BELMONT'S PECULIARITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

BELMONT'S PECULIARITY.

(Winning entry by Sheila Qulnn, Tenmysoa Street, Dominisn Road; age 15.)

Every school baa its peculiarities, and Belmont Gotiege is no exception. "Stinks" » our peculiarity. He is quite a unique specimen of a school chap. Queer—goofy, you know.

"Stinks" we call him. I believe he] has some fanciful name tacked cm. to; him. Frederick Archibald, or is it Himry] Adolphus? However, it doesn't matter, j To us he is "Stinks," nothing more or] nothing less. He came by this interest- j ing name because of his horrible interest j in science. Into all the mysteries of ■this subject he probed, and old "Stinks" was never happy -anless he was TTiifing weird smelling acids together' or poking round amongst the cows and rows of neatly labelled jars and bottles in the school laboratory. This would have been bad enough, but the chap had a kink in another direction. When he was not messing round in the lab., he was tracking imaginary crhnmeJg, and these two peculiarities contrived to make our lives positively ■—bearable.

Well, at the time I am writing about he seemed to be cooling down somewhat, and' the school breathed with relief. After all, perhaps, he was waking up to the lunacy of his ways. Alas for our hopes, It was a ease of " the calm before the storm." - •

Life at Belmont had been monetoa-

■'• tously dull all year, so it was with. P'"'.terrific axritrment £h&t the school learned oae morning that there had ' been a burglary during the night. The Head went retrod looking about ten years older. M his valaa&Le direr and the cups tint had been Bebnest's proud ' possession for semerationa, not to mention numerous after vdotUes, had been' stolen. It was a rich had worth many hundreds of pounds. What puzzled us was how the burglars could have got everything colfected and out of thehouse so quietly. However, the fact; remained that they had done it, -so we all set to work to try and discover whp the burglars were. It was then thai! ' " Stinks " became unbearable. All day jj long, when he was not in school, the . '.awful amatepr detective probed round; measuring every footprint he eajnej ' across, not a bit disturbed by the fact! , that they were made "by the dhaps* boots. ! For the nest couple of days " continued, his search, while we laughed, heartily at his stupidness. At last, However, our ridicule became too much even for him, so he stopped his search and went off with a scowling face to . bury himself among his bottles in the .' lab. .

It was Saturday, so, of course, there was no school, and we were discussing the burglary in our common room. The detectives from Scotland Yard had been probing round the school all the morning, end we were agog to know if they had been successful in finding any clues. But, no. When they appeared again they looked as puzzled as ever, so we more or less resigned ourselves to our fate, and said, a sad goodbye to the school trophies and silver. It was at' lunch time that the queer thing happened. 1 We were just sitting down to lunch whan white fumes began drifting round the room, and the mast beastly smell, like—like—like—l daat know what, filled the room. The Head duffed the air, a puzzled frown on his face. "Queer," he muttered. After a few minutes the fumes became so dense and the smell so awful that we quitted the room hurriedly. It was than that we made a discovery. The fumes came from the science room. Now the laboratory is a wing all on its own, quite near 13m dining room, so we trooped excitedly along to see what was happraing. We gasped at the sight that met our eyes. The room was filled with dense white fumes, mud in the very thick tof it, pouring ever seme beastly smelling substances, was "Stinks."

"I'm on the verge of a great dis-j covery," he cried exultantly, throwing his arms wildly above his head. " Just wait. You'll be surprised." We were surprised. An hoar later " Stinks" was still in the lab. The fumes had spread throughout the school, and the smell was terrible. Nothing on earth would drag him from the science room. It was awful.

Well, as I said 'before, we were surprised. Very surprised. In fact, extremely surprised. We were sitting on the playing fields as, far away from the school as possible, when there came a low rumble from the lab., followed by a terrific explosion, and, to oar absolute horror and amazement the roof of the science room, shot off and I—ded with a crash in the quadrangle.

ISiere was.a wild stampede for the bonding, sad when w» reached it we viewed a humorous sight. There, ia the midst of the smoke and confusion, we found " Stinks," with an air of comical bewilderment .on his stupid face.

It was not -until all the smoke had drifted away that we made -an amazing discovery. . Scattered all over the damAged- ses6nce room were the stolen Jffld silver. v- -So tJbttt was the end of Belmont's HisL term excitement. The burglars merr sever discovered, but that afterschool gardeners mystenossjy 'disappeared, and it was conjectured by* one and aiD that it was he Who'm* carefully hid the trophies and silver in the roof of the science room.

Now " Stinks," In 15b own small way, is quite famous, far did he not indirectly lead to the recovery of the stolen property. So Belmont's M peculiarity " did the school a good turn when he unearthed the trophies while he was on the verge of one of his marvellous I scientific discoveries.