Chapter 81: Ava West's Letter

Wednesday, April 20, 2005 (Continued)

When Julia and I approached her classroom, running a little late, her teacher and the Principal were standing outside. The Principal wasn't often seen in the halls, so I suspected this was not a coincidence.

He asked me, "Mr. Anderson, aren't you supposed to be in B12 now?" (Building B, room 12).

"Um, yes sir. I'm just walking Julia to class to keep her safe."

"That's what I'm doing here. Get to your class now, Mr. Morrison is waiting for you there."

It was impossible to argue with a direct instruction like that. I wasn't going to be able to make a speech in her class this period. Just before I left I said to Julia, "See you after class."

Mr. Morrison was, indeed, waiting for me outside of my class. I got my explanation in first, "I walked Julia to her class to keep her safe. Sorry I'm late."

"Understandable. After you," indicating the door. It was closed as class was already in progress, so I opened it and we went in. I went to my seat and he to the front of the class.

Mr. Morrison immediately addressed the class, starting with a description of the trouble Julia and I had suffered at the start of Mrs. Osborne's class. He recited, in censored terms, most of the comments the culprits had made, which earned him some sniggers from a few of the guys in class. I saw him mentally note who they were and smile to himself, which was opposite to the reaction I'd expect.

He said that five of the culprits had been taken to the Principal's office and then he listed the agencies that had been called as a result. I was shocked, and the rest of the class was even more so. Not only the police, which I'd guessed might be involved in investigating Michael and his sister's family situation, but two child welfare organizations, plus the Corvallis and Oregon Boards of Education (no doubt only because I was involved, and maybe to get the jump on my mom, haha). Statements such as, "the police will be interviewing several people, and charges may be filed as a result," and, "both the Corvallis and Oregon Boards of Education have been informed of the names of all the culprits and will be following up with the families of all concerned," sure got the attention of the class. All five students have been suspended until Friday, by which time we will decide whether any expulsions are necessary. This school has a zero tolerance policy. Do you understand what 'Zero' means? You!" He said, pointing to one of the sniggerers that he'd noted before. "What does zero mean?"

"Umm, 'None', sir."

"So if you were to sexually harass another student by making one of the statements that I described earlier, how much tolerance would I show you?"

"Ahh, none, sir."

"Correct. And if you were to laugh, snigger or otherwise show approval for another student's committing a sexual harassment, how much tolerance would I show you?"

Nervously, "None?"

"Exactly. Meaning no tolerance whatsoever. What's your name?"

Mr. Morrison pulled out a notebook and pen, and recorded the sniggerer's name. He pointed out each of the others, extracted and recorded their names. "The four of you are to tell your parents that I will be phoning them tonight to discuss your unacceptable attitude to sexual harassment. I will also be writing letters to your parents informing them that you have received your first formal warning for an unacceptable attitude to sexual harassment. If any of you are involved in another such incident, then you will have the book thrown at you. I am perfectly willing to suspend any student for two months, which will render you unable to take your exams, and you'll have to repeat the year. Got that?"

The class definitely got that.

"You four are particularly at risk of that because you've already received your first warning. If any of your names comes up again I will recommend to the Principal that you get suspended until after the exams. Got that?"

Oh yes, they got it.

"If you learn nothing else from school today, learn this: what you do in school can affect your entire life. There are several ex-students of this school who are about to go on trial for assault because they stupidly didn't believe assault was a crime just because the people involved were schoolchildren. That little piece of stupidity has ruined their entire lives. The police are already investigating as a result of the incident outside Mrs. Osborne's class, and if the DA decides that a crime has occurred then he will prosecute the offender or offenders. If any more such incidents occur in the school, and we think there's any chance at all that a crime might have been committed, then we will call the police. Because how much tolerance do we have? Come on! How much tolerance?"

"Zero," several of the class recited.

"For goodness sake, grow up, control your imaginations, and stop behaving like stupid little boys. If there's another incident like the last one involving Mark Anderson, his family, girlfriend, or anyone else remotely connected to him, then you will be risking everything you have, right up to your life in jail. Don't for a split second think we're exaggerating. We've already called the police today, as we will for any future incidents. WE WILL CALL THE POLICE! Have you got that?"

Mr. Morrison left while various shell-shocked class members were still indicating that they got it.

Wow! Talk about massive overkill. Even our teacher was stunned.

It appeared I wasn't going to be making my speech in this class either! I would MUCH rather have made my speech than have the class listen to Mr. Morrison's rant. Mine was nearly all 'carrot', while Mr. Morrison's had been entirely 'stick'. Mine created loving feelings even among some of the guys, while his created fear. My speech, I had already seen, will lead to Julia, Carol and me having more friends; Mr. Morrison's speech will lead to people fearing me so much no one will come near me.

After Prof's explaining the Principal's behavior over Dipstick, I guessed the only thing that mattered to the school was reducing the number of negative events. If they could get no student to ever talk with any other student, that'd make the school's record blemish free. No one was going to fire the Principal because he protected me so well that no one was willing to talk with me. I even thought, again because of Prof's comments, that maybe the Principal was deliberately trying to isolate me from friendships so I'd transfer at my own choice. If that was the case, it was very Machiavellian. [For those readers inexplicably unfamiliar with early sixteenth century Florentine political history, "Machiavellian" can be read as "sneaky".]

Teach said, "I knew Mr. Morrison wanted to talk with the class, but I did not know what about. That took me by surprise as much as it did you. I guess our Principal has reached the end of his rope when it comes to incidents involving Mark..."

#1: <The Principal! Do you think he's giving a similar speech in Julia's class?>

#4: <I can't imagine Mr. Morrison giving that speech without the Principal's approval. And what's the point of giving it in only one class. They have to do it in ALL of our classes.>

#3: <We're not going to sit still for this, are we. Look at the class; almost no one is willing to look at us. We do NOT want that!>

I stood up declaring, "I HATED that crap," to get the class on my side right away. "That was a truly appalling speech. I know I walked into the room with Mr. Morrison, but only because he was waiting outside for me. I hope some of you saw him there earlier because I do not want to be associated in any way at all with that hateful, fearful speech. What I find galling is that the school's response to the incident before Mrs. Osborne's class is to create fear rather than to build on the love that started it all." Not exactly a good bridge, but it let me start my speech. "If Mr. Morrison hadn't come in here just before, I was going to ask for you all to help me protect two girls I love. The five culprits Mr. Morrison referred to got overly excited because they heard about my girlfriend Julia and my sister Carol..." I proceeded to give my speech.

I made no reference to 'stomping' on anyone, nor gave any examples of anything bad that anyone in this class had said. I was going to treat them ALL as my friends, to try to recover some of the goodwill Mr. Morrison undoubtedly lost me. I touched on all the good points. I still used the "idiot" examples, such as guys asking for my phone number so they could call to ask my 13-year old lesbian sister for a date. Those were humorous and attacked no one in this class, so they were safe to use.

I should mention that there were a few students in this class who had already heard my speech, either the first one yesterday, or second one in Mrs. Osborne's class, but they were in the minority. I mentioned that a few of them had heard it before during this speech, to be up-front about having made it before.

When I got to the end of my speech, the atmosphere in the class was far, far better. There were even a few wet eyes. I'd had a number of thoughts while I was making my speech. The speech was largely automatic by now and having several minds allowed additional thoughts to occur easily. After the end of the speech, I carried on with, "While I was telling you about my love for Julia and Carol, I had some more thoughts about Mr. Morrison's speech that will help remove the fear he created. First, he several times mentioned the police being called. The police were ONLY called because one of the guys who hassled me went on about having sex with a sister so many times that he made Mrs. Osborne suspicious that he wanted to have sex with HIS sister. When a teacher has reason to suspect something like that she's required by law to report it, and the police are required to investigate. I'm pretty sure the police are NOT investigating anything that was said to me. Mr. Morrison chose his words very carefully to give that impression, but he was deceiving you all to make you more fearful of me."

One of the guys in this class who had also been in Mrs. Osborne's class said, "That's right! I was there. The police wouldn't waste their time investigating a bunch of boys going on about sex. There aren't enough cops in the country to investigate every time that happens." Quite a few of the class laughed at that, especially the guys, which was good to see because it'd been the guys who'd been the hardest hit by Mr. Morrison's speech and least helped by my "Loving Speech."

"My second point is that, I did not complain to the Principal about those guys. It was Mrs. Osborne who took them there. I asked her not to do it, but just to warn them, but she insisted."

The students who'd been there called out their confirmation of that.

"Third, and this is addressed to all of you, but particularly at the four poor guys that Mr. Morrison singled out. If any of you come up to me and say "Boo!" I'm not going to go running to complain to Mr. Morrison. If you come up to me and ask for my sister's phone number, I'll just tell you to look 'lesbian' up in the dictionary. I'll even spell it for you if you're having trouble. If any of you make offensive comments three or four times and won't stop even if I repeatedly ask you to, then I'll REMIND you about Mr. Morrison. If you keep being offensive THEN I'll probably complain to him, but by then you've proved yourself so stupid you should be put out of your misery. In other words, I'm not your enemy. You can treat me like any other guy. You can even talk about sex with me if you want. Personally I find it a depressing topic because my girlfriend is off with my sister half the time, so I've only got half a girlfriend."

One of the girls in the class quipped, "That's half more than most of these guys, haha."

"Until three weeks ago that included me too." I paused for effect, then added, "I just had an idea. Some days Carol comes up from middle school to have lunch with Julia and me. I'll check our schedules and let you guys -girls included too - come and be introduced to her. We could line all the guys up like an orchestra, and I can stand out front like a conductor. On the count of three you can all yell out 'Can I have your phone number, Carol?' And she can yell back, 'I'm a lesbian, dummy, look it up in a dictionary, ' and then you can wander off and tell your friends that you 'Made a pass at a real live lesbian but she shot you down in flames.' No making passes at my girlfriend though, I don't want to drop down to a third share!"

Another girl said, "I can't imagine that any guy could lure Julia away from you, Egg."

"Yeah, but a couple of weeks ago I could even less imagine any girl could lure Julia away, and look how that worked out! My parents always told me to share with my sisters, but Carol's given that a whole new meaning." Mission accomplished. The class atmosphere was better than fine

"I'll be your girlfriend, Egg!"

"Me too!"

"Me too! Pick me!"

The teacher stood up and said, "I think now is a good point to bring that discussion to an end. An interesting but entirely unproductive class so far. We need to buckle down now."

"I'm sorry, sir. Can I make three very quick statements please? Very quick."

"Go for it, Mark."

"One: Thank you ladies, but even half a Julia is a whole lot of wonderful for me. Two: Sir, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell Mr. Morrison or the Principal about our talk after he left. I'd rather they not think they need to come back to reinforce their message of fear. I prefer my message of love."

Teach agreed, "I didn't like Mr. Morrison's approach either. I'm prepared to do as you ask, but I will ask him privately why he was so aggressive. If he has a good reason I might have to reconsider."

"Fair enough, thanks. My last point is can I be excused from class? I think the Principal probably made the same speech in Julia's class and she's probably quite upset. I'd like to go check on her."

"You know you're allowed to come and go from class as you wish and I would like to get SOME teaching done."

I hadn't unpacked my bag since I'd arrived with Mr. Morrison, so it took me only a moment to head for the door.

During my exit, one of the guys yelled out in fun, "What's your sister's phone number, Egg?"

The whole class laughingly yelled, "She's a lesbian, dummy," as the door closed behind me.

I hadn't left to check on Julia, but on her whole class. If the Principal had done as I expected, I wanted to try to reproduce the feat I'd just accomplished in my class.

The moment Julia's class saw me when I stuck my head in their door, it was obvious the Principal had delivered the same speech. It had affected everyone badly, Julia most of all.

This wasn't one of my classes, obviously, and I didn't know the teacher. I wasn't going to be allowed to speak for more than a few seconds unless I could sell her [the teacher] on my continued presence, so I wasn't subtle, "Mr. Morrison just delivered the most appalling, over-the-top, fear-loaded speech that I've ever heard to my class. I see the Principal did the same here. I'd like to say a few words about love, if that's okay with you, ma'am."

Ma'am was a ma'am, and therefore would like to hear about love (I hoped. Didn't all females?). If she said "No, go away", at least I had told the class that I disapproved of the speech.

Linda, Julia's friend that I'd been introduced to a few days ago, asked me, "Are you going to make the speech that I've been hearing about, Egg?"

I didn't really want to answer, in large part because it was quite a long speech, and I didn't want the teacher to suspect that my "say a few words" would take a fair while. I answered, "Part of it, yes."

Linda said to the teacher, "I've heard people talking about it, ma'am. It's supposed to be a VERY good speech."

There were several other students (female and male) who had already heard it, and they immediately spoke up, "It's a fantastic speech" | "I bawled my eyes out," (that from one of the females) | "Egg speaks very well." | "I want to hear it again."

The teacher said, "Come in, Mark." She knew who I was, even if I didn't know her. "Make it quick please, we've lost a lot of time already."

I didn't need to respond to that, so started my new speech while I was still walking to Julia's chair, "My apologies to those of you who've heard any of this before, and thank you for your support just now. To save time I will assume the Principal said much the same as Mr. Morrison did. If my speech doesn't make sense because they were different, someone correct me please. The Principal's speech was all about fear, mine is about love..." And so it started. As I'd told the teacher, I did go fast, but only because there wasn't much time left in the period. That I was going to use up nearly all her remaining class time wasn't something I was going to explain to the teacher in advance though.

While I was standing behind Julia, holding her shoulders and describing her love for Carol, I could see that my speech was having a much stronger effect on this class than the same speech had achieved in my class. I couldn't put my finger on the reason why, but it was a very different dynamic, as clearly indicated by the number of girls who developed leaking eyes. I could've made a lighthearted moment out of performing a flourish to a crying Julia, but she already had my hanky from Mrs. Osborne's class. She soon had it in use too. She was mirrored by several other girls, and even ma'am was starting to touch the corners of her eyes too.

I just did the nice parts of my original speech, again including the "idiot" parts as comic relief. At the end of it there was much blubbering. Linda was especially weepy, sobbing, "I'm so glad I got to hear that," and the inevitable, "You're so lucky, Julia." Teach was quite strongly affected too. I guess the softer subjects are taught by softer teachers.

After a small pause I did my little demolition job on the Principal's speech, "Did he keep threatening to call the police? Yes? That's just because one guy's sister might be in trouble..." I explained why and called on some of the students who'd been in Mrs. Osborne's class to confirm my points, and they did, same as in my class.

I finished the same way, with me telling the class that I'd invite them to share a lunchtime with us, ostensibly to meet Carol (in reality to show them that we're friendly and approachable, that we trusted them and they should trust us back, so there's no need to fear and shun us). I conjured up the image of a chorus of guys yelling, "Can I have your phone number, Carol?", and her yelling back "I'm a lesbian, dummy, look it up in a dictionary." I added a new joke, "I'm only suggesting all the guys do that because I believe that it's one of the lesbian rules that they have to shoot a certain number of guys down in flames. I'm just trying to arrange it so my newly outed sister gets a REALLY good start on achieving her quota."

There'd been some other differences along the way. For example, the Principal hadn't tried to trick any sniggerers into sniggering, so the parts of Mr. Morrison's speech that attacked his sniggerers were missing from the Principal's. That affected my speech a little, but none of those differences made any real difference, if that makes sense. The final result was considerably more successful than at my class. Maybe having Julia with me and a teacher that got caught up in it helped.

Amid the general hilarity and goodwill that broke out after I'd finished, there were some fun comments. The teacher told Julia, "Go on, give him a kiss, we all know you want to." Julia's lips were all over mine long before her teacher finished her sentence. I'd never been told to do that in class before (never mind that I'd had no one to do it with until three weeks ago). Julia's teacher was pretty cool, especially for a teacher as most of them have a vanishingly low level of cool, if any at all. I spent the rest of the 'lesson' sitting in Julia's chair, with her cuddled on my lap.

One of the GIRLS in the class loudly asked, "Egg, can I," (with her "I" firmly stressed) "have your sister's phone number please? With Julia's approval, of course."

Several people turned to her in surprise, and she answered, "No, I'm not a lesbian, but I'm not a dummy either. If Carol is as nice and loving as Egg, then I might consider taking it up. I'd like to meet her, with Julia's permission."

Julia said, "You don't need my permission, I'm not possessive of Carol. Or Mark either, come to that."

Several of the girls took GREAT notice of the tack-on. "You're not?"

"No. I wouldn't try to prevent either of them doing what they wanted. They stay with me because of the strength of our relationships."

"Oh." Those several girls gave up their sudden interests. They'd just heard my speech, and the strength of my relationship with Julia was in no doubt.

Julia answered the original query, "You should ask Carol for her phone number directly. Like Mark said, we'll arrange a lunch with her sometime soon, maybe early next week, and you can ask her yourself. I'll make sure you sit near her and that you have a chance to talk together."

"Thanks."

"No problem. I'm sure she'll appreciate your interest, but she's just fallen in love for the first time so I wouldn't get your hopes up."

In the brief silence that followed that, I had a chance to ask the teacher not to tell the Principal that I'd come to class and done what I had. I repeated my, "I don't want him to think he has to come back here and reinforce his threats." You could see everybody in the class draw back in reaction to that.

The teacher said, "Not much chance of that. On second thought, maybe I should invite him back so you have to return to make another speech afterward, haha."

After her little joke had run its course, the teacher said, "Oh my, is that the time? Time flies when you're having fun. In the thirty seconds we have left..."

After the bell rang, all the girls gathered around us to tell Julia how lucky she was.

I listened to that for the 200th through to the 250th times. I remembered the last time I'd tried to claim that I was the lucky one ("because Julia inspires me"), and it'd just made the girls redouble their same statements. Knowing that Julia wasn't going to get jealous of the likely replies I'd get, I loudly said, "I agree. Julia is VERY lucky. She's got a boyfriend AND a girlfriend. TWO friends. I've only got HALF a girlfriend. Half of a very small girlfriend, at that. And of all the girls in Corvallis that Julia could have chosen to get sexy with, she chooses the ONE girl I can't enjoy seeing her with: my sister! How TERRIBLY unlucky am I?"

"You can get lucky with me, Egg!"

"Me too! Whenever you want." Several girls echoed similar offers, although most weren't as overt as the quote immediately above. Julia's sitting on my lap probably had an inhibiting effect.

Julia's friend Linda said, "I bet Egg's going to get lucky with Julia tonight."

Julia said, "That's where you are totally wrong, Linda. Those are the times that I get lucky. Mark is very, VERY good."

Uh oh, a maximum embarrassment conversation was about to happen. It was also not the sort of thing we should be talking about just before the trial. While several girls were pressing for detail, I whispered, "Careful, Julia. The trial, remember."

Julia spoke up, "Ladies, I'm not one to 'kiss and tell', so I won't give you any details... ,"

#2: <Phew.>

" ... but I will say this... ,"

#2: <Uh oh.>

" ... you all know how incredible he is in the classroom. Let me say that there's another room that he's EVEN better in. None of you have got ANY IDEA of the incredible amount of lucky that I am! That's all I'm going to say on that matter. It's time we went to our next classes, so please make room for a very embarrassed boy and his girlfriend." Julia climbed off my lap and we started leaving the room.

There were several comments, mostly of a ribald nature. I didn't enjoy any of them, but particularly disliked, "I see Egg got lucky in his closet when he got dressed this morning. Does that count as a room, haha?"

Julia couldn't resist responding to that, unfortunately. "Luck wouldn't be seen dead in there. Nor 'Fashion' or 'Style' either. I'm taking him shopping properly on Saturday. You'll see a Mark that isn't a walking fashion disaster next week. You're going to be very surprised."

I can't say I liked any of those comments of Julia's, but the last one was especially worrying. What I was wearing now fit me well, matched impressively, was nicely colored, and probably - for all I could tell - complemented my complexion. But there was nothing particularly "surprising" about it. It was just a better version of what I normally wore. Julia's saying "very surprised" threatened something quite different, which was worrying because I didn't want to wear anything surprisingly different. I couldn't think of what she might have in mind. I wear baggy pants, loose shirt and a jacket. The only real alternative is jeans and a T-shirt, which I was pretty sure wasn't what Julia had in mind. The only other thing I could think of was a football jersey, and while that would be very surprising indeed, it wasn't going to happen! I didn't doubt that Julia had something in mind though, so I was worried.

We'd left the room, ignoring most of the chatting going on around us (I didn't want to respond to the girl who, I hoped jokingly, suggested the room I was so good in might be the bathroom. What was she thinking?). I was contemplating having to repeat my speeches in my and Julia's next classes, presuming the Principal and 2IC had covered the whole grade. I decided that I couldn't be bothered, figuring that enough students had heard the original speech, or had heard the fear-removing update.

I said to Julia, "I'm not going to bother giving that speech again. I know it's a good one, but I feel stupid giving it in classes where most of the students have already heard a version of it and I'm worried about getting in trouble by wasting so much class time if I keep making it. I think the remaining people will hear about it through word of mouth anyway. I'm just going to tell my classes that those of them that haven't heard my speech should ask around. You should do nothing, just leave it to me, okay?"

Julia agreed. She added, "By the way, well done on that 'half a girlfriend' thing. That was perfect."

I like being perfect, but I also like to know how. I didn't have time to ask now so I saved it for later.

In my next class it was easy to tell who had heard my speech and who hadn't. The first group greeted me in a VERY friendly manner. I particularly enjoyed that it included many girls. The other class members shrunk away and didn't want to be anywhere near me. They were confused by the warmth of the first group's welcomes.

I waited until the start of class, then got permission from the teacher to address the class for a minute.

I said, "The Principal and Mr. Morrison have been spreading a huge amount of fear about me. I strongly dislike their statements. I have discussed this in some of my classes, but won't do so now."

"Aww," and a few similar comments from several of the students.

"Sorry, but I don't want to waste any more class time. Will those who heard me give my 'Love Speech' JUST in the last period raise your hands and keep them up please. Only if you heard it last period. If you heard it before then please keep your hand down." I'd figured that people who liked me were far more likely than the fearing students to raise their hands on my request, so I worded my request that way around. I wanted just those that had heard the version that refuted the Fear speech, but I didn't want to say "refuted the Principal's speech" out loud, in case the teacher thought it worthwhile to report that to the Principal.

A good proportion of hands went up, although less than half.

I continued, "If the people who have their hand up can identify a couple of their friends from among those who have their hands down, and have a talk with them about it when you get a chance, I'd appreciate that very much. Those of you with your hands down, if you haven't had the situation explained to you in a day or two, please seek out someone who has their hand up. I think you'll be happier when you have."

Several of the hands-up crowd made comments: "I'll say." | "I'll tell you after class, Brent." | "No one can tell it like you, Egg. Go on, give your speech again."

I said, "Thanks for the time, Teach. Over to you."

[I repeated the above process in each of my classes for the rest of the day. By the end of the day there had been a marked reduction in the number of my fellow students who were fearful of me. Word of mouth was working. By the end of the next day the fear speeches had been largely negated.]

I sat down and opened my bag, ready to do some actual schoolwork for a change. I spotted Miss WhatsHerName's envelope and its attached note. I pulled them out with my book and folder, but paid attention to the teacher for a while first. I waited until I was comfortable with what the teacher was covering, and knew that I could follow it with a minimum of attention, then I did as the envelope requested by reading the handwritten note first.