Chichester Greenway

by Alton Saunders

  Chapter 17:

  WHAT IS SCHOOL FOR?

  Andrew had found it difficult to keep his eyes open after Akkri and Vonn’s departure. His brain felt exhausted from all the new impressions and experiences, and he fell asleep as soon as he pulled the covers over his shoulders.

  When he woke up to the first day of another week of school he did not immediately remember the strange events of the previous day. Then it all came surging back. His mum made no mention of yesterday’s visitors as they ate their breakfast muesli, and he began to wonder if it had all been an extraordinary dream.

  There was no sign of J, Cart and Paulus when he arrived in the playground. He managed to walk in next to Vicky when the bell rang and she opened and closed her hand without looking at him, which was one of their secret ways of saying hallo. During the lunch break he saw them eyeing him from across the playground but they did not try to approach him. He remembered how Vonn had reassured them. Yes, perhaps it was going to be all right.

  Vicky was dreading the next lesson – Maths with Mrs Warbloff. Maths on Monday afternoon was always a mental arithmetic test. There was only one person in the class who did worse in mental arithmetic than Vicky and that was Pauline. Pauline was a spiteful character but Vicky felt a sort of gratitude towards her for doing so badly in the Monday tests. Unlike Vicky, though, Pauline simply did not care.

  As they all scrambled into the classroom, Andrew managed to give Vicky’s hand a quick squeeze. He knew how she was feeling.

  Mrs Warbloff came round, handing out the sheets of paper they would write their answers on. She did not look as angry as she sometimes did, Andrew noted with relief and then, to his surprise, he saw her give Vicky a little smile – not a nasty smile, but a proper smile – as she handed her the sheet. “Just try and do your best, Vicky,” she said. She had never said anything like that before.

  “Question one,” she began. “If three men are building a wall …” It was then that the door opened and a sort of quiet peacefulness descended on the class. In walked Vonn and Akkri.

  Vonn spotted Vicky sitting near the window. “Hallo, Vicky!” she said.

  Normally Vicky would have hated being singled out like this in front of everybody, but this afternoon it did not seem to matter. “Hallo, Vonn!” she replied.

  “Come in, dears,” said Mrs Warbloff.

  “Dears!” thought Andrew. “I’ve never heard her say that before,” then, following Vicky’s lead, he called out: “Hi, Akkri!”

  It was as strange and dreamlike as their visit to The Golden Palace. No one seemed surprised at all. Mrs Warbloff put the question book down on her desk. “I see you’ve met Vicky and Andrew before. Perhaps you’d like to introduce yourselves to the others.”

  “Thank you,” said Akkri. “I’m Akkri and this is Vonn.”

  “Hallo, everyone,” said Vonn. “We thought we’d come and visit Vicky and Andrew’s school to see what it’s like. How about pushing all the tables to one side and then we can sit down in a circle?”

  “Circle Time!” Franco exclaimed. “We used to do that at my old school!”

  “Us, too,” said Veronica.

  “This’ll be absolute chaos,” thought Andrew, but it was nothing like that at all. Quickly, quietly and efficiently the tables were pushed into two neat rows under the window and the chairs arranged in a circle. Mrs Warbloff herself sat down on one of them.

  “What do you want to find out?” she asked. She seemed to have no curiosity about Akkri and Vonn, treating their visit as the most normal thing in the world.

  “We don’t even know what school is for,” said Vonn.

  No one tittered or jeered.

  “And we want to find out how you all decide what you are going to do together and what you most enjoy,” Vonn continued.

  “I don’t enjoy any of it,” said Jonathan.

  Vicky was surprised. Jonathan seemed one of the most confident in the class, a big confident bully.

  “Why don’t you do something else, then?” Akkri asked.

  “It’s not like that,” said Jonathan. “We don’t get to choose. We just have to do the things we’re told to do.”

  Mrs Warbloff looked sad. “I’m afraid it is like that. I feel the same way. I have to teach the things I’m told to teach. I can’t even teach them the way I’d like to. I always have to follow the curriculum and guidelines.”

  Apart from Vonn and Akkri, Andrew and Vicky seemed to be the only ones who were fully aware of what was going on. The others had a dreamy, faraway look on their faces. “It’s as if we’re characters in their dreams,” Andrew thought. For the first time he really took in the strange tunics the visitors wore. The two girls and the man on The Golden Palace – he could not remember their names – they had been dressed the same way. The rest of the class and Mrs Warbloff herself did not appear to be aware of any particular strangeness, however.

  Mishal said, “You say you don’t know what school is for. I don’t know either. No one’s ever told me. I just come because I have to.”

  “My dad says it’s so that I can get a good job,” said Janice.

  “Who wants a job, anyway?” said Franco. “It’s as boring as school. There’s nothing that gives you any happiness.”

  “So what would you like to do instead?” Akkri persisted. “Suppose anything was possible. Anything at all.”

  “That sounds like fun,” said Vicky. It was the first time she had ever spoken out in class like that. She glanced at Mrs Warbloff. There was no sign of disapproval on her face, just that unaccustomed kindly look she had had when she handed Vicky her test sheet. Kindly and calm, not angry and agitated.

  “I’d like to learn how to do things,” said Albert. “Proper things like cooking and making things. When I get home it’s just me and my dad. He can’t cook and I can’t either. We go out and get chips and burgers and stuff like that, but I’d like to be able to cook some of the things I’ve seen in magazines.”

  “If we learned how to do things other people need,” said Janice, “we could earn money, here at school.”

  “I’ve heard Albert is very good at computers,” said Mrs Warbloff. “I don’t know anything about them myself, but I’ve heard of young people like you earning a lot of money doing some sort of computer thing.” Usually she would never have admitted to the class that there was something she did not know, but today she felt free. Free, yes, that was the word. Today she felt free, and it did not matter if everyone in the class heard that their form teacher knew nothing about computers.

  “But what about ordinary lessons?” said Andrew. One part of his mind was amazed that he was speaking out like this. It was almost like hearing someone else talking. “I like History and Geography and I don’t even mind Maths too much.” The part of his mind that was listening to him speaking wondered if Mrs Warbloff would mind the way he had referred to her Maths lessons, but she just sat there placidly and did not seem to have taken it personally.

  “I like Art,” said Quan. Her pictures were sometimes pinned up on the classroom wall by Miss Schneider, their Art teacher, but were usually torn to shreds within a day or two. Quan had no art materials at home, or anything much else, for that matter, and her mum had no idea that some might regard her daughter as a gifted child.

  “We could make pirate recordings on the computers,” said Joel, “and you could design new covers for them.” He had never said anything nice to Quan before. In fact he seldom said anything nice to anyone.

  “If we started a band we could make recordings of our own,” said Ephraim. His dad was teaching him to play the steel drums and he was getting quite good at it.

  “Yes, but what about people like Andrew?” said Janice. “If he likes Geography and things like that it would be a shame if he couldn’t do them.”

  Vicky listened in amazement. Janice was sticking up for Andrew.

  “I know what,” said Caroline. “We could have di
fferent things going on in different classrooms like now, but new things, too, like a recording studio and a workshop where you could learn car repairing – that’s what I would like to do, car repairing – as well as the more academic things like Maths and History and Geography and English.” Usually she avoided using words like ‘academic’, but today it felt all right. “Then you could go to whatever activity you liked for as long as you liked.”

  “I could do Art all day!” said Quan with a happy smile.

  “Yes, you could,” said Caroline, “and others might spend a bit of time in several different activities.”

  “But, Caro,” said Mrs Warbloff, “what if everyone wanted to be in the band and no one went to the other things?”

  “Mrs Warbloff called her Caro!” thought Vicky. Only Caroline’s two special friends called her that.

  On the first day of term Mrs Warbloff had asked each of them what she should call them. She did not approve of this because it meant she had to use any silly nickname they chose for themselves, but that was what the school guidelines said and so that was what she did. Caroline had made it clear that she wanted to be known by her full name – Caroline. And now Mrs Warbloff was calling her Caro.

  On the door to the classroom a plastic strip said ‘Mrs C. Warbloff’. One day Gary had asked in a cheeky voice: “What’s the C stand for, Mrs Warbloff?” Mrs Warbloff had given him an icy stare and that was that, but in the lesson that followed she had heard them muttering silly suggestions like Chimpanzee and Coconut and Christmas Tree. And then Mishal had muttered something that shocked even the worst elements in the class and Mrs Warbloff had gone into a frenzy of rage that left Vicky trembling.

  In fact Mrs Warbloff’s name was Caroline, too. It always brought a lump to her throat when she heard Veronica or Terry call their friend Caro, because that was her dear Ernst’s own special name for her. She had always wanted to call her pupil Caro and today it felt all right to do so, and Caroline did not seem to mind at all.

  Akkri answered the question raised by Mrs Warbloff. “I daresay it would sort itself out,” he said, and Mrs Warbloff, who always pursued things ruthlessly, seemed quite satisfied with his reply. He and Vonn had been content to let the discussion develop in its own way, taking in the strangeness of the room they were in and the strangeness of the people in it. They seemed more varied in their appearance than the people of Vika. Eight or nine of them were the same dark brown colour as Vicky, others were a different shade of brown and several, including the lady who seemed to be their leader, were the same pale pink colour as Andrew. Those ones had the hair that varied most in colour - light brown, blond and, strangest of all, a boy with red hair and a girl with green hair. The girl called Quan had eyes of a different shape to the others. Rather like Vikan eyes, Vonn thought.

  Vicky noticed that at some stage Mrs Faighly had slipped into the classroom and had seated herself on an empty chair next to Albert. Even Mrs Faighly being there did not seem to matter.

  “I think it would be a great idea if we could earn money from what we do at school,” said Gary. “Half the money could go to the school to buy the extra materials we’d need and the other half could go to us.”

  “But what about people like me who prefer to do academic things?” said Andrew. He enjoyed using Caroline’s word ‘academic’. He rather admired Caroline.

  “I think we should just share it out equally among everybody,” said Gary. “Everyone does the things they like and some of those things happen to earn money.”

  There were no shouts of dissent when he said this. In fact everybody seemed in quiet agreement. To Akkri and Vonn it seemed reasonable and obvious. They had no idea how unusual the suggested arrangement would be. The only thing they did not understand was what the word ‘money’ meant.

  “None of it can ever happen, though,” said Pauline sadly.

  “Life itself will answer that,” said Vonn. She felt just like Korriott as she said it. “No one really knows what the future will bring.”

  “Do you mean it actually could happen?” said Ephraim.

  “Perhaps something even better,” said Vonn.

  And what about you?” Quan asked. “What would you like more than anything else?”

  Vonn knew she had to answer as freely and honestly as the Earth children, but it was very hard. Ever since their first meeting in Library Seven she had been thinking of her grandmother and how much she missed her. Like all Vikans she was used to the experience of things returning to the nothingness from which they came. Skimmers appeared when they were needed then disappeared into nothingness when their job was done. Huge buildings ceased to exist if their owners no longer wanted them. Human beings, too, had their time and then they were gone. She had heard Annilex call it the shadow side of life.

  “I’d like to see my grandmother again,” said Vonn. There were tears in her eyes.

  “I’d like my dad to come back and live with us all the time,” said Andrew, “but being kind to Mum. And I’d like to see colours properly.”

  “I wish I’d got a dad,” said Quan.

  “I wish my mum would take more notice of me,” said Vicky. “And I wish I had my bedroom to myself again.”

  “I wish my Ernst would come back,” said Mrs Warbloff. No one knew what she was talking about and no one felt the need to find out. The peaceful feeling that seemed to come into the room with the two visitors was very strong now, but tinged with sadness and longing as everyone thought of the things that were missing in their lives.

  There was silence for several minutes, something which had never happened in a lesson in that classroom before. Akkri stood up. “I think it’s time for us to leave.”

  “It’s been so nice meeting you all,” said Vonn. She and Akkri walked out of the classroom. Shortly afterwards Mrs Faighly followed.

  “Let’s get the tables and chairs back in their places, shall we?” said Mrs Warbloff. Quietly and efficiently her pupils complied.

  “Now the test,” said Mrs Warbloff. “If three men are building a wall …” The bell rang. “Ah, well, it doesn’t really matter. Geography and IT next, isn’t it? Off you go to your next lessons.”

  Vicky felt almost disappointed. With that lovely peaceful feeling inside her, she thought she might have got a few of the answers right. As she went out into the corridor the whole school seemed quieter than usual.

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