PAPER BOATS.

By Michael Meik

A few weeks ago, it was the start of the fall season, and I was looking out of my apartment window, the sky was overcast and it had started to rain. My balcony door was open, and having not rained in a while, the ground was dusty, and the fresh scent of the damp earth rose up to my apartment. It smelt really good, so I decided to go downstairs and sit on the covered bench at the entrance. Just then a couple of excited kids came rushing out of the building in their raincoats with their dad, they had an exercise book with them and walked out towards the little puddles that had formed in the front courtyard, and he was showing them how to make paper boats. I noticed they were the same kind we made when we were kids, and it brought back a flood of memories from my own childhood.

It was 1972 and I remember when I was in the 5th grade at the P.A.F. Model School on main Drigh Road, our young class teacher Miss Ruben was telling us the story of Noah and how it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and how all the animals came on board two by two so they could be saved from the floods. While telling us the story, she was building a large model of the Ark with us. I think it must have been a model kit, as there were little plastic animal figures that went into it. However, it was not much fun, as we could not test out the boat anywhere. We wanted to see it float.

This inspired us to build our own boats and test them. Our classroom was on the first floor of the original sandstone building, and that afternoon there was a torrential downpour, and through our classroom window, we could see large pools of water forming in the maidan behind the school, this field was used for most of the school’s sports activities throughout the year.

Four of us made a plan to sneak out of class, making excuses to either get a drink of water or go to the washroom, not forgetting to take our exercise books with us for raw material. We gathered behind the newer row of classrooms that had been built along the boundary wall, then crept out through the unmanned back gate, which always squeaked when you moved it. Luckily, because of the rain, no one heard the noise, or so we thought. Once safely outside, we started ripping out the pages from our books and made at least 40 to 50 boats and we set sail in this large muddy pool which was about six inches deep. We then started splashing around in the water, throwing rocks to sink each others’ creations, stirring up the thick clay from the bottom.

We were having a blast, oblivious to the fact that our sports teacher, Squadron Leader Aaqil was standing right behind us in his always neatly pressed white pants, T-shirt, and tennis shoes. One of the boys threw a rock, which landed right at his feet, splashing him with clay-filled water, and he yelled at us. We froze, not expecting to see him there, that was the end of our fun and games for the day. We were all marched off to our principal, Simon D’Lima’s office, which was at the other end of the school, it meant we had to go past nearly every classroom on the way.

Walking in silence behind him, our shoes now completely soaked with water were making funny squishing sounds, and with every step, muddy bubbles would rise out of the top of our shoes, we could not stop giggling, Mr. Aaqil, a slim man with a large mustache, would turn around and give us this big eye stern look, but every time he looked ahead you could tell he was smiling to himself.

The rain had more or less stopped by the time we got there, and the slushy clay-filled water had started to dry on us. When we entered the office, the secretary Elizabeth seemed in shock when she saw us. She was asked to call our fathers who were all in the Air Force and working on the base. We were told to wait outside on the verandah and not drag the mud into the office, and by the time the dads showed up, the slush had dried hard on us, it was in our hair and our nice crisp uniforms were anything but, we were a sight to behold.

The other fathers arrived and were trying to be serious and scold their sons, when my dad turned up, he burst out laughing when he saw us as to how funny we all looked, this got them all going, probably thinking back to their own childhood and the mischief they got into as kids. With the rain completely stopped and the sun shining, the gardener was called and instructed to take us out on the lawn and hose us down to get the mud off. Even though school had just ended, and everyone was standing around us watching the spectacle, it did not bother us in the least, it was one of the most memorable fun days I have ever had at school.