I suspect that there was something about the relentlessness of the assault that made my colleague uneasy. He’d never had much of a sense of humor, and he mistrusted anything he saw as proof of irrationality. Men of Devine’s ilk pride themselves on their common sense; they do not recognize the joys of the absurd and the meaningless. Devine disliked Harry Clarke because he saw him as a bad influence, encouraging boys to waste their time discussing pop music instead of Prep; studying Edward Lear in class instead of William Wordsworth; wearing elbow patches on his tweed jackets; and failing to don his academic gown for Assemblies. In Devine’s book, this made Harry Clarke a sloppy, unprofessional teacher. In mine, he was an original; refreshingly unconventional; blessed with ideas and values that were decades ahead of his time.

Harry called boys by their first names at a time when no one else did this; which, far from undermining discipline, seemed actually to enhance it. Harry believed individuals ought to be treated as such, and made an effort to know as much about the boys in his care as he could. Worse still, Harry encouraged those boys to see him as a human being; even inviting them to his house at weekends and after School. The reason Harry’s Laughing Gnome had remained an ongoing joke for so long was that every boy in Harry’s form was privy to it and part of the plan. That’s twenty-nine boys, each with a gnome, each one with instructions of military precision on when and where to position it next for maximum disruptive effect.

Yes, it was ridiculous. Yes, it was juvenile. But when, on the last day of Michaelmas term, Devine came into his form to find twenty-nine gnomes sitting on desks in front of twenty-nine grinning boys, the mad surge of laughter that ensued was enough to lift the lid off the sky and allow the blaze of the sun to shine through.

I heard it from my form room; the Old Head from his office; and Harry Clarke, in the Bell Tower, gave his boyish, open grin. It had been a cold, dark term. But just then, for a moment, all the world was in sunlight.

Once more I looked up at the mantelpiece. Harry’s last gift to me grinned back, the paint a little faded now, but the gleeful expression unchanged.

Use it well, says Harry’s note. I mean to do him justice.

Chapter 3

3

December 1981

Dear Mousey,

So what with the fuss about Poodle, I’ve had to put some of my plans on hold. Most of that’s due to my parents, who, on learning of his Condition, wanted to know exactly how close I was to Poodle, and what kinds of things he’d said to me.