Steven” she smiled.
Steven smiled to himself but then grimaced when he heard Gilly whisper.
“Smartarse!”
The three o’clock bell went as he was making his way across from the math’s block to the music rooms. Kids were streaming out from classrooms, first formers who still enjoyed school, they always seemed to get the fun practical subjects to end their days on before going home to mom and milk and cookies. Out of the corner of his eye he noted that there were some bigger kids coming from his left, well bigger than first formers anyway. He didn’t take much notice, thinking about Miss Hartley and keeping his appointment with her. As always, and much to his chagrin, he noticed that he wasn’t much taller than most of the other kids now milling past him, and then Gillys’ voice cut across their excited, incessant and inane chatter.
“Staggers got sticky fingers”.
Steven stopped, and two or three of the kids ran into him. He turned to look at Gilly, and saw Steve Shaw and Ian Brady fanned out on either side of him. Gilly and Brady were wearing silly lopsided grins as if they knew something he didn’t. Snake looked concerned (that’s Shaws’ nickname because he had this nervous habit with his tongue. He and Snake actually got on quite well mainly because they always seemed to be placed together. They always seemed to do that, as if it was the easiest way, put them in alphabetical order. Whenever they had to form any sort of queue he was always directly behind Snake.) His tongue was doing its bit at a hundred miles an hour, and Steven knew that the speed was relative to the amount of nervousness being experienced by Snake at any given time.
“How ya goin’ Snake?” he ignored the other two.
Snake looked toward Gilly and damn if his tongue didn’t start working at closer to two hundred miles an hour. Now Steven was worried.
“Leth juth go Gilly” said Snake.
As a consequence of his habit Snake lisped and he was now lisping badly. Steven worried a bit more and thought it was premature for Gilly and he to begin killing each other even though he knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. Gilly was just one of these mean kids who for no reason other than he was bigger (and dopier) than most his age, liked to play the bully. What happened next would go down in school history.
Brady would recount to others that he didn’t see Staggers move, but he’d decked Gilly with one punch. Snake would just nod in agreement, happy he wasn’t the only witness probably.
Steven knew that it was all just blind fool luck, that if Gilly intended to bash him, then he didn’t stand a chance especially as Brady and Snake were obviously there to assist. He saw red fury and just stepped forward and struck in the general vicinity of Gillys’ face. It was a punch that Mike Tyson would have been proud of, striking Gilly immediately under the nose and above the top lip. Steven stood there above Gilly, not knowing really how Gilly came to be on the ground at his feet, oblivious to Snake and Brady standing there open mouthed. Even Snakes’ tongue seemed unable to move, also stunned at the speed of the event. Steven held up both arms and formed peace signs.
“Luv ya’s, luv ya’s all.” And then he turned and ran.
He stopped running when he hit the top floor of the music block and then walked slowly toward the open door where he knew Miss Hartley was waiting. He heard voices and knew that she was there probably talking to one of the other of her ‘gifted’ children.
Steven used the time to draw in some deep breaths, check that his shirt was still tucked in, and then he realized that there was blood on his right hand. He was reaching into his pocket for a hanky when he realized that the blood might be his and not from Gilly’s face. He looked closely at his fist and saw a small incision on his middle knuckle, the blood just slowly welling into it. He held the hanky tight on top of it but every time he pulled it away the blood would ooze slowly again. He wrapped the hanky around it tightly and then placed the bulk of it into a ball in the palm of his hand and curled his fingers around it. He hoped it would look normal or at least innocuous.
He stood in the doorway and surveyed the room, chairs in a semicircular pattern with music stands in front of and between each two chairs. Posters of musical instruments and composers adorned the walls. Miss Hartley was across the room kneeling in front of a young female first former explaining something about the recorder to her. He looked past her out of the far windows and heard the noises of the street as kids left for home, in buses, on bikes, in cars with their mums or in groups on foot on their way to the local servo take away. He saw the top of the milk bar across the road, which was out of bounds to school kids until three p.m. on school days, and knew that there would be fifty kids in there by now, buying lollies and milkshakes and whatever else they could afford with what they didn’t spend at tuck shop.
Miss Hartley rose and the girl smiled at her, tucked her recorder and a sheet of music under her arm and jumped up and started walking toward the door. Steven didn’t see her until she was immediately in front of him. He smiled at her, made a mental note that she would be cute one day, and stepped in and to one side to let her pass. She stopped when she reached him and turned back to her teacher.
“Thanks heaps Miss Hartley”.
She didn’t so much say it as chorus it, like she was still in class with 20 other kids saying the same thing all together.
“That’s okay Rebecca – just keep practising.”
Steven closed the door after her. He turned around and was startled as Miss Hartley was only a few feet from and moving toward him, an arm coming up as if she was about to grab him. He was just about to throw his arms around her when she spoke.
“I think that should stay open, school policy you know”. She said it so personally than he didn’t feel offended but he still backed up against the door and said “No”, and held up his hand with the bloody handkerchief. Her eyes opened wide when she saw the blood and he felt powerfully mischievous at her concern. “What have you done?” She was so concerned that she forgot about the door. “What happened”? She reached for his hand now instead of grabbing the door handle and he let her lead him to the closest chair.
“It’s okay, I just scratched a knuckle playing football.”
She unwound the hanky anyway, the bleeding had ceased and the blood welling into the cut had started to congeal, but it still looked worse than what it really was.
“Let’s get you down to the infirmary” she said.
“No, really, it’s okay.”
He felt himself getting excited as she continued to express her concern at his well being. She was standing and leaning forward toward him, her eyes intent on studying the cut. Her blouse could do nothing to defy gravity so he enjoyed the unobstructed view of her white lace bra cupping her small breasts. He felt himself sigh uncontrollably, and she looked quickly at his face, her concern still quite apparent.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”.
“Yes, I’m absolutely on top of the world” he said without a trace of a lie.
“Well, okay then, but you make sure you have your mother look at that when you get home”, he was nodding before she finished. “Now, tell me about your ducklings”.
She stood and moved the chair from beside him so that she was sitting in front of him now. He had no idea why she always did that, but she would sit down directly in front of him. He supposed it was something they train them to do to make