ten broken fingers and two black eyes. You ruined my clothes yesterday lunchtime. Don’t even think about doing it again today. The Incredible Hulk is scared of me when I’m angry.”
“I’ve thought about it Boffin and I’ve decided you can piss off. I’m not running scared of an ugly, ginger kid like you.”
“Have you got a problem with gingers, Timmy? That would make us equal as I have a problem with midgets.”
“Dwarves, you dickhead and anyway, I haven’t got a problem with gingers, every other ginger kid I know is alright, I just have a problem with you.”
Boffin’s shower stopped and he took a step towards me.
“Pass me my clothes, Timmy!”
“Catch!”
I threw all Boffin’s clothes up in the air. Boffin made a vain attempt to catch his school blazer but it floated away from his grasp like a weary ghost and joined its brothers and sisters on the soapy, wet, shower room floor. Andrew Nelson, who had been late getting back to the changing rooms from football, as Mr.Pike had made him collect the corner flags in, for missing a sitter, appeared in the showers. Andrew was one of those kids who was fearful of the school showers, so was attempting to run through them, just as I threw Boffin’s clothes. Andrew ended up standing on Boffin’s blazer, tripping up then sliding through the whole of the showers with his naked, muddy backside using Boffin’s blazer as a jet ski. I didn’t hang around long enough to see the end of Andrew’s slide, but I can only imagine the blazer was wetter than Duncan Goodhew’s Speedos, by the time it came to a halt.
Having witnessed the chaos that ensued within five seconds of me throwing the clothes, I ran. Boffin mustn’t have hung around long enough to retrieve his clothing either, as I could hear him charging after me. Once again, my height was advantageous. I hurried through the changing rooms, at one stage glancing over my shoulder to see Boffin’s shiny, ginger pubic hair getting ever nearer.
“I’m going to rip your head off and make mincemeat out of it!” yelled Boffin.
Just as Boffin yelled this, Mr. Pike opened the changing room door, returning from his phone call. I slipped past him and out the exit, but Boffin’s wet, naked body charged straight into him. Some of the lads told me later that without a moment’s hesitation, Mr.Pike grabbed hold of one of Boffin’s ears and twisted.
“And who’s mincemeat head are we discussing, Booth?” I heard Mr. Pike ask, as I shuffled down the corridor.
Once again, I had escaped from Boffin’s clutches, but it was only ten o’clock in the morning, I anticipated my survival chances for the remainder of the day were slimmer than a supermodel prior to a fashion show in Milan. I still felt I needed to carry out at least one more offensive for the ‘Ha-Go Project’ to have at least partially succeeded.
My second lesson that day was History in one of the first floor rooms. I knew from speaking to Marc Harrison, who was in Boffin’s Languages set, that they were going to be having French in the room below. Back then, most desks were the wooden ones that you could lift up and store all your school books in. Before Miss Pulis, the History teacher arrived, I discovered that there was a large, hard backed Holy Bible in the one I was sat at. I believe in God, I’m not sure I believe in the King James Bible God though, he seems to be a different bloke in the Old Testament to the one described in the New, but nevertheless, I believe in a God of some description and don’t think our Creator would have any problem with retaliatory action against bullies. I put that Bible into my black and yellow Gola school bag.
Five minutes before the end of an interesting lesson about the Third Reich, I began to cough and cough and cough.
Miss Pulis was one of those young teachers who thought having a young dwarf in her class was ‘cute’. She was always saying ‘Arrhh’ after I said anything. It was a bit patronising, but it enabled me to manipulate her a little, so I let it go.
“What’s the matter, Tim? Are you alright, love?”
A couple of classmates sniggered at the mention of ‘love’.
“I don’t know, Miss, I think a bit of my Berol pen top is jammed in my windpipe.”
I coughed again for dramatic effect.
“Timmy, come over here, I’ve done First Aid, I know the Heimlich Maneuver.”
“It’s not too bad, miss, a glass of water would do the trick. It’s just scratching a little.”
“OK. Go and grab yourself a glass of water from the canteen.”
“Thanks, Miss!”
Perfect! I gathered my stuff together and left the class. I had no intention of returning. I only went a few metres down the corridor, just far enough so Miss Pulis couldn’t spot me. I peered over the wooden balcony to the classroom door of the class below, Boffin’s French class.