CHAPTER FIVE
The hallway was abuzz with class doors swinging open and kids running out and teachers behind them yelling for them to slow down. Alex was arguing with one of the boys in his class. The boy kept insisting that at a hundred degrees Celsius, things would freeze. They thought that a hundred was the limit and the boy thought that something would get so hot that eventually it froze. Alex thought it was a stupid thing to say and insisted that a hundred degrees was boiling though he couldn’t imagine anything ever getting that hot except for the sun.
As he made his argument, Alex thought of outer space and every time he said one hundred, his mind thought of the black emptiness of space and the seemingly infinite dark and part of him started to question his own logic. What if the other boy was right?
As they argued, the older boys came down the stairs and Alex saw his brother walking with them. He caught his brother’s arm as he passed the class. The other boy didn’t know Alex had a brother so he thought he was crazy for trying to talk to one of the year sevens.
“Is a hundred degrees boiling hot or freezing cold?” asked Alex.
His brother looked so cool at school, different than he did at home. He probably shouldn’t have even been talking to Alex or even looking at him. It was an unspoken kind of rule. Everyone understood it.
His brother looked at him, though. He gave him this mean kind of look. Alex knew he wasn’t going to shout or pin him down and punch him or anything. He wasn’t gonna make him look stupid in front of the other kids but still, he had that kind of look in his eye that maybe he just might, probably, when they got home.
“Boiling. God, stupid question.”
Alex turned and smiled at the boy. He felt invincible. He felt just as smart as his big brother and probably smarter than all the kids in his class. He knew the answer before he asked his brother. That made him just as smart as him.
“I told you so,” said Alex, rubbing it in.
The boy walked away with his friends. They all huddled together and they sniggered something about Alex being stupid because he was so smart, but Alex didn’t mind, he knew they were jealous because one of the year sevens spoke to him and not them.
The rest of his class formed a single file and walked like tiny army people up the hallway towards the assembly area where they would have their music class. Before the end of the line moved, Alex looked back into the class and he saw The Teacher sitting on her chair under the blackboard and she was holding a small doll in her left hand. It was sitting upright and she was holding it so it didn’t fall over. With her right hand, The Teacher used a small brush that she borrowed from one of the girls in the class and she was brushing the dolls blonde hair while her eyes trained on an empty seat at the back of the class.
Alex couldn’t look away.
The line had already started moving and the first of the kids were already entering the assembly area and making their way onto the benches and fighting over who would sit where. The girls preferred the front and the boys preferred to joke around in the back.
Alex watched her.
He couldn’t do anything else.
The Teacher gently stroked the doll’s hair and she stared out over the rows of empty seats and it looked like she was saying something or whispering something as if she were talking to a class that wasn’t there.
Alex caught a shiver running up his spine. It wasn’t like the shiver he got listening to Alison. This one was different. With Alison, he felt like her ‘weird’ was special and definitely not dangerous. With the Teacher, though, he felt like her ‘weird’ was the kind of weird that mums and dads and police officers warned you about. The one you were supposed to keep away from.
The last time he felt like this was after they moved, on their first night at the block of flats. They watched this movie about all the deadly things in their area that could hurt you, like small spiders that crept into your socks and slept in your bed sheets and waited until you were asleep or when you were putting on your shoes in the morning before they bit their fangs into your leg or between your toes and there was probably nothing you could do because they were deadly and they would kill you in seconds.
And the movie said that they were everywhere; under big rocks and metal grates, in the cracks between walls, under the stairs where it was dangerous for kids to play and behind locked doors and in empty rooms because grown-ups hadn’t chased them away. But most of the time; and the movie said this was true, they were hanging above your shower or they were hiding under your bed.
And there was nothing you could really do except for keeping out of where you didn’t belong. But if they got you then they got you. And Alex felt as eerie and unsettled watching The Teacher brushing the doll’s hair as he did after watching that movie. He watched her sitting there, whispering and brushing and her one eye twitching and he thought of the spider at the end of the movie when they played the scary music, the one that was weaving its web and probably thinking about catching a fly or maybe creeping into some child’s bed while they were asleep and biting them between their toes.
“Excuse me young man” shouted a voice from the end of the hallway.
The voice travelled far and it was loud. The hallway was empty. All the kids had made their way to their classrooms and only Alex was somewhere that he shouldn’t have been. And at the end of the hall, The Music Teacher stood with her hands on her hips and she looked disappointed like his mother did, when he wouldn’t finish his dinner or when she sat down on the toilet seat and the lid was covered in pee.
Alex looked back into the classroom.
The Teacher was writing on the board.
The doll was on the chair.
The brush was on the floor.
“Hurry along Alex. We don’t have all day for your tarrying. You don’t want me to tell Mother Superior now do you?”
She looked like she would tell, in a heartbeat. Music teachers were supposed to be gentle and kind. They were supposed to be like fairies trapped in big people’s bodies and they would dance and they would sing and they would never threaten to send you to the principal’s office. That was what normal teachers did.
Normal teachers put you in detention, or they made you apologize to Mother Superior, or they went and told your mum and dad on you.
In his old school, that was the way things were. Teachers were generally nice but when you did something they didn’t like, they could be really mean and they would get real angry for something that was just silly, something that you didn’t mean to do. They never looked angry or mean though when they spoke to your mum and dad. When it got to that, they just looked disappointed.
And they always titled their heads.
By themselves though, or at least, when it was just them and their kids, they would be all nice and fairy like until someone did something wrong and then they would be all scary and they would get bigger and their voice would get louder and there would be nowhere to run and nothing that anyone could do.
And mums and dads, they didn’t really know, but fairies had sharp teeth. Nobody ever told them that. Kids just assumed they already knew. Why would they put them in their grasp if they didn’t?
The Music Teacher was wearing a disappointed face, but it looked like she would start shouting for real at any moment and her threat was anything but idle. She had sent kids to Mother Superior for far less than dawdling.
“Hurry up” she shouted.
Alex ran up the hallway.
“Don’t run” she shouted.
Alex stopped.
He started walking slowly.
“Alex, hurry up.”
What was it, walk or run? Alex moved into a brisk walk. He didn’t know why teachers always made running out to be so dangerous especially when there was nobody about. Grown-ups just liked to make you need to do something and then told you off when you did it.
“Come on, hurry up’ she shouted, hitting Alex on the bum with her notebook as he shuffled past.
Alex flinched as the rolled noteb
ook smacked against this bum and he saw that all of the good seats had been taken. The whole class was pointing at him and sniggering to themselves as he stood there looking for somewhere to sit.
“Over there on the end” directed The Music Teacher.
Alex looked to the right. There was one seat available at the end of a middle row. It was with the girls and he would be sitting next to a girl called Stephanie.
Stephanie had a nickname at school. The boys called her Stelephant, mainly because she was really fat and for lunch she always ate a lot of food, enough for an elephant maybe. She didn’t really smell that nice either. Her cheeks were always pinky red and she was always out of breath.
Worse than that though was that she took up more than one space so whoever sat beside her was always having their legs squashing against her and her stubby arms, pushing into their bellies.
The kids would all make elephant stamping sounds as she walked into a room. They would stomp their feet as she took each step and they would sing, “Boom, baddah boom baddah boom baddah” and Stelephant, I mean, Stephanie, she wouldn’t cry out loud, but you could see that she was really sad. She kind of scrunched it up in a ball and she squeezed it into a fist and she turned the sadness into anger and she would sit with her cheeks puffed and her hands clenched over her wobbly knees.
It wasn’t her fault.
It’s just the way it was.
She was born big.
And kids were cruel.
Alex wasn’t really cruel. He didn’t sing along when the other kids made elephant sounds. He didn’t really do half the things the other boys did. Which is probably why he hadn’t made any friends; ever, in his whole life.
“Ok children; open your song books to page fifteen. We’re going to sing Frère Jacques. Ok, ready? And on three. And a one and a two and a….”
The class erupted in song as The Music Teacher sat behind her little keyboard with her back all prim and proper and straight and arched just right, like a person was supposed to sit, not at all like kids would. And everyone sang what they thought were the words because nobody really knew how to pronounce them properly because nobody spoke French but still, every week, they sang this song and it was just one of those silly things that mums and dads and other grown-ups could never explain; why you had to do some of the things you had to do when in the real world, no-one ever does them and most of the time, you don’t even know what you’re saying or what you’re doing or if you’re even doing it right.
While the children sang, Alex stared up at a light on the ceiling. He stretched his hand up in front of his eye so that it stood between the light and his eye, and, as if he were a giant, picking the sun from the sky like a piece of ripe fruit, he squashed his fingers tight against his hand and he imagined himself grabbing the light and holding in his clasp.
The Music Teacher was watching him and she wasn’t impressed. She was about to yell, but she wouldn’t now, not while they children were singing. Nothing should ever interrupt a song. Not a weak bladder or an unruly child.
Alex drifted in his mind with the sound of the children pronouncing their own words. They were following along in their song books, but their minds and their mouths couldn’t make any of the sounds that the writer of the song would have wanted them to.
And The Music Teacher was wincing through every bar but still she played and she maintained her poise and directed them from verse to bridge to chorus and to verse again and she dipped her head while she played, the same way that the reporters on the television news dipped their heads every time that they said something, as if they had a pain in their necks or they were trying to shoo off a fly that was buzzing around them without using their hands.
The song was bridging on a chorus but The Music Teacher was bridging on punition and each note sounded like it was being played with a poking stick instead of delicate fingers and she was trying to call Alex’s attention with her swollen stare crying out like her tyrannous voice but it was no use, Alex was staring at the top of the ceiling and it was so high and yet in his hands was trapped, the brightest sun.
On the roof were round lights that hanged from long metal poles but they were still really high and Alex sat there in his seat, holding one of those lights in his hand and as he opened and closed his clasp, he squinted his eyes and he strained his face as if he were a giant custodian of the universe, trying to gently unwind the sun from its spot in the sky and put that bulb somewhere else, out in the galaxy, far from all the stupid kids and their stupid friends and far from all the stupid teachers and the spiders that hanged above your head while you were having a shower and waited until you were asleep before they crept out from under your bed and then bit you, between your itching toes.
The piano stopped.
The singing stopped.
Alex was still holding that sun.
“What in the name of Jesus are you doing?”
Everyone turned to Alex and started laughing at him.
“Shush” yelled The Music Teacher.
Alex pulled his hand back away from the sun. He looked around and all the kids were staring at him and they all had stupid grins on their faces, even Stephanie who snorted as she tried to keep her laughter back.
“Where is your song book?” asked The Music Teacher.
Alex didn’t have one.
All the kids had one.
“I don’t have one,” he said.
“What do you mean you don’t have one? Do I look like an oaf to you? All of the other children have their song books. Why is that just you were not given one? Are you more special than the other children? Are they less special than you?” she said.
The kids all laughed.
“Shut it” she shouted.
Fairies had teeth and big voices.
‘So what are you going to do? Waste more of my time? Do you want me to send you to Mother Superior?”
The kids all oohed.
“My sister has my book. She has it in her bag” said Alex.
“Well then,” said The Music Teacher, creating dramatic pause. “Go get it.”
She had her arms folded tightly against her chest and she tapped her long fingers against her arm as if it were made of piano keys and Alex knew, by the way, her fingers tapped and at the height in which they extended, that she was really disappointed.
Sometimes teachers did that. They wouldn’t yell like mums and dads did. They would do other things like tapping their fingers on their arms or twitching their noses or clearing their throats or counting backwards from five.
Out in the hallway, Alex stood at the bottom of the stairs. He had never been on the upstairs of anything in his life. Once he rode a bus with his mother when he had to go to the dentist. She didn’t like public transport very much. She didn’t like the look of the types of people who used buses and trains during the day. “Why weren’t they at work?” she would say.
That day, they rode a double decker. Alex was so happy. He couldn’t wait to drive in traffic higher than a giraffe’s head. He wanted to duck under his seat every time they went under a bridge or through a tunnel.
But they sat at the front.
On the bottom deck.
Beside the conductor.
Alex slowly drudged his way up the stairs, holding onto the railing with both hands outstretched, completely unsure of what he was actually doing. All he wanted to do was sit on the bench and unscrew the sun, but he had told a lie and now he had to follow through with it.
He had no idea which class was which. They all looked so similar. The younger kids’ classrooms all had painted doors and there were big windows on each door so that even when you were sitting, you could see your mum and dad when they came to pick you up or the janitor when he interrupted the class sometimes to pick up the rubbish from the bins. Alex had to hop on his tippy toes at each classroom so he could peek through and see if his sister was there.
At the first window, he stretched his face up and saw some fifth or sixth graders and they were a
ll busy writing something down on paper at their desks. They must have been doing a test or something because they were so focused and nobody noticed that he was spying and they didn’t look up or put down their pencils or anything.
Alex didn’t really do much writing in his class. They drew a lot and they listened to a lot of stories, but they didn’t write all that much.
He looked around the class and he couldn’t see his sister anywhere. He tried to think then, what did his sister even look like? He forgot completely the color of her hair and whether it was long or short or whether it was straight or curly and if she wore glasses or if she didn’t. He couldn’t even remember her name. He just knew that he was somewhere that he shouldn’t be and he was waiting for a teacher to catch him at any moment and if they did, he couldn’t talk his way out of it.
He moved on to the next window and again he stretched himself high onto his tippy toes and wrapped his fingers around the groove in the door where the glass met the wood. They were seventh graders, there was no doubt. They were joking about with some of them walking around the class and others sitting on their desks and they weren’t doing any writing. They weren’t doing much of anything really, just having fun from what he could see.
Alex’s sister was in the fifth year so this definitely wasn’t her class. Still, he couldn’t look away. There was one kid talking to this girl and his chair was facing backwards and he was rocking back and forth and it looked like it was about to fall and Alex was sure that it was going to fall and it didn’t and he couldn’t believe it.
Then he heard what sounded like a hungry lion running through the parking lot and shouting from underneath the classroom window. The older kids all cheered and ran to the window to see. Alex couldn’t see anything now except for the backs of all their heads. The kids were all jumping up and down and bashing their fists in the air and chanting and cooing and it sounded and looked like so much fun. And whatever they were looking at probably looked like a lot of fun but all Alex could see was the backs of their heads.
“Rambo, Rambo, Rambo” the older kids cheered.
That was their teacher’s name; Rambo. He got that nickname years ago and it kind of stuck. Now all the kids and even all the teachers knew him as Rambo. Except Mother Superior, she called him by his real name; Eugene or Mr. Lithmore.
Rambo rode a motorcycle. Not just any motorcycle either, this was a big one like the bad guys and the cool guys rode in all the movies. It was different to Alex’s father. If Rambo’s motorbike shouted like a hungry lion then Alex’s father’s sputtered like an old domestic cat. Like one of those cats that’s been alive for so long that people don’t even count how old they are anymore, they just give it special food so it doesn’t die when the kids are home from school.
Alex thought his father’s motorbike was really big and too big for him to ride, but that alone made him want to ride it even more. He thought it was really fast and so fast that probably he would fall off if he couldn’t hang on and his hands were probably too small to get a strong grip. And he thought it was so loud because every time his father drove past, he called out his brother’s name but his brother never once turned around. So if his father’s motorbike was massive then Rambo’s would be humungous, like comparing a house to a skyscraper.
And the older kids were all chanting Rambo’s name and eventually the sound of the motorbike stopped and when it did, it sounded like a giant’s stomach grumbling.
The older kids all stepped back from the window. Alex could just see through the gaps of their arms, what looked like someone climbing in the through the window. And it was. It was Rambo and he grunted and strained himself as he scaled a ladder on the side of the wall that was supposed to be used by the janitor and the fire wardens.
Rambo climbed in and the kids all crowded around him and a bunch of them offered to help him with his bag while others stared back out the window at his motorbike parked below and one of the kids even asked to try on his jacket. Rambo wouldn’t let him, though.
You could see he liked the attention.
He smiled a lot. The other teachers didn’t smile. They all walked around with this look on their faces like someone had just stolen the last piece of cake and they didn’t get to have any. And even though grown-ups looked so miserable all the time like they’d forgotten how to have fun, for some reason, Alex still really wanted to be one. Seeing Rambo reminded him why.
“What are you doing out of class?”
Alex froze.
It was Mother Superior.
“You are not supposed to be on this floor. Well boy?” she shouted.
The sound of her voice was like a whip to his ears.
”What do you have to say for yourself, huh? Has the cat got your tongue?”
Alex knew now why little mice never ran from cats, even the really old slow ones. They just stood there, frozen, hoping the cat would get bored and walk away. And if he could run he would, but there was nowhere for him to go. He could run today, but his mother and father would just put him back here tomorrow. So he said nothing and he froze, with his face pressed against the glass of the window.
Mother Superior heaved from side to side as she walked down the hallway. She was a big lady, big and mean. She had her rosary beads in her hands and she was wrapping it around her two palms and she stretched her hands out and it pulled the chain tight and it looked as if she were preparing herself to tie and knot around Alex’s neck and to choke him to death.
The door opened and Alex fell forwards onto his hands. The classroom erupted in laughter and Rambo was quick to settle them down. All it took was one gritty look and they all shut up. He helped Alex to his feet and brushed off the dust that was on his shirt.
“Took your time,” he said.
Alex looked at him confused.
Rambo winked.
“Do you know this boy?” asked Mother Superior.
She sounded disappointed.
As if the mouse belonged to somebody else.
“This is Steven’s brother of course.”
Alex looked at his brother. They were as surprised as one another.
Mother Superior looked at Rambo with an unassailable stare. She didn’t like him very much. He was hired by Father Luke. She didn’t have any say in the matter and this bothered her. She hated his motorcycle, but she couldn’t ban him from bringing it into school. She hated his leather jacket but according to Father Luke, he had every right to protect himself from the cold in a modern fashion as he so chooses.
And he so chose.
“So Steven’s brother here is helping us with a project this morning, aren’t you?”
Alex looked wide eyed.
But he didn’t look around.
“Well, Alan…”
“Alex”
“As I said, Alex here will be answering some questions about having a bigger brother and what it means to him. Right Alex?” said Rambo, smiling at him.
Alex looked at his brother. He had no idea that they were supposed to do an activity together. They’d mentioned nothing at home. There was no message in his notebook from his teacher and his brother didn’t say anything. He was so happy, but his grin made him look kind of funny and his brother shook his head and turned away embarrassed.
“Yes, sir. Rambo sir.”
“Excuse me?”
Mother Superior sounded angry.
“Rambo? You will call him Mr. Lithmore and nothing else.”
The words were meant for Alex, but the meaning was meant for Rambo himself. She couldn’t get rid of him not as long as he was doing the least that he had to do and in truth, he was doing much more.
The kids were learning and there had been no complaints outside of her own. But where she couldn’t discipline Rambo, she could direct her tirade to his disciples; to the children who worshipped him and to their parents who looked upon him with the same venerable glaze.
“Anything else?” asked Rambo slyly. “I do have a class to teach.”
Ther
e was nothing she could do and though she might have wanted to do more, she didn’t.
“I’ll be speaking to your mother and father,” she said.
Alex looked worried. None of the older kids were laughing anymore. They were all just looking to the front and now that Rambo was helping Alex up and protecting him from Mother Superior, the kids didn’t think he was so silly anymore.
“So Alex,” he said calmly.
He was so big. His jacket made a sound every time he moved and it had its own specific smell. He had never been close enough to one to know that they had a smell, but now he had and he did.
“What can we do for you? Did you want to speak to Steven?”
Alex looked over Rambo’s shoulder at his brother. All the other kids were looking at him like he was someone special. Everyone except his brother. He looked angry and embarrassed.
And Alex felt stupid again.
“I forgot my song book,” he said.
“Right, well that’s no good.”
Rambo looked around the class.
“Steven, do you have your song book?”
He shook his head.
“Does anyone else have their song books?”
The older kids all shrugged their shoulders.
“We have music on Tuesday,” said one of the kids.
“That’s not a problem,” said Rambo, leaning over to his desk and pulling out the bottom drawer. “I know there’s one here under this crap somewhere.”
He said crap.
He was so cool.
“Here we go,” he said.
Rambo pulled a song book from his drawer, still in its plastic wrapping.
“Here you can borrow my one,” he said handing the book to Alex.
“Really?” said Alex as if his father had just handed him the keys to the car.
“Bring it back to me in one piece,” he said. “Or two, or three or ashes, bring it back to me in ashes. Seriously, though, I do not want to see this book ever again.”
The older kids all laughed.
Alex was too nervous to laugh.
“Here take this,” he said handing a note to Alex. “If any of the nuns or teachers stop you, you just show em this. You’ll be fine.”
On his way back the assembly area, Alex popped his head into one of the older boy’s bathrooms just to have a look. He hadn’t seen inside one before and it was kind of silly and all that but he really wanted to know if it was different.
And it was.
Everything was so big. They had these places that you could pee; against the wall and they were so high. They were almost as high as Alex’s chin and if he had to use something like that, it would probably be for brushing his teeth. The toilets downstairs didn’t have these. They just had the big grey one against the wall where everyone peed together and sometimes, especially on sports days or when there were a lot of boys at the same time, they competed by seeing who could pee the highest. This toilet had a big grey trough too and there were rusty stains all up the wall, near to where the string was hanging, the one to flush the toilet.
“Wow, they can pee so high,” he thought.
Alex left the toilet and walked back down the stairs towards the music class. He felt so proud of himself. He had gotten to meet Rambo and Rambo even knew his name; well kind of. But he knew that he was his brother’s brother so he knew who he was and he almost got his name right and that’s something.
It would have been better, though if his brother wasn’t so sore about the whole thing. He only liked to talk about this sort of stuff with him but if he was angry then who would he talk to? Who would he tell?
“Just in time for the end of class. Where were you all this time? Gallivanting about?” yelled The Music Teacher.
Her hands were folded and her fingers were playing her arm like a piano again. Alex walked past the kids and he didn’t feel so small anymore. He didn’t see them point and snigger and he didn’t hear them laugh. How could he? Little kid’s voices were so low that only little kids could hear them. They all stopped their laughing though when they saw that he didn’t care, that he had outgrown the size of their taunt.
“Where did you get that music book? That’s a teacher copy. Where did you get that?”
She tore the book from his hands and she was furious.
“Rambo gave it to me.”
The children’s mouthed dropped open.
“You mean Mr. Lithmore. Show some respect. And do tell me why Mr. Lithmore gave you his teacher’s copy. This is a privileged book. It is private school property. Not for the likes of you” she said.
She said it to Alex, but she meant everyone.
“He gave me this, to give to you.”
Alex handed The Music Teacher the note that Rambo had given him.
Her eyes widened.
They glared.
Her mouth went really small.
It looked like her head was about to implode.
And Alex felt strong.
“Very well then. Join the others” she said, handing him the song book.
Before he could reach the benches, a whistle blew from down the corridor.
“Everyone, single file. No pushing, no shoving. Back to class.”
She shouted at the children and though her voice was angry and loud, she looked kind of sad. And in life, some people dealt with sadness by getting angry and shouting a lot just so people wouldn’t feel sorry for them when really, that’s what they wanted all along, for someone to feel sorry for them. And for someone to say, “Thank you, I appreciated your class.”
Nobody ever did, though. They just shuffled off from here to there by the blow of a whistle and took for granted, every second in their hands.
Alex watched The Music teacher as she carefully pulled her plastic cover over her electric piano. His sister took the same care when she played with her things. None of her toys had scratches on them and they were all still in their original boxes. Alex didn’t care about his things like that, but he did like watching other people care for theirs.
The Music Teacher sighed like she couldn’t pretend anymore.
Alex walked back down the hallway and joined the back of the line as the other kids marched back towards class. They lined up patiently at the door and entered one by one. The line moved at such an eroding pace. Alex didn’t feel brave anymore. He didn’t feel so tall. He wished he knew how to speak about how he felt in his stomach; to his classmates, to Rambo, to his mum or to his dad. He wished more that he had the courage to ask his brother because he trusted his word more than anyone else’s because he was young once too and the others, they were old, and probably they wouldn’t remember what it was like being a kid and the same way they stopped believing in ghosts, they wouldn’t remember this kind of feeling.
The line edged forwards and again his body urged him to run. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trembled upon his brow. His courage was escaping him.
“Help me, mum,” he thought. “Help me, dad.”
The bead of sweat hit the ground and it vanished. It disappeared somewhere between the cracks in the grout. He didn’t lift his head. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to cry. The Teacher put her arms around his shoulder, eased him into the classroom and she kissed him on his cheek.
The bitch.
Alex and The Gruff (A Tale of Horror) Page 6
