Sheep on the Fourth Floor

by Leonie Thorpe

  ‘You’d best not mention the long hours, lack of funding and endless paperwork then,’ Penelope advised him.

  ‘I’ll just have to show them how honourable our work is, and how indispensable we are for the ongoing health and wellbeing of humanity.’ Jeff flicked a dreadlock away from his face with a pen. ‘I’ll have to show them how much fun and excitement there is to be had in a science research laboratory.’

  Penelope looked sceptical. ‘Good luck.’ She paused, ‘So, can I leave this in your capable hands?’

  ‘Yeah, leave it to me,’ Jeff replied, waving Mr Fox’s letter at her. ‘A break from the monotony of writing up reports is always welcome.’

  ‘Good.’ Penelope nodded and headed for the door. ‘Just one other thing, Jeff,’ she said, turning to face him. ‘Remember, there’s a lot of very expensive and fragile equipment around. And a lot of…sensitive information.’ She nodded towards the rows of animal cages, and the filing cabinets behind Jeff. ‘And one last thing, Jeff?’

  ‘What’s that, Doc?’

  ‘I know I’ve mentioned it before, but can you try to refrain from calling me Doc? I do find it very unprofessional.’

  The door closed behind Penelope and Jeff smiled to himself. He did so enjoy winding up Doctor Pascoe. He loved seeing her flinch when he called her Doc. And he would happily iron his shirts every morning, only then he wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing Penelope turn up her lip when she saw his wrinkled collar. There was so very little entertainment in the lab, Jeff figured that he had to make the most of any amusement he could find.

  Jeff turned and looked at the filing cabinet behind him. He tutted at the patient notes sitting carelessly on the table where he had left them.

  ‘Better tidy those away by next week,’ he muttered. ‘No sensitive patient information will pass before the eyes of my young student visitors. Not while the soon-to-be Doctor Jeff Carpenter is in charge.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Careers,’ said Mr Fox, stroking the little tuft of brown hair below his lip. He looked around the classroom to make sure he had everyone’s full attention. ‘Vocation. Work. Employment. Profession.’ He pronounced the words slowly and carefully, pausing dramatically after each.

  ‘There comes a time in a young person’s life,’ Mr Fox continued, tucking his hands behind his back, ‘when they need to start thinking about…the future.’ Now he turned to the class and held up one finger, as though he was pointing to the ceiling.

  Anna leaned forwards in her seat near the window and watched her teacher stride up and down in front of the class. She wasn’t sure whether Mr Fox was being especially theatrical because he liked talking about careers, or because it was a change from the usual nouns, adjectives and Shakespearean tragedies he faced every day. As she looked about the class, she had to admit that there was something about Mr Fox’s excitement that had grabbed everyone’s attention. There was no shuffling of feet, hushed whispering or barely audible ticking of text messages escaping into the world. Even her friend Charlotte Chang was looking at Mr Fox instead of gazing in the direction of wherever Travis Dellow happened to be seated.

  Mr Fox sat on his desk and folded his arms. ‘Can anyone tell me the main reason we get a job?’

  ‘Money!’ Otis Howe immediately replied, peering at Mr Fox through his long, blond fringe. There was a general murmur of agreement.

  ‘Money.’ Mr Fox clicked his fingers and pointed to Otis. ‘And what are you going to do with all the money you earn from your job, Otis?’

  Anna wondered why Mr Fox has asked Otis such an obvious question.

  ‘Spend it, of course,’ said Otis. ‘Buy stuff, you know, cars and houses and food. Go out to places, get a new skateboard and a snowboard.’

  ‘Buy stuff,’ Mr Fox repeated. He stroked his chin again. ‘Okay. Here’s a thought. What if I was to give you a magic genie that could provide you with anything you wished for?’

  ‘Anything?’ said Otis, his eyes sparkling.

  ‘Yep,’ said Mr Fox. ‘You just name it, just think of it and the genie makes it appear right before your eyes. Would you still need a job?’

  Otis paused. ‘Nah, then I wouldn’t need the money, would I?’

  ‘You certainly wouldn’t,’ Mr Fox agreed. ‘But then, think carefully, Otis, what would you do with your time?’

  ‘Well, play with my stuff,’ said Otis, after a moment’s consideration. ‘I could invite my friends around and they could play with my stuff too. And once I got sick of the old things, I’d just get new and better ones.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Mr Fox nodded. ‘Might I suggest that, after a while, you might find this lifestyle boring? Might you find that your life was a little…shallow and meaningless?’

  Now Anna could see where Mr Fox’s argument was heading.

  But Otis shook his head. ‘No, it wouldn’t be boring at all. If you could have anything you wanted you could also do anything you wanted, like get an aeroplane and go anywhere in the world. You wouldn’t get bored.’

  Travis Dellow, who was sitting next to Otis, nodded his agreement. ‘Yeah, that would be wicked. You could go up in that spaceship, into zero gravity. Cool!’

  Mr Fox persisted. ‘But, if you didn’t have to make any effort whatsoever, don’t you think your life would be too easy?’

  Otis screwed up his face. ‘Too easy?’ He didn’t look convinced.

  Mr Fox sighed. ‘Okay, does anyone else here know what I’m trying, and perhaps failing, to say about working?’ He looked around the room. ‘Kurt? Charlotte? Anna?’

  ‘What you’re saying is that a job gives meaning to your life,’ said Anna, sitting up and squaring her shoulders. ‘You mean that a job gives you purpose and motivation like no inanimate object possibly can.’

  ‘Thank you, Anna,’ said Mr Fox. ‘A job will give you money, yes; there are precious few people who work voluntarily in this society. But we also work in order to give our lives meaning, as Anna said; we work to give something back to society and also to help define ourselves as individuals.’

  Mr Fox seemed happy with the way he had delivered his sermon. He strutted towards the whiteboard and picked up a marker. Anna wondered why Mr Fox always attacked the whiteboard with such fervour, so that not just his writing arm, but his whole body jerked around with the effort. It didn’t do anything for the legibility of his notes.

  He tapped at the board. ‘Here’s a list of the very kind people who have offered to give you a little glimpse into the daily routine of their professions.’

  Anna grinned. Right at the top was the South Pacific Health Research Laboratory. She knew it would be one of the most popular places to visit. There were bound to be many disappointed students, limited as they were to only four students per premises.

  ‘Now, don’t think for a minute,’ warned Mr Fox, holding up his finger again, ‘that just because you are the top year ten academic class at Hillary College you should automatically choose an academic profession. You can be anything—artists, designers or truck drivers, as well as astronauts, brain surgeons and occupational therapists. Your potential brilliance only makes your career choice harder, because the whole world, my dear students, is yours.’

  He looked out at the sea of sceptical faces. ‘That’s right, you can be anything! Even your current passions could be your future career.’ He pointed to a dark-haired boy sitting at the front. ‘Liam! The doodles on your English folder are prolific. Have you thought about being a cartoonist?’

  Liam didn’t have time to respond because Mr Fox had moved on. ‘Tara! You could be a fashion designer. Scott! You could be a novelist.’

  Mr Fox was creating a lot of amusement. ‘Ivan! A sports commentator in the making. Anna!’

  Anna’s heart leapt as Mr Fox pointed to her. She waited excitedly to hear what fantastic enterprises Mr Fox could foresee for her.

  ‘You could be a…a…’ Mr Fox’s eyes darted left and right and Anna realized he was in a state of mild panic. She knew he was struggl
ing to find anything quirky about her. Being brainy but otherwise boringly ordinary, she guessed all he could see in her was a future academic.

  ‘…you could be a…a…politician!’ Mr Fox blurted out. A look of relief crossed his face and he quickly turned his attention to someone else.

  Anna’s heart sank. A politician! Was that all Mr Fox could come up with? How depressing.

  ‘Otis! The perfect car salesman,’ said Mr Fox.

  ‘I dunno,’ Otis muttered. ‘That genie idea still sounds good to me.’

  Charlotte Chang beamed. ‘Mr Fox said I could be a mystery shopper! Imagine that, being paid to walk around the mall!’ She nibbled half-heartedly at an apple. ‘That would be so cool, but I don’t think my parents would be impressed.’

  Anna nodded. She knew Charlotte’s family had sacrificed a lot to pay her tuition fees at Hillary College.

  ‘A politician!’ Anna scoffed, trying not to drip tomato juice down her shirt. ‘That’s all he could come up with for me!’

  ‘Well, he was just doing it off the top of his head,’ said Charlotte. ‘I don’t think he’d spent too much time thinking about it, or analysing personalities.’

  ‘But still…’ Anna hadn’t yet recovered from the dis-appointment.

  ‘And a politician’s not so bad,’ Charlotte added. ‘You’d get a travel and clothing allowance!’

  ‘But they’re so boring,’ Anna complained. She turned to Charlotte. ‘Does that mean I’m boring?’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘Of course not. You’re just really dedicated to your school work. You haven’t got time for anything else.’

  ‘School work doesn’t take up all my time,’ said Anna. ‘It’s just that I haven’t found anything else, you know…meaningful to do.’

  ‘Have you considered horse riding?’ said Charlotte with a small grin.

  ‘Shut up!’ said Anna, elbowing her playfully.

  Anna chewed her sandwich glumly. Perhaps if she really tried, she could find some meaning in wandering for hours around a shopping mall. Maybe then, Mr Fox would call her a mystery shopper. But she couldn’t help looking at all the stuff for sale and thinking it was mostly pointless.

  Anna noticed Charlotte’s gaze had returned to the students playing tennis on the nearby court. Closest to them, his sleeves roughly shoved up to his elbows, was Travis Dellow. At the other end of the court, his shirt untucked and his hair messed, Kurt Osmond was managing to return all of Travis’s tricky shots without looking at all strained.

  Anna wondered why Charlotte was being so coy about liking Travis. If she had gorgeous shiny black hair, like Charlotte, hair that was dead straight with no waves in it whatsoever, she would just go up and talk to anyone. And Charlotte didn’t even have any horrible red spots on her chin like Anna, or silly wishy-washy grey-coloured eyes. Charlotte’s eyes were dark brown, almost black, like some exotic movie star. Anna sighed. It was no wonder Mr Fox hadn’t branded Charlotte a politician.

  ‘It was hard to pick a place to visit for the careers day,’ said Charlotte, turning back to Anna. ‘What did you choose?’

  ‘I’m going to Mum’s laboratory, of course,’ said Anna. She frowned slightly. ‘Aren’t you coming too?’

  ‘Er, no, actually I didn’t choose the lab,’ admitted Charlotte. ‘I’m surprised you did. I would have thought you’d already seen it.’

  Anna shook her head. ‘I’ve only seen it from the outside but I bet it’s going to be really interesting. I’ve heard Mum talk about it and they do all kinds of important research there—world renowned. They do things with bacteria and DNA and antibiotics. The people that work there are all super intelligent.’ She opened a packet of nuts and offered it to her friend. ‘What could be more interesting than that?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘Well, Ishikawa’s House of Chocolate, for a start,’ said Charlotte, selecting a couple of pistachios. ‘And the Prestige Funeral Home; call me morbid but I’ve always wanted to see what happens at an undertaker’s.’

  Anna quietly suspected it might have more to do with where Travis Dellow was going.

  As Anna turned to her friend, she saw Charlotte’s eyes widen in horror and her face flush as a tennis ball rolled her way. It jumped over a stone and rolled directly under Charlotte’s feet. She stared wide-eyed at Anna.

  ‘Pick it up,’ Anna hissed. Her eyes darted towards the tennis court. ‘He’s coming this way, quick!’

  Charlotte remained frozen in a panic. To save them both from looking like idiots, Anna reached under the seat and picked up the ball herself. She tossed it onto Travis’s racquet as he jogged up.

  ‘Cheers, El Presidente,’ he said with a smirk.

  Anna curled up her lip. ‘We don’t have presidents in this country, moron!’ she called out as he jogged away. ‘Especially Spanish ones!’

  ‘I suppose “El Prime Minister” doesn’t have the same ring,’ said Charlotte, in Travis’s defence.

  ‘Tell me again what it is you like about him,’ Anna said to Charlotte, as they watched Travis serve the next game.

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ Charlotte replied. Her mouth curled into a grin. ‘Perhaps it’s his sharp sense of humour.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Anna decided to do her French homework at the kitchen table for a change. Usually she enjoyed sitting alone at the desk in her room—it had a great view of the courtyard and a magnificent kowhai tree in which a pair of blackbirds was nesting. But now her gaze was being drawn to the lifeless cicada enmeshed in the spider web. Looking at it made her feel troubled. She would have swept it away out of sight only she wasn’t sure if the spider would still be feasting on it.

  Anna carried her books and pencil case downstairs and cleared a space on the table amongst her father’s journals. As she shifted his black woollen jacket from the back of a chair, something fell out of the pocket.

  ‘Dad, what’s this?’ Anna turned slowly and frowned at her father, who was sorting through the mail in the kitchen. In her right hand she held up a small rectangular box. It had ‘Menthol’ written on the front.

  Anna thought she saw her father’s eyes widen a little, as if in panic, as he stared at the packet of cigarettes. Then his face relaxed and he laughed.

  ‘Ah, those,’ he said, striding over and plucking them out of her hand. ‘Let me tell you why your father has a packet of menthol cigarettes in his jacket pocket.’ He cleared his throat and scratched at the middle of his neck. ‘Cigarettes, yes. Well.’ He paused and bit his lip. ‘For the sake of patient confidentiality, I can’t mention the actual name of the local pensioner who came to see me this morning complaining of a recurrent bad cough, but the first thing I did was to make him empty his pockets onto my desk.’

  Anna grinned. She could just imagine the look of woe on the poor patient’s face as he turned out his junk under the stern gaze of Doctor Pascoe.

  ‘I let him keep his breath mints and lottery ticket and the keys to his car, but I confiscated these straight away,’ said Peter. ‘Then I gave him a stern lecture about the hazards of this poisonous habit and prescribed some counselling and nicotine patches to help him quit for good.’

  Anna laughed at his boldness. ‘Dad! You can’t just go and take people’s stuff like that!’

  ‘Sometimes you have to take extreme measures for the sake of a person’s good health,’ Peter declared.

  ‘Here, give them to me,’ Anna said, holding out her hand. ‘I’ll chuck them in the rubbish for you.’

  Peter hesitated. ‘No, don’t worry. I’ll bin them myself.’ Still clutching the cigarettes, he grabbed his black jacket and disappeared upstairs.

  Anna smiled to herself. She could tell from her father’s stories from the clinic that he loved his job and was genuinely concerned for his patients’ health. Confiscating a packet of cigarettes from an old man, in the interests of his health, was just the type of thing he would do.

  ‘Let’s have hamburgers for tea,’ said Peter, wandering into the kitchen a short while la
ter with a glass of wine. He put his hand on Anna’s shoulder. ‘And since your mum’s away for the evening, I’ve bought us a special treat.’ Then he reached into the fridge and pulled out a plastic bag which he placed triumphantly on the kitchen table.

  ‘Proper mince!’ Anna clapped her hands. Then she shook her finger at her father with mock disapproval. ‘You know what Mum would say!’

  Penelope was a strict vegetarian who refused to buy, cook or touch anything to do with meat. ‘I will not consume the flesh of dead creatures,’ she would say, flaring her nostrils and putting her hands on her hips. ‘Our bodies can do perfectly well without the nutrition provided by meat, especially that of a creature which has a heart and brain not much different from our own.’

  Both Peter and Anna, however, were enthusiastic carnivores. When Penelope was away at one of her many conferences, Peter would go to the butcher’s shop for a ‘special treat’. Then they would join forces in the kitchen and fry up T-bone steaks, stuff and roast a whole chicken, or barbecue a pile of spare ribs. Peter usually didn’t even bother with vegetables on the side. One night they’d eaten a meal which consisted solely of porterhouse steak and buttered white bread. Peter had eaten it with his fingers, ripping into the meat with his teeth. ‘A true medieval feast!’ he declared with glee.

  ‘Your lab visit’s coming up soon, isn’t it?’ said Peter, stirring eggs and flour into the mince. ‘All the kids excited about it?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Anna. She blinked rapidly as she chopped up an onion, trying to ease the stinging in her eyes.

  ‘“Sort of”? How can someone be “sort of” excited?’

  ‘Well, I’m looking forward to it,’ Anna sniffed, ‘but it seems all the other so-called “high achievers” in my class are far more interested in dead people and chocolate.’

  Mr Fox had made a big deal about announcing the groups for the careers visits. He had kept them waiting in complete silence for nearly a minute, knowing everyone was keen to find out if they had been assigned their first choice. Anna wondered which three of her classmates would be going with her to the lab.