The Best Australian Stories (58 page)

‘When I first came here, there was an epidemic of drugs and violence. We had to ban mobile phones and pagers to keep kids out of the reach of dealers. Teachers were being bashed. And this school had the worst suicide rate in the state. We'd lost more than twenty students in the last three years of the old regime.'

Karen swallowed hard.

‘We've turned things around,' Dr Best told her. ‘In the last two years, we haven't had a single suicide. Not an attempt. We took some new ideas on board, and fought to maintain absolute consistency of approach. And the kids appreciated the fact that we cared enough to know when to cut some slack.'

Karen wanted to ask about that. She'd heard the same phrase used by senior staff, but didn't understand what they meant by this cutting of slack. The school might have been trialling a new drugs policy.

Just at that moment, Dr Best clutched at her head as if she'd been stabbed.

‘Should I call someone?' Karen asked.

‘No, no. I'll be fine,' the principal told her, wincing for a moment till the crisis passed and she was able to look the bewildered newcomer in the eye. ‘I wouldn't miss first day for anything. First day sets the tone.'

*

Around 8.15, students began streaming into the schoolgrounds; the boys in their short sleeves and shorts, the girls in summer frocks designed to combat the intense heat that always accompanied the arrival of first term. As Karen expected, their faces reflected the ethnic diversity of the western suburbs; many Asians and Africans to go with students of Mediterranean and Balkan origin. And the uniform smiles told her that these kids were happy to be back.

The initial Form Assembly with 9B passed without a hitch, attentive students apparently content that their form teacher would also be taking them for art. When Boris Feltov and Maggie Nguyen failed to answer her call, Karen was told that they were present, but had been transferred to 9IC. The teacher noted this without comment, 9IC being another of her art classes.

General Assembly gathered some nine hundred students and fifty staff. After welcoming the school community, the vice-principal spoke of the school's outstanding academic performance in the previous year. For the first time ever, the Year 12 pass-rate exceeded 85 per cent, and more than 50 per cent of candidates were accepted into the tertiary course of their first choice. When Dr Best was introduced, the entire assembly rose in a moving display of affection.

Most of what Dr Best said was standard low-key inspirational stuff about mutual respect and community. Nothing in her speech identified her as an exceptional educator in the way her seeping head wound did. Towards the end of her message, the principal told the gathering that the school's phenomenal success with academic programs, and also with its anti-drugs and anti-suicide programs, had encouraged the Education Department to treble its funding for integration students. The whole school had a right to be proud that Prospect was leading a revolution in educational methods.

While the assembled rose to applaud, Karen sidled up to the head of her art department, mainly to note surprise at the absence of integration students.

‘Oh, I think you've misunderstood,' Darren Price told her. ‘It's a different kind of integration. It's not about bringing challenged people into the broader school community. This is about personal integrity … I wouldn't have thought it could work, but the results speak for themselves. It's given kids something to aim for.'

Her first Year 11 and Year 9 groups were as quiet and diligent as any art classes Karen had taught. If anything, she would have liked more vivacity. She felt that she was being set up, that the students were hatching a sophisticated plan to pull a rug out from under her.

When she confessed to a fellow art teacher that she didn't feel confident about teaching art to kids with special needs, Sophie told her that the integration kids didn't consider themselves impaired in any way, and she shouldn't either. They were very expressive. And resourceful. Integration classes were the way of the future. The best fun.

*

Integration classes were taught in a new building to the west of the college campus. This block was almost ridiculously well appointed by the standards of other schools Karen had seen in the west. Lifts and ramps. Airconditioning. The latter made it the preferred location to teach art in the summer, with the blood and bone factory a poor neighbour when winds blew hot and dusty.

Though numbering just nine, the students in class 11IC would drop the jaw of any art teacher in her first week on the job. Con Soutannis had lost his right arm at the shoulder blade, and Mary Pavlidis had a mauve-coloured glass eye. Wendy Koh had no fingers on her left hand, while Caroline McQuillan's absent tongue prevented her from speaking clearly. Mossy Behrens was a skinny kid in a wheelchair, very likely paraplegic. Where Eva Ng's right forearm was a bloody stump, neither Nellie Wang nor Amber McKenzie had legs below the left knee, the first preferring a wheelchair, while the latter used crutches to augment her prosthesis. Only the African girl who went by a single name, Pol, had no obvious physical impairment, though the teacher noticed a slight buzz in her vicinity, and for all Karen knew, the girl was being kept alive by some sort of defibrillator.

Yet for all this, 11IC was a magical group. Whenever Karen apologised for suggesting techniques that might be physically impossible for some of them, the class immediately came up with an ingenious solution. The students expected to be able to paint, screenprint, draw and sculpt, and asked for no concessions to be made. Karen would soon feel ashamed of all the times she'd complained about trivial hardships. These kids, who had endured so much in their short lives, were uncomplaining. If it wasn't such a cliché, the teacher might have described them as inspirational.

*

The 11IC class had so caught Karen's imagination that she spoke of nothing else while Paul rubbed massage oil into her shoulders, back and buttocks. Her boyfriend had only just begun to trace the outline of her sex with his thumbs when Karen recalled some students Sophie had mentioned. What had Sophie meant when she said that these two would be IC before the year was out? But this question soon vanished as the young pedagogue opened up to accept a skilled masseur whose interests were mainly extra-curricular.

*

Weeks flew by. Karen expended phenomenal amounts of energy in the classroom, and the weight just peeled off her. She committed her students' names to memory, and always did her best to commend behaviours and contributions she wished to encourage. The kids were remarkably enthusiastic, and Karen thrilled to the challenge of getting the best out of her art classes, 11IC in particular.

When Mossy Behrens, whose drawings displayed astonishing sensitivity and detail, was absent for three successive classes, the art teacher grew concerned. Nellie Wang told her that Mossy was in hospital having another two ribs removed. He expected to be back at school within a fortnight. However ill or disadvantaged, you couldn't keep these kids away from school.

Later, a fellow art teacher, Gavin McGibbon, found Karen admiring one of Mossy's lithographs in the staff-room. The illustration featured two young boys playing with a bull terrier.

‘I reckon that'd be Mossy and his brother Sam,' Gavin told her. ‘I taught Sammy four or five years back. Broody kid. Barely said boo. The mum was OK, but their old man was a useless shit. Dealt smack through the pokie clubs. Sammy ended up cutting his wrists in the bathtub. Back then, I would've put money on Mossy going the same way. Depressive kid. Even in Year 7.'

‘What happened to him?' Karen asked.

‘They started the Integration Program here,' Gavin said, missing her point. ‘Best thing that could have happened to Mossy. Saved his life.'

*

Karen's special favourite was Caroline McQuillan. Losing a tongue hadn't stopped Rowdy from being a joker. She skipped through the classroom, humming, or singing in her own strange fashion, a cross between Björk and a lovestruck magpie. Rowdy was an extraordinarily pretty girl, keenly sought after by senior boys, but shy in the face of their advances. As an artist, collage was her thing. She took after Kurt Schwitters. Even her weird rhythmic mutterings seemed like homage to Schwitters' sound poems.

That said, Rowdy's parents, Jack and Paris, were the most defeated human beings Karen had met. Praise of their daughter's talent or personality left them unmoved. When the teacher commended one brilliantly advanced piece of collage, the mother turned her back and said something inaudible. Karen made the mistake of asking her to repeat the remark.

‘What did I say? I said I'd rather she was dead than stuck here with this lot.'

*

Mossy Behrens returned to class sickly thin, and lost strength had forced him to exchange his manually operated wheelchair for an automatic steed. But Mossy insisted that he'd never felt better. The operations had been a complete success. By the end of the year, he'd have no need for a wheelchair of any kind.

‘I brought this for you,' Mossy said, giving Karen an immaculate pen and ink drawing of herself sitting at a desk in front of the class. Reduced to speechlessness, the teacher kissed the proud artist and let the tears race down her cheeks.

*

‘Hey, I nearly forgot to say, there was a story about that school of yours on the wire services.'

Paul and Karen were dressing for a dinner to celebrate his mother's fiftieth birthday. Ordinarily, Paul didn't say much about Karen's work, except to complain when it drained her sexual energies.

‘Some bloke from Switzerland claiming that stuff they were doing at Prospect violated an international treaty safeguarding children's rights.'

Karen felt certain that Paul had read the piece arse-about, missing the point that Swiss educators probably wanted to use Prospect as a model. Paul conceded that he'd only skimmed the piece; and the unusual conjunction – his partner's suburban high school and a major international organisation – only struck him later. They'd be sure to hear more about it if there was any substance to what the Swiss people were claiming.

*

Just before Easter, Sally Young, the brightest girl in 9A, was expelled. A small quantity of marijuana was found in her locker, and Sally's parents were called to the school. Having spoken to Karen on several occasions, the mother enlisted the art teacher's support. Karen told her that she'd talk to Dr Best, but couldn't promise to have any influence in the matter. In her experience, the principal never reversed decisions.

Just lately, the scar on Dr Best's forehead had turned a frightening shade of crimson, and Karen wasn't alone in thinking that the wound might be infected. Yet the Empress was formidable as ever. Any meeting with a young staff member was more like an audience than a chat.

‘You're right. Sally Young is a good girl, and one of our most brilliant students. But she knew the rules. This school has zero tolerance of drugs.'

Karen tried to argue that it was a minuscule amount of grass. There was no suggestion that Sally had persuaded anyone to smoke with her. A reprimand might be more appropriate.

‘Zero means zero. Drugs were a scourge here, and we had to take radical measures to show kids that life has more to offer than narcotic oblivion … We've freed up their imaginative expression. Prospect tolerates more behaviours than most schools, but not drug-taking. Drugs insult the human imagination.'

If Karen ever wanted to make a case for drugged-up artistry, this wasn't the time. Dr Best reminded her how the school had eliminated bullying, smoking and alcoholic excess. Acts of violence were now extremely rare. Eating disorders and mental health problems had declined markedly. Accepting this, Karen realised that no case could be made for retaining Sally. The girl knew the rules, and she failed to appreciate just what this school was about.

*

Though Mossy's quip to Eva was intended innocently enough, when the teacher overheard, she thought the boy had to be set straight. He'd said that chicks were more trouble than they were worth.

‘I was only talking about women and me, Miss, not the value of women in general.'

Karen knew enough about adolescent complexities to recognise that not all remarks should be taken seriously, but she adored Mossy and didn't want to picture him becoming resentful and blaming women for his frustrations.

‘I'd be very surprised if you don't find time for girls when you're well again.'

As the class roared with laughter, Karen began to wonder if she'd missed some obvious sign that Mossy was gay.

‘If Mossy was interested in chasing girls, he wouldn't have had his ribs knocked out,' Pol observed.

When Karen queried this, Rowdy McQuillan mumbled something that she couldn't understand. Finally, Nellie Wang took pity on her art teacher.

‘It's about auto-fellatio, Miss.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Mossy had his bottom ribs knocked out so that he'll never have to worry about girls. He'll be able to suck himself off whenever he wants.'

Instantly dizzy, Karen found a desk to perch on. ‘Are you saying that Mossy didn't need to have any of these operations?'

‘Of course he had to … How else was he going to reach his knob ?

… Two vertebrae, and six ribs.'

Karen told them she liked black humour, but this was too sick. Mossy had been through a lot. He deserved the same respect they'd expect from him.

‘It's no shit, Miss,' Mossy said, coming to his friends' defence. ‘I never felt real. I always felt that life would be right if I could do it like I do in my dreams. Seeing contortionists just killed me. I'd be thinking, if I could do that, I'd be at myself all day. I'd be like a dog … And then, middle of last year, I read about that Italian painter guy. How he had his ribs knocked out so he could slick the snorkel whenever he wanted.'