This River Awakens

by Steven Erikson

  Rhide escorted Sandy from the area.

  ‘Shit,’ Jennifer said softly.

  Owen looked at her. ‘What?’

  ‘She’s on speed. If they find out she’ll be expelled. It’s like drinking a hundred cups of coffee. If they take her to the nurse…’

  ‘What a stupid thing to do. The first day!’

  Jennifer shrugged. ‘Speed freaks don’t think right.’

  Owen looked around. The other kids were all talking, but quietly, because they could see Mr Lyle keeping an eye on them from the area nearest to theirs. ‘What kind of school is this?’ Owen asked in disbelief. ‘Look at these desks, and what are we doing here on the floor?’

  ‘Singalong,’ Jennifer said, then, seeing Owen’s widening eyes, ‘Just joking, Owen! At least I think I am.’

  Rhide had reappeared, alone, and the class fell silent as she returned to stand in front of the stool. She was silent for a moment, scanning the students as if hunting for the next source of trouble. ‘Clearly,’ she finally said, ‘it’s necessary to talk a bit about discipline. I’ve told you what you can expect from me. Now it seems I have to discuss what it is that I expect from you.’ She paused, sighing heavily through her nose. ‘Very well. I will not tolerate any outburst like the one we’ve just seen. Just because someone acts out of turn, it does not mean that everyone else has to respond, giving them the attention they desire. Is that understood?’

  Heads nodded.

  ‘While it’s important for you to feel able to express yourselves, it’s equally important for you to respect each other – everyone must have an opportunity to learn. Of course, we’ll be sure to have fun, because learning is fun, after all. I trust, then, that there’ll be no more outbursts…’ She scanned the faces again, then smiled brightly. ‘Well! I’m glad that’s cleared up. Now we can get on with the day – our first day!’

  * * *

  Jennifer and Barb sat inside the concrete tube near the monkey-bars. Owen and Roland stood at the opening facing the school, blocking the girls from view while they shared a smoke.

  ‘Shit,’ Jennifer heard Roland say. ‘Carl’s getting beaten up.’

  ‘They’re just wrestling,’ Owen said.

  ‘No. That’s just how Gary does it. He laughs, pretending it’s a game in case Obell sees them.’

  ‘Oh. Nice trick. All he’s doing is throwing Carl to the ground. Can’t hurt much.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Roland said slowly.

  Jennifer handed the cigarette to Barb. ‘You can finish it.’

  ‘Wonder what happened to Sandy,’ Barb said.

  ‘What do you think? Guys, I’m getting out.’

  They moved aside as she climbed from the tube.

  Both Roland and Owen had their eyes on Gary, who was coming their way with three Riverview friends in tow. Jennifer scowled. ‘Ignore him, guys. He’s a dipshit.’ But she could see both boys tensing up. She looked for Obell – nowhere in sight. Typical.

  ‘Here, pussy pussy pussy!’ Gary called, eyes on Owen.

  ‘Get lost,’ Jennifer said.

  Gary was gearing up. His friends kept a lookout while he strutted closer, a sneer on his face. A year older, Gary outweighed Owen by at least ten pounds and was a few inches taller, too.

  ‘Go somewhere and fuck yourself,’ Jennifer said.

  Ignoring her, Gary moved closer to Owen, who stood unmoving, his hands hanging at his sides. Gary’s grin was tight. ‘Fucking city kid,’ he said. ‘Fucking James Bond.’ He took another step then widened his stance. ‘Come on, then.’

  Owen raised both hands, then kicked Gary as hard as he could between the legs. The sound was shocking, a crunching pop. Gary’s eyes bulged as he folded over and fell down.

  Owen stepped back, eyeing the Riverview boys. A crowd had gathered, and Jennifer saw Miss Obell rushing towards them.

  ‘Anyone else?’ Owen asked.

  No one moved, except for Gary, who looked like he was trying to crawl into himself on the gravel. His face had gone from red to white, his eyes squeezed shut, face twisted in pain.

  Owen looked calm, almost relieved.

  Fuck, he’s done it. No one will touch him now. Serves you right, Gary, fucking A.

  Obell arrived, took the scene in at a glance. Her gaze settled on Owen. ‘You,’ she said, ‘will be coming with me.’

  ‘He didn’t start it,’ Jennifer said.

  Roland nodded. ‘That’s right, he didn’t. Gary was looking to start a fight with the new kid.’ His face was flushed. ‘He got it, Miss Obell.’

  Barb giggled beside Jennifer. Her eyes on Gary, she giggled again. ‘Boy, did he ever.’

  Obell’s frown made her look old. She went to Gary and slowly bent over him. ‘Do you need the nurse?’ she asked quietly. He shook his head. ‘Can you get up, son?’ He shook his head again. Obell straightened. She searched the crowd until she found one of her favourites. ‘Get the nurse, Alice. Quickly.’

  Gary was crying now, heaving and gasping. He still writhed around, kicking patterns in the gravel, his long hair a tangled, dusty mess. Slowly, he got on to his knees, keeping his forehead pressed to the gravel, still shaking with sobs.

  The recess bell rang. Obell looked around. ‘Everyone back to class!’ She gripped Owen’s arm. ‘Except for you, and whoever else saw what happened.’

  Jennifer remained, as did Roland and – to Jennifer’s surprise – Lynk. She hadn’t seen him there when the fight started. He stood now, a strange expression on his thin face – Jennifer couldn’t read it at all, but something there disturbed her, as did what happened next. Lynk waited until Obell noticed him, then he quickly left, catching up with the other kids before they reached the corner of the building.

  * * *

  ‘Detention,’ Owen said in the lunch room. ‘I used to get out at four in the city. School ends at three here. So it makes no difference to me.’ He shrugged. ‘What do you do, clean brushes?’

  Jennifer shook her head. ‘No. You get maths tests, from Mr Lyle. If you get a hundred per cent he lets you go fifteen minutes early.’

  ‘I’m lousy at maths,’ Owen said glumly.

  They were sitting with Barb and Roland at one end of the long table. The lunch room was filled with sound, voices rising and falling like waves.

  ‘Hurry up and finish,’ Jennifer said to Owen. ‘I want to go outside.’ She mimed smoking a cigarette.

  Owen nodded, biting into his tuna sandwich. Beside him, Roland had paused in his eating and was looking carefully around.

  ‘What?’ Barb asked him.

  He shrugged. ‘I saw Lynk talking to Obell, then they left. They haven’t come back yet.’ He looked at Owen.

  ‘What’s his problem?’ Owen demanded.

  Jennifer saw the two boys study each other, and she realised all at once that there was a secret between them – and Lynk, the three of them. She felt instantly jealous, even though she knew she had her own secrets which she’d kept from Owen – from everyone, in fact. Even so, she had good reasons – a matter of degree, anyway, of seriousness. Stung by their tense silence, she glared at Owen and said, ‘What the fuck?’

  He looked at her blankly.

  Jennifer rounded on his friend. ‘Roland! What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Only Lynk’s lying. He’s going to get Owen in shit.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He won’t fight me,’ Owen said. ‘Not now. But he’ll do other things.’

  ‘Yes, but why?’

  Owen and Roland exchanged another glance, then Owen filled his mouth with the last of his sandwich. Roland sighed. ‘It’s just Lynk,’ he said. ‘It’s just the way he is, the way he’s always been, I guess.’

  ‘You apologising for him?’ Jennifer demanded.

  ‘Well, no. But I’ve known him a long time. Since kindergarten.’

  Jennifer sat back. She looked over to where Gary sat with one of his friends, Dennis. Gary wasn’t sitting comfortably, and he wasn’t saying a wor
d. He looked broken, smaller. ‘He’s fucked,’ she said. The others followed her gaze. ‘The whole year, maybe every year to come. That’s the first fight he ever lost, you know.’

  ‘He wasn’t hurt so bad,’ Owen said. ‘I once ripped a guy’s ear – they had to take him to Emergency and sew it up or it would’ve fallen off.’

  ‘Yuck.’

  Roland said, ‘Tell Gary to leave Carl alone, Owen.’

  Owen slouched down in the chair, a look of distaste on his face. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you want. All he does is push him down, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  Barb leaned close. ‘Uh oh,’ she hissed. ‘Here come Thompson and Rhide.’

  Owen took a deep breath. ‘That little shit,’ he said.

  IV

  Joanne Rhide had never imagined such a disastrous first day. It wasn’t even the afternoon yet and she felt exhausted. She’d been called from the smoky staffroom by Barry’s secretary, Mrs Reynolds, and moments later found herself in the conference room with the principal, Marianne Obell and Lynk Bescher, one of her students.

  There’d been a fight – she already knew that – but the version given by Jennifer and Roland, which had indicated that Owen Brand wasn’t entirely to blame, that version had just been challenged.

  ‘Owen and Jennifer are going together,’ Lynk explained again for her benefit. ‘And Roland will do anything Jennifer asks him to do. I saw the fight. Gary wasn’t doing nothing, Miss Rhide, and Owen just kicked him in the n— between the legs.’

  Lynk clearly wanted to set the record straight. He’d been attentive all morning, his bright eyes seeming to mirror Joanne’s own enthusiasm. She sensed already that he would be one of her special students.

  It was wrong to make snap judgements, she knew. No doubt Owen felt a little lost, a little insecure, despite his spending the summer here in Middlecross. School was always a shock, and it’d been her task to cushion the blow, to ease that panic over into enthusiastic optimism. She’d done poorly despite her self-confidence, and that left her with a sickly feeling in her stomach.

  Still, it was good to define problems early on, before things got out of hand. Owen was subject to a very negative, very dominant influence in Jennifer Louper – something that needed counteracting. Jennifer was the common denominator.

  They sent Lynk out to eat his lunch in the secretary’s office. Once the door had closed behind him, Barry swung in his chair and grinned at Joanne. ‘You’ve landed yourself one hell of a class, eh?’

  Joanne blinked. ‘Well, I am very pleased with the majority of the pupils…’

  Marianne shifted heavily in her seat, reaching out to pull the ashtray closer to her. ‘Jennifer’s a very intelligent girl,’ she said. ‘Given the conditions at home, she’s had to grow up quickly. Prematurely, I suppose you could say.’ She fixed Joanne with a heavy-lidded gaze. ‘I teach music, as you know. Jennifer rarely focuses herself. She affects complete indifference. But when I challenge her, she performs effortlessly. She can read sheet music at a glance, as if it was instinctual with her. She can play circles around me on the piano, and her improvisations are nothing short of brilliant.’

  ‘Clearly, then,’ Joanne said, ‘it’s a matter of motivation.’

  Barry and Marianne exchanged glances, then he cleared his throat. ‘I think that’s understood,’ he said. ‘We have to acknowledge, however, that Jennifer’s influence on the new boy will be substantial.’ He held up a hand as Marianne was about to interject. ‘Granted, the new boy may be predisposed – they may have found each other. Joanne, you’re the most familiar with his file from School Division One. Does Owen have a history?’

  ‘He’s been in a new school almost each year since kindergarten. The potential for trauma is indicated, the pattern suggesting – to me at least – an unstable situation at home.’

  Marianne blew out a gust of smoke that rolled across the table and rose up around Joanne. ‘Did he get into fights?’ she drawled.

  ‘Well, the incidents seem to occur at the beginning of the year, each year. Afterwards, there’s no indication of problems in that area.’

  ‘Is he a bully?’ Marianne asked. ‘Beat someone up at the beginning and terrorise for the rest of the year?’

  Rhide shook her head. ‘Nothing written down. No complaints, I mean. He’s noted as a loner, usually with only one or two friends. His grades are just average. Again and again a teacher’s commented that he has to try harder, which as we now know is a euphemism that could mean anything – is he a slow learner, does he have a learning defect, is the teacher showing any interest in him whatsoever?’

  Marianne’s tone was distinctly dry. ‘Usually means the kid lacks motivation.’

  ‘Yes, but why? That’s the question we should concern ourselves with. His Fifth Grade teacher had included a comment about Owen’s extracurricular reading activities. She indicated that some of the material was quite advanced. Now, I asked Owen about that in class this morning—’

  Barry cut in. ‘His first day?’

  ‘Well, I asked him to introduce himself. Anyway, he said he was reading a book by James Bond – I mean to say, a book about James Bond. I can’t recall who writes those. I admit, if that’s what the teacher called advanced material…’

  ‘Certainly educational,’ Barry said, then laughed. ‘Has it occurred to you that he just made that up on the spot?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘If you nail down a kid who’s new, hardly knows anyone, is feeling vulnerable and exposed, and if he’s reading, say, Tolstoy – do you actually think he’ll say so?’

  ‘Well, he knew all the characters—’

  ‘So he’s seen the movie. And as for the fighting, that’s a pecking-order thing. Kids aren’t angels. More like little apes. Hierarchy is everything. I’d guess he’s learned his lessons the hard way. I’d guess the local tough in each and every school has taken him on. Hell, he’s learned to fight dirty – that should tell you just how desperate these things are. Gary – well, poor dear Gary’s been this school’s bully since the Fourth Grade, Joanne. As for Lynk, he’s lying. Don’t forget, he and Owen already know each other. Who knows how that hierarchy got worked out.’

  Joanne felt her face reddening as Barry spoke. ‘But how can you tolerate all this? You see them as if, as if they’re all animals—’

  ‘That’s exactly what they are,’ Barry replied. ‘We all are, Joanne.’

  ‘But we have brains. That means nothing? My goodness, I had no idea educators even existed who were so … deterministic—’

  ‘Realistic,’ Barry said. ‘We’re social animals, after all. Equality’s just an ideal. Something to be strived towards, a modern Holy Grail. That doesn’t lessen its value or its importance. But we still have to live in the real world, and it’s full of grit and dirt and messy truths.’

  He’d left her breathless with rage, and Marianne’s patronising cynicism was as thick and as foul as the smoke with which she filled the conference room.

  Barry walked with her to the lunch room. It had been decided to maintain the detention for Owen, to turn it into an opportunity for Joanne to talk with him one-on-one. Besides, George Lyle didn’t even have a detention test prepared yet.

  ‘You needn’t be so dismayed,’ Barry told her as they approached the lunch-room doors. ‘It’s only the first day. No one’s settled. All the old familiar routines have been dismantled with this new programme getting into position. Give it some time, Joanne.’

  ‘Yes, of course I will, Barry.’ But in her mind, Joanne told herself something entirely different. They’re not little apes. And I believe Lynk Bescher’s story. Jennifer and Owen deserve my utmost attention and understanding, of course. I intend to make them blossom under my guidance. There’re always ones who are late bloomers, just like Mother said about me. They need nurturing, that’s all. And I can begin today, with Owen. Just him and me, out of Jennifer’s domineering influences.


  * * *

  ‘What are your favourite subjects, Owen?’

  He sat facing her in his chair, looking both nervous and bored. At the far end of the open room, a janitor was vacuuming, the distant drone the only other sound they could hear.

  ‘I don’t really have a favourite,’ Owen said, looking around.

  Joanne sighed. She sat in a chair like his, the student desk between them. ‘I’d prefer it, Owen, if you looked at me while we’re talking, rather than at everything else.’ When he turned his hard blue eyes on her she almost regretted her request. ‘You needn’t be so angry.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘This is how I always look.’

  ‘I can’t believe that.’

  He shrugged.

  Joanne sat back, crossing her legs and resting her hands on the desktop. ‘What about English? Do you like that?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Why?’

  He frowned.

  Well, at least I’ve got him thinking.

  ‘I don’t like,’ he said slowly, ‘people telling me what books to read.’

  ‘Hmmm. Don’t you think some books are more important than others?’

  His frown changed into a belligerent scowl. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I’d have to disagree with you there, Owen.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Can I explain why I disagree with you?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘Some books – wonderful, beautifully written books – they show us a part of ourselves. They show us things about, well, about life.’

  She was startled as he rounded on her. ‘Ever read Tarzan of the Apes? War of the Worlds? Father Brown, or The Lost World? I have. They’re a part of me.’

  ‘But they’re not real life, are they?’

  He sat back, looking away. ‘What’s real life?’ he muttered, then snapped her a harsh challenge. ‘Ever read them? Any of them?’

  ‘That’s not the point—’

  ‘The first book I ever read was Before Adam, by Jack London. How can you talk about books when you haven’t read anything?’