SCHOOL SPIRIT
Marie McLean
When they’re told to smile and wave for the camera, she shrinks back. Tries to hide behind the others. But they’re moving like eels, pressing her forwards, squashing her against the balcony railing. Against her sheet of shame.
Their teacher, Mr O, orchestrates the moment from the cold, wet grass below. He captures a sweeping shot of the grounds with his heavy camcorder, then pans to the building, filming the two-storeys from the bottom up. His free arm gesticulates wildly and the others copy, but the girl remains frozen. Her fists and jaw clench and the pounding in her ears distorts the sounds around her, as if she’s underwater. This school camp is not what she expected, not what she looked forward to, and it takes everything she has not to cry.
*
They say the Old York Hospital is one of the most haunted buildings in Western Australia. That the spirits of those who perished there still linger. I google this gold-rush relic and slowly, like a Polaroid print, my eleven-year old self materialises, superimposed on the image before me. She’s difficult to grasp at first, but the longer I stare at my screen, the more fully-formed she becomes.
I’d come across my old school reports the day before, stored in a suitcase in the garage, and lost hours cross-legged on the lounge room floor, surrounded by scrapbooks, swim certificates and ephemera from another life.
I had barley given Mr O a thought in decades, and yet here he was—as unwelcome as a head full off lice. His reports are scattered over the keyboard of my Mac and I wonder what he would make of this. Being an early adopter, he churned them out on his PC, before computers became mainstream, probably giving no thought to their permanency, or that I might be reading them forty years later.
My child self was a cluey kid, deserving of a high five. In her last year of primary school she beat the class average in every subject, smashed some of them even, yet with several lines available to comment on her achievements, Mr O uses only two:
Well above average. A significant improvement noted compared to 1983 results. Keep up the good work.
1983. The year I got UGG Boots for my birthday. Knee-high, chestnut-coloured, and laced at the sides, they were fluffy and warm on the inside, thick rubber-soled on the outside. Perfect for winter camp. I remember boarding the school bus, exaggerating my steps, hoping everyone would notice them. The following morning I was aquaplaning on gravel, falling behind as the class formed a loose squadron around Mr O. As I ran I didn’t know who to hate more: my mother, for delegating the packing to me; or Mr O, for saying in front of the class before the jog that my footwear was an interesting choice. For refusing to let me sit it out. For laughing at my oversight.
I pore over the yellowed pages, wondering if Mr O made an oversight or two himself. ‘Effort’ is subjective after all, and as I compare his stingy observations against earlier reports, the contrast couldn’t be greater. How ironic that such a man was allowed to judge me on class conduct, school spirit and social development when it appears he wasn’t so perfect himself.
The single sheet of A4 is folded to make an A5 pamphlet, opening up to the results. On the front is the school emblem, embedded with the sign of the cross. Underneath is my name, written in Mr O’s cursive. On the back is the Principal’s message:
To the Parents,
The purpose of the Primary School is to help the total development of each child. This Progress Report will give information on your child’s achievement. We are aware of the need to consider all aspects of each child’s development, including the spiritual, the academic, the physical, the social, and the psychological.
Your child’s Primary School years are the most important years of his/her school life. Co-operation and understanding between the home, school and community are necessary for the child’s maximum development.
Formal examinations constitute only a part of the evidence on which progress is based. Questions asked by the pupils, book reports, written assignments, oral quizzes, the pupil’s participation in class discussions — any kind of evidence which sheds light upon the pupil’s development in mastering a subject or skill may be legitimately used in assessing the pupil’s achievements.
Principal
Mr O did not apply the Principal’s sentiment to the girl on camp.
Overlooking her social situation, careless with her psychological development, inconsistent in his own school spirit, he’s oblivious to the damage he inflicts as she shrinks back from the balcony railing.
Or is he?
From where he stands on the lawn below, framing the perfect shot with his camcorder, it’s unlikely he can smell the urine evaporating from her bed sheet as it dries in the breeze. Can’t feel the dampness of the fibres. The whip of its hem.
But surely, he can see it? Her sheet of shame.
The stained fabric hangs over the railing. Fluttering, flapping. Corners lifting, dropping. An invisible force at play. Ghosts, sucking at the sheet. Tugging, teasing. Inhaling lungfuls of cotton through the balustrades. Breathing them out again. The class is partially hidden from Mr O’s view as they stand behind it. The camera rolls.
Why can’t he see it?
Why can’t he wait?
Why film this, now?
*
Mr O taught me for two years in a row. In the second year, grade seven, we had penpals. Following a dare, I wrote three pages that were intercepted, and read out to the class…
On a slatted bench in the undercroft, the girl chats nervously with three others. Their parents are indoors, assembled around the Principal’s desk, expressions shielded by closed blinds. Her agitation increases as they compare notes on what they wrote. Hers is the worst, and her mouth is dry, so very dry. The water fountain is only metres away but she can’t move or she’ll vomit, and so she waits. Dizzy. It’s a brief relief when the grown-ups emerge but she catches the look in her parents’ eyes, the disgust on their faces, and she knows she’s in for it. As soon as they’re home, out the car, her father pulls the belt from his shorts.
*
A few years ago I reunited with those girls from primary school. I’d almost forgotten about the penpal incident, but they remembered it well. Lisa still had copies and promised to text mine. To them it was a big joke—one their parents had laughed about. They stared at me, amazed, when I couldn’t recall the letters being read out in class.
My childish handwriting is as familiar to me as my name. My old address—the last family home before my parents’ divorce—appears in the top, right corner. Whenever I re-read the letter I’m slammed back into my seat at the dining table where I wrote it.
But I can’t help smiling at my child self. Her audacity. Her turns of phrase.
I cry too, for the girl sitting rigid in a row of neat wooden desks, bright light streaming through the window, blinding her. Muffled sounds coming from the carpeted corridor. Staring straight ahead at the blackboard, she’s unable to decipher its white markings. Everything starts to fade. Desks disappear. Books and papers vanish. A caddy of pens, no longer there. Mr O paces the podium, flickering, as he holds out her cheap, lined notepaper. Clearing his throat, he prepares to read. Then nothing.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t conjure the rest. Can only guess at which parts of the letter he emphasised. Unsure whether he left any out. I shut my eyes and sentences swim behind my eyelids. Like a poem learnt by heart, lines from my letter start to emerge.
Our teacher is a dickhead. He is also a hipocrip (how ever you sl spell it). Anyway, he treats us as fr first and second class citizens. The people he likes, and the top group have cards. These cards have enable them to play on the computer and have special privaliges. He doesn’t care about the other kids. What a COW.
___
I can’t wait until camp, can you? Mr O thinks he’s going to turn it into a P. E. Camp because it’s got a swimming pool and everything. He’s got high hopes.
___
He also favours Sonia. She’s the teachers pet. The biggest and I mean BIGGEST pose in our class is, of course, Leah. She thinks she’s hot shit, but she’s only a cold fart warming up. Boy, do I hate her. She gets so jealous.
___
By the way. I thought of something. If anyone gets hold of this letter, I’m going to get killed. So please, for my sake, keep it to yourself.
___
You said you like Bucks Fizz. Who is the girl in that? The main one, I mean.
___
We’ve got a boy in our class who gets into bad tempers and stinks. He hits girls. Now, no boy should hit a girl.
*
Despite the mean, puerile things she wrote, that girl should have been awarded a Merit Certificate for calling out boys who hit, not given a few licks of her own. But corporal punishment was our daily bread. Mr O, in his unofficial role as ‘punishment teacher’, received pupils from other classes while we sat on our hands, watching in silence as he picked up his one-metre ruler from the long, narrow holder attached to the chalkboard. Dusters flew through the air, aimed at a turned-back, leaving white traces of powder when it connected with the wall, a map, a child. Joseph, plucked from his chair by the scruff of his light-grey collar, was thrown from the classroom, through the open door. We all heard the thud. The girl could only bide her time. Watching. Waiting.
*
I shuffle the papers back into an orange folder stamped ‘Education Department of Western Australia’. In a way, the point made in the Principal’s message—about the primary school years being the most important of a child’s school life—was correct.
My younger self may have been powerless back then. Ashamed when she lined up behind her wet sheet on the balcony. Angry when she jogged on gravel in her Ugg Boots. Scared when she waited on the wooden, slatted bench outside the Principal’s office. But her earlier teachers, the good ones, gave her a love of words so strong, and a confidence so great, that she survived the spirit blows dealt by Mr O.
The girl became a woman who knows where the shame really lies.
She can look her child self directly in the eye when she remembers Mr O gathering the children at the back of the classroom, shortly after camp.
She holds her small hand as they settle side by side on the thin, scratchy carpet.
The woman is ready for Mr O as he wheels the tall trolley with its boxy television before the group.
Watches him as he steps over the cables snaking to the wall socket, heading to turn off the lights.
She has him in her line of fire as the room is dimmed. Dares him to reach for the remote. Makes a V sign with her fingers, points it at her own eyes, then his as the screen snaps to life.
There’s a hum of excitement. Crossed legs bounce up and down. Necks strain and bodies arch. Someone burps. They laugh, and Mr O pats the air with downward facing palms. Their chatter quietens, then dies. He removes a black VHS tape from its cardboard sleeve. Slides it into the slot of the VCR.
The Old York Hospital twitches, ripples, stabilises, and suddenly thirty odd children are lined up on the balcony. Laughing, waving.
She lets out the breath she’s been holding since 1983 and begins to type.
Word Count: 1,996
