Introducing Mr. Mogford

Yes, I remember Mogford, the bastard, the Black Bat, Satan’s Fiend. I was there, at the back of the class when he first materialised, out of nowhere. Mrs. Lewis Jones had ushered us into the room and the first thing that we noticed was the heat. We were used to freezing, because Old Prosser made every penny count and being a cold blooded creature, he had no need of the cast iron stove which had been shoved into a corner to gather dust. Now the stove had pride of place. It stood within touching distance of the raised dark oak desk at the front of the room. It had been polished. It was glowing.

The boys ‘in the know’, those who occupied the back row, exchanged mystified glances, sharp elbows. Mrs. Lewis Jones was whittering about a ‘new teacher’, but none of her words registered, because we never paid her any heed. Even our parents had long dismissed her as batty and of no consequence. Besides, the girls in the first rows were all a twitter, like a flock of goldfinches and most of the warnings of Mrs. Lewis Jones, whose shout rarely raised above a whisper, were lost in all the excitement.

It was a dark day, in more than one way, we were soon to discover. I had been soaked to the skin on the short run to school. Even, if I had managed to look up, I would not have seen the mountain, lost as it was behind a shifting veil of mist. Mrs. Lewis Jones was waiting in the yard and no matter the rain was cutting each one of us like a knife, she must prod and push us into two lines and keep us waiting until we were military straight, before leading the girls inside.

And there we sat, dripping, wondering at the steam we created as Mrs. Lewis Jones fussed about the shutters admitting what little light there was from outside, when the door opened wide and he stood silhouetted for what seemed an eternity.

The shape of him filled the doorway and the room fell silent in an instant. Later, we all confessed to our mutual belief that a great black bat was hovering in the doorway and no matter what warmth the stove had generated a chill swept over all of us.

The shape advanced. Mrs. Lewis Jones made a clumsy curtsey and tripped over the step in her haste to be gone. The shape advanced. The creature began to appear. I took in a shock of white hair, swept back over an oversized head in such a way that it seemed that two horns grew out on either side of it. The face below was clean shaven and burned a fierce red. His eyes were coal black slits and his mouth was like a shut trap. His neck bulged out above a starched white collar. Everything else was black, but most impressive of all was the dark gown he wore over his suit, for it was this that had instantly given us the illusion of bat’s wings and his first and most enduring nickname.

This is the first draft of the start of this story. The original Mogford was nowhere nearly as bad as this one is going to be, but he was a pretty unpleasant character and I am quite content to murder him in print, as you will see.

18.8.2008.