Walking Among Birds

by Matthew Hickson

  As they approached the school, a pair of towers and a spire came into view and they passed by a large Victorian style façade of a building. Girls meandering about the gardens in their green and white checked dresses could be seen on the grounds in front of the imposing twin towers. Metal lettering on the gate spelt out the girls’ motto: “Contendunt Vivere Obtulit Immaculatum” which is, of course, “Strive to Live an Unblemished Life.” The building was fully encircled (apart from a couple of gates) by an old red brick wall, on which the other side sat St. Benedict’s College, a square fortress of a building constructed in the Byzantine style. To the gulls flying high above these colleges, the differences between them would have seemed like mere nuances (for one, birds are not often experts on different architectural styles), but to those more wingless folk the contrast was stark. It was even embodied in their mottos: the male counterpart being of shadows, the female motto of a life lived in perfection. At least it was better than previously: it had only been a few years since the boys’ motto had been changed from “Memento Mori,” or “Remember, You Shall Die.”

  The girls’ college, St. Scholastica’s, was the original structure, with the boys’ being built a few years later. It had been well looked after and year after year ranked among the top schools in the country: an institution that prided itself on fine behaviour, strongly-held morals, and an unsurpassed level of well-rounded education. The gardens, adorned with their bright and happy arrays of flowers stretched out from the college building in all directions like rippling fields of golden wheat. The stems of lilies and lavender danced as the soft breeze swayed them this way and that like ballet dances coupling up for a euphoric pas de deux. The girls wandered happily along the winding garden paths discussing mathematical ideas, debating their own pensively deduced political viewpoints, and generally spending their break times doing whatever young soon-to-be successful women did.

  Across the wall, or “the Great Divide” as the boys called it, was St. Benedict’s. One only had to look over the partition to realise that occasionally “the grass is always greener on the other side” is true. There were only a few trees and grass spotted with patches of dirt here and there. The awards lauded to St. Benedict’s were few and far between—it had become an unworthy, and sometimes unwanted shadow of its sister school. The boys were not allowed out for break unless doing a strictly supervised activity, so when the Lapin’s car processed through the iron gate, they were welcomed by an eerily quiet ghost terrain. The only movements were the branches swaying gently but austerely in the same breeze that caused such beauty on the aforementioned “brighter side” of the wall. All would have been peaceful except that at that very moment, Jack thought he saw something quite a distance away, but moving closer at a rapid pace.

  “What is that there, on the left there, sir?”

  “That’s a tree, Jack,” Peter butted in.

  “I wasn’t asking about that, you…” Jack began to reply, but just as he was about to select a choice word for his brother, Mr. Swinburne slammed on the brakes with a mighty screech, as two boys ran in front of the car: a small bare-chested blond lad, and in hot pursuit of him a larger brown-haired boy holding what would appear to be the first boys shirt.

  “What the flip do you think you’re doing?” roared Mr. Swinburne from the passenger side. “Get in the car this instance, both of you!”

  The taller boy thought for a split second and then, speaking with a very slight Francophone accent answered, “Sorry for making you stop like that, sir. Thomas was on his morning run, his course du matin, and he forgotten to wear his shirt, so I was chasing after him with it. He has very pale skin, sir, and I don’t want to see him have the sunburnt. The sun, it is very bright today.”

  The younger boy, apparently Thomas, just stood there with his eyes cast down in embarrassment.

  “Now really, Lorenz, of all the ridiculous…”

  “Please, sir, it’s true. I swear, look at him, he’s like a duck out of water in this sun…”

  “Get in the car, now!” Mr. Swinburne roared.

  And so the two boys obliged, squeezing into the back seat with Peter and Jack, a room only meant for three people.

  Jack gave a meek and awkward smile to the both of them as they squeezed in together. Lorenz smiled back whilst Thomas just looked down at his feet and wished with all his heart to not be in that car with his pursuer and two complete strangers.

  “You know, I’m quite sure it’s ‘fish out of water,’ not ‘duck out of water,’” Peter told Lorenz with a small smile. Peter looked at his watch—the face had cracked when the car stopped suddenly and Peter’s wrist had hit the seat in front of him.

  The remaining thirty seconds of the drive up to the front of the building was done in absolute silence. After which they disembarked the car and entered through the arched door into a reception area, and at once all four were ushered in by Mr. Swinburne to the deputy headmaster’s office and greeted by a warm-looking, well-built man standing up from his office chair to enthusiastically shake their hands.

  “Ah, good morning, good morning. You must be Peter and Jack. My name is Mr. Latan…Charles Latan. I’m the deputy headmaster. Unfortunately, ‘the boss’ is very busy at St. Scholastica’s and so it is not viable for her to come meet you today—my sincerest apologies, boys. Now, Mr. Swinburne. To what reason do I owe the delight of the company of Master du Sabre and Steerforth on this fine morning?”

  “Good morning, Mr. Latan. I nearly ran them over on my way up the drive. They were running around creating all sorts of trouble, they were extremely fortunate not to get hit.”

  “Ah, I see. Thank you, Mr. Swinburne,” at which point the chauffeur left the room and the boys were left with the smiling man. “Excuse me, boys,” he smiled to Peter and Jack. “So, Lorenz. What happened?”

  “Well, sir, as I explained to Mr. Swinburne, I was just enforcing the school rules, as Thomas run outside to get out of doing his morning chores and I thought I better follow to be remind him of…”

  “It’s not true” the younger boy said in a soft, delicate voice—the first thing the twins had heard him say so far. Lorenz at once shot him a glare and continued.

  “Chores are very important, sir. The château cannot stand without the proper housework and…”

  “I say, why aren’t you wearing a shirt, Tom?” Mr. Latan interrupted, as if ignoring Lorenz and coming to a sudden realisation that the boy was shirtless.

  Tom once again answered while staring down at his shoelaces. “He wanted my morning tea and jumped me. He grabbed my shirt and it slipped over my head…” The boy was almost down to a whisper by the end of the sentence, trailing off into the oblivion of silence.as everyone leaned in to try and catch what he was saying.

  “I see. Is this true, Lorenz?”

  “Well, technically, yes, sir. This is what has happened. But he is at the same fault as what I am. If he had given me his morning tea, I wouldn’t have had to chase him. And it is an unsaid rule that lower grade students follow the orders of us more senior students, is it not?”

  The man seemed to by mulling all this over in his head.

  “And then, to run outside when it’s strictly prohibited to be the outside at that time. Well, really all I did was follow him. I am not to blame for us being outside, that is his fault.”

  Mr. Latan’s face twisted in deep thought, seeming to become more agreeable.

  “And then, well, I barely touched him so for his shirt to come off with so little force it surely must not have been tucked in to start with, let alone the fact that not wearing a shirt is a very serious uniform violation. And the car…again, if he hadn’t been running, I wouldn’t have been chasing him. He was the instigator in each way. Je n’suis pas responsable.”

  Mr. Latan continued to look as if he had a complicated mathematical equation going ‘round and ‘round in his head. After a few moments, he finally came up with a solution.

  “Well, I guess all that is technically true. Lorenz
, you may go, though may I say that he is a boy and you are a young man. I expect better from a man of your heritage and upbringing. And as for you, Thomas, you are in breach of numerous school rules, so I will see you at lunch time today and tomorrow for detention, and you will need to do Lorenz’s chores for the next week for the trouble you’ve caused him. And did I see chocolate cake was for morning tea? I’m afraid I will have to confiscate that…as evidence. Next time, just give him the cake and avoid all this trouble. Go and wait outside the door there.”

  Peter and Jack remained sitting in their chairs gobsmacked at the whole ordeal—they glanced at each other at the same time both with an expression of “what just happened?” The phrase “I wouldn’t have been chasing him if he hadn’t been running” being a reason for acquittal seemed ridiculous. Technically true, but ridiculous nonetheless.

  “Now, you two. Welcome to St. Benedict’s. Sorry you had to experience that ordeal in your first ten minutes here. Some kids like Tom never learn their place. You have the rest of today to orientate yourself around the school. As you’ve been told, we have a peer-support program at the school and so you two will be looking after a group of younger students from varying years. After lunch, they will give you a tour of the school and you can get to know them. For now, you may go to your dormitories to unpack and get settled. Thomas is waiting outside and will show you both to your rooms.”

  He wrote the two room numbers on a slip and handed it to Thomas who then took both their bags and started walking towards the set of stairs on the opposite side of the reception room.

  “Oh, no, that’s quite alright…Tom, is it? I can carry my bag, and Jack can carry his,” Peter offered.

  A voice came sternly from the now distant deputy headmaster’s office. “No, that’s quite alright. Thomas can carry them.”

  “Okay . . . sorry,” Peter said with a shrug to Tom.

  They slowly trudged up two wooden flights of stairs, following little Thomas greatly struggling with the bags that were almost as heavy as him, dragging them up one stair at a time with great labour. Feeling guilty with every wince of the young boy’s face.

  “You know, Tom, I don’t blame you at all for what happened between you and Lorenz. I…we…both think that was Lorenz’s fault.” If Peter couldn’t offer a physical crutch, perhaps he could offer an emotional one. Thomas just stayed quiet and didn’t make eye contact, as if Peter had said nothing at all. They went down a few winding passageways, passing interested looking boys the whole while, finally reaching Peter’s room first, and Jack’s room a few metres down the hallway. Jack thanked Tom and gave him a pat on the back, to which he got no reply or acknowledgement. He was left standing at his door as he watched Tom continue to wander down the hallway to wherever it was he had his next engagement.

  All the other boys were about to head to class so Peter and Jack spent the next hour or so unpacking and settling in alone, and finding necessities such as the nearest toilets, showers, and other things. Both boys were “bunking” with another boy that they would be able to meet at lunch time. During their time alone, they continued wondering why Tom had been treated so unfairly.

  This is where I can chip in with a bit of background information. You see, it’s often the things that are not said which have more of an influence than those that are. Mr. Charles Latan always had in mind, but never discussed, the circumstances by which both those boys had found their way to his school. Lorenz du Sabre was the son of the famous French General, Lance du Sabre–a highly decorated military figure from Lyon with many years of experience and qualifications under his belt. Lorenz had a sister, Charmaine, who studied at the school next door. The du Sabre family was quite wealthy and had often donated large sums of money when called upon to help the school, and the prestige of having a decorated General’s children (even if it was a foreign General) was welcomed by both schools.

  Charmaine du Sabre was a fascinating young lady. She was the sort of sixteen-year-old that all the other girls aspired to be, and that all the boys her age aspired to be with. She was beautiful, but not in a submissive doe-like way. She had her father’s chiselled jaw line and well defined features, a trait she shared with her younger brother. She had dark sandy-blonde hair and striking green eyes with which she could argue anybody down, boy or girl who dared defy her, and manipulate almost anybody into seeing her version of things. Lorenz was slowly becoming more and more like her, following in the footsteps of her manipulative and harsh ways.

  She was currently in a “relationship” (at least, as much of a relationship as a large wall down the middle would accommodate) with a student at St. Benedict’s—a fact that benefitted her brother to no end. You see, Lorenz was under a sort of unofficial “protection” from the boys in the upper echelon of the school. Any boy that didn’t look upon Lorenz with at least the smallest bit of fratenité was not welcome in the hallowed group of senior students headed by the cock of the school, Cole Black. As you can guess, Cole was Charmaine’s boyfriend (of course, the most beautiful girl will instinctively choose the most popular stag). And so Charmaine controlled Cole on a tight leash, and Cole controlled most of the boys in the upper form, providing Lorenz with a very comfortable position from which to become a bully to the lower school children.

  Thomas was the most tormented of all of them—he was small-built for his age, with people usually guessing him to be about ten. His paleness didn’t help either, as his bright blonde hair shone for miles creating a beacon for bullies to hone in on the weakest target available. His small frame got pushed around easily, and whenever he spoke, his prepubescent voice would be jeered for its femininity—he was the boy who always had something to say but would never say it for fear of his peers muffled laughter and constant teasing. He had learnt long ago to keep his mouth shut. When he was around nine, turning ten, he had been moved to particularly mean foster parents who would punish him for speaking when not being spoken to, and so had learnt that the best defence was the silent defence. He eventually moved from there, but no kindness or compassion could change his silence, and he continued to only speak when absolutely necessary, sometimes not even then. He had almost no memory of his biological parents, as they had decided they could not raise a child and so had sent him into foster caring until they felt the time was right (if it ever would be) to take him back again.

  The only memory he had of both his parents together was of them reading to him—every night they would bury themselves in one of his favourite books—his absolute favourite had been The Little Prince by the famous French aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He could remember their voices as they smoothly read through the comforting words of that great lyonnais novella, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye,” his hope of reuniting with them was held in that one book which he kept a copy of perpetually under his pillow. At night he would, without fail, turn over to face his window and look up at the stars, knowing that his parents might be looking up at the same stars as he was and that if he thought hard enough about them, perhaps they would be thinking about him also. That was enough to make him smile—to continue running without growing weary.

  CHAPTER III

  “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the

  moment a single man contemplates it, bearing

  within him the image of a cathedral.”

  —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

  Just before noon, the boys left their rooms to find the dining hall. They had been left to their own devices since being shown their rooms, and after unpacking had each taken quite a different course of action. Peter decided to go for a walk through the building to orient himself with his surroundings, then went back to his room to quietly flip through a book he had found in the school library, “The Story of Beatrix Potter: a Biography”. His room comprised of a door at one end and a large Byzantine-arched window at the other, with just enough room for two single beds on either side of the room and a small
wardrobe at the foot of each. The window was open with a fresh breeze meandering through. His roommate, who he had not met yet, seemed to keep his half of the room in good condition. Peter had found his roommate’s name on a file sitting on the bed opposite him—Jeremy Fisher. For some reason, the name seemed familiar to Peter, but he brushed it off as just being a common name.

  People often say there are two types of people in the world, which of course by any division is true. There are those that are right-handed, and those that aren’t. There are those that love pineapple on pizza, and those that don’t. There are those who are the Monarch of the United Kingdom, and those that certainly are not. The list of ridiculous and trivial divisions go on ad nauseam. For of course always those that are something and those that aren’t must be mutually exclusive and fulfil a complete mathematical set. And so it was with Peter and Jack’s roommates, there are those that are clean and neat and respectable, and those that aren’t. Jack entered his room to find his bed covered in dirty clothes and half eaten packets of food. The teen stench of over-compensatory male deodorant (if you ever work in a high school, you will know this all too well) densely filled the air to the point where Jack coughed and sputtered before opening the stiff and rattly window to let the fresh breeze through, destroying a few spiders’ homes in doing so.

  He cleared his bed of his comrade’s mess and dumped it all on the bed opposite, checking a tag on a shirt which had a name written on it as he did so. “COLE BLACK” the tag stated in heavy block letters. “Well, Cole, things had better change,” Jack thought as he opened the wardrobe, finding a collection of bottles half-filled with vodka, cider, and other strong-smelling concoctions. Next to these bottles he found a small pocket knife tucked under a dirty pair of underwear. Right at the bottom of the wardrobe was a collection of photos, sitting on top of a collection of frames. “Guess he had intended to frame these but never did,” Jack thought as he picked up the photos and slowly filed through them.