Long live the Crazy Eight! They are back again with all their sophomoric pleasures that are all at once inane, trite, banal and also compelling. Spud is Johnny Milton who has penned his spasmodic diary of his second year at an elite boarding school in Natal (it is 1991) with zest and affection. For those who liked Spud-1 it is all here again in Spud-2. As it says in the title, The Madness Continues.
The Crazy Eight are back in their House, but now as second year boarders, in their new upper floor quarters in the dormitory. They are all set to take out everything they experienced in 1990 on the new first formers below them. They label them the "Sad Six" because they can't take the punishments, the hazing, the jokes, the sadistic bullying, required if you are in a boarding school as a new student.
The Crazy Eight resumes their activities on 15 January 1991. The first step is to compare "Holiday Scorecards". Rambo has been to Europe and wants to shag his new stepmother who is only 12 years older. Fatty has expanded his girth with an additional five kilos. Boggo told stories about a new girlfriend, but no one believed him. Simon toured America. Mad Dog spent the holiday being tutored in mathematics, English and Afrikaans because he'd failed these subjects. Rain Man, a.k.a Vernon, was uncommunicative, except to say he'd kitted a jersey for their mascot, Roger, the dorm cat. Spud is 15 and his balls still have not dropped into their scrotum - he is in love with Mermaid and spent part of the holiday with her family at Wilderness. Later Rambo tells him "that when a girl says she wants to be friends, it means she either finds you repulsive or she's found a guy who is hung like a donkey" (page 254).
Every long weekend, when the Crazy Eight get to go home, after they return to school they compare events in the same manner - their "Weekend Scorecard" (but only Rambo ever scores). For example: "Rambo shagged a barmaid in the flowerbed"; Fatty enjoyed eating crocodile; Boggo worked for his father; Vernon took Roger home; Simon was caught wanking; Mad Dog "opened up a tree house business"; and Spud has lost Mermaid's love. It will take all of the year and his contemplating loving Amanda, too, for Spud to win Mermaid back. Not enough of a plot to keep a reader riveted to the page - the return of Mermaid to the fold is inevitable, isn't it?
Night swimming (illegal) is still a major activity. It is also enforced on the Sad Six. After a Saturday night social at Saint Joan's the Crazy Eight hold a "sex auction". Holidays seem to dominate Spud-2 and are not as interesting as the shenanigans at school. At home Spud evades work, copes with his senile grandmother "Wombat", and his father who is going mad too as life is too much for him and his moonshine business is in shambles. Spud spins his bike over to Mermaid's house but rarely has the gumption to talk to her.
Ah adolescent angst - but not great reading. And this year it seems Spud is always on holiday. He notes the advantages of being at home on the 13th of April: "More good news is that I will be celebrating my fifteenth birthday at home this year which means no bog washing, fountain drinking or ball polishing this time round" (page 103).
After each term Spud gets a report card. His results are entered in his diary. But the best part of it is he pens his own report card on their Housemaster, "Sparerib". These are actually delicious satires on school leadership. On return from a short school holiday the Sad Six have their beds booby-trapped. Spud is made a "Dove of Peace" for the house play, Noah's Ark. His voice begins to change and he is expelled from the choir for singing like a Toucan.
At a party Amanda kisses him and pronounces, "So at last the Spud becomes a man". Ah, if only that was true! She's just playing with him, saying, "I like infantile sexuality". Spud falls in love with Amanda, but hasn't forgotten Mermaid. He tries rugby, has a holiday in England, is counselled by Eve who is married to Sparerib (but Eve has shagged Rambo and everyone but Sparerib knows it, so things are a bit complicated) and continues to wonder when he will grow up.
Spud likes his English teacher "Guv" who encourages debates in class on relevant subjects like school violence, and gave him a merit award for his essay on Alan Paton. The centre-piece of Spud-2 is the Crazy Eight's secret creation and utilisation of a Mad House in a giant tree that is out of bounds.
Throughout all of their escapades the Mad House takes shape, even has a wildebeest head mascot, a Persian carpet and has space to hold all of the Crazy Eight. But the Mad House is in violation of school rules, especially when used as sanctuary for drinking and smoking. One wonders how long it will be before the prefects get wind of the Crazy Eight's nefarious activities? When they do, which they are bound to, what will be the consequences? It is these little tensions that may hold some readers and keep one reading. The occasional laughs, the sly humour, also help to sustain a modicum of interest. Spud flirts with the poetry of EE Cummings, even writes a poem to Mermaid. Guv warns him Cummings is dangerous - no punctuation (not because of his homosexuality). At the next big dance he fails to kiss Mermaid.
Why doesn't she make it possible? Will they ever make a couple? Or is he doomed to Spudon? Spud-1 was a run-away best seller in South Africa last year and won the "Booksellers' Choice Award. Spud-2 may also compete with Spud-1. Van de Ruit is an actor, producer and playwright who earned a Masters in Drama and Performance from the University of Natal. He is not looking backwards.
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