"Stand Before Your God"

[fiefoe]

Some books get under your skin almost as soon as you open them. This is one.

I don't know how Paul Watkins does it, but the voice that speaks of being sent to a boarding school in a foreign country is not an adult voice over, it's that of the seven-year-old boy himself - homesick, wary, resilient, unsentimental. He also must have an uncannily good memory. His description of the headmaster bears witness: 'Nothing could move him or even put a dent in the ironwood frame of his body. Then he breathed in so deep that the sunlit dust around his head swirled into his mouth.'

Boys of his age are fierce little animals, who have their own strict interpretation of honor and superiority. They are cute in the same way gamboling lion cubs are cute. Fight and play are the same thing to them.

• It was the worst kind of insult to have someone torture your animal and pull its head off or fill it full of toothpaste.
  
• It was an automatic historical fact that nobody named Bosom has ever ordered anyone around... The only thing you were truly stuck with was your name. I had already seen how some names could ruin your life.
• War seemed to be everything at the Dragon School. We were all still fighting the Japanese and the Germans. We killed them as plastic soldiers arranged in formation across the linoleum floors of the dorms.
  
• The last kind of war was against a couple of the teachers. In this war we did what they told us to do, but we gave them no respect. We did not look them in the eye or show them any kindness. You could tell the ones who had the fighting hard. They were red-faced and tired and mean, always beating people . They were slowly losing the war, because there was only one of them and never-ending ranks of pale-faced us, who cottoned on fast and fought back.
• It was decided that Bosom would open the attack by sliding down the stairs on a mattress. Bosom was not in agreement on this, so he was tied to a mattress. Bosom was not in agreement on this, so he was tied to that mattress with several linked-together belts. And a sock was put in his mouth to discourage any lack of fighting spirit. Unfortunately for us, and especially for Bosom, the dorm downstairs had also decided to launch a raid. They were already coming up the stairs, a half-naked tribe of midget savages, when we pushed Bosom down onto them. He took off like a man on a bobsled and sent them flying in all directions.