The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne

by Barry Jonsberg

  “I had an aunt Doris once,” said Nathan. “And she was a real bitch as well.”

  I tell you, at my school, it's hard to keep up with the white heat of intellectual debate.

  “Anyway,” Kiffo chipped in, with no regard to the conversational etiquette of keeping to the subject in hand, “I'm not going to go to no detention. No way. I've never been to no detention no time and there's no way I'm going to no detention now.”

  Running out of double negatives, he lapsed into brooding silence. Fortunately, the bell rang for class. I felt that progress had been minimal, and the way things were going, it was unlikely to have been more fruitful if recess had been extended. At least Kiffo was going to make a stand, though. I felt grateful for that. Vanessa and I made our thoughtful way toward the science block.

  “What do you reckon, Vanessa?” I asked.

  Vanessa slowly turned her face toward me.

  “About what?”

  “About Miss Payne!”

  “Who?”

  “The Hound of the Baskervilles, the English teacher from hell. The Pitbull!”

  “I wasn't really listening,” she drawled, and floated off in the direction of math, trailing a little dark cloud of boredom behind her.

  Kiffo looked lost at lunchtime. True to his word, he hadn't turned up to Miss Payne's detention. He walked around the oval, kicking his football in splendid isolation. He was a forlorn figure. I was looking forward to the next English class. It seemed to me that battle lines had been well and truly drawn and the contest could be pretty equal. Of course, at that time I had no idea how it would all turn out. I remember thinking that even though Miss Payne could probably disembowel a horse with her teeth, the odds were still with Kiffo. I don't mean in a straight physical fight. I doubt if anyone without a black belt in five of the martial arts would stand much of a chance against the Pitbull. But physical strength counts for nothing when it's a teacher against a student. Base animal cunning, emotional ruthlessness and a complete lack of any moral fiber will always win out. Put that way, I couldn't see how Kiffo could fail. It was going to get interesting, though. There was no doubt in my mind about that. Unfortunately, I had to wait until the following day for the next English lesson. Fortunately, it was first up after home group.

  The door crashed open and the Pitbull swept into the room. Once again we were treated to five minutes of red-eyed glowering and the menacing body posture of a sumo wrestler. She oozed down the aisles, darting glances from side to side, impaling with a steely gaze anyone who looked as if they might be beginning to get the first hazy notion of wrongdoing. Finally, she came to a halt in front of Kiffo's desk. Spreading her feet, she leaned forward and placed both fists onto the desk. It groaned in protest. Then there was silence.

  “Jaryd Kiffing,” she said ominously, her voice low and charged with violence. “You didn't make detention yesterday. I am interested in your excuse. Not that it will be acceptable, of course. You must understand that. But tell me, Mr. Kiffing. Was your absence due to amnesia or should I read something more sinister into it?”

  Kiffo mumbled something.

  “I'm sorry, Mr. Kiffing. I didn't quite catch that.”

  “The test was too hard.”

  “The test was too hard. Was it? Was it indeed? And what makes you say that, Mr. Kiffing? Is that conclusion the result of years of scholarly research, the product of a degree in teaching or just the complaint of a lazy, revolting adolescent? What's your considered opinion, Mr. Kiffing?”

  “You're being unfair, Miss Payne!”

  God, where did that voice come from? I looked around the class before I realized that it was me. What had I done?

  Miss Payne swiveled around and fixed me with her eyes. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, slowly and deliberately, she moved between the desks and stood before me.

  “You have an opinion, Miss Harrison? Pray, share it with us.”

  I swallowed hard. The easiest thing to do, I knew it even then, would have been to bow my head and mumble, “Nothing, Miss.” But I couldn't. Always been my problem, I guess. A mouth that sometimes works independently of my brain. My voice sounded unnaturally calm.

  “I think you are overestimating Jaryd Kiffing's linguistic capacity, Miss. You fail to appreciate the effect of a dysfunctional family unit operating within his socioeconomic background upon an intellect that has never been given the opportunity to flourish. Those thirty words, Miss. Kiffo wouldn't have heard twenty-eight of them in his entire life. The Kiffing household does not treasure academic success, nor does it encourage excellence in anything other than excessive drinking and flatulence. Kiffo has, to my certain knowledge, never read a book in his life. I doubt, even now, if he could color one in satisfactorily. Your test, Miss, was a guarantee of failure for Kiffo and those like him. It might as well have been in Swahili or Serbo-Croatian. It was, by any academic and intellectual standard, grossly unfair.”

  Phew! Where did that come from? Calma, girl, you are a never-ending source of amazement and wonder, especially to me. I sat back, pretty proud of myself but also conscious that I had probably just dropped myself deep in the brown and smelly stuff. Miss Payne's eyes twitched. For a moment, I thought she was going to throttle me. A little vein stood out on her temple. I could see the blood pumping through it. With a massive sigh, as though the effort of controlling herself was almost more than she could bear, Miss Payne straightened up. Her piggy eyes moved in a broad sweep and took in my glasses (I was wearing the bright green plastic ones), then traveled down my whole form. I felt like a fly that was about to be swatted.

  “Well, Miss Harrison, that was quite a speech. Yes indeed. I'm not sure if I have ever heard the like in my entire teaching career. However…” She suddenly yelled into my face with such force that it felt like a physical blow. It was like being caught up in a mini cyclone. Even Vanessa woke up. “HOWEVER, you would be well advised to keep your smart remarks to yourself in the future. When I want your opinion, then I will ask for it. Is that understood?”

  “But you did ask for it! You said, ‘Pray share it with us.’”

  “SHUT UP!!”

  Miss Payne thumped about the room like a raging, maddened bull.

  “This is exactly the kind of behavior I was talking about yesterday! I will not have you answering me back. I will not be disobeyed. Kiffing and Harrison. You will come here tomorrow for an after-school detention. You, Kiffing, for not turning up yesterday, and you, Harrison, for insubordination. Now get out your English grammar books and turn to page thirty-three. You will answer the section on apostrophes. You will work, of course, in complete silence.”

  Kiffo caught up with me at recess. I was a bit concerned at first. I thought he probably wanted to beat me up because of the comments I'd made about his home life. You can't tell with him sometimes. As it turned out, I didn't have to worry. He'd come to thank me. Mind you, it wasn't something he was particularly comfortable with.

  “Wassup, Kiffo?” I said.

  “Wassup, four-eyes?” he replied.

  “You and me for detention, huh?”

  “Not me! I'm not going. She can get stuffed. I'm not staying behind after normal hours. No chance. No way my dad will give permission. I can tell you that for nothing. Bitch. No, I just wanted to say thanks… you know, for sticking up for me.”

  “Think nothing of it, Kiffo.”

  “No. I do. Think something of it, I mean. You didn't have to do it. And I just wanted you to know… well, I just wanted you to know that you're a good mate.”

  “Hey, Kiffo,” I said. “We'll always be good mates. How could we be anything else?”

  “Oh, by the way,” he said. “I did color in a book. Last week. And it was pretty good. Mostly.”

  I looked at him, but his expression was blank. That's the thing with Kiffo. Sometimes you don't have a clue whether he's being serious or sending you up. Then I caught a faint sparkle in his eyes and it occurred to me, not for the first time, that if Kiffo didn't exist, I'd
have to invent him.

  I grinned.

  And that was it, really. I didn't give the whole business with Kiffo and the Pitbull much more thought. I turned up to the detention the following day, prepared to do my time. I certainly wasn't expecting Kiffo to be there. But he was. And he was ropeable.

  Year 6, Fourth Term

  There is a red-haired boy sitting on the floor beside the toilet bowl, his left arm draped over the stained porcelain. Tears pour down the freckled map of his face but his expression is blank. His right arm is swinging rhythmically across his knees, his fist smashing into the cubicle wall, sinking into the hole that has resulted from the regular punching. The boy's hand is covered in blood, and you can see that it is broken and swollen.

  You're frightened, not so much by the violence, but by the calm manner in which it is being inflicted. You crouch down and touch the boy gently on the knee.

  “Are you okay?” You instantly feel ashamed at the stupidity of the question. The boy looks up but doesn't change his routine. The fist slams into the wall again. He doesn't flinch.

  “Fuck off,” he says, without malice.

  You run. You run to find a teacher. You run to tell your story of a boy, a toilet and a fist that will hammer inside your head forever.

  Chapter 4

  Conversations with the refrigerator

  Dear Fridge,

  The casserole was great! Thanks. However, I feel that our intimate dinner was something of a flop. I made the effort, God knows. Candles, mood music. But, frankly, you were not receptive to my conversational overtures. In fact, solid presence though you undoubtedly are in my life, I sometimes feel that our relationship is not what it once was. We need to talk.

  In the meantime, my new English teacher, a charming woman of considerable charisma, has requested my presence at an after-school meeting tomorrow. Would you be so kind as to sign the attached permission slip?

  Your loving daughter,

  Calma

  Dear Calma,

  Permission slip signed. What have you been up to? Can you heat up a pizza for dinner tonight? I'm on late shift at the supermarket, so I'll have to go straight to the pub. Will be home about two. Don't wake me, please.

  Can you cut out the sarcasm in the notes? To be honest, I'm too tired to deal with it.

  Love,

  Mum

  Dear Fridge,

  How can you be so coldhearted?

  Love,

  Calma

  Chapter 5

  Crime and punishment, part one

  Two bloody hours! That's how long the detention was! I couldn't believe it. It wasn't even as if there was any educational value. Kiffo and I weren't told to do any work. In fact, we were expressly forbidden from reading. Not that Kiffo would have wanted to read, but I certainly did. We just had to sit there, at opposite ends of the classroom, staring at the front where the Pitbull was marking exercise books. Have you any idea how long two hours is? Yeah, well, I know it's like one hundred and twenty minutes and all that. Don't get smart with me. What I mean is, two hours feels much longer than one hundred and twenty minutes when all you have to do is stare at the wall. And believe me, when the alternative to the wall is staring at Miss Payne, you'd choose the wall every time.

  I did a lot of thinking. It was clear to me that the Pitbull would have to go. There was no way the class could survive the rest of the year with her. We'd had her less than a week and some kids were already on medication. Melanie Simpson had burst into tears twice while we were lined up outside the classroom. The whole situation was unacceptable. The problem was how to get rid of her. Most times, the answer would be easy. I'll let you into a little secret here. Take an average Year 10 class, anywhere in the country, and I'll bet you ten dollars to a pinch of poo that they could get rid of their teacher if they wanted to badly enough. Yes, I know about teachers' working conditions and contracts and all that. But none of that makes any difference. Students can destroy the teacher's health, physical and emotional, if we want. We can induce nervous breakdowns. You see, we know that teachers have no rights. They can't hit us, they can't discipline us in any serious way, they can't even yell at us without the danger of a lawsuit. Whereas we, the students, can abuse the teacher, refuse to do what we are told to do, refuse to listen or refuse to stop talking. In fact, we can do whatever we like, short of physical violence (and that happens sometimes—sure, you can get expelled from school, but they still have to move you to another school. It's the law of the land. Even thugs below the school-leaving age are entitled to an education). Take thirty kids who are determined to destroy a teacher and there's not much anyone can do.

  But the Pitbull? I wasn't sure that any of the normal tactics would work with her. You need a weakness to work on, and as far as I could tell, the Pitbull had armor-plated skin and the sensitivity of a paving slab. I guess if we could have worked together then we might have stood a chance. After all, the same rules of conduct applied to her as they did to other teachers. The trouble was that most of the kids in the class were terrified of her. Well, we all were, to be honest with you. And that meant it was going to be difficult to present a united front when everyone was worried about his or her own personal safety. There had to be a way, though. But at the end of two hours, I was no closer to finding it.

  The Pitbull gathered her papers together and glanced at the clock.

  “You can go,” she said.

  Kiffo and I stretched aching limbs and got painfully to our feet.

  “Miss Harrison. I would like a word with you, if I may.”

  Believe me, I felt that two hours was sufficient punishment, but what can you do? I sat down again as Kiffo opened the door and left. The Pitbull finished shuffling her exercise books and then came and sat opposite me. Her expression was what is known as “ruminative.”

  “Calma,” she said, not unkindly. “I've been reading the English work in your Year 10 folio. It is… well, how can one express it? Brilliant, I think, is not an exaggeration. I've been teaching for longer than I care to remember, and very seldom, if ever, have I come across a talent like yours.” She fell silent and I squirmed.

  “Thanks,” I said, rather inadequately. Let's be honest. It's difficult to be churlish when someone says you're brilliant.

  “Do you think you have a gift for English?” she continued.

  “Well, I try not to fly in the face of public opinion,” I replied, a little more adequately.

  The Pitbull frowned.

  “No. There's no question about your talent,” she continued. “It's your attitude that worries me.”

  I squirmed again. It was one of those days when my squirmy muscles were going to get a good workout. Attitude! What is it with teachers and attitude? My writing is good. Great! What has attitude got to do with the price of fish if the end product is good? I can just see some Elizabethan schoolteacher wagging his finger at Shakespeare. “Sure, matey, I concede that Hamlet is the greatest piece of literature ever written. But it's your attitude that worries me!” I kept silent, though. When it comes to teachers and the subject of attitude, they're like a train with brake failure on a long slope. There's nothing you can do until they stop rolling.

  “And that attitude is not helped by the company you keep. Now, I don't want to tell you what friends you should have,” she said, in exactly the manner of someone who is telling you what friends you should have, “but I have had some dealings with Mr. Kiffing's family and I know what I am talking about. It would be in your best interests to find… more suitable companions. Friends who challenge you intellectually and who are not so—how can one put it?—antisocial in their personal lives.”

  I bristled. What with the squirming and the bristling, it was quite an energetic end to my detention.

  “Thank you, Miss. I'll keep that in mind.”

  “I hope you do, Calma. I really hope you do.”

  “Oh, trust me. I won't forget. I can promise you that.”

  I got to the door and was halfway through i
t before she spoke again.

  “By the way, Calma,” she said. “Loved the simile exercise.”

  Huh! I felt like smacking her in the face. Might have improved it.

  Kiffo was waiting for me when I came out.

  “What did fart-face want, then?” he said.

  “Oh, nothing. Normal stuff—wasting talent, bad attitude, blah de blah.”

  We walked together for a while, two jailbirds bonded by a common experience. I glanced occasionally at his face, which was even darker and more brooding than normal. I thought there was a danger in asking the question I had been dying to ask him, but I went ahead just the same.

  “Kiffo?” I said. “How come you turned up to that dumb detention? I thought your dad would never sign one of those permission slips.”

  He stopped dead and turned toward me.

  “Don't talk to me about that bastard! He signed it. Said Miss Payne had had a chat with him about my education and all that crap. Told me he wanted me to try harder at school-work! Yeah, right! First time he's ever shown any interest in anything you can't drink or smoke or punch.”

  “So what would have happened if you hadn't turned up? I mean, it's not the first time you would've disobeyed your dad.”

  Kiffo's hands pulled his tangled mop of red hair into crazier spikes. Boy, was he angry.

  “He'd have beaten the crap out of me, all right? There's still a few years to go before he can't do that no more.”

  “So what are we going to do, Kiffo? I mean, we can't carry on like this.”

  “I know what I'm going to do,” he said quietly. “I'm going to trash her house. I'm going to destroy everything that bitch owns.”

  It was my turn to stop dead in my tracks. At this rate, we'd never make it home.

  “Are you crazy, Kiffo? What good would it do? It wouldn't get rid of her. It would only make her more twisted and nasty. She'd probably figure out that it was a student—I don't think she's making too many friends here—and what do you reckon then? That she's going to be nicer to us? I don't think so. I think she'll be even worse.”