by Nōnen Títi
“Oh yeah, well at least I come from a normal home.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“That means my friends are my own age. I don’t get my underpants wet over an old man while your cousin visits his boyfriend’s house.”
Mariette gapes, lost for a response, but Kathleen jumps in. “You’re just jealous because Jerome doesn’t fancy you like you do him.”
Charlotte lashes out at her but misses, and then the bell goes and probably prevents this from getting totally out of hand.
The three of us walk in silence. I realize then that Fred’s absence bothers me more than what Charlotte said about me. I’d seen that coming, after all, and Kathleen took my side.
Mariette leaves us to go to Mr Fokker’s room. I let Kathleen go to PE alone and go to Mr Shriver’s room. Through the window I see a group of year twelves all writing in silence. Mr Shriver gestures to say I can come in, so I do so quietly. “I wrote this,” I whisper, giving him my poem, which is really nowhere near ready yet. “I just wanted you to see it.”
“See it before your class, why?” he asks. “I don’t know.”
“I take it PE isn’t very attractive with the police watching?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you take the empty seat and read a bit?”
I do as he says. It seems like neither age nor position has anything to do with understanding people. It’s much more basic than that. We’re waterhole people in a Flatland school. A little later Mr Shriver comes to my table. “You wrote this on Wednesday night?”
“Most of it.”
“I think you should show this to Mariette; she’ll pick up on your meaning. I think you’re right that she knows very well why she drives people to their limits. She also knows that she needs you to keep her out of trouble.”
“But I can’t.”
“Remember that it’s not always the people on the front line who are the most important, Jerome. Now, have you thought about our proposal?”
“Do you really think they could be accepted?”
“Yes, I do. Type them all up for me – all except those you really don’t want to share. They’ll probably pick some and you’ll get the rest back.” I promise to do so and spend until recess working on my latest one.
MARIETTE
Mr Fokker looks up from his writing when I hesitate at the door to his room. He doesn’t seem half as upset as I expected considering the wrecked car, which wouldn’t even have been here yet if I still went to PE. What was it I was going to say to him?
“You see that corner?” he asks pointing to the convergence of the front- and window walls behind his desk.
Of course I do.
“Stand in it, hands on your back.”
“What?” He’s not serious. I can’t do that. “…I had nothing to do with the car.” Of course, this isn’t about the car… “I wanted to say sorry yesterday.”
He indicates the corner with his hand.
“They were only words.”
“It’s only a corner,” he replies.
The room has a door too. It’s only a door. I could walk through it… only I can’t, just like that time with Granannie. He goes back to his writing.
I’m about halfway between them, that corner and the door. Suppose someone came in? Suppose he makes me stand there all day? He has classes – my own class in period four. I’d die. Doesn’t it count that I didn’t get him fired? Why is he doing this? …Why did I?
I watch him write, deliberately ignoring me. He seems relaxed. I’d like to plead with him, ask him to reconsider no matter how cheap that is, but my voice takes his side. Not that it would help. He’s toying with me, on purpose, I can feel it. But if I leave it’ll be over for good. Couldn’t I just not care and get angry, walk out and set fire to his car or something… and be arrested, how embarrassing would that be? How embarrassing to stand in a corner just so anybody walking by can see me, if not through the window then through the door. “I can’t do this.”
“I quote, Mariette: ‘Deference is a yielding or submitting to another’s judgement or preference out of respect or reverence’. ‘Conscience is the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one’s own conduct, intentions or character, together with a feeling of obligation to do right or good’. ‘Hypocrisy is feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not, especially…’ but then, you already know all that, so do I need to continue?”
I know he’s watching my every step and every one of them hurts. Am I really that big-headed? This should have been something of the past. It’s only in old-fashioned stories that kids stand in the corner in school. Of course, in old-fashioned stories they’re a whole lot more respectful to their teachers in the first place and nobody would think it weird. Please don’t let anybody walk by.
I desperately need to get my mind on something else. Fred’s disappearance. We need to write something in our paper; everybody should write a letter to his father, the whole school. I’d like to see him open the mailbox. Not just Fred; we could do the same for other students who are in trouble, not just in this school but everywhere. We’d try to help students who are punished or expelled for the wrong reasons, but also those that are being bullied or discriminated against. We’d call it ‘Amnesty Educational’.
What about Mick? But he was wrong. He was using it for his own benefit. Would others see it that way? Charlotte wouldn’t. Bitch!
What does she know anyway? Just because her life is ruled by her bimbo instincts. I’d have thought Mick was smarter than resorting to destruction, but then again, he’s just another man, compelled to wage war for the sake of becoming the dominant male. Why? To reproduce, of course – life.
“That’s it!” Shit, did I say that out loud? It’s good that the walls don’t have eyes. I don’t want to think anymore. Can’t he let me go? Why did I have to use all those stupid words in my write-aways? Is he going to wait until I beg? Just imagine the rumours at Miranda’s school. What would she tell Mum? Couldn’t I just switch my brain off? For good, preferably?
The bell ends my destructive thought pattern, but then people start walking outside. A group of year elevens walk by close to the window. I do my best to squeeze as far into the corner as I can, but none of them even looks my way.
“What I’d like to know-” Mr Fokker says, making me jump. He’s right behind me. I can sense him – his body warmth creeps closer… I hold my breath… past me, and he sits down on the window sill. “What I’d like to know is why you obey me, even in the face of my year seven class arriving in the next five minutes; why you obey me but openly despise others, including the principal,” he says.
I’d like to know that too.
“Why didn’t you tell Mr Moralis what really happened on Wednesday?”
I’m not sure if should turn but I find it easier to talk to the wall right now. “Because it wasn’t his business. He was only thinking of his own reputation.”
“It was his business, Mariette. He’s the head of this school. It was his business if I did something wrong.”
“But you didn’t…” I turn around now anyway. “Only by his moralistic little rulebook. Besides, it wasn’t you; only I forgot to think about your job.”
“What did you think about?”
“I’m not sure. I guess I just wanted a response.”
“Mr Moralis responds to you all the time, much more than he should. Doesn’t he deserve your deference?”
I wince at his sarcasm. “But Mr Moralis only sees the group. We’re not people to him. He sees students, the herd. He just wants to keep the wool in one place and make sure it looks white so he gets rewarded by the boss.”
“And you’re Baa Baa Black Sheep?”
“I don’t know. At any rate, it was between you and me – nothing to do with him. Nothing to do with Mick, either. He shouldn’t have attacked your car.”
“That’s right, but the same laws that say he isn’t allowed to do that
also say that it’s wrong to hit a student.”
“But the law had nothing to do with it. It was to do with real values.”
“Real values? Like the purity of the wool instead of its appearance, the values that made you decide to stand here instead of walk out? Those real values?”
“I guess.”
“So we’re back at the difference between ethics and morality. What is the difference, Mariette?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you do; you studied those words. What’s the difference?”
“…I think that moral values are used to judge other people but ethics is about personal conscience.”
“So do you consider it ethical to be spreading rumours and lies about the principal?”
I probably should have seen that coming.
“Do you want to keep standing here?” he asks in a tone that commands an answer. My stomach clenches.
“No.”
“So is it ethical, in your view, to deliberately soil a person’s reputation?”
“No.”
“Let me quote you again, Mariette. ‘Honour: a keen sense of ethical conduct, also called integrity’. I want you to write an essay about this explaining those words. Not using the dictionary the way you did last time. I want those real values: feelings, motivations and examples.”
I’ve only just reached my seat when noise in the hall announces the arrival of his next class. He hands me the first example of this honour himself almost immediately; instead of waiting for these kids to start whispering or giggling he addresses the issue directly: “Does a teacher have the right to hit a student?”
“No,” is the general consensus. They’re repeating what they’ve been told while throwing glances at me.
“How about parents?” he asks next.
Most still say that it’s wrong, but one or two reluctantly admit that they might have occasionally been smacked. I forget to write.
“What should be done to teachers who hit students?” he wants to know.
Now confident that they’re allowed to give their opinion, more of them respond. Most talk about the law and being fired.
“What if the student hit the teacher first?” I ask.
For a moment they’re confused. They look at Mr Fokker for permission to answer my question. But it changes the issue for most; even teachers apparently shouldn’t just accept being attacked.
“What about insults, hitting with words; is that allowed?” Mr Fokker asks.
This divides the class and they start a debate among themselves. Some say that words can be just as hurtful and dangerous while others stick to the physical-or-not rule.
He lets them. History doesn’t get done this period, though more than once someone brings up the customs of the past. I guess, or hope, that by the time they leave they’ve gotten over the need to gossip. Besides, it seems everybody knows about it anyway, whether it’s been officially admitted or not.
I’ve only written two lines when an announcement calls all students to the gym for recess since nobody will be allowed on the grounds between classes other than to change rooms.
I automatically look up and then at Mr Fokker, raising my eyebrows. “They’re afraid there will be more destruction and there were rumours that students would be attacked,” he answers my unspoken question.
“So they send in the army?”
“I believe the police presence is meant to restore the peace, not disrupt it.”
“But it was their presence that caused all the anger.”
“The police was called in this morning after the destruction began, not before it. If charged, Mick is in serious trouble and not just for the car. It turns out that Mr Moralis and some others have been receiving threatening letters. They’re doing fingerprint comparisons and if they match Mick’s he could be looking at a youth detention centre for fraud.”
Shit! “And if they don’t?”
“Don’t what? Match Mick’s? They might go looking for someone else,” he answers.
“Do they have the right to do that?”
“If they’re investigating what is essentially a crime, though you may want to call it a scandal, a sin or a vice, then yes.”
“Well, I don’t trust them.”
“Does that say something about them or about you?”
I can’t answer that, obviously. Suppose Mick talks? Suppose they force him? What if he wants revenge on me?
When the next bell goes Mr Fokker takes the noteblock off me. “May I suggest that you at least try to not let your emotions carry you away today? I believe you have English next.”
“I doubt Mr Shriver will be pleased to see me,” I reply, hoping he’ll let me stay here.
“Haven’t you ever noticed that many teachers favour you, Mariette, that they let you get away with much more than most?”
“Me? Why?”
“I believe it’s that passion with which you throw yourself into every injustice. Of course, at the same time, you scare many others away.”
“I do? I mean, I do, but I can’t help that. Some people just piss me off, you know?”
“Would you like to see what happens when I get pissed off?” he asks, causing another involuntary cramp of my stomach, and it takes all my energy to hide it. “I think you’d better go,” he says.
So I go to English quickly, feeling almost haunted, alert for the hounds that have been called in to control the herd. Alert because they represent the physical threat and I know that PM would have pointed me out to them. I’d never survive an interrogation like Grandpa Will described. Would Mick? I’m panting when I reach the classroom.
Not much English gets done in English. Mr Shriver allows quiet conversation, so I tell Kathleen, Pat, Charlotte and Jerome about the amnesty idea.
Jerome promises to write an article for the SDF paper, using Kathleen’s suggestion about the armed forces for the title. “The adults will judge all student behaviour as one, just like we judge all teachers, but I don’t think all the teachers stand behind PM any more than we’re all behind what Mick did. We could apologize and ask for support from our parents,” he says.
“Your parents?” Charlotte scorns.
“Yes, they’ll support us, and so will Mariette’s and Kathleen’s if we do this right.”
Charlotte doesn’t respond to this unexpectedly strong stand of Jerome’s, for which I suddenly feel very proud of him. Of course, it isn’t true. Mum will never support me against the school and Mick isn’t arrested or expelled for the car only, but I keep quiet.
After English we go back to history as a group while Pat and Kathleen go to their class. I don’t see any police dogs on the way. Mr Fokker does the same as with his year sevens this morning and raises the question of the incident everybody can’t stop talking about anyway. Charlotte openly says that he shouldn’t be allowed to teach.
“I sent in my resignation on Wednesday,” he tells her.
“You did? But you can’t! I told them nothing happened,” I protest.
“I’d already decided at the start of this term that I no longer want to teach here. I will finish the year.”
“But isn’t that admitting to a wrong?”
“It appears to me that you’re still the only one who doesn’t see that as wrong, Mariette. I’ve had an endless string of angry phone calls from parents yesterday and been asked to explain myself in front of the college council. If I hadn’t resigned, they’d have kicked me out.”
“They can’t do that. Even out in the stinking real world people have to be officially accused before standing trial. What does this council think it’s going to do?”
“Save the school from having a bad name. The board can’t do anything without an official complaint, but the school council can come up with a report that shows the need to cut down on staff.”
“Yeah, well, then they still don’t realize who they’re dealing with.”
“Just you be careful, for in a society where people are made to believ
e they have rights and freedom, everybody becomes the prosecutor. Now, I believe you have some writing to do and it wouldn’t hurt to finish that book I gave you which deals with all these issues. This discussion no longer involves you.”
That rule is maintained for the rest of the day, since we’re ordered to stay in class for both lunch and assembly, in between which we have civics. Only the year sevens are allowed to leave early – for their own safety, I suppose.
I focus on my essay and start by mentioning the book I still haven’t finished. I admit that I find it difficult to read; I had to get used to the style and I have to reread almost every part before being sure I understand it. This is new to me and might have helped put things in perspective. Maybe I was being big-headed, but these subjects intrigue me. I need time to think about them. Next I try to explain what all those words mean to me without sounding too pretentious and without addressing the big question. I avoid the issue of being guilty of a crime and try not to get distracted thinking about Mick. He won’t get charged, not for fraud. He found the information, but the letters never came through his hands. If only he keeps quiet. I’d die if they came after me. I contemplate, in writing, the difference between laws and true right and wrong. All behaviour is motivated by deeper feelings you can’t simply ignore.
I hate to admit it, but somewhere far away I can still understand PM (Principal Morality) needing revenge, while I can totally not understand those who agree to be spies or pawns for the system. They’re conscripted; PM is sacrificing their safety for his goal and they go willingly. And if you really resigned then you are no longer playing the game, so why not make a stand against this make-believe? Even if people are animals, they aren’t all sheep, so why act like one?
I put it on his desk when the final bell sends everybody home and there’s an announcement about how the threats to student safety are taken very seriously by the school and everyone should be on alert for suspicious or indecent behaviour among students.
“Sure, throw in another threat,” Kathleen shouts back at the loudspeaker.
We’ve just reached the door when Mr Fokker calls me back. “You refer to me as Old Woolly and then ask me to stop acting like a sheep, Mariette?”