School Rules Are Optional

by Alison Hart

  I get to school early, hoping to look around for my jumper, but Mrs Leeman is already at her desk in the classroom with her face set to disapproval. Maybe she never goes home.

  The heat in our classroom is intense. The computers have been deemed a fire risk and are locked in the storeroom. Most of the things we do is on them, so there isn’t much to do. We can’t read because the vinyl beanbags in the reading corner are too hot to touch and we can’t use the twisty pencils because they’ve melted into purple blobs at the bottom of the tubs. The only good part is that all the plastic-covered maths cards have stuck together in a block and are unusable after the first card, ‘Introduction to Algebra’, which has no actual algebra on it.

  When the bell goes for recess, Jun and I go down to the spot Alex got for us yesterday while I was looking for my jumper.

  It’s a really good spot; right down the bottom near the water tanks. Almost out of bounds. The teachers on yard duty usually stay up the top near the artificial climbing wall where half of the footholds are loose and spin around when you step on them. Most accidents happen in this area. From there they can see down to the water tanks but not who is down by the water tanks. Except Mrs Leeman. She has the eyesight of a peregrine falcon and the same screechy voice.

  The water tanks are totally empty. It hasn’t rained for ages.

  Braden joins us, but he doesn’t say much. Maybe he’s missing his old school. If I went to a new school, I would probably miss my friends. As for actual school … I can take it or leave it.

  Apart from the heat and my jumper still being missing, it’s an okay day. Mrs Leeman has a teachers’ conference in the afternoon, so we join Ms Kendall’s class and do word puzzles all afternoon. Ms Kendall even lets Minha check her wildlife water stations during class time.

  No one even mentions school captain announcements. Maybe Mrs Overbeek’s forgotten about it.

  I hope so.

  After school, Alex tells me I should ask my mum for a replacement jumper. His dad said there’s a cool change coming tonight. He hands me a piece of paper.

  ‘I was in the office having my puffer and I saw them, so I grabbed one for you,’ he explains.

  It’s a Grade 6 jumper re-order form. I fold it up and stuff it in my bag.

  ‘Miss Creighton said there were two spare jumpers but we have two new kids, so …’

  Only Alex would think about someone else while he was having an asthma attack. He already has his karate uniform on.

  I am a bit worried about the cool change though. Alex’s dad works for the Bureau of Meteorology.

  Wednesday feels just as hot as Tuesday, but it’s actually hotter. According to the news, it’s the hottest day since records began. Schools and businesses are closed with the exception of our school, which would probably stay open on the sun.

  There’s still no mention of school captains. We’re drifting through the year without leadership and no one has even noticed.

  Thursday is even hotter than Wednesday. I don’t care about my jumper anymore. Or my shoes or socks or uniform. I would lie on the floor in my undies if I was allowed. We don’t have normal classes at school. We just watch videos all day. Mrs Leeman finally allows the air conditioning to be put on ‘low’.

  Five minutes later she puts her cardigan on.

  I’m not kidding.

  That should be on the news: ‘100-Year-Old Teacher Complains the Sun is a “Bit Chilly”’.

  I’m starting to get a bit suspicious about Alex’s dad working at the Bureau of Meteorology.

  I say to him, ‘Doesn’t your dad work at Rent-a-Tent?’

  ‘Yeah. He used to work there,’ Alex says, ‘while he was studying. Now he’s a groundwater hydrologist.’

  I start laughing. ‘A what?’

  ‘At the Bureau of Meterology,’ Alex says. ‘You know … he studies the water underground.’

  Alex starts laughing too because it sounds so funny.

  ‘Know what I mean?’ he says.

  I nod but I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  Does that mean his dad is underground as well? Studying water?

  It sounds like something made up.

  The next morning, something’s different. There’s been a cool change overnight and it’s freezing. I’m relieved for about a minute before I remember that I don’t have a jumper. I put two T-shirts on under my school shirt. I go down to the kitchen to eat breakfast, trying to look casual and not cold and uncomfortable which is what I am.

  Mum walks into the room pulling a woolly jumper over her head. ‘Aren’t you cold, Jesse?’

  ‘No, no. I’m fine.’

  We both look at the goosebumps and little hairs sticking up on my bare arms.

  ‘Why don’t you put your jumper on?’ Mum asks.

  It’s a reasonable question. I try to think of a reasonable answer.

  ‘Uhh … I left my jumper at school. I’ll put it on when I get there.’

  Mum looks at me and I know she knows, and she knows that I know that she knows. She just nods. It makes me feel even more shivery.

  When I get to school, everyone’s got their jumpers on.

  The first bell is still going when Mrs Leeman starts class. She says the bell is for her and not for us, which doesn’t even make sense. There’s a big map of Australia on the interactive whiteboard. All the wheat, rice, beef, dairy and wool-growing regions are shaded with different patterns. It’s the most boring map I’ve ever seen until we’re all handed a blank map of Australia and told to copy the one from the board onto ours. Everyone’s busy choosing a wheat-coloured pencil when Mrs Overbeek’s voice announces over the PA system: ‘Good morning everyone. If you could all put away your work … It’s time to assemble in the gym for the school captain announcements.’

  That’s the only thing I want to do less than what I’m currently doing.

  Mrs Leeman doesn’t disguise her annoyance at having her lesson interrupted. She orders us to cover our work – as if it’s of interest to anyone except maybe a sheep or a cow – and line up at the door.

  Ours is the first class to get to the gym so we have to sit in silence while the rest of the school shuffle in. I notice the new girl from the other class is sitting by herself. Mrs Leeman would have ordered someone to be friends with her by now if she was in our class.

  Mrs Overbeek explains she’s going to do the announcements herself because there are no Parents’ Committee members present. I look at the back of the gym and see there are no parents either. A bit disappointing if you want to be school captain and are hoping for a sense of ceremony.

  Even though it’s only the first week of term, Mr S is already here. He retired a year ago but he comes back every time a teacher is sick or away for some other reason. He’s here all the time. I wouldn’t mind if he were filling in for Mrs Leeman. He’s pretty tough but nothing compared with her. She’s like three Mr Ss combined.

  We all sit there bored while the two office monitors and four house captain positions go to Grade 5 kids. This is normal for our school because there are only forty-seven kids in all of Grade 6. You can’t have too many of us in charge of something. Mrs Overbeek barely has control of the school as it is.

  We wait while Mrs Overbeek stands on stage holding the last two badges in her hand for what seems like an hour. I wish she would hurry up. She’s worse than Mr Wilson. When she does do it, she does it all wrong. You’re supposed to announce vice-captain first, then captain. She says it the other way around.

  ‘I’m pleased to announce … Samra Boulos is school captain and Junli Zhao is vice-captain of Westmoore Primary School this year!’

  I’m so relieved, I go all dizzy in the head. Everyone claps when Samra stands up to collect her badge. When Jun stands up for his badge, everyone claps about ten times as loud and stomps their feet on the floor. Mrs Overbeek probably shuffled the votes around to make sure he didn’t get to be captain. She would rather be principal of a different school than let Jun be captain of this one
.

  Samra takes her badge and goes to sit with the teachers. Jun sits back down next to us with his badge pinned on upside-down. A few kids laugh but when he looks down at the badge to read it, it’s the right way up.

  We think assembly’s over but Mrs Overbeek says we have to stay a bit longer because there are some more important items that weren’t covered in Monday’s assembly. She mustn’t think they’re that important, though, because she hands the microphone to Mr Wilson, then leaves the gym to go and do something more interesting.

  ‘Uhhh … all right, boys and girls,’ Mr Wilson begins. ‘We’ve got some uhhh … fantastic things lined up for this term … a spelling bee for Grade 3 and uhhh … bake-a-cake for Grade 4 …’ He drones on for about two more weeks and we’re all falling asleep until he says, ‘Then of course in the last week of term there’s camp for Grade 6 …’

  At the mention of Grade 6 camp, everyone at our end of the gym gets happy and excited with the exception of Mrs Leeman and me. Mrs Leeman has no time for happiness or excitement, and I have no time for camp.

  I should start thinking about how I’m going to get out of it now. Everyone else loves camp for some reason, so I keep a bit quiet about not wanting to go. Also, there’s a chance I could change my mind. One day I might want to be cold, bored, tired, hungry and covered in mosquito bites two hundred kilometres from home.

  That night, I pick a time when no one else is around to tell Mum what she already knows; that I’ve lost my Grade 6 jumper and need a new one. I slide the order form across the kitchen table. Mum glances at it then stares at me for about five whole minutes before saying really quietly, ‘I wondered when you were going to tell me about this, Jesse. Do you remember losing it?’

  I shake my head.

  I don’t even remember having it.

  Now that the heatwave has broken, Mrs Leeman’s making us work ten minutes through recess until we make up the lost time. We don’t share her sense of urgency about plotting the distribution of cereal crops on a pie chart. None of the other classes are staying in at recess. I ask Jun if there’s anything he can do in his capacity as vice-captain to restore our freedom. He reveals the terrible truth: Mrs Overbeek said he was only permitted to be vice-captain as long as he didn’t organise any protests, rallies, strikes, rebellions or attempt to alter the school uniform, canteen menu or Mrs Leeman’s lesson schedule in any way. He signed a form.

  So much for democracy.

  A few days later, Mrs Leeman tells us we’re up-to-date with our work, so I don’t have to worry about making an official complaint, anyway. She also announces we’re ready to start looking after our Prep buddies. Everyone in Grade 6 is going to get one (a Prep) to have lunch with and show around the school and stuff. As if they need it. We’re nearly two weeks into the year. Who’s been looking after them until now?

  When I was in Prep, I lived in fear of anyone from Grade 3 and up. Now they play in the senior playground anytime they feel like it and even have their own queue at the canteen. I thought I’d feel big and important being at the top of the school, but instead Grade 6 is the same as Grade 5 with more threats and more homework and even the Preps don’t respect us.

  Mrs Leeman is going to pair us up by pulling names out of a hat. I hope I get a good one.

  We still have two lessons to go before lunch. Mrs Leeman makes us label a diagram of a leaf for about an hour, then Ms Kim comes in and makes us do the same thing in Chinese so we can be bored in two languages.

  Jun is lucky. He doesn’t have to do Chinese classes because he speaks Mandarin at home. He’s allowed to go to the library three times a week to do ‘private study’. Most of the time he privately studies The Guinness Book of World Records and draws pictures in the back of his maths book. Mrs Hillman, the librarian, doesn’t mind as long as he does it quietly. Jun says she’s always repairing and reshelving a massive pile of picture books. He says the stack doubles in size every time the Preps have been in the beanbag area.

  I’m about halfway through my second leaf when I’m called up to the office to collect my replacement jumper. I feel a bit ridiculous going to pick it up because it’s almost as hot today as the start of the year.

  When I get there, the receptionist is typing and doesn’t look up even though I accidentally slam the door and cough a few times.

  Great.

  It’s Miss Creighton.

  There are two receptionists at our school. One is really nice, and the other one is Miss Creighton. You have to call her Miss Creighton – the temperature in the room drops about ten degrees if you call her Mrs Creighton. I reckon her own mother calls her Miss Creighton. She acts like it’s a total inconvenience if you go to the office for anything at all, which makes you wonder why she’s a receptionist and not something else where having a bad temper is a job requirement. And if you need to go to sick bay – a camp bed next to the paper shredder – you can tell she doesn’t think you’re sick even if you’re about to throw up or have blood pouring out of your knee or something. Also, she’s really stingy with the sticky plaster. She never cuts off big enough pieces, so you end up with the sticky bit on the sore. The other receptionist lets us call her Githa, always cuts off a really big piece of plaster and never complains about how much it costs.

  I pick up the newsletter and turn the pages in a really rustly way. She keeps jabbing at the computer. A few minutes tick past. I squeak, ‘Miss Creighton?’

  Nothing …

  ‘Miss Creighton?’

  Didn’t she call me up to the office?

  There’s a bell on the desk but it’s only there for show. It even has dust on it.

  I stand there for a few more minutes. A couple of little kids come into the office holding a bunch of permission slips and stop when they see who the receptionist is today. We stand in an awkward cluster and nobody moves until the phone rings and Miss Creighton picks it up.

  She heard that all right.

  She looks up, sees me standing there and says all sweetly, ‘He’s here, Dianne. I’ll send him back right away.’ All while giving me a withering look. She replaces the receiver and makes a big deal about finding the bit of paper I have to sign. The other two kids have left their permission slips on the desk and escaped while Miss Creighton’s busy throwing my jumper at me as if she had to pay for it herself.

  I look down at the package in my hand. I can see even through the plastic that the jumper isn’t the same colour blue as the original; it’s a lighter blue.

  How did Mrs Leeman know I wasn’t in class? She wasn’t even in the classroom when I left two minutes ago.

  Although it’s too hot to wear a jumper, I put my Not-Quite-Right-Coloured jumper on straightaway. I plan to wear it all day, then leave it at home for the rest of the year so I don’t lose it. I even know where I’m going to hide it: in the linen cupboard. No one ever tidies that cupboard because whenever you open it, fifty towels fall on your head. I’m going to put it behind some orange flowery sheet sets that Newcastle Nanna gave us for Christmas three years ago that are still in the packet.

  The bell goes for lunch while I’m walking back to class, so I go and look for Alex. He won’t use the main steps out of the corridor because Leini and Gina now control that whole area during all of recess and most of lunch. It can get quite crowded if Leini feels like being mean to each kid individually. The whole playground is oddly deserted. I walk around and see a bunch of kids yelling and running around the toilet block, so I head in that direction. There seems to be a lot of water on the ground. A lot of water, considering there’s been no rain.

  This water’s not coming from the sky, though. It’s coming from the breezeway next to the toilets.

  The whole place is covered in fast-moving, ankle-deep water that is pouring out of the girls’ toilets and flowing towards the administration building where the staffroom and principal’s office are. Some smaller rivers are breaking away from the main one and forming ponds on the oval and at the bottom of the stairs, but the big one lo
oks like something off the news – you could surf on it. One or two kids are running into the girls’ toilets at a time and two seconds later running out again, screaming. What could be so interesting in there that boys are going into the girls’ toilet? That’s something we’re not allowed to do even if the school is on fire. I follow some other kids in. The toilet in cubicle two is overflowing, but the real action is coming from the floor behind it. The concrete has cracked open and a massive jet of water is shooting up into the air, hitting the opposite wall and then swirling in a big watery snake out the door, which has pushed open under the pressure.

  It’s pretty spectacular.

  Some kids are daring others to go across the torrent of water to cubicle three. One kid inches forwards and puts his toe in the rapids. We all stare in awe as his shoe – laces and all – is yanked off his foot and flung against the row of silver taps, before leaving the bathroom submerged in the wall of water gushing out the door.

  In about five minutes, we’re all different levels of soaking in size order. My shoes and socks are full of water and the middle-graders are wet up to the waist. Some of the braver Preps look like they’ve been swimming in their clothes.

  I head over to where Alex is standing at the end of the breezeway where it meets the grassy bit.

  ‘Hey, Jesse! Jesse! Look at this!’ Alex leaps in the air and slides on his bum all the way down to the oval in the muddy water, then climbs back around to the top. ‘Now you go!’

  I follow Alex and about twenty other kids down the waterslide. The water’s all full of rubbish and sticks and leaves and stuff. You can’t see the bottom. I hope no one pushes me under.

  Miss Agostino, wearing the Duty Teacher vest, wades through and peers over the semi-circle of open-mouthed kids standing in the doorway to the girls’ toilets. She says two or three of the words we’re not allowed to say at school and gets on the Duty Teacher walkie-talkie thing. She shouts, ‘Di! Brian! We’ve got a situation down here. Yeah … no … well, look out the window.’

  Next thing, Mrs Leeman turns up and yells at us to move out of the doorway or we’ll all drown. She says the pipe is not only for the girls’ toilet, or the school’s supply, but a mains supply pipe. Nobody moves out of the breezeway. We keep on jumping over and around the water. She can’t give the whole school a detention.