In the Real World

by Nōnen Títi

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, Mariette, if it wasn’t for you jumping in-”

  “But I should have told you right away so you could have written back or something.”

  “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

  “But there must be some place you know he visits. Couldn’t you go to where he works, just turn up? Family?” Uncle Charl shakes his head. “It’s too late.”

  “Why? Because you kicked him out? Are you afraid he’ll say no?”

  “Enough, Mariette,” Granannie says. I sit down.

  “Ahem?” Grandpa Will coughs.

  “I wanted to show you at first, but then I got upset and then I didn’t… and later I forgot,” I tell him.

  “Until I asked?”

  “Yes, but by then I’d lied to Uncle Charl already, so I kind of had to.”

  He doesn’t insist nor does he push for an apology. Instead he asks Uncle Charl and Jerome to take a walk with him.

  Aunt Ellie brings us to the train two hours later. Jerome and I don’t really talk except about the journey. Miranda, on the other hand, is hyper and doesn’t shut up. Dad picks us up at the other end and we gladly give my sister the front seat.

  Mum seems relaxed. She must have been happy to be rid of both of us for a while. We have dinner and then I call Kathleen while Jerome checks the website. Fred has been busy answering a big number of responses over the two weeks. Even private school kids wrote in to say it was cool. We each write Lizette a quick message and call the farm to let them know we arrived safely.

  On Sunday all I want to do is sleep for as long as I can and I turn down a trip to Bellevue in favour of a book.

  Jerome is upstairs when the bell rings. I open the door to see a middle-aged bald man with a grey moustache. “I’m looking for Jerome Puissant,” he says.

  My heart jumps. “You’re Nikos, aren’t you? Man, am I ever happy to see you!”

  He looks utterly surprised at my outburst, but he slowly relaxes into a smile and nods.

  “Jerome’s home, come on in. Jerome! Visitor!” I holler up the stairs. “I’m sorry; we’re not really talking at the moment, that’s why. Have a seat.” I forget there are no seats in the corridor.

  Jerome comes down the stairs. I watch his face. He manages about ten seconds of his normal composure before letting go and throwing himself into the man’s arms.

  “I guess that translates as ‘I missed you very much’. Can I get you a drink?” I ask.

  “Coffee, if you have some.”

  “Sure.”

  “Black?”

  “No problem.”

  Is this coincidence? Maybe he talked to Mum and Dad already. It’s just too weird and too wonderful. I spill the coffee when I try to fill a mug; lucky I made a whole pot. I carry it to the living room. “So how did you find us?”

  He explains that he thought he’d found anonymity in the suburbs only to see Jerome’s face in the local paper. “I figured something was wrong if you were going to school here. I called the paper and talked to the reporter and then I found your website. I waited a week, but I couldn’t let it rest. I tried a few times, hoping you’d still want to see me but nobody was home these last few days. I was about to give up, but decided the Sunday before school restarts would be my best bet, so here I am.”

  “I knew there was a reason you had to be our spokesperson,” I tell Jerome.

  “Can’t you get lost, Mariette? We want to talk.”

  “I’m gone already. Consider me lost.”

  I do go, though I’d love to stick around. Should I call Granannie?

  No, that’s not my job. Jerome can do it tonight. Now I can’t read or concentrate on anything. Life has suddenly become all sunny again.

  JEROME

  “Aunt Ellie, it’s Jerome. Can I talk to Dad?”

  She tells me to hang on. Mariette is still standing in front of me after having more or less pushed the phone into my hands. Uncle Gerard, Aunt Karen, Miranda and Nikos are still sitting at the table where we’ve been talking for the last hour about whether to call first or for Nikos to go over and surprise Dad, but then he’d have to wait until next weekend.

  I told him everything this afternoon, including what happened on Friday and that I talked to Mr Shriver. Then my uncle and aunt came home, so I told them who Nikos is. They didn’t know anything about it but Uncle Gerard immediately invited him to stay for dinner. We also talked to Mariette together and now they’re all waiting for Dad to come on the phone.

  “Jerome, it’s me. Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah Dad, everyone here is really happy right now.” If he could only see their faces… if I could only see his. “There’s someone who wants to talk to you.”

  “Who is it?’

  “Hang on, I’ll give you him.”

  Nikos takes the phone. “Before you decide to end your life next time, could you first consider saying sorry to me? That makes things so much easier.”

  “Come on, everybody, out of the kitchen. Let them talk in peace,” Uncle Gerard says.

  That’s fair enough, but I want to make sure Dad doesn’t hang up or something. Nikos makes a hand signal to say it’s okay, and then I retreat to the living room with the rest of them.

  “Why doesn’t Uncle Charl want to marry another woman?” Miranda asks.

  “Be quiet!” Aunt Karen hisses at her.

  “No, let her ask,” Uncle Gerard says. “What’s wrong with asking?”

  “I’m not sure,” I tell Miranda. “Some people are different.”

  “Because he loves Nikos and not another person. It makes no difference if it’s a woman or a man. If you really love someone, you love who he or she is inside, not outside, or it wouldn’t be really love,” Mariette tells her sister, but her eyes turn to me.

  Kathleen wouldn’t agree and Aunt Karen frowns, but I’m grateful for this radical statement of acceptance that prevents any further questions. It’s an eternity before Nikos comes in. He apologizes for taking so long and offers to pay for the phone call.

  “Don’t be silly,” Uncle Gerard says.

  “What did he say?” I ask.

  “He hung up on me,” Nikos answers, which means as much as ‘that’s private’.

  “So what did you do all this time, keep it ringing to drive up the bill?” Mariette asks, only to get scolded by Aunt Karen for being rude.

  “Charl is coming on Wednesday to stay with me for a while. Of course, you’re welcome as well, but I think that we need a bit of time together first,” Nikos says.

  I need time to process all this. Suddenly I seem to have my family back, with a place to stay, not too far from here, even. I could stay in the same school. I could have people meet at my house. Rowan would come back. In the minutes of silence I’ve pretty much painted my new life in my imagination, and I like it. After Nikos leaves I go to my room to think it all over and it’s way past midnight before I go to sleep. I’ve forgotten all about the literature meeting I’d promised to attend.

  Monday morning feels strangely of familiarity set in the wrong timeframe. Suddenly it’s back to ‘hurry up’, lunchboxes, uniforms and Aunt Karen running after everybody. We meet up with Kathleen and Fred at the milk bar.

  “Dad told all my far-away family about our success and sent them a copy of the article as well,” Kathleen says, handing me the one she promised.

  “What about your dad, Fred? Did you get in trouble?” I ask, remembering his escape that morning.

  “At first he went berserk. He threatened to take me out of school and send me to some snobby boys-only stiff boarding school. But then the news came on with the local MP talking about how he appreciates the students’ initiative and that he would take it seriously and he thanked all the parents for their support. Suddenly Dad insisted it was a good cause and spent the rest of the evening preaching that to Mum, who was never against it in the first place. You’re so lucky having the parents you have,” he says to Kathleen and Mariette.

  M
ick and Josh also report positive responses. Paul seems to have forgotten about term three altogether and only remembers his sports camp.

  “Hey Jerome, did you see us on TV?” Charlotte asks.

  “No, but I did see the paper.”

  “I looked awful in that picture,” she says.

  “I think you looked fine.”

  She denies it and goes on about the news clip. Fred had already mentioned that it was cut down to thirty seconds and only about ten of those showed students. “Maybe we could do something like that again, soon,” Charlotte says.

  After maths and recess I walk to Mr Shriver’s desk to apologize for forgetting to come yesterday. I briefly tell him why.

  “I’d like to talk to you about that later,” he says, then turns to the class. He waits for everybody to settle down. “Before we begin, I’d like to say something. First I should say that this group has been more trouble than any other class I’ve had in the twenty years I’ve been teaching high school, but I’ll add that I much prefer people who use their thinking skills for an intelligent cause than spend my classes discussing soap operas. Nevertheless, I would appreciate a return to English for this last term, since your exams are only nine weeks away. So whatever comes up, can you all please leave the politics alone, at least until next year?” He looks at Mariette.

  “Sure, unless Mr Fokker keeps assigning me essays.”

  She makes a joke out of it, but there’s a warning in his words. What he meant with “whatever comes up” is made clear in period six, when classes are once again cancelled for an assembly.

  “Just sit with us, he’ll have forgotten by now,” Kathleen tells Mariette when she decides to wait outside for Mr Fokker.

  “Maybe, but I prefer to be standing for the entire thing. It keeps me from pissing people off.”

  “That was last term.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t make standing up for something I can’t agree with suddenly acceptable.”

  I feel a little guilty when she says this, because I do stand up for the anthem every time even though I don’t agree either.

  With perfectly friendly mannerisms and words to match, Mr Moralis welcomes everybody back and announces his intention to “restore the school to a healthy and safe learning environment”. He says that he is willing to forgive and forget the last term and to give all students the opportunity to do their very best in the upcoming exams. He mentions that a copy of the rules and regulations has been made available in the office lobby so there can be no more confusions about being unaware of them. From now on those rules and consequences will be strictly followed. He finishes with a schedule change for the year eight history classes to make Mr Fokker available for civics on Wednesday afternoons, and the biology teacher will take careers from now on since “Miss Coven has found other employment and decided not to return.”

  “He fired her,” Kathleen concludes instantly.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Oh come on, Jerome, don’t be so naive.”

  Mariette agrees with Kathleen. “I want to have a look at those rules,” she says, so we march to the office and find them on display as PM promised.

  None of us has a prospectus so Mariette turns to the secretary. “Do you have a copy I can look at?” She gets one instantly. It matches the rules on the wall.

  “No wonder; it’s next year’s copy – freshly printed for the new students,” Fred says.

  “I need an old one,” Mariette tells the secretary.

  “They are no longer valid.”

  “They were valid when we came to this school, so they’re valid for us,” Mariette insists, but she doesn’t get a copy. “Let’s get everybody back together. You can’t change the rules to suit your goal, not like that,” she says.

  “That’s what governments do all the time. They wait until they’ve been elected and then betray everybody,” Kathleen says.

  “We didn’t elect this idiot. He’s a dictator.”

  “Just calm down, Mariette; getting you angry is exactly what he wants, so he can kick you out,” I tell her.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yes you do. That would give him the satisfaction he doesn’t deserve. We outsmarted him last time by being calm and mature. It’s the only way.”

  We retreat to the milk bar along with Josh, Mick, Pat, Charlotte, Lindsey and the two school captains. Paul doesn’t want to come; he’s not interested anymore.

  Mariette explains the sudden changes in the rules, which are now listed in two very clear columns in the prospectus we took from the office. There are no contradictions in this one:

  1. Students are to obey staff at all times.

  2. No unauthorised absence from any classes.

  3. Students are to stay on the premises during breaks.

  4. Students are to be in full uniform in immaculate condition.

  5. Students are to refrain from carrying signs or slogans that contradict the purpose of the school.

  6. No meetings of groups larger than five students will be allowed at any time anywhere on the premises during school hours and no physical contact between individuals will be tolerated.

  7. Students are to attend assembly without their bags and are to remain seated and quiet throughout.

  The second column lists the consequences of breaking the rules, starting with a warning, then detention, removal from class, meeting with the counsellor for behavioural contracts, parents informed, suspension and eventually expulsion.

  “That gives us seven lives for every rule,” Fred says.

  “No freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly, no freedom of opinion, no freedom of movement, no freedom of belief. This is certainly an interesting subject for civics classes, isn’t it?” Mick says. “Never mind the threat of imprisonment without proof.”

  “Are we fighting this?” Mariette asks him.

  “You bet.”

  “Who else?”

  “I’m in,” Kathleen says.

  “Me too,” says Fred.

  Josh hesitates. “I guess.”

  “We need more than a guess. This is war,” Mariette tells him.

  “Okay, count me in.”

  “Not me,” one of the school captains says. “We’ve got finals coming up. They’ll fail us.”

  “How can they fail you if yours are state-wide finals under supervision of independent observers?”

  “Because the enter scores don’t just depend on the exams but also on school assessments, so our exam results can be pulled down if a teacher doesn’t like us.”

  “What? They openly make entrance into tertiary dependent on obedience instead of ability? Isn’t that ever treacherous” Mariette exclaims.

  “Sorry,” the captains say, and leave.

  Josh shrugs when I look at him, but he doesn’t desert us.

  “I’m in as long as we can skip the being serious about everything,” says Pat. “That’s tiresome. They deserve payback for those ridiculous rules, so let’s make fools of them: Follow every rule to the letter, that’s much more fun.”

  “What about you, Charlotte?”

  “Of course I’m in. These rules are insulting. If I want to kiss my boyfriend during the day I will, and no rule will stop me. How about it, Jerome?”

  Suddenly everybody’s looking at me and I know what they’re thinking. I can’t keep myself from turning red – at least, it feels like I am. Now I’m looking at staying at this school for more than just a term. Do I want to risk being expelled? What if I have to go to another school and get bullied again? On the other hand, do I want to risk Mariette lynching me for an excuse like that? She might even be right that by expecting to be an outcast I make myself one. How did I become so prejudiced?

  “Oh come on, Jerome. Do it for me,” Charlotte begs.

  “I’m not entirely sure it’s a good idea to start this up again, but if you’re all doing it, I’ll be with you.”

  “Good man,” Fred says.

  The owner of the milk bar st
eps outside and turns to the girls. “You all had better go home. I’ve been asked to report any student gatherings here.”

  “Report to who?” Mariette asks.

  “To the school.”

  “You’ll lose a lot of business if you do that,” Charlotte tells him. “I know, that’s why I’m telling you.”

  “The school hasn’t got any jurisdiction over a public street,” Mick says.

  “Or where we are after school hours,” Kathleen agrees. “They said as long as you’re in uniform, you’re representing the school,” the owner explains.

  “That’s absurd!” Mariette exclaims.

  “From now on I’ll wear my own clothes as soon as I’m outside the school gates,” Charlotte declares.

  Mick suggests we form a student union. “SDF: Student Defence Force. We have to defend ourselves and stand together and support any student who gets in trouble,” he says. He wants to print an SDF paper and ask all the students to become members the way we did it last term, but in this case it would be a permanent membership.

  “That’s a wonderful idea. I could make some cartoons to go with it,” Pat says.

  When we get home I call Dad. He asks if I’d like to move in with Nikos.

  “Of course I would.”

  “I mean, because-”

  “I know what you mean, Dad, but it’s different now.”

  He’s happy; I can tell by his tone. So am I. I just can’t concentrate on student protests – I can’t be angry right now.

  After dinner that evening Mick comes to our door and he and Mariette disappear into her room. “You don’t want to know, believe me,” she says.

  I know she’s right, but I can’t help feeling left out and suddenly I realise where the antipathy Kathleen feels for Mick comes from.

  In the morning they show us a stack of papers entitled SDF Manifesto, describing the treachery of the rules and the infringement on our freedom outside of school hours, and that we intend to protest this. “We’ll sell them for twenty cents each. The school only has rules against selling drugs; it doesn’t say anything about papers,” Mick explains.

  With this plan in mind we head to the school gate but are stopped by the PE teacher on yard duty. “You two need to go home and change your uniform,” she says to Mariette and Fred.