An Eagle Friday – Pamela Job
It’s winter, and we watch milky light pour into our high
classroom windows. We wait, while Mr. Martin
with his ginger army moustache and cigarette breath
hands out copies of The Eagle, a weekly paper for boys.
He places Dan Dare’s frown on our double desks
and smoothes the sheets as if he’s ironing them.
He tells us to turn to the centrefold, where we know
we’ll find the challenging spread of the ‘model’ pages.
I’m sitting next to Derek Simms, who’s not
often at school because of his lungs. We aren’t
allowed to include Derek in our playground games
when he does come, in case his heart forgets to beat.
With his pale hair and mild blue eyes he looks
a bit like Jesus in our Illustrated New Testaments . . .
Even today, at the end of the week, his grey shorts
are knife-creased, his elastic-gartered socks look new.
He’s not keen on Eagle Fridays either. We have a pair
of shiny round-ended scissors to share. You go first, I say,
because he’s not well, and I shouldn’t start an arguement.
He starts to cut round the dotted lines of an aeroplane.
I hold the paper steady and look at the shape unfolding
before us. I see a red butterfly wing with black veins
and bright yellow dots. I open the box of wax crayons.
I line them up ready, and bend my head, colouring in red
black, yellow. I don’t see the ruler come down.
Derek does, and puts his hand over mine. The smack
of wood on flesh echoes round the hushed desks.
Pamela Job