Second Draft Chapter 4

Everyone wishes summer could go on forever, but nothing is as constant as time. Despite all my efforts to will it away, the first day of school arrived.

I awoke, or rather was awakened by my father, at an early hour and washed my face with the cold water. It still felt like summer outside. The air was still warm, and the summer birds were still singing, but all this only felt like a mockery; like a prisoner who can still see the green fields from his cell window.

I walked Abel into town and then dropped him off by the primary school before going to my school.

Because it was the first day of school and mid-term fatigue had not yet set in, everyone showed up a little bit early, and we stood around and chatted while we waited for the doors to open. My friends Simon and David were there of course, but there were also many other people that I hadn’t seen all summer. To begin with there was Ajax.

Actually there was a good reason why I hadn’t seen Ajax all summer. I hated him, and he hated me. When school was out of session, we did our best to avoid each other.

Ajax was flanked on each side by his friends Hector and Teucer. Both of them loved to push people around, but they weren’t as strong as Ajax, so they had befriended him and made sure to stick close to him when doing their bullying.

Next there was Icarus, with his blond curly hair spilling over his forehead and almost covering his eyes. He was blabbing on about something, but it didn’t seem like anyone was really listening to him. Icarus didn’t always make a lot of sense, so none of us paid too much attention to what he said.

And there was Christopher and Varro in the corner talking to each other. They were the two kiss-ups of the class. Both of them were extremely serious about their schoolwork. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but whatever it was I knew it would be boring.

And there was Rosa. Rosa I had seen, if not talked to, every Sunday of the summer. But the other girls around clustered around her like Sophia and Vera I had not seen. It was no good talking to them now though. They were closed off in a tight little circle like a wall.

Joshua and Leda were off by themselves talking. Clodius and Ares were wrestling. LJ was sitting on the ground with his back leaned up against the school wall, and immersed in a book like he always was. Emma was talking to Philip.

I went straight to David and Simon. “Did you bring the hat with you?” Simon asked.

“I got it,” I said patting my book bag.

David rolled his eyes. “Jon, why would you bring something like that to school? It’s only going to get you in trouble.”

“I’m not going to show the teachers,” I said. Really, how dumb did he think I was?

Emma broke off her conversation with Philip and came over to talk to us. “Do you have the hat?” she asked me in a conspiratorial voice. I patted the book bag proudly. “Well, let’s see it then,” Emma demanded impatiently.

“Come on Jon, let us have a look,” Simon said.

David didn’t say anything, although I could almost feel the displeasure flowing from him.

I glanced around just to make sure that there were no teachers around. Then I started to open the bag up.

Ajax must have seen noticed that we were up to something because he came over, with Teucer and Hector following in his wake. He elbowed David aside and came into our circle. I stopped opening the bag, and kept the hat inside.

“What is everyone doing over here?” Ajax demanded. Although the question was directed to everyone, he looked only at me.

“Nothing that concerns you Ajax,” I replied. “Why don’t you and your friends go and play somewhere else?”

Ajax acted like he didn’t hear me. “What have you got in that bag,” he said, pointing.

“Books, notebooks, pencils, paper…”

“And a policeman’s hat?” Ajax said.

This shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I should have known that by now the story was traveling around, and that it would eventually get to Ajax. But I guess I just wasn’t expecting him to know already. I was temporarily at a loss for words, and Ajax broke into a huge grin when he saw he had upset me. “Maybe a policeman’s hat,” I answered at last, trying to regain the confidence in my voice.

“I don’t believe it,” Ajax said. “If you’ve got it, then lets see it.”

Ajax had been speaking in a loud voice, and a small crowd of students gathered around to see what we were arguing about. I reached inside my book bag. I held my hand concealed in the bag for a moment and then, with a bit of drama, I pulled out the hat. The crowd closed in on us as the other students tried to get a better look.

A brief flicker of amazement flashed across Ajax’s eyes. He quickly suppressed it and assumed his condescending look again.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” I heard Hector yell. “The policeman could have given it to him.”

But Hector was already being drowned out by the other voices. “How did you get that Jon?”
“Did you really outrun him?”
“Tell us what happened.”

There were so many questions I was unsure of which one to answer first. I looked around at the crowd trying to decide who to answer, and then I became aware that everyone was stepping back. An older boy was entering our circle, and they were making room for him. Even Ajax and his friends stepped back respectfully and gave him a wide berth.

The boy had a familiar look to him. Despite his stern expression, my mind connected him with some sort of positive association. Something inside me was saying he was an ally. And then it clicked. This was Orion, the boy who had saved David and me from the police a few weeks before.

“Jon, right?” he asked. I nodded. His eyes were focused on the hat. “So you’ve moved on to bigger things?” I nodded blankly. He didn’t ask any questions, but he knew just by seeing the hat what had happened. There was a silence, and, as with our first meeting I could see that his eyes were moving up and down. He was studying me. “You’ve got a lot of courage,” he said at last.

I struggled to think of a suitable response to this. “It was just an impulse.”

He nodded slowly, but his far away look gave the impression of not having really heard me. And then he walked away.

There was silence after he left. The crowd around me had ceased asking questions. Ajax didn’t try and challenge me any more after that. Instead, Ajax just turned around and walked away, with Teucer and Hector trailing him as always. “How did he know your name?” David asked.

The bell rang. We all filed into the school and into the classroom. I sat next to David on his left, and Simon took the desk to David’s right. David pressed his question again. “How does he know your name anyway Jon?”

“I don’t know. When we ran into him in the street that was the first time I’d ever seen him.”

Simon overheard this. “You must have seen Orion before. He’s one of the class leaders.”

“Jon doesn’t pay attention to that stuff,” David responded in a sarcastic voice.

“Really? You don’t know who any of the class leaders are?” Simon was surprised at this, but he seemed to accept it without any more follow up questions. Although after a moment’s reflection, he added, “strange, isn’t it? Orion is the most well known person in the whole school, and yet didn’t even know him. And you are an absolute nobody, but he knows who you are.”

I was about to thank Simon for phrasing it so elegantly, when the teacher walked into the room. “Good morning class,” she chirped.

“Good morning,” we replied in a grunt. Obviously none of us were happy about being here. Only Christopher’s voice had a tint of enthusiasm to it.

We knew this teacher already from last year. There were only a few teachers who taught at the school, and we knew them all. She was not a novelty to us, and we were not new to her.

“I hope you didn’t forget your lessons over the summer,” she said. Of all the teachers, I hated her the least. She had a cheerful voice, and it never sounded forced. Like all teachers she could be strict sometimes, but she as teachers go she was actually one of the nicest ones.

“Did you review your lessons every day like I asked you to?” she asked again. A small rumbling murmur of nervousness mixed with embarrassment flowed through the class. Was she asking because we were going to be tested on it? Seeing the other nervous faces, I thought I in good company.

“Let’s review just in case some of you forgot,” she said at last. This meant there wasn’t going to be any test. A flood of relief passed through the class. “Does anyone even remember what we were talking about?” she asked. Christopher’s hand went up. “Yes, go ahead Christopher.”

“We were talking about the Canaan Wars,” he answered.

“Thank you. And who remembers what the cause of the Canaan Wars was? Yes, Varro.”

“To restore the Church in Canaan,” Varro answered.

“Good. Good. Who remembers the other reason?” Only two hands were in the air now: Christopher and Varro. The teacher seemed almost on the point of calling on one of them again, and then she decided against it. “This year I want to try and get as many students participating as possible,” she suddenly announced. “Last year I felt like it was always the same few people answering all the questions. Matthew, do you know?”

“No Ma’am, I’m sorry.”

“Icarus, what about you?”

“No Ma’am.” [Alternate: some ridiculous Icarus style answer (probably overkill, but just an idea)-or some other student entirely].

“We studied this last year. Are you telling me that nobody besides Christopher and Varro remembers?” There was growing frustration in her voice. Somebody needed to answer this question quickly or we might all be in trouble.

Fortunately LJ raised his hand. “Lucius, thank you,” the teacher said in a grateful voice. “What was the other cause of the Canaan wars?”

“Fabulae was still split after the Restoration,” LJ answered. “The Duke needed the support of the Church, and he needed the support of the conservatives, so he embarked on a popular war to attempt to restore the church to Canaan.” In his own way, LJ was probably a lot smarter than even Varro. He rattled off all that complicated bookish type stuff as if that was how he always talked.

The teacher was momentarily unsure of what to do with this answer. She nodded as if she were thinking about it and then answered, “Noooo,” in a drawn out voice. “No,” she said a second time with more confidence. “No, that’s not one of the reasons we learned in this class. Please try and contain your answers to things in the textbook. Can someone else give me another reason? Sophia, what about you?”

I hated history. Five minutes into the new school year, and I was already bored out of my mind. I leaned over to David to continue our conversation. “Well, whoever he is, and however he knows me, he certainly shut Ajax right up, didn’t he?” I whispered. “That was wonderful to see.”

“Huh?” David’s face was confused. It took a few seconds for him to remember what we had been discussing. “Oh. That still.”

“Well somebody needs to do it. Ajax is a real thug, and his friends are just bullies. And they’ve been like that for as long as I can remember. Do you remember the fight I got into with them last year?”

“Yeah.” David usually gave me brief one word answers when we were talking in class. He was always afraid we were going to get in trouble.

“They picked that fight with me. I wasn’t even doing anything. Ajax just wanted a fight.”

“I’ve never had a problem with him,” David answered. Of course David never had a problem with him. David was too nice of a guy to have any enemies. And because he himself never had any enemies himself, he always assumed that I must be partly at fault for all my quarrels. He never seemed to understand that there were bullies in the world, and that someone had to stand up to them. “If he’s always bothering you, he must have a reason for it.”

Now this was the part I could never get David to understand. “No, see Dave, that’s the point. He has absolutely no reason.”

“He must have some reason. Did you ever to something to him?”

“I never did anything!”

“Jonathon! David!” We’d been caught by the teacher. I must have raised my voice too loud on that last statement. “Will you two please shut up and listen to the lesson?”

“Yes Ma’am,” we both answered. Fortunately for us it was the first day of school, and she was one of the nicer teachers, so she let it go at just the scolding, without any punishment.

“Now,” she continued in her teacher’s voice, “the high priest was forced to flee from Canaan. The Duke naturally invited him to come to Fabulae until the crisis was over, but the priest went to the neighboring country of Amicus instead. And there he formed his own government in exile…”

David, if I left him alone, actually seemed interested in this stuff. He followed the lecture with a thoughtful look on his face. I suddenly noticed that Emma, who was sitting on my right hand side, was furiously scribbling down notes. I began to feel slightly guilty that my own notebook was still blank. I looked at the white pages of my own notebook shining back at me, and at my pen lying still on my desk. Then I looked over at Emma again. Her hand was still moving quickly. What could she be writing that was so important? I leaned over to get a closer look.

“The Duke wanted to preserve the reforms of the restoration and Icarus stop chewing on your pen also wanted to restore the church to LJ does that book have anything to do with this class? No? Well then put it away to restore the church to Canaan for which he would have the eternal gratitude of the true Canaan people Sophia look up here don’t look out the window…”

Emma was writing down every single word the teacher spoke whether it had to do with the lecture or not. I guess you have to do something to make this class interesting. If we weren’t permitted to talk to each other, then you had to be creative.

The teacher seemed to notice it the same time I did. She leaned over to see what Emma was so busy writing. The teacher turned pale when she saw it. “Emma, for heaven sakes stop it. If the headmaster had seen what has been going on in this class, it would mean my dismissal.”

There was a bit of shocked silence after this, and I think we all realized we had been taking advantage of the teacher’s good nature. Emma looked down at her notes and then immediately tore them up.

The rest of the class proceeded without incident. I didn’t pay attention, but I didn’t try and talk to David anymore either. Like Emma, I was too fond of this particular teacher to want to get her in trouble.

The next teacher was a different story however. I wouldn’t have minded seeing his dismal at all. He was one of the strictest teachers at the school. He loved seeing students suffer. You could see it in his eyes. Actually he didn’t even have eyes. He wore eyeglasses which reflected the light and make it look like he didn’t have any eyes at all, but just two round discs. He was impossible to like.

I tried talking to David to occupy my mind, but David just shot me a dirty look and I shut up. After fifty minutes, the bell rang and we packed up our stuff.

“What’s with you?” I asked David.

“Jon, listen, it’s the first day of school. Do we have to get in trouble on the first day?”

“But I was talking about something important.”

“We can talk about it at break,” David answered as he swung his book bag over his shoulder. David exited the room while I was still packing up my books.

The rest of the day went without incident. Or I should say, with only the usual incidents. I hung out with David and Simon during the break. After lunch, Icarus tried to climb the tree, and for some reason, I ended up being one of the people encouraging him on. He fell off, but was not badly hurt. Ajax and Hector had a good laugh when Icarus fell, but they always had a good laugh whenever someone else got hurt.

After school I should have gone straight home, but a number of us decided to play sports outside the schoolyard instead. I ended up eating supper at David’s house. Since I had not told my father I was going to do this, I knew it would get me in trouble. But it was the first day of school. I couldn’t just go straight home and study for the rest of the night. What kind of a start would that be.

Even after dinner at David’s house, the walk home made me hungry again. I went into the kitchen to get something to eat. The noise from the kitchen must have attracted my father. He snuck up behind me. “Home late again, Jonathon?” I jumped, startled.

“I’m sorry, I lost track of the time,” I answered quickly.

“Didn’t they feed you at David’s house?” He knew that was where I had been without me having to say anything. I was always at David’s.

“No, they did. I’m hungry again.”

“You didn’t tell me you weren’t coming for dinner tonight, so your food is still on the table. It’s cold now of course, but if you’re still hungry, that’s what you’re eating. You’re not helping yourself to anything else from the kitchen.”

I nodded, too tired to argue, and simply went into the dining room. He followed me. I silently braced myself for the coming onslaught. “You better shape up and learn how to follow directions. You’re going to be working with the Duke someday.”

“Yes I’m sorry,” I answered as I picked over the cold food on my plate. After standing and picking at the food with my hands for a while, I decided I was hungry enough to eat the whole thing and slid into the chair.

He remained silent for a while, watching me with a disapproving expression. When he spoke again, it was in the same harsh tones as before. “The first day at school and already you are coming home late. This is a terrible way to start off. I thought we agreed you were going to take your studies more seriously this year?”

“I will,” I mumbled through a mouthful of food.

“I hope so. Am I going to have to meet with your teachers again this year?”

“No sir.”

“Good.” He went over to the cabinet and brought out a flask of alcohol. He unscrewed the top and poured some for himself into a small glass. “Good because I’m really sick of that. You had better stay out of trouble at school this year.” He brought the glass to his lips and took a drink. I always marveled at how he could keep a straight face drinking that stuff. On the few occasions when I had snuck a drink, my face had gone into all sorts of violent contortions as soon as the alcohol entered my mouth.

“And I mean it this year,” he continued. “You will not have another year like last year? Do you understand me?”

“Yes sir,” I mumbled again.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“Sorry sir.”

“You know why your behavior is important, don’t you? People know who you are. You realize that don’t you?” I nodded. “And when you persist in making a jackass out of yourself at school, it reflects badly on me and it reflects badly on the Duke.” There was silence. He took another drink. “You realize that don’t you?”

I was annoyed at having to answer the same question twice. “Yes.”

The tone of my voice caused my father to explode. He slammed his hand on the table and yelled, “Well then maybe you can act like it this year.”

There was silence as he glared angrily at me. My throat constricted, but I forced myself to swallow the food that was in my mouth. “Sorry sir.” This was how he usually worked. He exploded unpredictably at small things to indicate his larger anger at me in general.

For a short time I just sat silently under his angry gaze. Then his face softened slightly, and he tried to change the subject. “How was the first day of school,” he asked.

“Good.”

“What happened today?”

“Nothing.”

“Well what did you do after school?”

“Nothing.”

I knew this line of conversation was his attempt at an olive branch, but I didn’t feel like opening up and talking about my day after the reprimand he had just given me. He didn’t press it. “Well, I’m going to bed now,” my father rubbed his hand over his face to indicate how tired he was. “You will be home for dinner tomorrow. And you had better not get in any trouble at school this year.”

Second Draft Chapter 5

But the very next day I got in trouble.

It was after lunch break. We were all out in the schoolyard. Icarus was climbing that damn tree again, in spite of having fallen out of it the previous day. The sun shown brightly through the leaves and seemed to blind him in his ascent.

This time I was not one of the voices urging him on. Clodius and Ares were at the foot of the tree, urging Icarus on to greater glories, but I was on the other side of the schoolyard talking to David and Simon.

I was speaking to David, but I had my back leaned against the school wall so that I could see out across the schoolyard, and I had a clear view of what everyone was doing. There was Icarus climbing the tree. There was Rosa holding court with her circle of girls. And there was Ajax, Teucer, and Hector. Ajax was surveying the schoolyard with a contented look, like a lion who was certain he was lord of all he surveyed. Hector and Teucer were pacing with more pensive looks. They were the dangerous ones. They were the ones who had something to prove.

Simple minds are always easy to read. I could usually tell what they were thinking just by looking at their faces. Right now it was clear that they were scanning the schoolyard for victims.

Suddenly Hector’s face made a sneer. It was an expression that reminded me immediately of some sort of wild dog which has picked out its prey. He elbowed Teucer in the side, and then growled something that I couldn’t hear from the far side of the end of the school year. They both set out.

I began to pay less and less attention to what David was saying to me, and watched these two more and more intently. I thought at first they were heading towards LJ. He was usually a favorite target of theirs. But instead they walked right past him and headed towards Joshua, who was talking to Leda at the time.

This didn’t surprise me either. They loved to make fun of Joshua. And he never stood up to them. Which is what you need to do to bullies. You need to stand up to them. You need to let them know that you’re willing to throw a couple punches if it comes to it. Then they’ll treat you with respect. If you’re always nice to them, then they’ll walk all over you, just like they did with Joshua.

Teucer went and stood directly in front of Joshua, and Hector stood behind. They were still too far away for me to hear what they were saying, but Teucer was asking Joshua questions with that stupid leering grin of his. Ajax was laughing at whatever Teucer said.

Leda looked upset by the situation. She was walking back and forth angrily, and, at times resorting to flank attacks on one of the two, yelling something in their ear. Again, I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I can imagine. “Go away! Leave us alone! Stop it!”

Joshua, by contrast, was the picture of calmness as he dealt with all of Teucer’s questions. He seemed to be explaining everything in a calm manner, and not bothered at all by the fact that they were obviously making fun of him. The fact that Joshua refused to get upset had a way of ruining their jokes, and Teucer and Hector soon began to loose interest in him. Besides, Leda was much more interesting.

I had now stopped listening to David entirely, and was completely focused on this unfolding scene. David had followed my gaze. Somehow he knew what I was thinking. “Stay out if Jon,” he cautioned. “Let the teachers handle it.”

But Simon disagreed with this. “Someone’s got to do something,” he said, and for the first time I think I actually felt closer to Simon than I did to David. Of course Simon had a personal interest in all this, but I have a feeling that even if Leda hadn’t of been involved, he would still have sided with me. In some respects Simon and I were very much alike. We both had a desire for excitement and at times a bit of a rough edge on us. David, on the other hand, would do almost anything to avoid a conflict.

Hector and Teucer were now focused on Leda, asking her leering questions and laughing at her. Whatever they said her face turned bright red. And at last, through Leda, they had found their way of upsetting Joshua. He shouted something at them, and they seemed to take this as an excuse for force. Teucer turned back to face Joshua and shoved Joshua backwards.

I began walking over in their direction. My blood was hot, but I was very careful to keep my pace at a steady walk. I didn’t want Hector or Teucer to think they had upset me. That would have meant I considered their actions to have some sort of importance. It was very important that I acted like I didn’t care about them.

I could hear Simon’s footsteps following behind me. He wasn’t rushing either. Once again I felt a sudden, unusual feeling of closeness to him. Without me saying a word, Simon understood inherently the importance of a calm approach.

More and more people were beginning to take notice of what was going on. Rosa was watching everything silently with a kind of detached interest. The other girls around Rosa followed her example and looked silently in the same way. Christopher and Varro and Clodius and Ares and LJ were all looking over as well. Icarus continued to climb the tree, oblivious to everything else.

Teucer pushed Joshua again, this time with enough force to knock him to the ground. Hector was laughing his usual jackal laugh, as if this were the funniest thing he had ever seen. Both of them had such leering jackal faces that I think I would have wanted to hit them even if they weren’t doing anything. I was close enough to hear most of what they were saying now. “…yeah? Well what are you going to do about it Joshua? If you think so, why don’t you fight us? Just hit me one time. Or are you going to run away like your father?”

I suddenly had the thought that at my present pace I might not get there in time. Things might either reach a climax, or, perhaps more likely, blow over before I even got there. If Joshua didn’t fight back, they would probably just get bored and leave. There wasn’t much more they could do to him. He was already on the ground.

In spite of this, I kept my discipline. Image was important in these situations. It would never have done to run up all flustered and out of breath.

Would it be okay to hit Teucer if they had stopped picking on Joshua by the time I arrived? Probably. He had something coming to him anyway. Or maybe I’d hit Hector instead. I couldn’t stand that laugh of his. It was the most annoying sound imaginable. I would love to stop his mouth with my fist.

And then, unexpectedly, another factor entered the equation.

“Leave him alone!” It was Emma, walking right up to Teucer and Hector. “You sons of bitches! You leave him alone.”

Teucer looked uncomfortable, as if it was beneath his dignity to argue with a girl. Torment, yes, but argue with, no. He searched for a single dismissive put down toput her in her place. Again, his simple mind was easily revealed on his face. I could almost see the gears turning. “Go play with the rest of the girls,” he said at last. He must have thought that was pretty clever.

Emma, without even pausing to think, immediately shot back one better. “You’re pretty far away from daddy today,” she said, indicating Ajax with a jerk of her thumb.

Nothing cuts like the truth. This reference to Teucer’s dependence on Ajax was more than he could handle. His eyes narrowed. He looked like he wanted to hit her. If she wasn’t a girl, I’m sure he would have. Come to think of it, maybe Teucer would hit a girl. I wouldn’t put it past him.

But instead Teucer bent down, picked up a big handful of mud, and hurled it at Emma. It was a compromise with himself that allowed him to avoid hitting her, and still put her in her place. And yet his eyes were so sullen and hate-filled that he had the appearance of a child throwing a temper tantrum. In terms of dignity, Emma won that encounter even as the mud splattered all over her.

This was not, I should add, just a clump of dirt. Teucer had thrown as much mud as he could pick up. Because he was right handed, Emma’s whole left side was covered. Mud hit her square in the face, got in her hair, covered her left eye, and even entered her mouth. Her white shirt was also ruined. She immediately spat the mud out from her mouth, looking both miserable and surprised. I don’t think she expected Teucer to react as strongly as he did. She obviously didn’t know him well.

Hector was doubled over in laughter now. He was laughing so hard he could barely breath. All I could hear was his annoying jackal laugh mixed with an occasional wheezing intake of breath. I decided to hit him first. I sank my fist into his wide-open mouth. I cut my knuckles on his teeth, but it was still one of the most satisfying things I ever did.

Simon hit Teucer. Ajax came running (and I’m pleased to say he came at a full, undignified run) over to help his friends. Clodius and Ares joined in our side. And then there was the blowing of whistles, and the teachers came into the schoolyard to break up the fight. They had a way of always showing up a few minutes too late.


The rest of the afternoon was absolutely miserable. Nobody cared why we had been fighting. Nobody cared who had started the fight. All the combatants were to be punished equally.

The exact form of our punishment was a subject of some debate by the teachers. While further measures were being decided upon, we were split up into different groups to work for the rest of the afternoon. Ajax, Hector, and Teucer were sent outside to the school gardens to work with the groundskeeper. Simon, Clodius, and Ares were sent to clean the streets outside of the school. Emma and I were ordered to help the school cleaning lady as she scrubbed the floors.

The cleaning lady was someone we saw everyday as we passed her in the hallways. But we never bothered to talk to her. We just walked past her as she was busy scrubbing the floor. I always thought she reminded me of David’s mother. She always had a very tired look to her. There were lines all around her face and especially around her eyes. Her hair was frail and thin, and tied up behind her head. And she never seemed to smile. In fact she was always sighing with frustration. Whenever I walked passed her in the school hallways, she seemed to be in a perpetual state of shaking her head and sighing at the dirty floors.

But she was not unkind to us. When the headmaster turned us over to her, she received us with a friendly smile, but tired smile. The lips of her mouth only rose halfway as if she didn’t have the energy to make a full smile, but she gave us a sympathetic look with her eyes.

She didn’t seem to care what our offence had been, or look down on us because we were being punished. She simply welcomed the help, and set us to work at once scrubbing the floor.

The work was hard. A lot harder than I imagined. All three of us were on our hands and knees scrubbing the floor. We had to scrub hard to remove some of the dirt and stains.

I had never done anything like this before. My soft hands chafed against the wooden handle of the brush. After a couple of hours, my skin began to crack. The harsh soapy water that we used only further aggravated my skin.

But even worse was the mind numbing boredom. After school finished the hallways were completely deserted except for the three of us. We talked a little to pass the time, but in between conversation there was a depressing silence filled only by the rhythmic sound of the brushes going back and forth. The school hallways were dimly lit, and this added to the drab atmosphere. I thought about Ajax, Teucer, and Hector who were out in the sunshine enjoying the fresh air. They were probably joking and laughing with each other right now. Ajax was probably weeding the garden while laughing at something Teucer had said. Their hands were full with the dirt and vitality of the garden. The sunlight was falling softly all around them. And here I was.

It occurred to me suddenly that the cleaning lady, whatever her name was, did this job everyday. Except for when students were being punished, she didn’t even the company. Usually she labored for hours by herself in silence.

I was depressing myself just thinking about it. I noticed that we had been scrubbing in silence for a while, so I decided to restart the conversation just to break the monotony. “How long have you been doing this?” I asked.

Emma stopped scrubbing and leaned back on her heels as if she too was curious about the answer.

“14 years,” answered the cleaning lady without hesitation.

I felt like I had to ask the next question. “How can you stand it?”

She smiled with usual tired half smile. “You’re young. You don’t understand yet. I’m just happy to have work. There are times when there’s no work to be found. And, during a bad year the farm can’t support us. Especially with all the grain we owe to the landowner.”

“The landowner?” I asked, sounding out this new word.

“Yes. The land we farm isn’t ours. Every year the landowner takes most of the grain. During a good year there’s enough for everyone, but during a bad year we can’t feed our family after all the grain we have to give. We had to move into the town, but there was hardly any work to be found. My husband got a job in the factory, but the pay was so little that we still couldn’t feed all of our children. He asked the old landowner for a little grain at 100% credit so that we could make bread to feed our children, but the landowner refused. And so two of our children died that winter. My husband was furious. He was going to kill the landlord, but I stopped him. Even though he was red with rage, I talked him out of it.”

Despite her sad tale, the woman spoke with a very calm and emotionless voice. Instead it was Emma who, I noticed, was very upset. Emma’s hands were shaking uncontrollably, and she was fighting back tears. “Why did you stop your husband?” she asked. “He was right to want to kill the landowner.”

“Oh no, no he wasn’t” the cleaning lady said in a soft tone meant to calm Emma. “The land owner was within his rights. He was a good man. My two sons who survived now work for him. Not everyone can eat bread all the time. That’s just the way the world is. Sometimes we have to go without.”

“If the landowner was to walk into this room right now, I would kill him myself,” Emma blurted out. There was a bitterness to Emma’s voice that I had never heard before.

“Oh now. Oh no my child you mustn’t talk that way.” She reached out a hand to comfort Emma, but Emma jerked sharply away from it. “When you talk like that, it makes God cry.” Emma just glared back at her with contempt.

The cleaning lady stood up, slowly and with some obvious discomfort in her knees, which had been bent scrubbing for so long. “We’ve been working hard for a long time. Perhaps we need a break. I should probably get some fresh water anyway.” She picked up the bucket of water and walked down the hallway.

Emma remained silent until the cleaning lady had disappeared from sight, and then she spat out, “That cow! That stupid, stupid cow.” I realized that Emma was now angrier at the cleaning lady than she was at the landowner. “Imagine thinking that everyone can’t have bread all the time. Does the landowner and his family ever go without bread?”


At around 8 o’clock I sat in the headmaster’s office, waiting for my father to arrive. And suddenly the scrubbing that I had been doing all afternoon didn’t seem so bad. I wished I was still scrubbing right now. I’d gladly scrub for another two days to put off this encounter.

There was no doubt my father would be furious. That went without saying. He was always furious when I got into trouble at school. But especially after the speech he had given me last night, I couldn’t even imagine what he would do.

The headmaster sat quietly at his desk, scribbling on some papers. I sat in the corner of his office. He completely ignored me, which was just fine as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t in the mood to make conversation anyway.

I glanced at the clock. It was two after eight now. The headmaster had told me my father would be here at eight. Already I had been given a two-minute reprieve.

The headmaster continued calmly working away at his desk. I looked down at my chafed and cracked hands. I examined the blisters on the tips of my fingers. I noticed that my foot was nervously tapping on the ground, and with an effort I stilled it.

I glanced up at the clock again. It was now five past eight. It was unlike my father to be late. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Maybe the message had never gotten through to him, or maybe he was working really late, or maybe he was just too tired to deal with it.

It was deathly silent in the room. All I could hear was the scribbling of the headmaster’s pen, and, if I listened closely, I could hear the sound of the second hand on the clock ticking away. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I squirmed slightly in my seat, and the seat made a squeaking sound that momentarily covered the other noises. Then it was silent again, and the scribbling and the ticking remained. Tick. Tick. Tick. It was ten after eight now. It was very unlike my father to be this late. I now began seriously to entertain thoughts that he wasn’t coming, although the headmaster still seemed as unconcerned as ever, silently scribbling away on his paper.

I was the last student remaining. Simon, Emma, Ares, Ajax, and the others had already been picked up by their mothers. My father alone worked later than everyone else.

I looked at the clock again. Tick. Tick. Tick. Thud Thud Thud Thud Thud Thud.

The sound of the ticking clock was replaced by thudding footsteps coming from the outside hallway. They were heavy footsteps which came down on the floor with a smack, and yet moved with a quick step. My heart sank. There was no mistaking them. They were my father’s. All hope of a lost message, or any other reason for a reprieve, immediately vanished.

The headmaster perked up from his scribbling and cocked his head to one side to listen to the sound. And then he looked over and smiled at me. It was the first acknowledgement he had given of my presence since he told me to sit down. But it was not a friendly smile. “Well, you’re in trouble now,” his smile seemed to be saying.

The door flung open. My father walked in. I looked at him to try and gauge his face. He stared me down with furious eyes. I looked at the ground and did not look up again until he had walked up to the headmaster’s desk and his back was to me.

“I’m terribly sorry I couldn’t get here earlier,” he apologized. “It was an unusually busy day for me.”

“Yes, yes,” the headmaster replied. “I understand this time of year is always hectic for you. It’s quite all right. I was able to keep busy marking papers while we waited for you. You understand the situation?”

“Yes, I’ve been informed of what happened already.”

“Well, then I don’t have to tell you how serious this is. Not only is this just the second day of school, not only did your son start a fight that quickly escalated into 7 people, but, this is a continuation of his problem of aggressiveness and disrespect for authority.　　At this point we are moving beyond the usual punishments. Under normal circumstances I might recommend that he be expelled. Because of the special consideration we give to your family, I think he should be suspended for several days.”

“I don’t think my son’s the problem here.”

This caught the headmaster off guard. “What? Perhaps you don’t fully understand the situation.”

“No, I’ve been told all about it. I’ve also talked to the other parents of the children involved. Now if you can’t control Ajax and the rest of that gang, I don’t see why my son should be disciplined for standing up to them.”

The headmaster’s eyes seemed to be bulging out. I could hardly believe what I was hearing either. My father had never stood up for me before.

The headmaster tried to make a polite smile and spoke in a diplomatic tone. “I understand that it must be hard for you to raise your two sons on your own-”

That has nothing to do with it. I hire help at home.”

“Yes I know, but your boys don’t learn their morals from the servants. They need strong parental guidance. I’m concerned that if it is not clearly impressed on Jonathon that this kind of behavior is unacceptable, we’re going to have another repeat occurrence.”

“I taught Jonathon to stand up for what’s right. That’s what we fought for during the Restoration. Now you know as well as I do why those boys were picking on Joshua.”

The headmaster straightened up, indignant. “I hardly think the Gibbeon issue has anything to do with this.”

“I think it does. And we worked hard to stop that kind of thing during the Restoration. So don’t ask me to punish my son for standing up against it. It’s those other boys you should be dealing with.”

“The other students have been dealt with,” the headmaster answered defensively.

“Yes, that reminds me, I talked to Emma’s mother as well. After all that family has been through, do you really think it’s appropriate to threaten her with expulsion? All she did was tell them to leave Joshua alone?”

“I don’t make special exceptions,” the headmaster said in a flat emotionless voice. If he realized the contradiction between this statement and what he had said earlier about the special consideration for our family, he didn’t seem to care. He had moved from indignation, to defensiveness and now his voice simply seemed resigned to the fact that he had lost this argument.

My father dismissed this with a wave of his hand. He was used to people just obeying him. He didn’t like to negotiate things. “I understand you had my son clean the hallway. That’s good for him. He doesn’t usually do hard work like that. He can do the same thing for the rest of the week, not as punishment, but for the experience. But I don’t want Emma’s family bothered any more about this.”

The headmaster understood that it was not an offer, but a command. He nodded, and to save face added, “yes, I think that will be acceptable.”

They exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then my father left, pulling me out after him. Before we got in the carriage, my father said to me in a stern voice, “the next time Jonathon, you call a teacher to deal with the situation. I don’t ever want to hear about you starting fights at school again.” He started to get into the carriage, and then struck by a second thought turned around and added, “or anywhere else for that matter.”

The entire carriage ride home, he didn’t say a word to me, but simply looked angrily out the window. He seemed to be very angry with me. If I hadn’t have been in the headmaster’s office to hear him myself, I would never have known that he was on my side. In fact, the way he was acting, I was already starting to rapidly doubt that it had happened at all. Did I just imagine that whole scene? Was I so nervous that my mind had been playing tricks on me? I tried to replay it over and over again in my memory to convince myself that it had really happened, but each time it just seemed more and more unreal. By the time we arrived back at the house, I was almost convinced that it hadn’t happened. My father would never have stuck up for me like that. I must have imagined the whole thing.

Second Draft Chapter 6

It’s funny how memory works. There are certain days when almost every detail of every moment sticks out sharply in my mind. And then there are large spaces in my memory that are just gray.

I don’t remember much about that whole winter. Little bits and pieces of it stick out, but most days run into the each other until the whole thing is one big blur.

The next day I remember clearly wasn’t until the spring. The weather was just beginning to turn nice again after a long dark winter.　　I was still 15 then, almost 16. David, who was a few months older than me, had already turned 16 over the winter.

The first class of the morning was “Fenestram”. David hadn’t finished his lesson, and was racing to memorize the passage before class. When I tried to talk to him, he looked at me with disgust, like he usually does in the morning. “Jon, give me 5 minutes will you? I’ve got to study this.” He glanced down at his homework, and then he looked up at me again. “Why aren’t your books out? Have you memorized this thing yet?”

“I went over it a couple times last night. Don’t worry, I’ve got this whole thing figured out. The trick is just not to get called on first, then listen carefully as other people do their recitation. You can pick it up as you go along.”

“But what if you get called on first?”

I shook my head dismissively. “I’m not going to get called on first. Look, we both know Varro is going to volunteer first…” both of us briefly looked over at Varro. He had his books closed and was already testing himself by silently mouthing the words, “…and then probably Christopher.” David’s head looked over towards Christopher, who had his books spread open across his desk and a worried, panicked look upon his face. “Okay, maybe not Christopher, but someone else will volunteer. It will work out. I think I only need to hear it two or three times and then I’ve got it.”

“Well, then at least give me 5 minutes of silence if you’re not going to study,” David pleaded. “Talk to Simon.”

But Simon had over heard David’s comment, so when I turned to face him he was already holding his palm out in my direction. He didn’t even look up from his books. “Don’t even think about it Jon,” he said. “I need to study this too.”

With neither David nor Simon willing to engage me in conversation, I gave up and reached into my bag to retrieve my own books. I looked over at David’s desk to remind myself what page the passage was on, and began reviewing the passage. I had already read over it a couple times the night before. I was nowhere close to memorizing it yet, but as I re-read it I could at least feel the familiar rhythm of the words. I had no idea what they meant. My Fenestram was so bad that it might just as well have been ancient Caletian for all it meant to me. But today was simply a recital. The meaning didn’t matter.

I had just barely time to read the passage through once before the teacher walked in. David and Simon promptly stood up. I tried to finish reading the sentence I was on, and then did likewise.

“Attention!” the teacher called out sharply, checking to make sure we were all standing. “Bow!” We bowed. “Alright, let’s begin.” Everyone sat down at once and for a moment the room was filled with the sound of chairs scrapping the floor.

The teacher glanced briefly at his watch, then announced, “Alright, put away your books. We’re going to get started promptly today.” He opened his grading book. “Would anyone like to volunteer to go first, or shall we just go in order today?” At first no one raised their hand, and I panicked briefly. Perhaps my plan was going to fall apart after all.

Then, after a moment’s delay, Varro’s hand shot up. Good old Varro. You could always count on Varro. The teacher acknowledged him without surprise, and Varro stood up and began his recital. His voice was steady and clear, and I could easily pick out his words.

I tried to test myself alongside Varro by thinking of the next word before he said it. I did pretty well at first but I soon found myself day dreaming and unable to focus.

If there was any problem with Varro’s recital, it was that it was too steady and clear. It had a lulling effect, and after a while it became difficult to focus in on.

It wasn’t just the fact that he drained the words of emotion. We all did that. After all this was a 10th grade classroom, not the theatrical actor’s guild. As long as the words were in the right order no one cared what they sounded like.

No, the problem with Varro’s speech was not the lack of emotion, but the constant steadiness. Some people raced through the recitation confidently. Others squeaked it out in a high, nervous voice. Some spoke in starts and stutters. Some started out slow, then picked up speed along the way. Others started out fast, and then in the middle started to stumble. But Varro’s voice was always steady and calm. It was flavored neither with nervousness nor with confidence. His speed was neither fast nor slow. Even at the ending, where most people picked up speed and rattled off the last paragraph, his voice didn’t change.

I think even the teacher sometimes had trouble concentrating on what Varro was saying. Not that it really mattered. Varro had the full marks before he even opened his mouth. The teacher didn’t even need to listen. Varro was that dependable. I once encouraged him to do a whole recitation in Fabulaese, our native language, instead of Fenestram, the language we were supposed to be studying, just to see if the teacher would notice. Varro refused of course. He would never have done anything to mess with his grades.

“Excellent as always Varro, thank you very much,” the teacher said, marking down what I’m sure were the full marks for Varro. “Next!”

LJ raised his hand. The teacher’s face briefly registered surprise, and then with a movement of his hand beckoned LJ to stand. “Alright Lucius, let’s hear it.”

LJ was very good at Fenestram. The passage wasn’t memorized as perfectly as Varro, but LJ had a way of making the words sing when he spoke. He stumbled here and there on the wording, but because his voice imitated the Fenestram accent so perfectly he sounded like a native Fenestram when he spoke. At least that’s what we all thought anyway. Not that any of us had at that time much exposure to what a native speaker of Fenestram sounded like. This was years before my trip to Fenestra.

LJ finished his recitation and the teacher marked down what I’m sure must have been the full marks or close to it. I realized that two recitations had gone past, and yet I was no closer to memorizing the passage. Varro’s had been so boring that I couldn’t concentrate, and LJ’s had been so fluent I had gotten distracted. The number of volunteers was never more than 3 or 4 students and then the teacher would have to start calling on people and I would be vulnerable. I resolved to myself that no matter what I would focus in on the next recitation.

Christopher volunteered to go 3rd. He gave a decent presentation; started off strong, got nervous and stuttered through the middle, but then finished on a strong note. I tried to silently recite the passage alongside Christopher as he spoke, and felt like I was getting the hang of it.

No one volunteered for the 4th time. The teacher asked one more time for volunteers, and hearing none, he barked out, “Okay then, Rosa, let’s start with you.”

Rosa was the most beautiful girl in school and she knew it. She regarded everyone, including the teacher, as somehow below her. When she rose to speak she had a resentful look on her face as if being called on to do this was somehow beneath her dignity. She rattled it off well enough, but even when the teacher thanked her and told her she could sit down she still flashed angry eyes at him.

Rosa’s power seemed to work even on the teacher. I don’t think that he ever called on her first again after that day.

“Next,” the teacher called out, “Icarus”. Icarus flew to his feet. This was back in the days before Icarus had started cutting his hair short. In those days his hair was scattered all over his head. His blond hair had a way of growing into curls when it got longer, almost like a girl. That may have been why he decided to start cutting it short when he grew older. At the moment however, the hair fell across his forehead, curving up at the ends, and every once and a while a curl would fall down in front of his eyes and his hand would sweep it back into place again.

The teacher walked up and down the room while Icarus gave his speech. Icarus was a classic example of someone who started off strong, and then floundered in the middle. So I was surprised that he reached the middle and still seemed to be doing fairly well. Because I had been trying to concentrate on this passage, I had been keeping my eyes focused down on my desk. But now I looked over at Icarus and I noticed something interesting. He was cheating.

He had a piece of paper taped to the back of the chair in front of him. His timing was quite good. As the teacher walked through the room, whenever the teacher was looking away, Icarus glanced down at the chair. When the teacher was looking at Icarus, Icarus kept his eyes fixed straight ahead and stumbled through his speech.

Alas, this plan had one fatal flaw in it. I think the teacher began noticing that there was a remarkable difference in quality between when he was looking at Icarus and when he wasn’t. Whatever word Icarus was struggling on, he seemed remarkably to recover it when the teacher turned his back.

Suddenly the teacher whirled around without warning and caught Icarus looking at the chair in front of him. “Icarus, you’re cheating!”

Icarus’s face went pale. “Me sir? No sir. Why would you think that sir?” His panicky denials only confirmed his guilt.

The teacher marched over to where Icarus was standing. Matthew, who was actually sitting in the guilty seat, leapt up and got out of the way once he saw what the teacher was heading for. The teacher roughly over turned the seat, saw the paper, ripped it off, and then held it in front of Icarus’s face. Icarus swallowed, and then spoke in a nervous tone. “What’s that sir?”

“You know what it is,” answered the teacher impatiently.

The curls fell in front of Icarus’s eyes again, and he brushed them up with his hand. “Sir?”

“You were using this to cheat with.”

“That?”

And now for the first time the teacher looked what was written on the paper. It was not what he expected to see. Instead of being a transcription of the passage, it was a string of random numbers. The teacher was silenced for a minute. His mouth opened and closed in anger, yet he could not think of anything to say. Finally he sputtered out, “This is a code.”

“I wouldn’t know sir,” Icarus responded. “I didn’t write it.” With that remark Icarus brought to attention the fact that the paper was not in his handwriting.

The teacher again looked at the paper and realized that indeed it was not in Icarus’s handwriting. As the teacher in charge of marking our translations, he knew very well what Icarus’s handwriting usually looks like. He began to sputter even more. “You got someone else to write it for you.” The teacher turned on Matthew, who was still standing at attention besides his desk. “Do you know anything about this?”

“No I don’t sir.”

“What do you mean? It was on your seat. One of you two put it here.”

“I assure you I had nothing to do with it sir,” Icarus said, the confidence creeping back into his voice as he realized he now had the advantage. “But I suppose you’ll probably want me to report to the headmaster anyway.” Icarus had phrased the offer so politely that it took the teacher a while to realize that it was actually a disguised threat. The teacher paused for a moment looking at Icarus, and then a dawning realization came into his eyes. He turned around. “No Icarus, that won’t be necessary,” the teacher said, crumpling up the paper as he walked away. “I’m giving you a zero. You won’t receive any marks for the recitation, and your final grade will suffer accordingly, and…” at this point the teacher turned around to make eye contact with Icarus. “And I’ll be watching you closely in the future.”

Icarus nodded and spoke while sitting. “Yes sir. I understand completely sir.”

Indeed they had both understood each other perfectly. It had been an interesting interaction. The teacher understood that, even though he knew perfectly well Icarus was guilty, the whole case would look a little ridiculous if it came before the head master. The headmaster most likely would have taken his side, but it would look funny and there was job security to think of. It had been a gamble on Icarus’ part, but he had won.

If Icarus had been convicted of cheating, he would probably have been suspended or expelled. So he had actually gotten off pretty easily by simply failing on the recital. And yet by accepting that failing grade with out further protest, Icarus was admitting guilt even as he professed innocence.

This incident, now years ago, sticks out well in my memory because it captures Icarus’s personality in a nutshell. On one hand there was the clever part of him that had schemed the whole thing out. On the other hand it illustrated his insanity. Imagine all the trouble he had gone through. He had created a whole code just for this passage, translated the passage into this code, and then gotten someone else to write it for him. It would have been much easier just to memorize the passage instead. 　And so there were the two sides of Icarus, the genius mixed with the insanity. Although this particular incident was before he became a close friend, in the following years I would experience both sides of Icarus many times.

“Next, Jonathon!” I rose to my feet and began. But as I spoke I realized that I had forgotten most of the passage. During the excitement with Icarus I had allowed it to drop out of my head completely. I stuttered through some words, came to a blank, and only by closing my eyes and hard concentration was I able to remember enough to go on. However, a few lines later, I soon found myself stuck again.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw David. Another person might have had a smug, “See Jon, I told you that you so,” look on his face, but not David. He always wished the best for me. There was nothing but sympathy in his eyes.

And then across the room I saw Christopher trying to get my attention. I looked over at him and saw that he was mouthing the words for me.

The teacher, still pacing the room, had turned around and was facing us now. Christopher abruptly stopped, and I quickly looked away and tried to act like I had just been looking around the room the way people sometimes do when they’re thinking really hard. “Well Jonathon, do you know it or not,” the teacher asked. “If you don’t know it why don’t you just sit down, take your zero marks, and quit wasting everyone’s time.”

“Sir, could I have just a second to think,” I pleaded.

“You’ve already been thinking for a long time,” the teacher replied, but as he said this he turned his head down to look at his grade book, probably getting ready to mark me a zero. My eyes darted over to Christopher, who was already making exaggerated motions with his mouth to show me the words. I started up again.

The teacher, hearing me speak, decided not to give me a zero just yet. He raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, and looked away from his grade book. As he continued to pace the room I was able to complete the recitation with Christopher’s assistance. Whenever the teacher wasn’t looking, Christopher would mouth me more words.

We were sly about it, or at least we thought we were sly about it, but it was a risk. And one that offered absolutely no benefit on the part of Christopher. Had it been anyone else, I might have been touched by the gesture of friendship, but I don’t think Christopher even liked me. He just had a very strong sense of class loyalty. Whenever anyone in the class was in trouble, Christopher thought it was his duty to help them.

You can do better than that Jonathon,” the teacher said as I finished. “I don’t want to hear you flail around like that next time.” He scribbled something in his notebook. I knew the way I had stumbled my way through the piece had cost me the full marks, but I had passed. It seemed like an unnecessary risk to flash Christopher a look of gratitude, so I didn’t. But I felt grateful for his help nonetheless.

The teacher proceeded to call on several more students. Because the passage was long, and the class period was short, he was barely able to get through half the class. In fact before the period was even over the teacher decided to stop the recitations because he had decided to go off on one of his lectures. The second half of the class sighed with relief at another day’s reprieve.

“I want to talk to all of you about something very important,” he said. He pushed his eyeglasses back up to the top of his nose. He had a tall imposing figure. It was imposing even later in my life, but it was especially imposing to look at when I was 14. His suit and tie failed to hide his massive frame. He was bald at the top of his head, but he was tall enough that we couldn’t often see the top of his head. Even his eyeglasses, which should have softened his image, had a way of reflecting the light so that his eyes were obscured and his face seemed always impersonal and cold.

“Recently the etiquette of this class during chapel has been completely unacceptable.” There was a pause in which the teacher looked over us to make sure we were all receiving this news with the appropriate amount of guilt. “When we enter the chapel, we are entering the house of God. We are in the very presence of God himself. And how should we conduct ourselves when we’re in God’s presence? Do we yawn in the face of God? Do we look bored when God is talking to us?” Christopher shook his head “no” in answer to these rhetorical questions. The rest of the class simply remained silent.

The teacher slammed his hand suddenly on the podium, making a large booming sound. It gave us all quite a jolt. At the same time he abruptly changed his speaking style to shouting. “Sleeping in chapel is unacceptable,” he yelled out. We were all still startled form this sudden outburst, and so the room remained deathly silent as the teacher’s eyes rested on all the offenders, Sophia, Julius, Clodius, Matthew, and myself. I squirmed, slightly uncomfortable under the fierce gaze, but there was a certain safety in numbers on this offense.

“Studying during chapel is unacceptable,” continued the teacher, leveling a look solely at poor Varro. He had dropped his voice slightly on this second point, but then he continued and with the next remark his voice rose back up to its previous volume. “And talking in chapel will absolutely not be tolerated.” This time the teacher’s eyes focused solely on me.

I made an effort not to give in so easily. To blatantly stare back defiantly would have been pure folly and likely get me sent to the headmaster’s office again. But I determined I could try to look back for perhaps three or four seconds before I gave in and looked submissively downward.

In the end I only made it for two seconds. When he saw I was returning his gaze, the teacher started walking towards me. I immediately conceded and looked down apologetically. The teacher than stopped coming, and the disaster was averted. It was a solid loss on my part, but I thought it was important to at least have made the attempt.

I didn’t mind chapel so much. I hated church, but that was different. Church took what would otherwise have been a free day, made you get up early, made you dress in funny clothes, and made you sit through two hours of the most boring dribble imaginable, and all for no apparent reason.

But with chapel, it was time that was taken out of the school day. Maybe if there had been no chapel, we would all have finished school an hour earlier. I don’t know. But I viewed it as their time, not mine. It was time when I could just switch off my brain and not think. Maybe even sleep if I could get away with it. Or, if I had homework that was due for the next class, I could try and get it done. Again, assuming I could get away with it.

But what I could never understand is why they were so strict with this “no talking” rule. If I had been talking loudly or disturbing the people around me, that would have been one thing. But if I just whispered to the person next to me, then the teacher, who had seen, not heard the transgression, would come marching across the room, pull me out of my seat, and send me to the head master’s office. Why did it matter? If they wanted to listen to this garbage, I didn’t mind. But why did they have to force me to listen to it in total silence? And besides, aside from the two seconds it took me to make a comment to a friend, I still heard most of the sermon. And even if I didn’t, it was still the same old sermon anyway. It was always the same sermon.

The teacher continued. “When we enter God’s house, we show respect for God. We don’t wear our hats inside God’s house. We don’t sleep inside God’s house. And I don’t want you talking inside God’s house.” He looked at me again as if to reinforce his previous victory. This time I kept my head down.

“I’ve been meeting with the other teachers, and we are all going to be watching you very closely over the next few weeks. Anyone who does not respect God’s house will be dealt with promptly.” The teacher, who been hunched over his podium, now straightened himself to indicate he was finished. “Now, I want you to all walk silently into the chapel. Any talking along the way, or in the chapel itself, will be immediately dealt with.” I didn’t even need to look up to know he was looking at me again.

We stood and silently filed out of the room. I debated making some comment to David about how stupid this all was, but then I thought he probably wouldn’t appreciate me getting him into trouble. So we all filed silently into the chapel.

The chapel was a separate building, but on the same grounds as the school. It had much of the grandeur of a church, while managing at the same time to maintain a lot of the boringness of a school. There were stain-glassed windows, but also ordered and numbered pews where we each had an assigned seat.

True to his word, the teacher had determined to keep a close eye on us that day. He stood next to our class and kept his eyes roaming for any offenders. The other teachers were just as vigilant with their classes. This was indeed a coordinated effort. So we sat silently in our seats while the rest of the classes filed in.

At last all the classes had entered, and an old man ascended the speaker’s platform. The old man was a familiar face. He was the school chaplain. Occasionally there were guest speakers at chapel, but most days it was the school chaplain. He looked old and frail as he ascended the speaker’s platform, but he always became animated and energetic once he started to speak.

He lifted his hands up toward the ceiling like he did everyday. “Praise God!” he said.

“Praise God!” we all repeated. The teachers kept a close eye to make sure everyone said the words.

The chaplain began. “I’m glad to see all of your young beautiful faces today. You have so much youth and energy. There’s a real vibrancy in this room. I hope you can hold onto that.

“But at the same time my heart is heavy because your generation faces so much temptation. The devil is trying very hard to snatch you up with all the tricks he knows. Every possible temptation has been laid out for you. And many of you young people will blindly fall into them. So you must be careful.

“Many of you already use foul or dirty language. Your mouth is an instrument of God. Do not profane it by using coarse language. Rather, always let your mouths say things that will glorify God and offend no one. God created your mouths to sing his praises, not to use the coarse, dirty language of the streets. I am always deeply saddened when I hear students use language that belongs in the gutter.

“But the wrong doing does not stop there. Indeed what wicked times we live in. The filth of evil is everywhere. The books sold in the public markets, and the plays performed in the public square, all contain messages contrary to the will of God. How often have I stood here and told you not to see those plays that corrupt your soul? How often have I told you not to read those books with their messages of Godlessness? And yet I know that young people, sometimes students from this school, read those books, watch those plays, and learn not the righteous morals of God, but the foul morals of this wicked world.

“And most seriously, indeed it is with a aching heart that I even mention it, some young people profane their very bodies with the act of sex. How awful it is to disgrace your bodies, the bodies that God made for you, in such an awful way. There is no greater sin that you can commit than to pollute your bodies in such a way.

“I know this is a wicked time we live in. I know the plays you watch and books you read seek to glorify the act of sex. But it is despicable in the eyes of God. Remember your bodies belong to God. And your hearts belong to God. Your mind belongs to God. Your all belongs to God.

“So honor God not just with your bodies, but with your hearts and your minds as well. Purge your mind of all evil and impure thought, and think only thoughts that glorify God. Some of you young people sitting here before me have thought impure thoughts. You’ve allowed your mind, which should be a sanctuary for God, to become corrupted with lustful thoughts. And with these impure thoughts, you make it impossible for God to come into your hearts because God cannot co-exist with such filth.

“Some of you have even disgraced your bodies with the sin of masturbation. And what a horrible sin it is. To defile both your mind and your body at the same time, you’ve sinned just as greatly as those who have committed the sin of sex.

“Such is the wickedness of the world we now live in. But I am here today to offer you words of hope. I am here to save you from the wickedness that surrounds you. Even in today’s evil world, it is still possible to live a life of Godly virtue.

“I tell you there is nothing greater than a union blessed by God. When a man and a woman love each other, and when they do not give into carnal temptations, but resist until they are married, how blessed that union will be. Truly there can be no happier marriage than a man and a wife who unite only after their marriage vows.

“And if you keep your minds and hearts holy, if you banish all impure thoughts from your mind and if you invite God’s spirit to live inside you, than that spirit will radiate out, and all will see how blessed you are.

“But I also have a message for the sinners here among you. You will not be able to enter the Kingdom of God. You must make a choice today which road you will take, whether it is the path that leads to God, or the path that leads to destruction.”

His voiced crescendoed to its loudest oratorical peak. Because he had the habit of ending his sermons on a high note like that, the organist took her cue and began playing soft holy chords in the background. We instinctively bowed our heads. The chaplain raised his hands for the benediction. “God bless you and keep you from sin,” he said. “And may God bless the Duke help him to serve our country.”

“May God bless the Duke,” we all repeated.
****************************************************************

The next class we had was PE. After the teachers made sure we returned to our classrooms in absolute silence, we took our PE clothes and headed into the changing rooms.

As soon as the door closed behind us, I hit the wall with the side of my hand. “Damn it, I’m sick of all these rules,” I said to David.

David sat on the bench, undoing the shoelaces of one shoe. “Those chapel rules have always been there Jon,” he said. “They’re just making a big deal about them right now. In a couple weeks, a month maybe, they’ll have forgotten about this and they’ll be on some different kick.” David looked up from his shoes. “In fact Jon, the only reason they’re making such a big deal about it right now is because some people, such as yourself, have been trying to get away with as much as possible.”

“I’m not hurting anyone by sleeping in chapel,” I said angrily. “If people want to listen to that crap, fine, but I don’t see why I have to stay awake.”

David shrugged. “Well, tell it to them Jon.

Simon echoed him. “We’re all with you Jon, but what can you do about it? Dave’s right. This will all blow over in a couple weeks.” The two of them were always so practical; they were ignoring the fact that a real injustice was being done.

“It’s just ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous. Why do they care if I sleep or not? It’s the same damn chapel every time anyway.”

As always, David flinched slightly whenever I swore about chapel. I think he half expected to see a lightening bolt come out of the sky and smite me one of these times.

Christopher had also overheard my comment. “You better watch what you say Jon,” he said sharply. “Remember God hears everything.”

I opened my mouth to yell at Christopher, but it was LJ who spoke up in my defense. “It is always the same chapel, isn’t it? The range of things they feel comfortable talking about is surprisingly limited.”

That was LJ. He always had to sound like a book whenever he spoke. And if there was on thing I couldn’t stand, it was pretension. “What the hell does that mean?” I yelled out.

I had spoken loudly, and there was laughter from the rest of the room. It was not a pleasant sort of laughter, but that ugly sort of laughter perhaps common to a boy’s locker room; the kind of laughter that indicates someone has just been put in their place. I was immediately sorry I had said it. LJ wasn’t very popular at school, and I had just provided an excuse for them to mock him more.

Before the laughter died out, Ajax stood up and walked towards the door. As he walked past LJ, he gave him a rough shove. Because LJ was standing directly in front of the bench, he fell backwards over it and landed in half in an open locker, half sprawled out on the floor. There was more laughter now, especially from Ajax Hector and Teucer.

Ajax thought since he was bigger and stronger than everyone, he could just push everyone around. If I had known he would use my comment as an excuse to flex his muscle, I would never have said anything. I moved so I was standing in front of him. My brain searched for something clever to say, but, alas, I can never think of anything clever to say. “Are you looking for a fight?” I asked.

Fortunately for me, Ajax’s wit was no better. He just made a grunt for a reply.

“If you go around pushing people over, you must be looking for a fight,” I said. “Now he’s not going to fight you.” I pointed at LJ. “But if you’re looking for a fight, I’ll give you one.”

Ajax looked me over with his eyes. I knew he was stronger than me, and could probably take me in a fight. He must have reached the same conclusion because he started to grin and was flexing his muscles underneath his shirt.

Although I kept my gaze fixed on Ajax, out of the corners of my eyes I could see Simon and David taking their places beside me. Straight ahead I could see Ajax’s friends, Hector and Teucer, flank him on either side. Hector and Teucer weren’t as strong as Ajax, but I knew David would be absolutely useless in a fight. The advantage was still on their side. But with six people involved, things had escalated now. Any actual fight of this size would be hard to contain, and would undoubtedly result in teachers’ intervention, and probably get us all expelled, and no one wanted that.

“What do you want?” Ajax sneered.

“I want you to stop being such a jackass,” I answered.

“But we’ll settle for an apology,” David added quickly.

Ajax tried to diffuse the situation by pushing me aside as he attempted to walk past. It was a calculated move on his part, the idea being that he would win a symbolic victory by pushing me aside, and he would also be able to continue on his way. It was based on the premise that I would allow myself to be humiliated because I was smart enough not to escalate. But when his big ugly hands touched my chest, I was so angry about being pushed that I didn’t even think. I shoved Ajax back as hard as I could.

He stumbled a few feet back, barely kept his balance, and then came back at me with his fists raised. And before I even knew what was happening, I had been roughly shoved out of the way and there was someone standing between Ajax and me. It was Ares. His eyes gleamed, and his fists stood ready.

I was just as surprised by Ajax at this. Ares was not a close friend of mine, but he seemed drawn to conflict. Whenever there was a fight of any kind, Ares had to involve himself in some way. No one knew what Ares would do. He had an element of unpredictability to him. Even though Ajax was bigger, Ares had a tenacious quality which made most people avoid fights him. And I didn’t doubt he would be crazy enough to start a huge fight.

Ajax immediately backed off. He lowered his hands and walked quietly away. I stood aside to let him pass. We never did get our apology, but we hadn’t seriously expected it either.

Ares quickly slipped away also. I didn’t even thank him. I was grateful he had been on my side, but with Ares one always gets the sense that he is always looking for a fight of any kind, and if I had been the one with my fist raised, Ares might have been pushing Ajax aside to get to me.

Ajax’s friends were following his lead out the door. LJ as well had long ago stood up, dusted himself off, and left. It was soon getting to the point where David, Simon, and I were the only ones left.

David looked at me as if he were unsure whether to smile or frown. He opened his mouth to say something, seemed to think better of it, closed his mouth, looked at the ground, and shook his head, and then looked up at me again. “Well, nice going Jon. Once again you almost got us kicked out of school.” He was trying to be serious but a smile seemed to be tugging at the corners of his mouth.

I responded with a full-blown smile. “Hey, we won, didn’t we?” And I flew out the door before David could argue.
****************************************************************

It was spring and the weather was beginning to warm slightly. It was no longer the frigidly cold weather it had been in the winter. It was warm to the point where it was pleasant to be outside, but we could still be active without getting too hot.

I sprinted out of the locker room and into the sunlight, leaving Simon and David behind me. The sun shone down on my face. I looked around. Ajax was standing with his friends in a closed circle, probably talking about me. I looked around to see if I could see Ares, and if he was planning on re-igniting any more trouble. I couldn’t find him.

Rosa was off in the corner of the field, surrounded by most of the other girls in the class, who were listening to her talk about something. Emma, one of the few girls who wasn’t in Rosa’s circle, came up to me. “Hello Jon,” she said smiling. “Have you seen the schedule? It looks like we’re racing each other today.”

I groaned. “What? Are we doing co-ed racing again today?” During track the races were sometimes co-ed, sometimes separated. Since we had done co-ed races all last week, I was sure we would be doing segregated races this week.

“Don’t you want to race me?” she asked, not with a hurt voice, in a playful voice, as if she were trying to set me up for something.

“I hate racing girls,” I moaned.

And she smiled even more at this. “Just you wait Jon! Here’s one girl that’s going to beat you.” She gave me a friendly shove, and then bounced off. She was always so full of energy. And she probably would beat me. That was why I hated racing girls. If you won against them, there was no glory. It was just expected that you would win. But if you lost, there was all sorts of humiliation. I think all of us guys hated being matched up against girls.

David and Simon joined me on the field. “Who are you racing today?” Simon asked. “Did you look at the schedule?”

I grimaced. “I’m racing Emma for one. I don’t even know about the other races.”

“What!” Simon groaned. “Oh no, don’t tell me we’re doing co-ed races again.”

The PE teacher entered the field. “Attention,” he called out, never breaking his stride. We started to move into our rows, but apparently not fast enough for him because he yelled out “Attention!” a second time. All conversation ceased and we ran into our rows. We formed up in our usually rows, kept our arms straight at our sides, and stood at attention. “Bow,” the teacher commanded. We all obeyed.

The teacher stretched his neck slightly. Like all PE teachers he had a thick neck. In fact his whole body was thick. “We’re doing races again today. I will be taking down your results, and they will be published in the school paper at the end of the month, so do your best.” I rolled my eyes and looked at the sky. Could this possibly be the worst day ever?

“So, let’s get started then. The first race is between Icarus and Emma.” Icarus was at the starting line before Emma even left her place in line. If there was one thing Icarus loved to do, it was run.

The rest of us gathered around the track to watch. Icarus had a lean, skinny body, well suited to running. He never trained at all as far as I knew, but he was still the fastest person in the class. His curls fell in front of his eyes again and he brushed them away in a distracted manner. I could almost see the energy pulsing through his body. He was like a hunting dog standing ready, every muscle straining forward, whining with eagerness, and waiting only for the master’s command to attack.

Emma dug her feet into the ground as she assumed a runner’s stance. Her hands tightened into fists. Icarus’s hands were loose, but moving with a nervous energy. Emma’s face looked determined. She was not going to lose. Icarus’ face was temporarily obscured as the curls fell over his eyes again.

“Go!” the teacher yelled out. Poor Emma never stood a chance. Icarus launched himself off the ground, flew through the air, and was almost halfway done with the race before she even started. Still she made a decent effort, throwing herself forward and pumping her legs and her arms back and forth as fast as she could. She even started to gain back some ground near the end, but by then Icarus was crossing the finish line.

Icarus wasn’t sweating. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He glided back to his row with the same speed at which he had left. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he had just won. Emma, by contrast, walked angrily back to her row. Furthermore she was showing the effort of her exertion. Her face was red, her breathing was hard, and her hair was matted down on her forehead with sweat.

“Next race, Rosa and Sophia.” Sophia and Rosa walked to the starting line. Rosa’s hair, which usually fell loosely around her shoulders, was tied back for PE. Sophia’s hair was short enough that she didn’t have to worry about it.

Both girls were athletic and involved in after school sports. I thought it would be a close race, but once the race actually started, Rosa took the lead and finished first by a comfortable margin.

From Sophia’s easy breathing and calm face, she seemed neither to have exerted herself, nor to be upset at her loss. It was almost as if there was some unspoken understanding between the two that Rosa would win. I doubt Rosa had actually ordered Sophia to lose, but Rosa was unquestionably the leader of that group of girls, and Sophia could have jeopardized her social standing by winning against Rosa.

Perhaps the teacher was thinking the same thing, because he yelled out, “Come on Sophia! You can do better than that!” Sophia simply bowed her head slightly to acknowledge having heard the comment, and then returned to her place in line. “Okay, next Joshua and Hector.” There was some chuckling by Ajax and Teucer, but Hector did not seem pleased by the pairing. Joshua was the butt of a lot of jokes, but he was in better shape than he looked. He might be able to beat Hector, and if he did Ajax and Teucer would never let Hector live it down. That’s probably why Hector pushed Joshua.

Joshua and Hector were lined up at the starting line. The word, “Go” was scarcely out of the teacher’s mouth when Hector turned and shoved Joshua aside before turning to run down the track. The teacher’s face flashed red with furry at seeing this flagrant disregard for the rules. He opened his mouth to yell, but then closed it again upon seeing what happened next.

Hector’s body apparently couldn’t handle doing two things at once. He was pushing Joshua with his hands at the same time his legs were launching into the race. Perhaps he was distracted by the two simultaneous actions, and perhaps pushing against Joshua had thrown him slightly off balance, but the next thing we saw he was tripping over his own feet and falling flat on the ground.

A guy like Hector really makes a crash when he falls to the ground. Plus his hands had been used to push Joshua, and so were still off to his side and not in place to catch his fall the way most people’s hands automatically spring up. He landed flat on his face with a thud. I grimaced slightly to see it. “Serves him right,” I heard the teacher mutter.

Joshua stopped to offer Hector a hand up, and the teacher yelled out, “Don’t worry about him. Finish the race!” Joshua ignored this comment and persisted with helping Hector to his feet. Hector was at first dazed from the fall, but as he recovered himself he quickly shook off Joshua’s help. Losing to Joshua would have been bad enough. Having Joshua help him up in front of the whole class would have been the ultimate humiliation. Hector knocked Joshua’s hand away. “What are you doing? Finish the race!” he yelled. Now back on his feet, he started running again. At this point though it was obvious to everyone that even if he won he still lost. The rest of the race didn’t seem to matter anymore.

Hector had regained his head start because he had started running again while Joshua was still trying to help him. Joshua almost caught up with him near the end, but Hector drew on all his reserve strength for the last dash.

The victory was bitter for Hector, and he returned to his row with his face read and his head hung low. His eyes, to the extent I could see them, were blazing with anger even though the only one he had any right to be angry at was himself.

The teacher had harsh words for both of them. “Hector, you do that again and you can talk to the headmaster about it.” Hector lifted his sullen face for just long enough to nod, and then went back to staring at the ground. “Joshua, don’t you ever ignore me again. When I tell you to finish the race, you finish the race. Don’t worry about Hector. He wouldn’t help you if you fell down.” Joshua nodded. “Okay then, next race. Icarus…”

Icarus again? Maybe the teacher was trying to tire him out. Still, pity the poor guy who had to run against him. “…and Jonathon.” This day just kept getting worse and worse. Here comes my first loss for the school papers.

And what can I say about my race against Icarus? He beat me, of course. I arrived at the starting line and he was already there, looking straight ahead and waiting eagerly for the command. He was so distracted I don’t think he even noticed me or knew whom he was racing against. And when the race started, he finished before I had barely left the starting line. But at least there was no shame in losing to Icarus. Everyone expected it.

And I lost to Emma as well when the time for that race came. It was my second race, Emma’s third. Emma had also had one race against Rosa.

I think the teacher must have intentionally put them together. Emma was outside of Rosa’s group, so she would be one of the few girls who wouldn’t lose to Rosa on purpose. There was a tension between the two of them from the moment they met at the starting line. When the race began they were neck and neck the whole way, now one briefly getting ahead, now the other. Each time one girl would get ahead the other seemed to discover some hidden energy and would burst forward to keep even. Both pushed their bodies as hard as they could. Emma hated to lose and Rosa… Well Rosa never lost.

Rosa made a final burst near the end. Emma ran just as fast to keep up with her. It was hard for any of us to tell who won. The teacher was loath to call it a tie because he was reporting the scores in the school newspaper. He stood for a moment with his lips pursed as if he was about to say something but he couldn’t think of what. He looked at the girls, who were exhausted, and barely standing from their run, and yet still looking back at him expectedly.

“Tie,” he said at last. Both girls protested that they had won, but he just shook his head. “It’s a tie,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Both girls returned angrily to their places.

But by the time Emma’s third race came, her race against me, she appeared to have calmed down. She even smiled at me as we came out to the track. For some reason my mind drifted off, and I suddenly remembered my father telling me over the summer that I should always be kind to Emma, because her family didn’t have a lot of money. It had seemed like an odd thing for him to say, because he usually wasn’t concerned about that sort of thing.

As we took the starting line, I tried to snap my mind back into focus. Right. Emma is a girl. I can’t lose to a girl. Losing to Icarus was one thing, but…

“Go,” the teacher yelled. We raced and Emma beat me. I put up a good show, but she was faster, and she wanted it more. After exhausting herself in her races with Icarus and Rosa, it was amazing she still had the energy, but she did. And she had the energy to be gracious about it afterwards as well. Perhaps after two losses the win had put her in a good mood. But as we walked back to our positions she stuck out her hand for me to shake. With a broad smile she said, “You did good Jon.”

My third and final race was against Ajax. Obviously after the incident in the locker room, things were still a little tense between us, and this race took on added significance. But aside from all that, I also just wanted at least one win. I didn’t want my name in the school newspaper with three losses.

Ajax was actually in the same position. He had been lucky enough not to draw any girls, but unlucky enough to draw a match against Icarus. His second race was against Matthew. Matthew was tall, skinny, and naturally had a runner’s build. Ajax, on the other hand, was sometimes too muscular for his own good.

So there the two of us were, both determined to get at least one win in. Ajax was slightly subtler than Hector. He didn’t shove me with his hands, but he did use his weight to bump into me when the race began. I stumbled a bit, he gained a little ground, but in the end I was just faster than he was. I caught up with him and passed him near the finish line.

I breathed heavily with relief. Not only had I gotten my win, of all the people to run against I had beaten Ajax. Maybe this day wasn’t so bad after all. {Needs a better ending}

Second Draft Chapter 7

I walked into class one day and saw a new face sitting in the seat next to mine. This was not a common thing at our school. We had all known each other since the first grade, and very rarely did new students come in. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t ever remember a new student ever entering our class before this.

I walked through the doorway with Simon and David, but they were busy talking about something else, and didn’t seem to notice her. No one seemed to notice her. Or at least no one bothered to talk to her. Everyone was talking with their usual friends, and although many people made curious glances at the new girl, no one said anything. Most of the girls were sitting around Rosa, but they did not invite the new girl over, and Rosa herself did not even so much as glance at her.

So she was sitting by herself, talking to no one, and looking miserable. I felt immediately sorry for her. It must be rough coming into a new school, especially when the rest of us had known each other for ten years.

I walked over to her desk and extended my hand. “Are you new here?” I asked, not because I needed the answer, but just as a way of opening up conversation.

Never underestimate the joy that a small act of kindness can give to people. Her whole face immediately lit up. “Yes, my name’s Helen,” she said as she shook my hand.

I sat down in my seat and repeated it once. “Helen?” She nodded. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jon. Where are you from?”

“All the way from the West Coast.” There was a note of pride in her voice, and she gave me a look meant to impress upon me the significance of this. I knew nothing about the West Coast, but I did my best to look impressed anyway.

“What about you? Where are you from?” she asked, and then she caught herself, and shook her head to dismiss what she had just said. “I mean, are you from somewhere? Besides here of course?”

“No, I’ve spent my whole life here?” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed at how boring my life sounded.

Thankfully she put a positive spin on it. “So you can answer any questions I have?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Great. I’m so confused about so many things. It’s different in the West you know.”

“Is it?”

“Oh yes, night and day difference. Nothing is the same over here.”

I began to notice that her eyes sparkled when she talked. She also leaned in towards me with what seemed to be instinctive friendliness when she talked. It was almost too much. I felt like I had to look away.

The rest of the class was still ignoring her. Simon and David were besides me, but busy talking with each other. Icarus was entertaining a small group of people with some wild story. Ajax and his friends were in a corner laughing about something.

I turned back to Helen. “Why did your family leave the West coast?”

“My dad got a new job here. A really good job.”

There was only one kind of good job in this city. “For the Duke, then?”

“Yes, for the Duke. My dad’s going to be supervising all of the police in the city.”

“The head of the police? Wow!”

“He was a governor in the West,” Helen explained. “The Duke was pleased with his work, so he gave my dad a job here in the capital.”

“Your dad will be working under my dad,” I said.

“Really? What does your dad do?”

“My Dad’s one of the Duke’s top men.” I noticed with surprise that now there was pride creeping into my own voice.

Our conversation got disrupted during the confusion as the last of the class, Joshua, Matthew, Leda and Emma, all ran in to take their seats before the bell rang. There was the usual shuffling of desks and chairs. And then the teacher walked in right as the bell sounded.

The teacher frowned slightly at the commotion in the room. He usually expected all of us to be sitting in our seats and waiting before the bell rang. “Stand up!” the teacher yelled.

Helen looked slightly confused as the rest of us bolted up. “This isn’t the way we do it in the West,” she whispered to me.

“Attention! Jonathon, no talking!” Actually it had been Helen who was talking, but I think the teacher was reluctant to yell at a new student. Besides, he was used to yelling at me.

“Sorry sir,” I answered crisply.

“Bow,” the teacher said. We all bowed. Helen remained looking confused, and bowed awkwardly a second later than the rest of us.

“Sit down. Now, some of you may have noticed, we have a new student here today. She’s going to come up here now and introduce herself.”

Helen flashed me a quick look of disgust, and whispered, “I hate this.” And then, as she stood up, her manner seemed to instantly change. She gave a shy smile to the other desks around her, and then proceeded to the front of the class.

“Hello,” she began. “My name is Helen. I’m from the West Coast.” Again, she couldn’t resist pausing her and looking over the class to emphasize this point. “My family just arrived in Urbae last week. Everything is so different here. I’m a little nervous about how I’ll fit in, but I hope to make friends with all of you real soon.”

She gave another nervous smile, and looked at the teacher to see if she should continue or not. The teacher had stood back by the door to give Helen the floor, but when he noticed she was looking at him, he quickly stepped forward. “Thank you Helen. Allow me to welcome to you to our school. If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask either me or any of the class leaders.” He indicated with a gesture for Helen to go back to her seat.

“But speaking of your class leaders,” he continued, “it is already time to decide the leaders for next year.” Off to my side I could see Christopher straighten in his seat. “Anyone who has an application form filled out, now is the time to turn it in.”

We had elections every year for class leaders, but it was always a bit of a sham. Everyone knew the same people would be chosen every year. Christopher was always elected as our class leader. The upper classes were equally consistent. Orion, (I was beginning to realize who he was by now), was poised to become President of the senior class next year and by extension the whole school. [Possibly go back and make this clearer earlier on in the story. Also mention Christopher as class president at least once before now].

Christopher stood up and solemnly handed in his application packet to the teacher. Nobody else even bothered. “Anyone else want to try this year,” the teacher added in a mechanical voice. He was simply asking out of formality before we moved on to the next order of business.

But this year the words turned out to be no mere formality. Someone else did actually want to run against Christopher. Rosa stood up and walked forward with her application packet.

The teacher stood there dumbfounded. “Yes, what do you want Rosa?”

“This is my application packet. I’d like to run for class leader next year.”

“But you’re a girl.”

The teacher spoke as if the absurdity of the situation was evident to all, but Rosa simply stared back at him with cool unblinking eyes, and handed him the packet. “Yes and I’d like to run for class leader next year.”

There was something about the aura of Rosa that even teachers hated to cross her. He was fidgeting slightly, and seemed to be uncomfortable with the new situation. The whole class was watching this scene with interest. I looked over at Helen to see what the reaction of the new girl would be to all this, and she just looked back at me with a confused look. “What are class leaders?” she whispered.

“I’ll explain later,” I said. I didn’t want to have to explain our whole school system to her now. Besides, I wanted to see how this would resolve itself.

“We can’t have girls as class leaders,” the teacher was again speaking in his “isn’t this obvious to everyone” voice, but he was at the same time looking around the room as if to appeal for help. The entire class remained silent and simply stared back.

“There’s nothing in the rulebook against it,” Rosa said. “I checked.”

He seemed almost on the point of giving into her, but then he suddenly became firm again, as if he had remembered who was the student and who was the teacher. He steeled himself, and Rosa’s moment of influence was past. “We are not going to have a girl for a class leader,” he said. “I don’t care what the rulebook says or doesn’t say. Everyone knows it’s ridiculous.”

Rosa was so used to getting what she wanted, that she didn’t handle rejection well. “I’d be just as good a class leader as Christopher, and you know that,” she shouted.

But her spell was now completely broken, and this had no effect on the teacher. “Rosa, sit down now. This discussion is over.” With burning eyes Rosa whirled around and went back to her desk.

“Are there any other application packets?” The teachers voice still retained its hard edge, as if he were almost daring someone else to try and submit an application. He searched the room with his eyes for challengers. And then he softened his tone somewhat. “The official election will be in two weeks of course, but seeing no other applications, I think we can probably already congratulate Christopher. Christopher, you’ve done an excellent job this year, and I’m confident next year will be just as good.”

Christopher was beaming at this praise, and the unpleasant incident with Rosa seemed to be already forgotten. Although, I noticed the teacher avoided eye contact with Rosa for the rest of the class period.

The rest of the day proceeded with the usual events. Helen remained seated next to me throughout the day, and I tried to help her understand the school events as best I could. By lunch, the rest of the class had warmed up to Helen at last. During noon break Helen became the subject of attention. The rest of the girls, who had ignored her in the morning, now crowded around her eagerly and jostled each other to meet the new student. First in line was Emma, who bounced up and gave Helen her usual warm greeting. Emma was one of the few girls not guilty of ignoring Helen in the morning, or at least not intentionally ignoring her, because Emma had run into the classroom just under the bell.

Emma would have liked to talk with Helen longer, but she was eventually edged out by Sophia and Vera, who had both decided they were eager to meet the new girl. The four of them all chatted like old friends. I could only hear the high tones of their excited voices from where I was standing, but they were all talking very animatedly about something. And then finally Rosa made her way over, and as soon as Rosa began talking to Helen, Helen had been officially welcomed to the class.

I kept my distance from the swarm of girls, and talked with David and Simon instead, glancing over at Helen only occasionally.

“Is Icarus climbing that damn tree again?” I asked.

“Still at it,” David affirmed, even though we could all see for ourselves.

“That kid is something else, isn’t he?” I said. “I don’t think he’s quite all there.”

“I don’t know,” David said. “You’ve got to admire his determination. Everyday he falls off, and everyday he tries again.”

“He’s going to break his neck one of these days,” I said.

“It’s Clodius and Ares,” Simon said. “They egg him on to it. Somebody ought to tell the teacher.”

I could not believe this breach of schoolyard etiquette. “What?” I yelled. “Tell the teacher?”

Simon realized what he had said. His face reddened and he tried to cover for himself. “I didn’t mean that really,” he said. “But somebody ought to do something about it.”

“He won’t break his neck,” David said. “He’ll get to the top one of these days. Wait and see.”

I had a feeling that if it were me climbing that tree, David would have been a lot more critical. But David seemed to almost admire Icarus, as strange as that sounds. But then David saw the best parts in everyone.

The bell rang and everyone returned to class. Helen sat next to me again. Despite her acceptance by the rest of the girls, Helen still relied on me to explain most of the workings of the school. She even stayed close to me as we were leaving the school at the end of the day. “I give up Jon,” she said exasperated. “Everything’s so different in this school I’ll never get used to it.”

“Different in the West,” I suggested, sensing a pattern.

Her eyes flashed a smile. “Yes, exactly.”

“Don’t worry,” I explained. “Most of the people are pretty friendly once you get to know them. And as for the rest…Well you’ll figure out who they are soon enough, and then you can just avoid them.”

She thought about this, and then answered, “Most people seemed pretty friendly.” There was a note of caution in her voice that indicated she was still reserving final judgement.

“Where are you going now?” I asked.

“Home I suppose. Why?”

“Because if your father works for the Duke, then your house is probably out in the suburbs like mine. We probably have the same walk back home.”

“No, my father wanted to live in the city. He said that if he was going to be in charge of the police, he should live in the same city they did.”

“I guess that sounds like a good idea.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She shrugged her shoulders slightly dismissing the topic, and then looked at me with a smile that seemed to say, “Isn’t it silly that we’re even talking about this.” I smiled back.

I got the sense that she was waiting for me to initiate further conversation, but I was in a hurry to go catch up with David and Simon, who had left ahead of us. “Listen, I’ve got to go,” I said apologetically. “Anything else you need help with?”

“No, I’m okay. Thank you for everything today Jon. You’ve really been a help. I would have been lost without you.”

“No problem. See you tomorrow.”