turn!" the child Horribly asserted.
"Your turn?" the teacher asked. "Your turn for what?"
"To ask a question, of course!"
The old man's grey matter, kicking in, reminded him of their agreement, including the conditions set out. Closing his book, Mr Lowe, convinced that he was able to answer any question posed by a child, said, "Well, what are you waiting for? Ask me your question!"
"My question," said Horrible Horace, "is this..."
You could have heard a pin drop, so still were the children waiting to hear what he said next.
"Yes, what is it?" the ill-tempered teacher asked brusquely.
Winking across to his Barmy friend, he replied, "What do Australians call outside toilets?"
"Hah, that's easy!" said the old man, "They call them D-"
Mr Lowe, however, was unable to finish his sentence, because Horrible Horace interrupted him, saying, "Apart from Dunny, that is!"
Scratching his head, annoyed and embarrassed by the smart-alecky child asking him the question, Mr Lowe racked his brains to find the correct answer. Although he was old, cranky and oftentimes forgetful, he soon found it. Raising his hand, he said, "I have it! The answer to your question is Thunder box!"
The children gasped when they heard this, for they had never before heard a toilet, not even an outside one, called a Thunder box.
"That's right," the Horrible pupil admitted, through bitterly disappointed the wrinkly old teacher had answered correctly.
"It's my turn again," said Mr Lowe. "And this time I will find a much harder question for you to enjoy. Now let me see..."
It was a considerable time before Mr Lowe resumed speaking, but when he did, beaming, as happy as a pig in muck, he said, "My second question is about a natural phenomenon, in Australia."
"Natural - who?" one child asked.
Another one said, "I think he means naturally speaking"
A third child whispered, "He's naturally bonkers."
"Hush, back there, lest you feel the touch of my cane," Mr Lowe growled, hurling a piece of chalk into the depths of the classroom. Like the earlier piece, it bounced off Tommy Tilbert's forehead. This time, however, having learned his lesson from the previous instance, he made no comment about it.
"Since you are so clever," the old man said to Horrible Horace, "it should be no problem, no problem at all for you to answer my next question..."
"If you ever get around to it," Horrible Horace said under his breath.
"In what direction does the water in baths and wash-handbasins, in Australia, revolve when going down the plughole?"
"Is there any difference to here?" a child asked, nudging her neighbour.
Another one said, "It's a trick question - it has to be. Surely it can go down in either direction, here or there?"
A third child said, "I thought they were supposed to be questions about geography, not physics!"
Throwing some chalk, this time a blue coloured piece (Tommy Tilbert ducked in case it was heading his way), Mr Lowe warned the children to stop talking.
Horrible Horace, however, true to his word that he knew all things Australian, offered Mr Lowe the answer. "The water," he said confidently, "swirls down and around the plugholes, in the Antipodes, in a clockwise direction - and also in toilets!"
"How, how did you know that?" Mr Lowe gasped.
On hearing these words every child in that classroom roared, delighted for their Horrible classmate.
Wasting no time, ignoring the crazy-mad teacher's question, Horrible Horace lifted a hand to catch the old man's attention. "My second question," he said, "is-."
Cutting him off, Mr Lowe, his eyes burning with rage, was in no mood for any more questions. "What's wrong with you, boy?" he asked. "Do you spend all of your waking time with your head stuck in a book? That won't help you to fight the Japanese!"
The children laughed at this remark.
"So you think it's funny, do you?" he asked. "You won't think it so funny if we have another war, and the Japanese invade us!" he barked. Abandoning the subject as fast as he had embraced it, Mr Lowe returned to their little 'contest'. "Go on, then," he said, folding his arms defiantly. "Give it your best shot!"
Equally defiant, Horrible Horace, folding his arms, mimicking his teacher, said, "What is the name of the National Park in the state of Victoria that has a similar rock formation to the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland?"
Laughing, relieved that he had been asked to easy as question, Mr Lowe said, "Why, Master Horace, you disappoint me. Is that the best you can come up with, a question that a babe in arms could answer?"
"Tell me the answer," the Horrible pupil demanded, "If you think you're so clever!"
"It's the Organ Pipes National Park, of course," he smugly replied, watching his antagonist's face drop at he said it. "And to show you how much I know," he continued, "that I really know my stuff, I will tell you why it was given that name. You see," he said, enjoying every moment of it, "the rock formation, there, being on the side of a cliff, resembles the pipes of an organ, albeit an extremely large one."
Gasps, there were gasps of surprise from the children when they heard this.
"How can the old buzzard know so much?" one child asked.
Another one said, "He knows more that Horrible Horace!"
A third child, rebuking the second, said, "No one knows more about geography than Horrible Horace!"
"So, it's two all," said Horrible Horace to the crinkly old teacher.
"It is," Mr Lowe replied. "Are you afraid you might lose?" he asked, studying the Horrible pupil's face for signs of stress.
If he was feeling stressed, Horrible Horace did not show it. Smiling, beaming, seemingly full of the joys of spring, he replied, "Stress? Nah! I have never suffered from such a thing. Stress is for wimps!"
The children cheered on hearing these words, but Mr Lowe, with chalk at the ready, shot them a glance so cruel they ceased.
"So, it's all down to this," said the old man, "the third set of questions?"
Horrible Horace nodded, but said nothing. This infuriated Mr Lowe. He could not understand how a child could compose itself so well under such pressure. "Surely he was feeling stress," he thought, "at least some?"
It took another long time for Mr Lowe to decide on his next question, but when he did, once again beaming, as happy as a pig in muck, he said, "My third question is about the weather in Australia. How does that grab you, you Horrible child?"
On hearing this, the children thought the crabby old teacher was losing some marbles of the grey matter kind.
"Ask me whatever you like!" Horrible Horace retorted. "It makes no difference. I know everything there is to know about Australia, including the weather!"
Rubbing his long, elongated and ever so thin jaw, Mr Lowe said, "Right, then, here it is. Pray tell me, Master Horace, what kind of weather does Tamborine Mountain enjoy?"
Gasps, gasps of dismay spewed out from the children who had never before heard of Tamborine Mountain, let alone know of its weather.
"Ah, I see this has you all in a quandary," Mr Lowe gloated, watching the Horrible pupil founder, with some considerable delight. "It's not so easy, is it, my question, huh?"
Horrible Horace, like his classmates, had never before heard of Tamborine Mountain, but being the stubborn individual that he was, he did not intend to let Mr Lowe know this was so. Feigning surprise, he said, "What a coincidence, I was going to ask you the very same question!"
Mr Lowe, however, being the wily old individual that he was, took absolutely no notice of this remark, and he said, "So, you are stumped?"
This time feigning shock, Horrible Horace said, "Me stumped? No! Not all! I was just passing time, trying to lighten the mood."
His eyes narrowing, Mr Lowe said, "You will lighten the mood by offering me an answer, if you really have one."
While they had been talking, Horrible Horace had been stalling, going over in his mind everything he knew about Australia, hoping th
at somewhere within it he could find the answer to the crabby old teacher's question. Unfortunately, this did not happen. Although he knew almost everything there was to know about that far-flung continent, Tambourine Mountain - and the weather it enjoyed - was not a part of it.
Double or Nothing?
"I am waiting," said Mr Lowe, tapping the top of his desk with a piece of chalk.
Going for a long shot, hazarding a guess, Horrible Horace said, "The weather that Tamborine Mountain enjoys is hot dry summers and cool wet winters."
Clapping slowly, painfully slowly, Mr Lowe said, "Sorry, but that is the wrong answer.
The children listening gasped in shock and horror when they heard him say this.
"The weather Tamborine Mountain enjoys," said the old teacher, "in case you are wondering, is hot wet summers and mild dry winters." Standing up from his desk, retrieving his cane, Mr Lowe began flexing the instrument of pain, bending it into an arc and swinging it through the air, for practice.
"Ouch!" thought Tinkering Tommy.
"That's going to hurt," thought Barmy Bernard.
"How did it ever get to this?" thought Horrible Horace.
"I am waiting," said Mr Lowe.
"What about Horrible Horace's third question?" A child bravely enquired.
He lost the right to ask it when he answered my question incorrectly," Mr Lowe tersely replied. "And you," he hurled a piece of red coloured chalk at the offender, the child who had dared to speak out, "can stay after school, writing one million times, 'I will mind my own business', understand?"
The child ever so meekly said yes.
Standing up from his desk, Horrible Horace made his way to the front of the classroom. When