This is the fourth in the “Confessions From Boarding School” posts. Due to concerns surrounding privacy, certain names have been changed to protect the identities of the people involved. As with any boarding school, the boarding school that I went to had it’s fair share of absconders or those pupils who ran away for whatever reasons. This post is about what happened when one such absconding too place. This particular incident took place a few weeks after my time in the ‘Self Care’ bungalow had come to an end. It all began on” Movie Night” when Anthony Clankton was banned from Movie Night due to his disruptive behaviour in class earlier that day. When Mr. Macready stopped him before he could enter the room where movie night was being held, he kicked off.

He tried to enter the room but was stopped at which point he was restrained by two members of staff and removed. When he’d gone we got settled down to watch the movie. In the movie room, there was a couch, armchair and a plethora of floor cushions and beanbag chairs. Matthew was sat on the couch, I sat on the floor with my back against the sofa, and Li reclined between my legs, using me as her chair, my arms draped around her waist. We settled down to watch the movie which was “Ghostbusters II”. During the movie, Li and myself managed to sneak a quick kiss or two. After the movie had finished, we noticed that something was not right. Mr. Grent was in the hallway with Mr. Macready and they were looking at a map of the school grounds and looked very serious.

Matthew and myself were stopped from returning to St. Pats by Mr. Grent who asked us to hold back for a moment. He said he needed help looking for Anthony, who’d absconded from the school during the movie. Seeing as it always was advantageous to have a senior member of staff owe you a favour, Matthew and myself agreed. We went with Mr. Grent and we searched the surrounding roads and fields from top to bottom and from left to right, we found nothing. When we got back with Mr. Grent, we found out that the search of the school grounds had found nothing, meaning he was now off school grounds. I suggested just letting him go as he was an ass, but Mr. Macready said that while that seemed like a good idea, Anthony’s parents might object to the school letting him go.

Seeing as it was 9:50pm, Matthew and myself went to bed, but we did not sleep. Using our lamps, we played battleship for a few hours while waxing lyrical about our usual topics of conversation. The following morning when we got up, we found out that Anthony had still not returned to school and therefore was still missing. Not that any of us really cared about that stupid little twat. We were asked during morning prayers if any of us would volunteer to go and look for Anthony; nobody volunteered. One of the care staff even suggested that they would forcibly choose people to go and help look for Anthony, but when it was met pointed out to her that unless they physically dragged us there was no way they could make us go look for him.

After morning prayers are over, Mr. Grent asked Matthew and myself if we would consider going to help look for Anthony; We politely declined. It was only after Mr. Grent offered us both a substantial bribe that we agreed to help look for that little git Anthony. We went in the school minibus with Mr. Grent and drove around the local countryside seeing if we could see Anthony, not that Matthew or myself looked as hard as we could’ve done. After a few hours of searching we returned to school just in time for lunch, 10 minutes into which we were told of an interesting development. A Severn-Trent water truck had spotted Anthony cutting through a field, and although they could not catch him, they did inform the police who DID catch him.

After spending some time at the police station, Anthony was returned to school a few hours later. Now I know what you are thinking, that this is where this confession ends; you’d be wrong. You see, the morning after Anthony was brought back to school, the headmaster Mr. Grent tore him a new one for all the trouble he’d caused by his absconding from school. He came up with some cock-and-bull sob-story that he absconded because says he was unfairly banned from movie night and was upset when no-one came to back him when he tried to get into Movie Night. Mr. Grent did not believe this load of garbage and he was put on severe punishment. This involved being stripped of all privileges, having no personal possessions in his room and having to stand in the corner when not in class.

Seeing as Anthony was on severe punishment for a week, we thought that would be the end of it but we were wrong yet again. By the time Movie Night came around the following week, we had all decided on what movie we would be watching that week. And out of the three options of ‘Return of Godzilla’, ‘The Witches’ and ‘Grease’; ‘The Witches’ was picked with 2/3 of us picking that movie. As his punishment had ended the previous day, Anthony was allowed into Movie Night, where his very presence started to cause disruptions. He caused a fuss when the armchair was taken and its occupant refused to give it up to him. He caused a fuss when he saw the three-person couch was occupied by Li, Matthew and myself and when we refused to let him be the fourth person to on a three-person couch.

When he caused a fuss over the movie as he said ‘The Witches’ scared him, that was it; we had to do something to shut him up. We got Mr. Henderson (Not His Real Name), to remove him from Movie Night due to all the disruptions he was causing. As you can imagine, he kicked off at being removed from Movie Night. He complained that he had not been given a say in what movie we watched or given a fair chance to sit in the armchair or on the sofa. Anthony said that since he’s not had a chance for any of this, and movie night should be cancelled until he could have his say. Of course he was talking completely out of his arse as far as choosing the movie goes as no matter what movie he picked, we would still be watching ‘The Witches’.

When we wouldn’t give him first choice of where to sit and watch movie to watch he decided he would disrupt movie night as much as he could. As before he tried to get into movie night but was removed by Mr. Henderson wherein he threw another temper tantrum and had to be restrained yet again. When he was removed we were finally were able to settle down and enjoy movie night in peace and quiet. The next morning we were not surprised to find Anthony waiting outside the headmaster’s office where he was undoubtedly going to be put on punishment yet again. After breakfast, Mr. Grent told us that he’d been permanently banned from Movie Night and was not allowed near the room where movie night was held on movie night itself.

So I think you can all guess that this did not end there. Later on that day, I was in the science class with Li and Matthew helping to clean out the storage cupboard at the back of the class when the school was put on lockdown. That means we all had to stay in class and could not leave what ever class we were in until lockdown was lifted. Being in lockdown in the science class was not so bad, we had a kettle, boxes of teabags and powdered milk, running water and a small bathroom tucked away inside the storeroom; so we had tea and bathroom facilities. For the first half hour or so, we had no idea what was going on, but after our 3rd cup of tea Mr. Grent came down to let everyone know just what was going on.

It turns out that Anthony had tried attacking one of the teachers with a wood chisel he’d stolen from the woodwork room and had ran off before the staff could catch him. We were told that Anthony was still on school grounds and for our own safety, we had to stay put until lockdown was lifted; which made perfect sense. Mr. Grent advised us to close the blinds/shutters on the windows as to not let that whacko Anthony know we were in the class; we did so right away. For the next hour or so, Li, Matthew and myself were stuck in the science class with little to nothing to do. The thought had crossed the minds of Li and myself to have a bit of grab-ass but with staff checking up on us every so often, our absences would have been noticed.

We did get in a decent amount of tonsil hockey before lockdown was lifted. We found out later that day at evening meal that Anthony had been caught hiding in the sports hall and had been detained before being permanently removed from school; he’d been expelled. And so my fellow pandas, there you have it, the story of one particular runaway was dealt with at my boarding school.