Fool School by James Comins Page B

be because he's English. I look into his
large brown eyes and wonder whether his heart's really in jesting.
I don't understand why he's here.
    Perille LeBlanc is Provençal, and more than anyone I
have ever met, I find myself fearing him and his wiry and insane
presence. His hands move of their own accord, flexing and twisting,
snakes and adders. His belly is sunken, and he wears a misshapen
garment I have never seen on a man, it clings like lingerie and
displays his sunken frame in each contour. His hair is a massed,
curly nest, and a gap between his teeth flashes with every sinister
smile. I hate him and want him as far from me as possible, but he's
taken a liking to me and I feel his sickly grasping threads weaving
towards me.
    The cooks call themselves Maliface and Wensley,
although I feel safe in thinking these names are invented.
    Here is what we say:
    Perille: "Wow, what a surprise, what a nasty
surprise, we have two little antelopes caught in our prison house,
what should we do with dem? Should dey be strung up on flagpoles
like thieves, stealing our exclusive soverignty in this way?"
    Dag: "I know a man, Perry, a man who knows how to
brew the blood and bones of boys like these. Have you heard his
name, Perry? His name is John Barleycorn."
    I: "My name's Barliwine."
    I don't speak adroitly with strangers.
    Maliface: "Your name's Barliwine, is it? Was your
father a drunkard, boy?"
    I don't answer this question.
    Dag: "But no, listen to this. I knew a man John
Barleycorn, he stole the blood from boys, he beat them and cut them
and boiled them down, and drank their blood as his wine."
    Wensley: "Din't rhyme, Dag."
    Malcolm: (very quietly): "You have et backwards,
Douglas."
    The group of us, having finished descending the
staircase to the underground hall, stops as Dag takes Malcolm by
the hair cracks his chin against the stone wall, showing teeth full
of spittle. "What'd you say, shitboy?"
    Malcolm struggles against Dag's fist, which is
grinding his beautiful face back and forth into the stone, but Dag
is considerably older than us, probably at least sixteen, and
Malcolm has no chance.
    I: "Let him go--" but Perille has put his wormfingers
all over my face in a filthy way, then seized my head and thrown it
aside. The rest of me follows down to the floor.
    Dag: "What'd you say? I asked you," to Malcolm, who's
kicking, defending himself, and failing to get free.
    Malcolm: "Listen! Listen!"
    Dag makes a stupidface and looks around at Perille
uncertainly. He pushes Malcolm's face into the wall once more and
steps back, still a tor casting a shadow across Malcolm, and folds
his arms. "Listen to what?" he asks.
    Malcolm is not held back by pain. I've seen it
before. He says: "It's the woman who kills."
    Dag: "What? What woman?"
    Malcolm: "The man John Barleycorn turned to his wife.
'I've a thirst in my belly,' quod he. She brought him clean water
in the bowl of her hat, but he spilled it out passionately. 'I've a
thirst for summat stronger,' quod he. She went to the swamp and
brought him thick stillwater, awash with flies and frogs, and he
took a sip thirstily." Perille stifles a giggle. "Yet he threw it
away, too. 'I've a thirst for summat stronger still,' quod he. She
took a bowl to the privy and pissed in it and brought it to he."
Maliface's eyes sparkle unpleasantly. "He took a big swig, but
spilled it across the floor. 'Still not strong enough,' quod he.
She pricked her thumb until she wept, and let her husband lick her
tears, one, two, three. 'Not strong enough yet,' quod he. So at
last she fell to rage and woad, threw her husband to the floor,
knocked his head off with a scythe, lay his head by the door and
struck him and struck him with a flail, took those pieces that were
left to the miller. The miller took her coin and ground
Barleycorn's bone to dust. She filled barrels with his blood and
bone, left them for a year, only just, and brought the miller home
to lay in bed and drink the drink she had brewed. And the drink