Wilt on High by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online Page A

was doing,’ she said.
    ‘Yes, well let me tell you what …’
    ‘He was bending over and looking under the door,’ continued Miss Hare remorselessly.
    ‘Wasn’t,’ said Wilt.
    ‘Don’t you dare lie. I always knew you were a pervert. Remember that revolting incident with the doll?’ shesaid, appealing to the Principal. The Principal didn’t need reminding but it was Wilt who answered.
    ‘Mrs Bristol,’ he mumbled, dabbing his nose with a paper towel, ‘Mrs Bristol’s the one who started this.’
    ‘Mrs Bristol?’
    ‘Wilt’s secretary,’ explained the V-P.
    ‘Are you suggesting you were looking for your secretary in here?’ asked the Principal. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
    ‘No, I’m not. I’m saying Mrs Bristol will tell you why I was here and I want you to hear it from her before that damned bulldozer on anabolic steroids starts knocking hell out of me again.’
    ‘I’m not standing here being insulted by a …’
    ‘Then you’d better pull your skirt up,’ said the V-P, whose sympathies were entirely with Wilt.
    The little group made their way up the stairs, past a class of English A-level students who’d just ended an hour with Mr Gallen on The Pastoral Element in Wordsworth’s Prelude , and were consequently unprepared for the urban element of Wilt’s bleeding nose. Nor was Mrs Bristol. ‘Oh dear, Mr Wilt, what have you done to yourself?’ she asked. ‘She didn’t attack you?’
    ‘Tell them,’ said Wilt. ‘You tell them.’
    ‘Tell them what?’
    ‘What you told me,’ snapped Wilt, but Mrs Bristol was too concerned about his condition and the Principal and the V-P’s presence had unnerved her. ‘You mean about –’
    ‘I mean … Never mind what I mean,’ said Wilt lividly,‘just tell them what I was doing in the Ladies’ lavatory, that’s all.’
    Mrs Bristol’s face registered even more confusion. ‘But I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t there.’
    ‘I know you weren’t there, dammit. What they want to know is why I was.’
    ‘Well …’ Mrs Bristol began, and lost her nerve again, ‘Haven’t you told them?’
    ‘Caesar’s ghost,’ said Wilt, ‘can’t you just spit it out. Here I am accused of being a peeping Tom by Miss Burke and Hare over there …’
    ‘You call me that again and your own mother wouldn’t recognize you,’ said Miss Hare.
    ‘Since she’s been dead for ten years, I don’t suppose she would now,’ said Wilt, retreating behind his desk. By the time the PE teacher had been restrained, the Principal was trying to make some sense out of an increasingly confused situation. ‘Can someone please shed some light on this sordid business?’ he asked.
    ‘If anyone can, she can,’ said Wilt, indicating his secretary. ‘After all, she set me up.’
    ‘Set you up, Mr Wilt? I never did anything of the sort. All I said was there was a girl in the staff toilet with a hypodermic and I didn’t know who she was and …’ Intimidated by the look of horror on the Principal’s face, she ground to a halt. ‘Have I said something wrong?’
    ‘You saw a girl with a hypodermic in the staff toilet? And told Mr Wilt about it?’
    Mrs Bristol nodded dumbly.
    ‘When you say “girl” I presume you don’t mean a member of the staff?’
    ‘I’m sure it wasn’t. I didn’t see her face but I’d have known surely. And she had this awful syringe filled with blood and …’ She looked at Wilt for assistance.
    ‘You said she was taking drugs.’
    ‘There was no one in that toilet while I was there,’ said Miss Hare, ‘I’d have heard them.’
    ‘I suppose it could have been someone with diabetes,’ said the V-P, ‘some adult student who wouldn’t want to use the students’ toilet for obvious reasons.’
    ‘Oh quite,’ said Wilt, ‘I mean we all know diabetics go round with hypodermics full of blood. She was obviously flushing back to get the maximum dose.’
    ‘Flushing back?’ said the Principal weakly.
    ‘That’s