Washy and the Crocodile Read Online Free PDF

with Jack’s teacher, Mrs Waldegrave, who was really very nice, and nothing like what her son had said about her. She—Mrs Waldegrave, whose husband was a businessman and often away from home—was so concerned about Jack, who had so much potential and just wasn’t using it, that she had taken the trouble to call Annie about it on a Saturday morning! Wasn’t that nice of her?
    And Jack had upset his sister’s best friend Samantha, for no good reason at all. And —but that was quite enough for now, and she ruffled his hair, which he had just combed at her request.
    Women, thought Jack bitterly. He would never understand them. They could never leave well alone. Take his mother, for example. She was nice enough, he supposed, and she cared about him, whatever that meant, and she was better than some other people’s mothers, like his best friend Roger, whose mother was a complete waste of rations, but still—
    When would Mum stop trying to improve him, and accept him for what he was? Never, he supposed. She was his mother. And as for this sudden alliance with Mrs Waldegrave — that was really unfair. It was a nice, wet morning, there was no school, and his mum had found something to worry about. Why? What was the point? And that reminded him of something else. Just the other day—
    â€œAre you listening to me, Jack?” Annie was tapping her pencil on the table as if she were conducting an orchestra. Was the conductor really necessary, he wondered? The musicians all had the same music, didn’t they? So what was the conductor for? Uncle Otto would know. He knew about everything. Why, only the other day, when they were talking about bush-fires, he was telling the two children how dangerous they were, and how the flames could leap from one tree to another over a distance of several hundred yards if the wind were in the right direction!—Or rather the wrong direction, as Jack thought of pointing out, but somehow didn’t. And as if that were not enough, Uncle Otto knew of cases where—
    â€œWhat did I just say?” His mother interrupted his reverie. Unfairly, he thought: but she was a woman.
    â€œThat I must try and concentrate,” said Jack confidently. It was probably the right answer, and it was better to be confidently wrong than to blather and gabble and appear a complete fool. He knew that from his experience with Mrs Waldegrave, who had done so much to reduce his self-confidence. And as for that little fiend Samantha! Why did she have to be so clever? Why did she have to know all the answers? And why did she never have to go to the toilet? Roger and he had timed her once to see how long she could last and they could not believe the result. Starting at nine o’clock—
    His mother sighed. “And will you?”
    â€œWill I what?” Said Jack vacantly, and then smiled just in time. “Of course I will! Only joking, Mummy!”
    Jack thought it was a good idea. To concentrate, he meant. (The rest of what is mother had said, he put away to one side. He could accommodate it later.) After all, he wanted to be a secret agent, and he was sure they had to be able to concentrate. But how was he supposed to do it? Jack felt puzzled. None of his friends knew how to concentrate. Not one. Except, perhaps, for Roger, who was odd. Yes. He would need to talk all this over with Roger. Roger was his best friend. Roger would be a help. Possibly. And if he weren’t, Jack would have someone to blame. Which was always useful.
    Roger lived in the next street. With his dog, Jasper Jeremiah. And a cat, which was called Cat. And his mother and father and sister, whom Jack knew and wished he didn’t. It was, supposedly, a happy little household, in which everyone loved each other: but Jack would not have liked to live there. Roger was the only son; and he was special; and his parents loved him very much. They kept telling him so. Only their behaviour