Buster’s World

By Bjarne Reuter

The whole thing started when they discovered that he'd brought a teacloth to school instead of a towel.

   It was down in the changing room, after games. He had already mucked up two penalty kicks during games, hitting Mr Olsen the games teacher in the pit of the stomach so hard that his whistle went flying through the air.

   'Hey, look at that clown fooling about with a teacloth!' yelled Hans, and that set the warm bodies of all the other boys in motion. They jumped up and down, shaking themselves.

   'A teacloth, that's what it is, a teacloth!' yelled Erie, parading past Buster mockingly with his own towel twisted into a damp rope.

   'Our towels were all in the wash,' shouted Buster, and then he ignored his classmates, just as he did when they laughed at his brown gumboots and his short cord trousers.

   'What offers for Buster's mouldy old underpants?' shouted Hans, holding the greyish garment up in his fingertips.

   Wild yells of delight echoed back and forth, rebounding from the hard tiled walls on to the shivering gooseflesh of the boys' bare bodies.

   'Give those back, you slimy, fat, bristly great pig!' spat Buster, making a grab for his underpants.

   'Hey, look at him, look at him!' shouted Erie, slapping Buster's bottom with his towel. Within two minutes, all Buster's things had been done up in a bundle which went flying from boy to boy. While their owner ran after first one boy and then another, the rest of them went on getting dressed, so that his own nakedness became more and more embarrassing.

   'Give my things back!' he shouted. 'I'm freezing.'

   'Look at his wobbly willy!' shouted Jens, grinning gleefully as he retreated into a corner.

   'You just shut up, Jens!' said Buster furiously. 'Wait till I get my hands on you - I'll pull your wart out root and all!'

   The others roared with laughter.

   'Going to give us the gorilla act, Buster?' shouted Erie above the other voices. 'Give us the gorilla act and you can have your things back.'

   'Yes, yes!' yelled the others.

   'Promise, Erie?' asked Buster, his eyes large and wide as he looked up at tall, thin Erie, who was holding the bundle of clothes high above his own curly head.

   'With the rubber teeth and all!' shouted Hans, getting all excited.

   'Nothing doing!' said Buster. 'No rubber teeth-it takes me two days to get the last bit out.'

   He turned his back on them.

   Erie threw the bundle to Hans.

   'Too bad-you'll just have to go into class with a bare pink bottom, then,' he sighed.

   Buster got out the erasers for his rubber teeth.

   He hunched his back. His arms looked ten centimetres longer. He bent his legs at the knees. Before they knew it, he had pushed his damp hair up like a brush and quickly fitted two erasers into his mouth, in front of his own teeth and between his upper and lower lips. The transformation took place so quickly that although most of his classmates had seen it a dozen times before, it still surprised them. There before them stood a real live gorilla. Steam rising from its body, bright red, growling with suppressed anger. It wasn't crazy Buster standing there any more.

   To start with, the gorilla just walked around, head bent, arms swinging. Audibly gnashing its teeth, it swayed from side to side, apparently paying no attention to the giggling audience. But then all hell broke loose as the ape, with a deafening yell, went for Verner, who howled with genuine fright and tried to escape into the showers as the monster grabbed his hair. And then the chase began: the monster with its great long arms was everywhere, now scratching a face, now shaking two other boys off his back; no one dared come too close, yet they didn't want to leave much space between themselves and the weird creature either.

   But just as the ape decided it would be a good idea to stand on a rolled-up mat and bellow, 'Me King Kong, me just like old Olsen!' Mr Olsen the games teacher himself came into the changing room. Unfortunately the ape, or rather Buster, had his back to Mr Olsen, and carried on just as before, although all the others had fallen silent.

   'Me hairy great ape, me got hairy great chest, me got the biggest willy in the school, me Great Ape Olsen, me ... me .....

  Mr Olsen and Buster looked at each other. Buster straightened up.

   'Here we go again.' Olsen shook his head wearily. 'Take those erasers out of your mouth and put your clothes on. The rest of you can go.'

   Mr Olsen locked up the apparatus room while the others ran upstairs, shouting. Buster spat the erasers out. Mr Olsen watched him in silence. Then it came. 'When and if you're through with that, come upstairs and close the door behind you. And you can mop the shower floor dry.’

   ‘But last time I-‘

   ‘So you did, Buster Oregon Mortensen, so you did – and what sort of an animal act were you putting on last time? Let me think….’

   Mr Olsen gazed at the ceiling, lost in thought.

   ‘A hyena,’ muttered Buster.

Translated by Anthea Bell