The Soul of the School

Mr. Medema was by all accounts the school’s most respected algebra instructor, except that there was no contendership for such a title since respectable people don’t wear their respect on their sleeves. His round face that wrinkled when he smiled combined with his slim, black clothes and his habit of bowing was almost like someone in the hospitality service. One of last semester’s graduates destined for the Governor’s School stopped by to thank him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, a surprisingly personal gesture for such a thankless profession.

At First Block, Mr. Medema stood before the giant whiteboard and wrote the equation “What is Zero to the power of Zero?” for all to see...

“This is one of the most undefined, mysterious questions in basic mathematics.” he said. “One would think the answer is zero…” he wrote down a list of increasingly small fractions, “but if you try to place increasingly smaller numbers to the power of increasingly small values, let’s say 0.01 to its own power and go down from there, what you find is there actually is a value that gets increasingly minuscule and then mysteriously starts rising again, until it gets as close to our basic integer One as you can get without actually reaching it. Math is a field in which there’s supposed to be a precise integer for everything, and yet there is this unresolved thing out there…”

He frowned as his eyes fell upon Desmond, the student who was always asleep at his desk. Normally he would snap his fingers and make the class wait but he’d have to go over and wake him up first. He wasn’t malicious exactly he just lacked the energy to stay awake, like a human snail that only shows up on rainy days.

This was on Medema’s mind when he heard the strangest conversation in the faculty break room. One of the science teachers was saying that something like blue chewing gum was found under a desk that turned out to be a kind of putty used in crafts, and contained something like a microchip that could be inserted into a laptop to cheat on tests.

Medema questioned this to find out if he was serious. Student laptops were supposed be cheat-proof. To his surprise the science teacher replied that a student would have to know how to take the laptop apart and put it back together to use it. This was multiple steps beyond the level of honesty they were trying to maintain. They agreed the most probable scenario was that an adult was helping them; a less likely scenario was that an unsung student genius was spreading these around for a price. Not discussed at all was the possibility that ordinary delinquents had some kind of underground, certainly not one that had existed as long as this school.

This troubled Medema for the rest of the day. The use of chewing gum made him feel like an animal that had been lured with fake seed. It suggested a level of sophistication delinquents don’t have or they would just pass the tests. Then he thought of Desmond; his lazy student might not be one of them or he wouldn’t be failing, but he might be able to find out who they were. He needed some points for good behavior or he’d be repeating the grade. Yes, Desmond would help him.

He intended to bring this plan to the Vice Principal but the next morning in class Desmond wasn’t at his desk. None of the other students knew where he was, presumably because he was ill or skipping school. Medema called the guidance department and to his surprise was told that he’d been transferred to another class. They were under the impression Mr. Medema had requested the transfer himself.

--

Between blocks Medema wandered outside in a daze. Either his eyes had gone bleary or the Sun was blinding them because he failed to see a basketball come flying over the fence and clock him squarely between the eyes, causing him to stumble backward and the back of his head collided with the sidewalk.

The world went white. He was unaware of the passing of time but he knew something was very wrong. He rolled over onto his knees reaching up to see if his face was still there. He rose to his feet in a brain fog (which a person with a concussion is not supposed to do) and went back inside through the same door.

The hall was packed with students moving like a herd between bells. A large student knocked him down against the lockers in passing, a shockingly violent move that could get someone expelled which the brute didn’t seem to notice as he and his friends continued out of sight. Medema’s face was pressed against the cold steel of the locker, a small scratch on his cheek as he pulled himself up again.

A trio of teenage girls had stopped to stare at him. He wanted to ask them to get the campus security officer and a nurse, but he finally just asked them to call 911.

The girls looked at each other with a smirk and then one of them said “I guess these things just happen. I feel sympathy for you.”. She bent down as if he were a dog, then the three of them exchanged a glance and another one said “Yes we feel nothing but sympathy for you” and they walked on.

He wondered if some kind of brain damage was affecting his perception. In moments the hall was empty and silent. He was alone, then the sound of heels clacking on the floor indicated a member of the faculty was coming. A spectacled woman approached him but instead of helping him she put out her hand and demanded “Hall pass”.

Medema rose slowly. He remembered being taller than her and now he was slightly shorter. As he looked down at himself he discovered he was wearing a stained T-shirt and a black leather jacket. It looked like the clothes Desmond usually wore.

Medema tried to explain that he had been injured and required a substitute, and in addition to this he had been knocked down by a passing student possibly making it worse, and that a school-wide search was needed because of the precedent of such a thing going unreported.

“If you consider how many students were present I think you’ll agree with me.” he thought his conclusion was well-worded and incontrovertible.

“You call that an excuse?” she snapped her fingers and pointed. “Skipping class is an automatic detention. Can’t you punks even speak in complete sentences?”

He tried to speak again but she lashed out as if her hand was a whip, smacking the side of his head which caused a wincing, hot pain that spread from his temple and doubled his vision. He had never known a teacher to physically strike a student, it was grounds for dismissal. He wondered if she did this because no one was watching.

He limped slowly down the hall with the woman walking behind him. It occurred to him someone who has had a stroke might lose the ability to speak without realizing it. On their way to the detention area several respected members of the faculty passed by without recognizing him. He knew each of them very well but the way they carried themselves had changed. They seemed… ugly, one of them even sneered at him, a delinquent under escort.

He was taken immediately to a room at the back of the school that was empty except for three desks he recognized as a style that was discontinued several years ago. He didn’t know classrooms like this existed; there was a crack running down the side of the wall through which dampness was getting in. He recognized the detention monitor as an assistant wrestling coach who was sometimes called on to break up fights in the hallway. The man looked like Clark Kent with his biceps erupting from his shirtsleeves.

Two other students a male and a female avoided eye contact. Medema had always been a keen observer of life, and he could see they were malnourished and listless as if they’d been stuck in this place for too long. The monitor rose like a soldier called to duty and demanded to know his name and whose class he was supposed to be in. Medema politely tried to explain, thinking everyone in authority deserves politeness, but this time instead of an older woman whacking him on the head the large man advanced silently and pushed him forward with his chest until his back was against the wall, the man’s stern eyes boring down for whatever it was he wanted to hear. It was the sort of thing a bully or an eccentric coach might do, and Medema began to realize what this man’s job really was. He had served as detention monitor himself and it wasn’t like this. Now he was made to sit at an empty desk with the others.

There was no clock and he didn’t have a watch so it was impossible to measure the passing of time. Sitting next to him was a girl of only sixteen dressed like a prostitute, with bleached hair and heavily-massacred eyes which made them look sunken. His knowledge told him these choices would eventually cause her to age prematurely which was the opposite of her intention.

He whispered to her asking how much longer they were expected to be here, to which she responded “Why are you talking to me? I don’t even know you.”

He wondered as a mathematician if there was a way to measure time by his pulse, but as he stared at the four walls counting from the hundreds into the thousands it seemed to him the beats were growing slower and more lethargic, and therefore the seconds and minutes he was counting grew increasingly longer. If he lost count for any reason he might have to start over, reminding him of the so-called Chinese Water Torture.

The male student seated to his left passed him something in his palm, a little plastic dime bag with a light green tablet in it. Medema knew drugs existed but this was his first time actually seeing one. He thanked him but did not ingest it, slipping it into his pocket and then lay his face down on the desk and lost consciousness.

--

Hours later Medema awoke to the same room with the same occupants even though he was sure a full night’s sleep had passed. His head felt clearer and he whispered to his classmate “Hey how can I get out of here?”

“Fake a seizure” came a surprising but obvious answer. Of course, no one had actually seen the accident or he would have been taken to the infirmary or a hospital. Medema rolled unceremoniously out of the desk to the floor, still impaired enough to make it convincing, and lie there motionless.

He was aware of the adults’ uncaring discussion over his body. He soon found himself lying on an examination table in the school clinic, where he blinked and sat upright. Where were the EMT’s checking his blood pressure, and the CAT scan to determine if he had a skull fracture? There was only an assistant nurse who was little more than a student himself.

“Feeling better?” the young man inquired, his nose buried in a clipboard.

“I was hit by a basketball…” Medema said groggily, rubbing his head.

The nurse scoffed at this and replied “Well that’s not what I heard.”. He was the first adult who was able to understand him.

“Oh? What did you hear?” Medema looked at him curiously.

“That a student was found sitting in the hall between blocks, and was taken to the detention area where he refused to give his name or class, so naturally they didn’t know what to do with him. The whole guidance department was put to work just to find out who you are.”.

Medema blinked at him. “I suffered a head injury with loss of consciousness and motor skills.” he responded.

“Actually the detention monitor heard you and your friend conspiring to get out of class by faking a seizure, after which he watched you intentionally roll out of your desk onto the floor.”. He held up a small bag containing the green tablet. “By the way I found this barbiturate on you.”.

He turned and dropped it into a wastebasket. Medema stopped in mid-thought and asked him “Who are my parents? Where am I supposed to go at the end of the school day?”

“You don’t know? I’d advise you to stop taking barbiturates.”

He placed the student file in the cabinet and snapped it shut. “Well I give you a clean bill of health. You can report back to your regular class.”

“And which class is that?”

The nurse glanced back at the file and said “Algebra One, that’s Mr. Medema.”

The student’s eyes grew large. “Oh no…” he realized with apprehension.

--

The door to his own classroom was waiting and he entered warily like an animal. All of the other students were already seated. There was a tall, thin man dressed in black sitting at the front whom his eyes never left as he passed by the desk. His own face was more ugly than he realized, pasty with the discolorations of old age.

“Good of you to join us, Desmond.” the teacher said in a cruel voice, his hand grasping a long metal ruler as if it was a saber.

He sat down warily at Desmond’s place. The teacher got up and started making the rounds, checking each desk for the mandatory one hour’s homework that was a third of their grade. The student hadn’t even brought anything with him.

During the lesson Mr. Medema was scribbling on the board and asked a volunteer to offer a solution. Suddenly it occurred to him how he might earn the good graces of himself and end this nightmare. He sat upright and his hand shot up to give the answer.

The teacher was momentarily puzzled by his willingness, but he stepped back and offered Desmond the marker not knowing what to expect. He came forward intending to solve the equation in a way that was more advanced than this class. As he started to write complex variables the teacher’s eyes grew for a moment but the figures almost immediately turned into squiggles. He couldn’t think; the throbbing in his head had returned and stolen the answer from him.

“See me after class.” the teacher grimaced and snatched the marker back from him.

The man’s face was dark with an expression Medema had never seen in his own mirror. After the bell he kicked the door closed and approached Desmond with the steel ruler.

“I thought you were benign…” steam rose from his mouth. “A luckless degenerate-in-training who is a danger only to himself. I’ve been here thirteen years and a flunky has NEVER made a mockery of me in front of students who work hard!”

He lashed out with the weapon cutting into the front of the desk as if he was slicing a cake, then he kicked the desk over and Desmond collapsed to the floor with it. The man walked away from him swiping at the air.

“It’s not thirteen years it’s only twelve…” Desmond responded weakly, his cheek against the floor.

Medema stopped and turned around slowly.

“To think I was going to transfer you to another class.” the man sneered at him. “But I see now that would be letting you off the hook. No the real punishment would be making you stay! You’re going to be stuck here forever!”

--

After class Desmond limped out into the hall. He had no idea where to go from here, but as he stepped into the bathroom there were two delinquents smoking who seemed to recognize him. One of them pointed to the back corner of the room, and as he turned around there stood the Soul of the School, the delinquent whom no adult knows.

He couldn’t believe such a person really existed and yet there he was. He was rather small, hooded in black and seemed to blend in with the mildew of the wall.

“What can I do for you?” the Soul asked him in a scratchy voice, a red ember glowing in front of the shadow that was his face.

“How can you still be a student at your age?” Desmond asked stupidly.

“I am not a ‘student’.” the Soul took offense. “What is your problem anyway?”

The second bell rang indicating they would be hunting him for truancy.

“How do I get out of this nightmare?” Desmond demanded. “The world’s been turned upside down, the school day never ends! The teachers don’t hear anything I say…”

“That is the way it’s always been.” the ember glowed. “It doesn’t matter what you say to them.”

“But I’ve switched places with myself and now I’m completely at his mercy! When he finds out who I really am… I’m going to have to kill him!”

“Now there’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said.” the Soul’s hand disappeared into his raiment and pulled out a pistol, which he handed over freely.

“How can you possibly be in charge here?” Desmond’s eyes narrowed. “The faculty would be aware of it. I mean I studied education, delinquency included.”

“Adults are stupid.” the Soul replied. “Didn’t you know that?”

He departed without another word. Medema looked down at the weapon in his hand. How soon would he start to forget who he really was? He had never harmed anyone or anything, but clearly in this nightmare that wasn’t necessarily true. If he ended his other self would he cease to exist, be punished in this world or would he wake up on the sidewalk as he left it?