The Inter-House Contest

by Liz Filleul

The inter-house contest was Goody Proctor’s idea. Goody Proctor was the principal at our school, Newhampton High. According to the school billboard, her name was actually Mrs V.M. Proctor M.A.; V.M. was rumoured to stand for Valerie Mary. But one of the GCSE-year girls had nicknamed her Goody Proctor after a character in a play they were studying called The Crucible. Apparently that Goody Proctor was an old cow too, like our Proctor.

She’d been appointed principal two years ago, when I was in my final year at Brook Lane Primary. Up till then, Newhampton High hadn’t had the best reputation. Its GCSE results were mediocre, there was no school uniform, kids were on first-name terms with their teachers, and discipline was reputedly non-existent. My best friend Ginny Soames and I both liked the sound of it, but our parents vowed they wouldn’t send us there if it was the last remaining school on earth.

But they, like every other parent in Newhampton, changed their minds when Goody Proctor arrived.  Within a year of becoming principal, she’d changed the school completely. Teachers had to be called Mr or Mrs or Ms, or ‘sir’ or ‘miss’; those who didn’t like it were encouraged to seek other employment. She introduced a uniform – green sweatshirts with ‘Newhampton High School’ emblazoned across the chest, with green trousers or skirts. Detentions, suspensions and even expulsions became the order of the day for kids she and her staff considered ‘out of line’. During her first year’s tenure, the school achieved its best GCSE results ever.

So I’d ended up going to Newhampton High. My parents spoke glowingly of Goody Proctor to their friends whenever the subject of the education system came up. “She’s one of the old-fashioned teachers,” my dad would tell them proudly. “There’s no nonsense with her. The kids know where they stand, and they have to work hard.”

‘Old-fashioned’ just about summed her up. During my first year – her second year – at  Newhampton High, Goody Proctor made further changes. She dropped the traditional form structure of 7 Red, 7 Blue and 7 Green and so on and divided the classes into houses: School House, for those like me who lived close to the school;  Vale House, for those who lived close to Pendley Vale and its environs, and Hampton House, for those who lived on the outskirts of Newhampton. So Ginny and I began secondary school life in 7S and would remain in School House until that fantastic, future day when we left school. She instigated an annual sports day and swimming gala, where the three houses competed against each other. And she appointed prefects from Year 11, including a head girl and head boy and captains for each house. Their functions were to strut around wearing badges that told you they were a ‘prefect’, ‘house captain’, ‘head boy’ or ‘head girl’ and to order the rest of us out of the corridors, classrooms and cloakrooms and into the school grounds come rain or shine every break and lunchtime.

And, at school assembly on the first morning of my second year at the school, she announced her latest old-fashioned scheme.

“This year,” she began impressively, “I’ve decided to run an inter-house contest. As those of you who were here last year will remember, I introduced the house system at Newhampton High because I believe it teaches pupils an awful lot about important things like teamwork and community spirit and collective responsibility. Those who were here last year will remember cheering on the house teams in the sports day and swimming gala and how important it was to each house to be a winner. Now, I see no reason why that shouldn’t apply equally, if not more, to your school work and to your behaviour. So, from today onwards, house points will be awarded for good work and good behaviour and will be deducted for poor work and poor behaviour. As an incentive, the house that accumulates the most points this term will be given a day out just before Christmas, while the other two houses have lessons as usual. So I encourage you all to work hard and to behave yourselves, and to encourage your classmates to do the same. Does anyone have any questions?” She glared around the hall, daring anyone to ask anything.

Ginny, who had been game for any dare from the moment I’d met her, in nursery aged four, waved her hand wildly in the air.

Goody Proctor frowned. “Yes, Virginia?”

 “Please, miss, will there be a booby prize for the house that finishes last?”

Everyone laughed. Well, almost everyone. Goody Proctor didn’t, obviously. And nor did any of the teachers, seated around Goody Proctor on the stage; in fact our new form teacher, Mr Williams, was glowering most ominously at Ginny. And Catherine Lawson, our class swot, sat poker-faced a couple of chairs across from me.

“That, Virginia, is exactly the sort of puerile behaviour that will lead to the loss of house points,” Goody Proctor declared. “I was just about to say that all three houses were starting with 100 points this morning, but thanks to you, School House has only 95.” Virtual arrows of anger darted in Ginny’s direction from Mr Williams and from Catherine Lawson. “Does anyone else have any sensible questions?” Goody Proctor demanded, her eyes flashing around the hall. “No. Good. Well, on to the names of this year’s prefects … ”

When the prefects had had their badges attached to their sweatshirts and Goody Proctor had read out all the school rules, largely for the benefit of the new Year 7 kids, we all filed out of the hall and back to our classrooms.

“Inter-house contest!” snorted Ginny. “Whatever will that old goat come up with next? Bringing back the cane? Compulsory crucifixion for anyone who dares to ask a question in assembly?”

“I think corporal punishment would be a good thing for people like you two,” said Catherine Lawson in her superior way. “All you ever do is disrupt classes, spoil things for the rest of us who want to work hard.”

I was trying to think of a crushing put-down, when someone shouted “Ginny! Oy – Ginny!”

We whirled round to see Oliver Mason running to catch up with Ginny, his longish brown hair tousled as usual. Oliver was in Year 10, and lived a couple of houses down from Ginny’s grandmother, which is how she knew him. Oliver had a reputation for being one of the bad boys of the school, someone who spent nearly as much time in Goody Proctor’s office as Proctor herself did. He was also very clever, which was why he hadn’t yet been expelled or at least suspended like other troublemakers were. Goody Proctor liked good GCSE results; Oliver would most likely pass his with top grades.

 “That was a great idea of yours,” he told her. “About a booby prize for the worst house, I mean.”

“It wasn’t an idea,” Ginny answered, with dignity. “It was just a question.”

“Whatever,” he said, shrugging. “Anyway, what you said gave me an idea. I was thinking we could come up with some sort of prize for the house that finishes last. Something good, so there’s as much incentive to mess around as there is not to mess around. Or perhaps more. But Proctor and the teachers and the prefects won’t get to know anything about it, and it’ll drive them batty that her crackpot scheme’s not working. What d’you think?”

“What sort of prize?” I asked, doubtfully. “We can’t arrange a day out for the whole of one house.”

“And somebody’s bound to tell one of the prefects,” Ginny pointed out. “Or a teacher even.”

“We could have a whip-round round all the houses, and put the money towards a party, with a load of cider and crisps and stuff, and only the members of the house that finishes last get to go,” suggested Oliver. “The party could be after school, in the park or something.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Ginny said. “If you think people will contribute and keep their mouths shut.”

“Perhaps only those people who are trustworthy should be asked to contribute, and only those who’ve contributed should get to attend the party if they’re in the winning house,” I said. “It’s no use asking someone like Catherine Lawson to contribute, for example. She’d go running off to somebody straightaway.”

Oliver nodded. “Nice thinking, Es. I’ll start asking around our year today and gradually work my way down. I think Year 7s should be left out of it – they won’t want to go getting into trouble just yet. And we’ll leave the Year 11s out of it as well, given they’ve got GCSEs this year and will be working for those.”

“Oliver Mason – and Virginia Soames and Esme Forbes!”

 It was Goody Proctor, sweeping through the corridor on the way to teach some class or other; we hadn’t noticed that the corridor was now free of kids apart from us. “You should be in class now, not hanging around the corridors. That’s five points from Hampton House for you, Mason, and five points each from School House for Virginia and Esme. Not the best start for School House, is it, Virginia?”

The inter-house contest was important to Goody Proctor. Every Monday morning, when the school met in the hall for its weekly Assembly, she would have all the house points as of the previous Friday afternoon displayed on a big scoreboard on the stage. As if that weren’t enough, she’d begin the school notices with a sport-style commentary on the placings: “As you can see, Hampton House is leading the inter-house contest this week, with 1500 points, a huge lead over Vale House, with 1003.”

School House, every week, lay at the bottom of the leader board, and those of us who had contributed to Oliver’s Booby Prize Fund were confident that come the week before Christmas, we’d be munching crisps and slurping cider in the park after school.

We were fortunate in School House in that we had more troublemakers than swots. Similarly, Hampton House was fortunate in that it had more goody-goods than the other two houses. Even Oliver contributed to their grand total because for every five points he lost for fooling around in class, he accumulated at least the same number for coming top in classroom tests. So we felt that School House was assured of the party and Hampton House of the day out. That left only Vale House with nothing, and given they were the most mediocre house, neither particularly clever nor particularly troublesome, nobody really cared about them anyway.

“I’d rather have the party than the day out, though,” Oliver confided to us one lunchtime. “They’ll probably take us to some dusty old museum or something. Proctor’s idea of a treat, not ours.”

“Stop doing so well in class, then,” Ginny retorted.

“Can’t,” he grinned. “I love the way it really galls Proctor to have to keep me here and put up with me because I do so well with schoolwork. By the way,” he added, lowering his voice, “I’m running something on the side, if you’re interested. I’m taking bets on which house will finish where at the end of term.”

“How much do we have to put on?” I asked.

“Whatever you like. I’ve got the odds worked out, based on this week’s totals. All bets have to be made by the end of the week. And I’m taking bets on the inter-house football matches as well. If you’re interested, you know the valley the other side of the netball courts?”

We did. It wasn’t really a valley, but a huge expanse of overgrown waste ground that had for some reason escaped development down the years. But it had always been called ‘the valley’. It was out of bounds during school hours to Newhampton High kids, though those who lived in Pendley Vale walked down it on their way home from school.

“You know that old pill box about halfway down?”

We did; it had been there since the Second World War, and generations of kids had played in and around it.

“I’ll be down there with my mates every lunchtime this week. If you want to make a bet, come down. But don’t come together, come one at a time. You don’t want to draw attention to yourselves.”

At dinnertime, I squeezed through  the Oliver Mason-made gap in the wire fencing around the netball courts, checked no-one was around, and made my way through the long grass down to the pillbox. Oliver and his three close friends were there, smoking and playing cards. I put a couple of pounds on School House to win the inter-house girls’ football. I’d seen them practising; they were good.

The term rolled on. Right after half-term we began pracising for the end-of-term Christmas concert. Both Ginny and I joined the choir, not because we particularly wanted to sing in the concert, but because practices coincided with Monday afternoon Chemistry, which we both found boring. Then we discovered, to our dismay, that those who signed up for the concert earned house points for their public spiritedness. A couple of weeks later, Catherine Lawson won a county junior Scrabble competition and was awarded twenty house points, while Ginny had a dose of flu and was off school for over a week, so was unable to cancel them out. Then School House won both the boys’ and the girls’ inter-house football contests, and we started edging closer to the other two houses on the leader board.

“Don’t worry,” said Ginny. “We’ll still finish bottom easily enough.” And to prove it, she did her Maths homework during Mr Williams’s English lesson, got caught, and ended up having to stay in at lunchtime to read the chapters of To Kill A Mockingbird she was supposed to have spent the lesson reading.

“Five fewer points to School House,” she said, grinning in Catherine Lawson’s direction after the bell rang and the rest of us prepared to head off for an hour’s freedom. Catherine scowled and stalked out.

“Only thing is, I wanted to catch up with Oliver this lunchtime,” Ginny said. “I’ve got a computer game of my brother’s he wanted to borrow.” Ginny’s brother attended the sixth-form college. “You couldn’t give it to him for me, could you, Es? You know where he hangs out.”

“No trouble,” I said. So after I’d finished eating my sandwiches in the dining room, I headed off through the gap in the fence and down the valley to the pillbox. I gave Oliver the game and headed back up again. As I slipped back into the netball court, I almost bumped into Catherine Lawson.

“Where have you been?” she demanded.

“Visiting my aunt,” I lied.

I half-expected her to go running to Mr Williams to tell him she’d spotted me out of bounds, but as the days slipped by and he said nothing to me about it, I decided she must have been too worried about my losing further points for School House to tell any tales.

Suddenly there were only a couple of weeks of term left. The concert was one week away, and Christmas was on the horizon and we all looked forward to the holidays and to presents and parties. One lunchtime Ginny and I were strolling around the football field discussing what we would be doing over Christmas when I spotted Goody Proctor heading towards the netball courts.

“Look,” I said. “Where d’you think she’s off to?”

We ducked behind the nearby gymnasium and waited until she returned a little later with Oliver and his friends in tow. By the end of the school day, everyone knew that Oliver and the rest had all been suspended. And Catherine Lawson turned fiery red when Ginny wondered aloud how Goody Proctor could have known where to find them.

“Up till last Monday,” said Mrs Proctor in the final assembly of the term, “Hampton House was leading in the inter-house competition. However, as you know, four boys from 10H were caught gambling on Friday and have been suspended. I have therefore had to deduct house points for all of them from Hampton House, and Hampton has unfortunately for those who worked so hard slipped to the bottom of the ladder, albeit only one point behind School House. So on Thursday Vale House pupils will have a day out at the theme park.”

The Vale House kids cheered and looked surprised at being given such a good prize. A surprise we all shared – no dusty old museum after all.

“I also want to say,” Goody Proctor continued, “that we will not be running an inter-house contest next term. Unfortunately, a number of pupils did not take it seriously – indeed I have heard rumours of a competition being run to finish last. It’s disappointing that so many of you were lacking in responsibility and community spirit. Those of you who worked hard for your houses will know who to blame for the demise of the inter-house contest.”

She read out a few more notices, wished us all a happy Christmas, and assembly and the term was over.

As we trailed out, I noticed that Ginny had a huge grin on her face.

 “I don’t know what you’re smiling about,” I grumbled. “I know we wrecked Proctor’s scheme – but hey, we’re not going to the theme park, we’re not going to the party. We’re the unlucky house who finished in the middle.”