up to my room—of course Mum had insisted on buying me clothing that might have looked smart in the Home Islands around 1990, but was bound to make Curtis call me a ponce if I wore it. Maybe the trousers were salvageable. In fact, maybe I would wear them and my old Gingo Teag High blazer when I met Teresa tomorrow.
Was that what was making me nervous? The (admittedly small) chance that I was being played for a fool, and that Curtis would be waiting at the “bookstore” to laugh at me while Adams and his clique beat me up? It took me a long time to fall asleep that night.
* * * *
Which of course meant that I had trouble staying awake in class the next day. Mr Goldberg, the natural philosophy master, noticed me jabbing my wrist with a pencil to stay awake, and asked me to stay after class. My heart sank. His was the last class of the day, and I must leave soon if I was going to meet Teresa—or my ultimate humiliation.
“Tom, have a seat. Don’t look so worried, I’m not going to give you detention,” he said in his heavy Yiddish accent. (Even teachers use contractions without a second thought! Why is Mum such a stickler?)
The scuttlebutt around the school was that Kirkwood had hired him “fresh off the boat from Palestine,” where the Emperor had decided that fewer Jews would make the Arabs happier and the province easier to control.
Of course His Royal Majesty Henri-Napoléon III could also have reduced the numbers of Jews pouring into Palestine by ordering his Russian provinces to stop imposing so many anti-Jewish laws, but the Imperial slogan these days was “local control,” so we Britons gained the benefit of some very motivated refugees with an axe to grind with l’Empire.
“Tom, what’s been bothering you lately? You seem distracted in class.” Despite his accent, Goldberg speaks English with pedantic correctness. Except for those contractions.
I squirmed and could not look him in the eye. “I’m having trouble sleeping,” I muttered.
“That may be the efficient cause of your distraction, young man—and you do remember what efficient cause means, yes?”
“The immediate cause, right?”
He gave an approving sniff and brushed his long brown hair back from his forehead—“young man” indeed, he cannot be more than five or six years older than me. “Very good, I think perhaps you shall not fail the final after all. And so, yes, the immediate cause, but I think there may be deeper causes behind this sleeplessness. Or am I off on the wrong track, as we English say?” Mr Goldberg became a naturalized British subject last year, and he is very proud of it.
All right, I would give him something to think about. I looked him straight in the eye, and said, “Mr Goldberg, what do you think the nature of reality is?”
He drew away, a puzzled frown on his face. His accent thickened even further. “Philosophical troubles you bring me?”
“You could call them that.” I told him much of what I had already told Reverend Marks, except I framed it as a series of hypotheticals: “Suppose there was a place full of impossible things…”
Why was I was reluctant to tell Mr Goldberg everything? Perhaps because I know the pastor better, and I wanted to be careful in case Mr Goldberg should be inclined to laugh at me or report me to the school’s Mental Hygiene Advisor. But he nodded thoughtfully.
“Tom, there is much about the world that our natural philosophy doesn’t truly understand,” he said, stroking his long, bushy walrus mustache. “And perhaps our history as well. Our minds are small and limited, and we must rely on the work of others who came before us, who had their own limitations. If I can inspire you and the others in this class to go beyond those limitations, to do away with some of the errors that hold men back—well, that is why I love to teach. So no, I don’t think you’re crazy to think there could be worlds that have taken a different path than ours. Or even communication with other—intelligences. I would warn you only to keep one eye on the ground while you’re learning to fly.”
I started. Did he know about Dad’s work? I hadn’t mentioned it. In fact, Dad had warned me not to talk about it in school.
“May I go now?” I asked after a pause.
“Oh, of course! Away with you,” he said with a smile and a dismissive wave. “Enjoy your evening.”
Outside it was already growing dark. I was going to be late, late to meet Teresa, and after I had taken the trouble of asking the pastor to agree to excuse me from advanced Bible studies! Which he had done without asking any awkward questions, but with a wink that made me blush.
I hurried towards the gate, but before I could get there Adams and two of his flunkies loomed out of the shadows.
“Where you going in such a rush, Purnell?”
“None of your business, Adams,” I snapped. What had I said?
The flunkies ooh’d and ah’d and whistled. Adams smirked, stepped forward and pushed me in the chest. Something in my snapped, and I punched him in the jaw. He lost his balance and fell onto the flunky on his right, who I think is called Jack Madison.
Adams must have been surprised, since I am known for going to great lengths to avoid a fight. Yet I could hardly have avoided what followed, regardless of my actions. The other flunky, Jim Monroe, grabbed me from behind while Adams rose, murder in his eye, and punched me in the gut. All the air rushed out of my lungs. I fell to the ground, my mouth opening and closing like the striped bass Dad catches on week-ends. Adams and Monroe yelled at me to get up and fight like a man, while Madison asked if Adams was all right.
At that moment Mr Thiel, the deputy headmaster and Latin master, ran up and began his useless blustering—we call him Squeal behind his back.
I peered up at his toadlike face, my vision going in and out of focus. Madison grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet with exaggerated politeness.
“Fighting on the campus?” Mr Thiel shrieked. “This is antithetical to the spirit of cooperation and unity we expect from students fortunate enough to be allowed to attend St George’s!”
“Fighting? We weren’t fighting, Mr Thiel, sir,” Adams said, wiping away the blood on his chin. “Infernal here tripped, and we were just helping him to his feet. Isn’t that right, boys?”
The flunkies nodded vigorously.
“My name is Thomas Jefferson Purnell, Adams,” I growled, adding more softly, “And I shall give you a good reason to remember it!”
“This is unacceptable behavior!” Thiel said. “You are all confined to quarters for the evening! And tomorrow morning, you will report yourselves to my office for five strokes apiece!”
Rumour has it Mr Thiel was dishonourably discharged from His Majesty’s Border Guards, the most corrupt and ineffective branch of the service, for being too useless even for mess-hall duty.
But he was still a master, and we all mumbled our yessirs and waited to be dismissed. As Adams headed off toward his dorm and I headed off toward mine, we looked each other in the eye.
This is only the beginning, mate.
Which still left me with the problem of getting to Gloria’s Gateway Books in—I looked at Curtis’s handcrafted silver alarum clock as I entered the room, and gasped—ten minutes!
“What’s the matter, Purnell?” Curtis asked.
I turned, slightly startled—I had not even noticed anyone else was in the room, I was so flustered—to see him lying on the bed with Martha, their arms around each other. Entertaining a member of the opposite sex in one’s quarters is strictly forbidden at all times at St George’s, but people like Curtis assume the rules are meant for others, and it seems they are usually right.
Martha smiled at me, her brown eyes kind, and for a moment I forgot all about Teresa. I told them what had happened, and Curtis clucked sympathetically.
“Thiel’s an ass.