It would be quite wrong to suggest that Paul Costa’s practical jokes usually ended in fatalities. 

Most of them were just schoolboy pranks; like the time, in second year, when he’d silenced the electric bell that rang each morning to signal the end of assembly.  The rector and senior teachers of Croom Academy had suffered a few moments of red-faced embarrassment followed by a few hours of angry frustration as they tried in vain to identify the culprit. 
But that was all. 
Nobody died!

And his April Fools’ Day jokes had been pretty harmless too. 
Like releasing the skeleton from its little gibbet in the science lab, smuggling it along the corridor and placing it in a seated position on the loo in the women’s staff toilets.  The only “casualty” then had been Mrs Williamson, who’d nearly died laughing.  A good sport, Mrs Williamson!

Admittedly, the Rufus Huntley incident had been a little more serious.
That all blew up in third year. 
Huntley, only 14 but already five-foot-eleven and 13 stone, had been abusing Paul for weeks.  At every opportunity he would proclaim “Costa’s a homosexual, a poofter!  Look at him, the big Jessie!”  He would punch Paul hard on the upper arm or in the kidneys - if he could catch him.  Paul had grown tired of running away, weary of taking evasive action.  He was desperate, looking everywhere for an answer - for something that would make Huntley lay off.  Paul read books on unarmed combat, books that said you could “learn the lethal skills of the SAS”.  But he doubted his ability to transfer those skills from page to playground.  Things looked bleak.  Then Paul discovered that the phenolphthalein that they used in Chemistry - to tell you if something was an alkali - had another interesting property: it was a very powerful laxative.  In fact, comparing it to normal over-the-counter laxatives was like comparing a nuclear warhead to a hand grenade.

Paul used an eyedropper to put a small amount of stolen phenolphthalein into a half-litre screw-cap bottle of Pepsi.  He carried the bottle with him to school for three consecutive days before getting the opportunity to swap the bottle of doctored Pepsi with the bottle that Huntley habitually carried in his rucksack.  
Later that day, at morning break, he’d spotted Huntley half-standing, half-sitting on a window ledge.  Huntley looked unwell.  This was Paul’s chance.  He walked up to him.  Paul was shaking with fear but he still managed to get the words out.  “Stand up and fight you bastard! “
Huntley said weakly, “Fuck off, poof!”  But he didn’t stand up, he was hugging himself, bent over slightly.
A crowd started to gather.
”You’re a fucking coward, Huntley,” Paul continued.  “Admit it, you’re shitting yourself, shitting yourself now.”  Paul stretched out a long thin arm and poked Huntley hard in the stomach.
Obligingly, Huntley’s bowels opened.  He skittered endlessly in front of an aghast audience that grew from dozens to hundreds.
Huntley was taken to hospital.  
The Pepsi bottle was taken for analysis but nothing untoward was detected.  That was because Paul had switched the bottles again while everyone was fussing round Huntley.
It was weeks before Rufus Huntley could resume his education.  When he did so it was at another school.

Paul, too, resumed his education.  
Things were much better now.  
He had, in his own way, discovered the truth of the SAS motto: "Who dares, wins."

©  David Gray