Being Arcadia

by Simon Chesterman

  I was called in and asked to make Arky apologise to the boy. “Why?” she protested. His parents were there also, the mother rubbing furiously at the words but only making the skin red and her son angry.

  I said we apologise when we do something wrong. I tried to explain the difference between being clever and being wise, telling her the story about the clever children and the blind old woman. I’m not sure she understood it. Maybe she will in time.

  “But I’m not wrong,” Arky replied. “He’s dumber than the other kids. And he ruined my painting. This warning is a public service. I should be thanked!”

  The boy’s father was, to say the least, unhappy. I told Arky that we also apologise to keep the peace. She thought about this for a moment, and then nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” she said gravely to the boy’s parents, “that your son is a moron.”

  That girl will be the death of me. But oh, she does make me laugh!

  She has no recollection of the episode itself, but she did change day care a few times before ending up in a Montessori children’s house. And though she still doubts whether it is right to express emotions one does not feel, she did learn from Mother that tact means speaking the truth—but doing so kindly.

  The story about the blind old woman she knows well, for it was one of Mother’s favourites. For years she thought Mother had invented the story herself, but later came across different versions in different cultures. Why it resonated with Mother quite so much, she never completely understood. Perhaps Mother identified with the old woman, trying in her sightless way to pass on a message of wisdom to the precocious children who inhabited her house. Or perhaps Mother just thought it was a nice story.

  She rises early the next morning, taking a walk in the woods that adjoin the Priory School. It is not her habit to walk for its own sake—to exercise she swims or works out with a punching bag—but she wants to clear her head. Henry once hid in these woods until she and Constable Lestrange found him. He fled after being pressured by the former Headmaster to spy on her. Is she trying to escape something also?

  Why did Miss Alderman tell her to stay away from Dr. Bell? He is one of the few people who has tried to help her find out the truth about her parents. Yet the warning resonates with something—her own hesitation to tell him that Moira survived the fire.

  She does not believe in intuition. Often she will see the solution to a problem in a flash, but there is always a rational basis for it. Except now. For the first time in her life, she feels that she is grasping at an answer without even knowing the question.

  Maybe she didn’t come to the woods to escape; maybe she came looking for something that is lost.

  She does not find it.

  By the time she makes it to Hall, most of the students have already helped themselves to breakfast. Cornflakes crunch beneath her feet as she scavenges in the kitchen for coffee. An oversized tin of instant is open next to a kettle, but she is not that desperate. Eventually she locates beans and filter paper to start a pot.

  As hot water seeps into the coffee grounds, dissolving the organic acids and sugars, she surveys the detritus from breakfast—and, it seems, dinner. Three or four students appear to have started with grand plans of cooking spaghetti bolognaise, only to abandon it in favour of ham sandwiches. The kitchen’s supply of fruit and vegetables remains largely untouched. In time, scurvy might help the students remember to eat their greens.

  Bearing coffee and an apple, she enters Hall itself. Less than twenty-four hours into Mr. Ormiston’s experiment, his optimistic view of human nature is already being tested. Remnants of the sandwiches remain on the tables, students are running about and shouting, and at the front of Hall, where teachers normally take their meal or preside over assembly, a large object sits under a tablecloth. A chair of some sort.

  Henry sits glumly in a corner, trying to ignore the din. She moves to sit down opposite him. “So what did I miss?” she says, taking a bite from the apple.

  He looks up, pleased to see her—but worried about something. “You’re the master detective,” he replies quietly. “Go on, then: detect.”

  She takes in the room. “All right then,” she begins. “Since I left, Sebastian has attempted to take over the school. A pliant student body follows him because they are entertained or just happy to see any kind of change. But he has no plan and those around him are there because they want power, not because they want to serve. So a dinner that would require effort is abandoned in favour of self-service sandwiches, and washing up duties are pushed onto those who desire clean plates for the next meal. Hygiene is going to be a problem before nutrition—it can take weeks for scurvy to set in, but this place will attract the local mice within a few days.”

  On a nearby table, a sparrow pecks at a half-eaten bowl of cornflakes. It cocks its head briefly to regard them, and then resumes its meal.

  “To maintain order,” she continues, “Sebastian will be looking to entertain as well as to intimidate. So distractions from the disorder will be called for—bread and circuses. Am I getting warm?”

  “Not bad. Where were you, anyway?”

  She considers her response. “Magnus wanted to catch up on some family matters.”

  He knows she is not being entirely truthful—and that she knows that he knows. “Fine,” is all he says.

  She nods at the tablecloth at the front of Hall. The high back of the object beneath it resembles the ornate carved wooden chair that the former Headmaster, Milton, once used. Mr. Ormiston had it put in storage when he took over, preferring a less grandiose seat from which to preside over assembly. “What’s with the chair? Is Sebastian planning to use it as a throne?”

  “I don’t think so,” Henry replies. “They moved it in here last night—from Chapel, by the looks of it. Sebastian and a few of his mates were snickering about—”

  A crash at the door causes him to turn his head. One of the huge oak doors has slammed shut as Sebastian, Joan Hardy, and a few other upper sixth students enter. Walking in front of them, prodded now and then by Sebastian to keep moving, is the diminutive form of Arthur Saltire. If he was cowed by the previous day’s run-in with Sebastian, he now looks terrified.

  Sebastian, by contrast, is beaming. Evidently enjoying himself, he leads Arthur up to the front of the room to stand beside the covered chair. The noise of their entry has caused silence to descend on the room; whispered comments now fade away as Sebastian looks about expectantly. Despite his intellectual limitations, he has a certain charisma—given family connections, he may well be on a path to political office. For the moment, however, he has a school to run.

  The sparrow took flight when the party entered and now circles above him, confused by the windows and the artificial lights. Sebastian looks up, contemplating a swat at it, but the bird is out of reach. He returns his attention to the students before him.

  “My friends,” he begins, calling them to order. “I come before you with a heavy heart. Yesterday, I thought we had started something together, a movement that would unite us as a student body. Supporting each other, caring for each other.” He has clearly written this out and memorised it; his voice projects well, though the delivery is a little stilted. His populism is not yet polished. “Yet there are some among us who would pursue only their own desires, putting self above others.”

  With an air of gravity, he gestures to the boy next to him. “Arthur here, for example.” He rests a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, which slumps as if under a weight. “Why don’t you tell the good people here what you did?” In an exaggerated stage whisper, he adds: “Go on, Arthur. You’ll feel better afterwards: the truth will set you free!”

  Sebastian reaching out for Biblical authority is a bit rich, but of what sin is he accusing Arthur? The younger boy is on the verge of tears, but stammers something out.

  “I’m sorry, we couldn’t hear that,” Sebastian says, almost gently.

  “I took some food,” Arthur repeats.

  “You took some f
ood,” echoes Sebastian, nodding with satisfaction. “You took some food,” and then his voice hardens, “after we specifically agreed that food is to be shared equally and eaten only in Hall. That is rule number 7, is it not?” He looks around the room and there are a few nods. Others are trying to work out if he is serious or if this is some kind of performance art.

  “Yesterday afternoon he started issuing edicts,” Henry whispers to her. “There’s a WhatsApp group you can join to keep up.”

  It has always been clear that Sebastian has something of the petty dictator in him, but the speed with which he transformed—and was allowed to transform—is implausible.

  Petty dictator or not, he is enjoying the role: “And what was the food that you stole?”

  Arthur mumbles a response and produces a piece of torn packaging, from a breakfast cereal carton of some sort.

  A few gasps can be heard, causing Sebastian to nod more vigorously. “Yes,” he says, “Coco Pops. Breakfast of the gods, served at the Priory School only twice a year—Easter and Christmas.”

  Sebastian’s holier-than-thou demeanour is undermined by pagan references, but the other students appear to be hanging on every word.

  “And you”—Sebastian is gathering steam now—“you took the only carton and scoffed the lot.” Turning back to his audience, he declaims: “We found him in his room, up to his armpits in the stuff! What are we to do with such a person?”

  “Punish him!” one of the female students cries out. Ironically? No, it appears to have been serious.

  She can sense Henry’s frustration. “This is ridiculous,” he says, a little too loudly. “Shouldn’t we give him the benefit of the doubt? A chance to prove he’s innocent?”

  “No!” comes the reply. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards!” She cannot see the female student, but the voice is familiar.

  Sebastian looks on with the air of a cat savouring the moment before it bites down on a mouse. “Perhaps,” he hesitates, “perhaps we can be merciful. So why, Arthur, why did you steal the food?”

  The younger boy looks up at him, a hint of hope in his eyes. “I was hungry,” he says.

  But Sebastian’s face hardens. “There,” he cries, “you heard it from the culprit himself, admitting that he stole the food.” More nods around the room. “Now the question is how to punish him. Should we put him in the hole, or should we”—a pause as he tugs the tablecloth off the chair beside him—“charge him?”

  There is silence as the chair is revealed. Immediately recognisable as the former Headmaster’s, black Velcro straps have been attached to the arms and legs, with electrical wires running from them to a small control box.

  “The ‘hole’ is a cupboard in the basement,” Henry whispers, keeping his voice low enough for only her to hear. “Sebastian started threatening to lock people in it yesterday afternoon. This chair thing is new.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sebastian is saying to the crowd with the oily grace of a used car salesman. “Old sparky here doesn’t pack enough of a jolt to do any real damage. After all, our beloved Headmaster said we had to avoid lasting injury. Provided you don’t go above six on the dial”—he points to the control box—“my little friend here should be just fine.” He pats Arthur on the head. “But sparky may help him remember to be more considerate in the future.”

  There is palpable excitement in the room. She has read about a study in which people were left in a room by themselves for fifteen minutes with nothing to do but think. The only distraction was to give themselves an electric shock. The vast majority preferred mild electrocution to being left alone with their thoughts. That was a troubling reflection on boredom, but the atmosphere in Hall is something far uglier.

  “So I ask you again,” Sebastian says, “does he get confinement in the hole? Or an appointment with old sparky?”

  It is unlikely that Sebastian intends any real harm, but the whitening of Arthur’s face suggests that his body is preparing for it nonetheless. When fear causes adrenaline to be released, blood flows into the muscles and away from the skin—preparing the body to flee or fight, as well as decreasing blood loss in the event of injury.

  The students, for their part, appear to be enjoying this. “Charge him!” someone calls out, soon echoed by another. Within moments it has become a refrain: “Charge him! Charge him!” Whether they are serious or treating it as a kind of game, Sebastian takes it as endorsement and motions for Joan and the others to strap Arthur into the chair.

  The boy allows his wrists and ankles to be bound—is he paralysed by fear or seeking to avoid punishment for resisting? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

  Sebastian picks up the wires that lead from the control box and carefully attaches electric clips to each of Arthur’s fingers. Is the current direct or alternating? If the power source is a battery in the control box, Arthur would barely feel it. But the wires also run down the legs of the chair and into a recess in the floor. Surely they aren’t reckless enough to have connected it to the mains power?

  “And now,” Sebastian continues, “we need a volunteer to administer the punishment.” He scans the room and his eyes come to rest on her. “Ah Miss Greentree, how good of you to join us. We did miss you so at last night’s feast. Since you’re not quite one of us, I don’t think we’ll ask you to play this role. But Henry, would you do us the honours?”

  Henry squirms in his seat but has no intention of rising. “No thanks, Sebastian. I don’t want to be any part of this. Why don’t you just let Arthur be and we can get on with our breakfast?”

  Sebastian clicks his tongue. “Oh Henry, it must be very lonely up there on the moral high ground. Someone else, then?” On a nearby table, Harriet Doran, the American student, is finishing her cornflakes. Sebastian settles on her. “Miss Doran, our Yankee Doodle Dandy, would you be so kind as to come up here?”

  Harriet’s shoulders tense. She is about to excuse herself but Joan Hardy is swiftly beside her, encouraging her up to the front of Hall as if it were part of some daytime television gameshow. A quiet girl who prefers the company of her smartphone, she is evidently uncomfortable in the limelight like this. Nonetheless, she allows herself to be led to stand beside Sebastian.

  “Now,” he says, passing her the control box. “You are in charge—so to speak.” He laughs at his little joke, but is the only one who does. A cough. “Anyway, let’s get on, shall we? Now remember, Miss American Pie, don’t go above six on the dial.”

  Arthur looks from Sebastian to Harriet and back. “Please don’t do this,” he whispers.

  “It’s a little late for that.” Sebastian shakes his head sadly. “Now admit your wrongdoing and apologise.”

  “I told you, I was hungry. I’m sorry,” Arthur says in a low voice.

  “Hmm. No, I’m afraid I’m not convinced,” says Sebastian. “Are you convinced?” he asks the assembled students.

  “No!” three or four of them reply. Placed there by Sebastian? But their sentiment is echoed by others. “Get on with it!” someone calls out.

  “Tough crowd,” Sebastian says to Harriet. “But maybe we should give them what they want. Just turn the dial up to the number you want and then back down to zero. One can hardly be felt. Shall we start at two?”

  The human body is an imperfect conductor of electricity. The dial presumably increases the voltage, meaning that the amount of current increases also. A small amount of current would be imperceptible. As it increases, it would cause pain and muscle reaction.

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry!” Harriet has turned the dial up to two but quickly brings it back to zero.

  Sebastian’s eyes go heavenwards. “Don’t apologise,” he admonishes Harriet. “We’re teaching him a lesson, remember?”

  Harriet nods uncertainly as Arthur squirms in his seat.

  “Now, how about a more sincere apology, Arthur?”

  “Go to Hell, Sebastian,” the younger boy replies. Good for him, standing up to the bully.

 
“Oh dear,” Sebastian exclaims in mock horror, “I don’t think he’s sorry at all! Harriet, perhaps you might try number three?”

  She hesitates, and so Sebastian reaches over to turn the dial up himself. In the chair, Arthur’s body shifts and another “Ouch!” escapes his whitened lips.

  Sebastian turns the dial back to zero. “Let’s try that again, shall we?”

  “Fine, I’m sorry, now take these blasted clips off my fingers.”

  Sebastian regards the crowd before him. “Well, what do you think? Is that a sincere apology?”

  “No!” a handful of students call. Some of them are beginning to crowd forward, seeking a better view.

  “So what should we do?” Sebastian raises his hands in feigned confusion.

  “Charge him! Charge him!” comes the refrain.

  “Number four, I think,” Sebastian says to Harriet.

  Once more, she hesitates.

  “Oh come on,” the stage whisper returns, barely audible above the chanting. “Arthur will be fine. Just give them what they want.”

  Another second, and then the American turns the dial up to four and back to zero. In the chair, Arthur’s shoulders rise and he starts to sweat.

  Beside her, Henry is heating up also. “We can’t let this go on,” he says under his breath. “Sebastian isn’t a complete lunatic, but Arthur could get hurt.”

  As the amount of current increases, the possibility of electrical burns or stopping his heart goes up also. But that seems an unlikely scenario. “Just wait,” she replies.

  “All right,” Arthur is saying, “I’ll say whatever you want me to say.”

  “But we don’t want that, do we?” Sebastian intones. “We want you to tell us the truth!”