The Class of Twenty-Twelve

Part One, by Michelle Wilder

Hundreds and thousands of girls. Decades of girls. Men teachers... but all girl students. He was the first boy, ever. The only one.

---

(Previously published here in a slightly different form as 'New School')

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The last students were funneling into the school, like water down a drain. A loud ringing echoed out the doors.

“Would you hurry UP!!? That's second bell already! ” Megan grabbed Craig’s arm and leaned into a near-run, skirts flying in the breeze. “We’re gonna be late!”

Her best friend was already hurrying... he thought, anyway. Not running, for sure, but not dawdling either. Things to hurry to. Right. New school. New kids. New teachers. Everything new. The new freak.

He sighed and tried to pick it up a few fpm when Megan suddenly stopped and stood in his way, taking his hands.

“Look, it’ll be better, okay? I promise....” She'd seen the old Craig make a reappearance. The one who hadn’t been able to go back to his old school. She tried to make him feel her confidence through her grip.

“You’re in my home room, and Mr. Johnston is really a great teacher and he, he won’t....” Anything. He wouldn't do anything. He was a safe man. "He's really cool, you'll see."

They’d all talked about all of it, her and his sister and parents and Mr. Banning and the psychiatrist. Her parents and... everyone. The police.

She didn’t want to do it all again, or have the energy, or the tears. And she knew it’d be better here. Her school. Now his school, too. Their school.

“I promise, okay? Please?” She pulled him into a strong hug and tried to make him remember all of it, all the good stuff that her school would be that they'd talked about.

Diana Warkington saw the two stragglers reach the steps and started to react before she recognized them. Her stiffened frame relaxed back into its normal, somewhat less-intimidating appearance. No runway model, she was still a 'handsome' woman, as she'd been told far too often, though her students had often blessed her with a more treasured description: my favorite teacher.

As they reached the front doors she pulled one open before Megan could grasp the handle.

“Wha... Oh! Mrs. Wark-ington...”

Megan looked upset for a second before Diana smiled. “It’s okay, Megan.” She turned her attention to Craig. “Welcome to our school, Craig. Do you remember me? I’m Principal Diana Warkington. We met last week?”

He didn’t look like he remembered, because he didn't, but he knew he’d gotten them in trouble already and Megan was an honor student and...

“I’m glad I caught you two before class.” Diana caught Craig’s face changing in a fraction of a second and realized how close he’d been to... crying, perhaps. She interrupted his thoughts and gathered them towards the school offices before he could complete the emotion, or relapse, or... whatever. Her students weren't like this too often, thank goodness, but she had decades of experience to draw on.

"Now, Craig, we need you to sit down with Miss Edwards and go over your class schedule and subject retesting and then you come see me and I'll take you around to meet your teachers, okay, dear?"

She thought she should stay with him a while as he still looked fragile. She put an arm around his shoulders to guide him into the busy front office and looked up only when she thought he was composed enough. And once again rejoiced that the board hadn't jumped on the 'no touching the students' bandwagon: he needed an arm just then.

"Everyone?"

Everyone looked up and the room quieted to the hush of a telephone conversation and the copy machine.

"This is Craig Danvers, our new student. Craig, this is the school office and I'll introduce you around... this is Mrs. Dzyndra, our office manager, and if you need anything at all that you don't know, you see her...."

The introductions took only a few minutes. Craig tried to remember, and tried to be polite, and tried not to see the pictures hung all about the room. Sports teams. Choirs. Casts of plays. Graduating classes. Some of them looked like they were from a century ago, though he knew the academy was only half that old.

And they were all girls. Hundreds and thousands of girls. Decades of girls. Men teachers, especially in some of the newer ones... but all girl students. He was the first boy, ever. The only one.

"Sweetheart?"

He looked up and Mrs. Dizz-indra was leaning over him, her hand kind of stopped in the air near his face. She was an old woman, or looked old, but she reminded him of his Aunt Lulu, who was the nicest....

"Are you feeling alright? You looked pale there for a moment."

She even sounded nice, and touched his forehead with the back of her hand. Like his mother. He nodded. She looked confused, or like she was going to ask more, until he smiled.

"I was just... I guess I'm just nervous."

She smiled a huge smile, showing all her teeth. "Of what? Mrs. Warkington's bark is far worse than her bite, I assure you." She winked and made it a joke.

"And I know you'll like Mr. Johnston. He's a wonderful man and a very fine teacher, and I happen to know that your class is the nicest in the school." She grinned at him like a secret. "Aside from Megan, of course... a real troublemaker...."

Megan was in Mrs. Warkington's office just then and Craig looked at the door, unsure if he was supposed to keep up a joke, or if....

"Oh for heaven's sake, Carole, leave the poor thing alone!"

"Who? Megan?! She doesn't need any help!" Mrs. Dzyndra and the other ladies laughed, but like it was a good thing.

And Craig wasn't nervous any more, when he noticed.

----

It was into second period by the time Mrs. Warkington walked with him to his new homeroom, so it wouldn't even be homeroom, but English Literature, which was Mr. Johnston's class, and Megan was in it too, so it was still, well, the same.

There were dozens more photos of girls in the hallways, each with a typewritten list of everyone pictured and the date, just a year. 1949. 1950. 1963. They stopped at door 221, beside a photo of the graduating class of 1956. It wasn't a very-very big class, and all the girls looked grown-up in long skirts and jackets, all the same.

"Here we are." Mrs. Warkington knocked on the door and opened it a second later, peeking in before stepping in. "Mr. Johnston, I'm here with Craig Danvers." She pushed open the door and nudged him through in front of her.

Everyone looked at him. All the girls. Some grinning, some neutral, some not. One girl in the middle of the room scared him, she was so mean looking. But they were all looking, and he couldn't look away. Then Megan stopped smiling and stood up at her desk. "Mrs. Warkington?"

Mrs. Warkington looked around at her, and him, just before he was going to turn and leave. Or something like that. But she saw something, from her face, and he stopped.

"Craig?" Mr. Johnston stepped over and put out his hand. "I'm Mr. Johnston and I'll be your new homeroom teacher, student advisor and English Literature teacher. It's good to meet you." He smiled.

Craig had to concentrate, but he shook hands and tried to look normal, even if things were blurring by too fast. Mr. Johnston seemed nice. He didn't hold his hand too long, either. The one policeman was like that....

The memory made Craig feel cold.He didn't like shaking hands with men any more.

He was shown to the empty desk beside Megan, an old-fashioned wooden one with a lifting top, and got his english text and followed along. He pretended to, anyway, it was all going way too fast. But at least he could look at the room and slow down.

Mr. J - all the girls called him that, except the mean one - Mr. J was nice, kind of dramatic, like over-acting so they could see what he meant, and really pretty good at explaining without making questions seem stupid or something. Not like most teachers did, in most classes he'd been in.

He was younger than Mrs. Warkington and the funny woman in the office, whose name he'd already forgotten... Mrs. Dizzinda, Dizzindra. But he was still older than his father, or looked it. Maybe that he was older was easier.

He tried not to look at any of the other students - girls - unless they were talking or asking something, and then he just peeked, but they seemed different than his old school. More like the nerds there, but not like them, either. Maybe that they were almost all listening to what Mr. J was teaching. Some weren't, but most were.

In his old school, most would've been ignoring him.

The classroom was really nice, too, like a library, with one wall all oak bookshelves with glass-door cabinets on top, and the other side all old windows all the way to the ceiling. It looked a hundred years old.

---

When the bell rang everyone moved, like a rush of sound, scraping chairs and books and talking and laughs. About six girls turned to him. One of the tallest girls in the class, who had the desk on his right... Karen, he sorta remembered... Karen turned in her seat and smiled again, like she had on and off all class.

"Hi, Craig." She smiled more, like she thought something was funny. "Welcome to Balantine's and if Megan's your friend then you can't be as bad as Shelly says so I'll reserve judgement."

Another girl growled and laughed and said shaddup dummy, and stuck her hand out like a guy. "Hi. I'm Shelly and welcome too, and don't listen to Karen."

"Hi...." Craig had to think past his nervousness, but he took her hand and she squeezed his pretty hard.

She looked completely normal, not making fun of him... none of them did. Just the one who'd glared at him and she'd left in a hurry when the bell rang and not even looked at him again as far as he knew.

Megan took over introductions: Karen, Shelly, Brittany, Nayleen, Gillian ("AKA Gilligan" "Shut UP, Shelly! It's 'Gillian,' hi!").

They all said hello and he was welcome and they didn't once say anything about him being a boy, there, in the whole two minutes before the next class' warning bell.

----

Lunch was different. Karen and Nayleen were in his Civics class and they'd introduced him to their study group, the way the class was set up, and all of them walked to the lunch room together.

Lunch was in its own room on the ground floor, and along the way they passed four girls standing outside a washroom who stared at him. One was the girl from his homeroom.

The girls he was with stopped laughing and talking and Karen sniffed. Nayleen did something with her hand, a flip thing, and then turned her back on them and spoke to Craig, just loud enough for their group to hear.

"Ignore Saundra and the coven. She's just pissed that her perfect world is more complicated than a Saturday cartoon." Then she lowered her voice. "She was mad at me too. Not blonde enough for her...."

She sounded a lot madder than she was trying to look.

Craig watched her, and suddenly realized there weren't many black or... most of the girls in the school were white. He looked back down the hall at the four girls, including Saundra. "She's prejudiced?"

Nayleen looked at him differently and almost snarled. "Yes! And she said my name was phony... an-"

"Then she's an idiot!" When she looked up at him, he tried to smile. "I like your name. It's beautiful. It made me think of a bible name, or like an Arabian Nights story...."

Nayleen looked at him a few seconds and then smiled a little. "Thanks."

He could see how hurt she still was and how... he didn't have any idea. But his chest hurt. He knew how bad it was back in Central High for any of the black or other kids who weren't plain white. Or what Jeremey said was straight-looking, straight-acting. Same difference from the bigots. So it was the same here. Except for her smile.

Nayleen and the other girls were watching him, or both of them, when another girl from homeroom, he didn't know her name, walked up and said hey, guys? and they all broke up, or the tension and feelings that had happened seemed to disappear, except Nayleen took his arm for the rest of the way while everyone chatted and she introduced the girl as Naomi, "Another bible name."

And she winked, or scrunched both eyes, anyway, but she'd lost the hurt look.

"My mother'd argue the bible stuff," Naomi said, and rolled her eyes. "She was thinking more like the pagan, naked-dancing in the moonlight Naomi type."

Nayleen's arm felt nice, like Megan was there. Karen and Nayleen were like Megan, he realized. Felt like her. They all did, sorta. Like she'd promised, like his sister had, too.

-

There were big tables in the lunch room, but none big enough for everyone. Craig sat between Nayleen and Megan in the chairs Megan had saved and looked around at the dozen girls at their table. They were all smiling, a dozen different ways, and waiting.

Megan and him had talked about this, and the shrink, and his mom. He mentally ahem-ed and tried to talk despite the sharp pain that was suddenly in his real throat.

"Hi." He had to look at the table, his hands. Everyone saying little 'hi's back helped, even if he kept talking without looking, which was sorta rude. "I'm... I...." He faded out.

"Can I?" Megan put her hand on his shoulder. Craig nodded and looked at his hands again.

"Like you heard, and the letters home, Craig was bullied and had to leave his last school, and the board here was, they agreed he could come here this year for his safety and the school board is paying his tuition and everything. The public school board."

"Isn't... aren't the bullies getting anything?" One of the girls from Civics asked. Paula. Megan answered.

"They're all being completely sued. The school board can't do that, but Craig's parents are and some other parents too." She paused. "And one of them is being prosecuted."

She leaned into his shoulder and looked at him to see. "I guess you all heard about that." She said it so he would know they knew, again.

Nayleen put her hand on his other arm and whispered, "It's okay, honey."

All the girls made okay noises, he thought. But they also gradually got back to more normal talk and ate their lunches. Craig had a few bites.

-

The lunchroom seemed normal, like he woulda expected in any normal school, except for two tables of girls on the other side of the room who sort of seemed different to him, more like his old school, maybe less happy, and except that there were no other boys, it was an okay lunch for him, even though he didn't really eat.

----

All afternoon he sat at a table in the office and did the tests they'd set up for each subject. Mrs. Dzyndra brought him each one and explained they weren't pass or fail tests, just to assess his work. Which seemed the same, but she said it wasn't, and brought him juice once and made him take breaks, too, after each test.

About fifteen minutes before last bell Mrs. Warkington interrupted him, or came up, anyway. He was having trouble with the math test.

"I think that's enough for today, dear." She smiled at his relief. "Six exams in one afternoon is a bit much, I bet?"

She gathered up all the papers and put them in her office and then led him through the quiet halls, showing him the special areas... the music room where the band, or an orchestra or whatever was practicing... the big, dark theater where she told him plays and concerts and assemblies happened. And the two gyms, one where there was going to be a basketball game with another school that night, she said, and some kind of dance class was happening in the other. And the empty game fields.

While they were at the rear doors looking at the fields and the rain, she changed the subject.

"Was everyone nice to you today?" She sounded like it was a regular question. He knew better. He also knew what to compare it to.

"Yes." He looked up at her. She was tall. "Everyone was wonderful." He didn't want to tell her about Saundra or her friends, or what Nayleen had told him.

Mrs. Warkington seemed to think about that, what he'd said. She spoke quietly and looked at his face. "I know it's early, but do you think you'll feel safe here?"

Did he think someone would break his nose here? Or punch him or do burns on his arms hard enough to bleed? Or cut off his clothes with a knife?

Wait after school and rape him? Make him say....

He started to cry before he could stop.

----

His sister was waiting outside in her new car to give Megan and him a ride home. He knew he was late but they acted normal and Lynda didn't embarrass him like she could, even though he was getting used to it. Even though she didn't mean to.

Before they started, before she put the car in gear, Lynda reached over to touch his neck, or his ear, or his cheek for a second. "Are you okay? You look all red-eyed and...."

"It's okay. She... Mrs. Warkington just asked a... a hard question... is all." He tried to sound okay.

Megan reached between the seats and touched his arm too. "Oh... she's usually nice, though. Did she..?"

She stopped, but he knew what she meant. Lynda wanted to ask something hard, he knew.

"She just brought up memories is all." He tried to smile but he had to touch Meg's hand. "I'm alright now."

----

They talked about the school and what Lynda thought were the best parts, again, and about the tests and if he thought he'd be up to the class standards, and he wasn't in geometry at all, or maybe science and history either, but they said that was maybe just the different curriculum and he might, but he knew he was at least a class behind... he was a class behind at Central too, probably. He couldn't study there and skipped a lot....

----

"Okay." Lynda pulled the car over and didn't seem to care about where. She unbuckled and leaned over to pull him into a hug. She rubbed his back.

"Stop thinking about whatever you are and think about this, and the sound of the windshield wipers and the cars, okay? The quiet sounds...."

When he stopped crying, pretty quickly this time, she kissed his forehead and wiped his face and finished driving home.

-

Megan stayed for supper and to help with his first homework in months. English and civics. Reading. Probably not even the real classes he'd be in, even, he thought.

----

Robert sat on the edge of the bed, his rough hand on his son's back and neck, gently rubbing, and waited with Lynda for the tears and shakes to quiet down....

He thought his thoughts of hatred and... revenge. He also, once again, channeled his emotions into more productive thoughts and feelings.

Craig didn't need avenging. He needed love and safety and a father he could trust. He gently stroked his youngest child's hair.

----

Margaret and Robert mourned their old, safe world late into the night. It had been a hard day, full of worries, even if everything had gone so well.

Lynda watched her brother's sleep-softened features until she too drifted off into dreams... good ones, for a change.

----

Homeroom was a ritual. Mr. J read out each name by desk position, front to back in each row, and reminded each girl of her day's whatever: after-school stuff, deadlines and assignments, and even new things that were interesting, like the new school play that was going to start auditions next week. He really knew them all, what every girl was doing.

Way different homeroom.

The girls listened, or worked on things, or even chatted and wrote and passed notes, but Mr. J and whoever he was talking to had the floor. It lasted the whole hour. It was really different than Central.

"Craig?" He was last on the list, different than his desk position, but he was new. "You have testing to finish this morning and I think Mrs. Warkington will have a few results by this afternoon...." He looked at the whole class, then back at him.

"Have any of the activities I've mentioned appealed to you? The varsity sports are off-limits, state rules, but all of the intramural and rec classes and programs are open and I ~know~ Mrs. Higgins is drooling over the idea of an actor with a lower-than-soprano voice." Some of the girls laughed.

Craig had been in two school plays, just bit parts, but they were still fun. Back in junior high. He nodded. "Maybe?"

Megan and Nayleen both made "yeah!" kind of noises and Karen whispered that it was really fun and she was going to audition too. Saundra's desk made a noise. Her direction, at least. It was enough to make Craig's hair prickle.

Mr. Johnston smiled and made some notes in his binder. "Alright then... so drama and...." he looked up. "Any sports or musical or academic interests that I've mentioned?"

"Physics club!" someone at the back called, and a couple of girls laughed.

Mr. J smiled funny. Like laughing funny. "We have a thriving physics club this year, if you're interested?" Craig smiled for the first time, he noticed, after everyone else broke up and someone said there was nobody in it to thrive!

Someone at the back called, "Physics parties!" Craig laughed too, and looked around at who said it, at the nerdiness of it. It didn't even matter if Saundra was looking at him like she was, for just then. He still stopped laughing and turned back. He stopped feeling happy, too.

Mr. Johnston saw Saundra's look, and Craig's smile disappear. Nayleen and Megan saw that he saw.

----

The testing took the rest of the morning, at least with the results that Mrs. Dzyndra and Miss Edwards, the guidance counsellor, went over with him.

He was going to have to re-do his science and maths for sure, maybe with the grade nine classes, maybe with tutors, and all sorts of remedial and catch-up stuff, so far as they could see, but they both said it was okay and he'd do fine.

----

At noon, since he was late, Miss Edwards walked with him to the lunch room. She noticed his steps getting slower as they approached the noisy room, and asked if he had a moment?

-

Stepping into one of the classrooms, she sat in a student chair beside the one she pulled out for him.

She was young, to be a teacher, or counsellor. As young as Lynda.... He looked down after he caught himself looking at her so closely.

"This isn't official, but I'm your guidance counselor.... How are you holding up?"

She didn't move when she talked. Lynda always moved, like tiny little motions with every sound.

He had to think, hard. Not to go to the really big things, not to just hurt from them. Not to lie. Not to tell the truth, or all of it... that he was afraid of Saundra and those girls, and the feelings that were the same in his head as Dan had been, and Kyle. And how that still was a waking nightmare. And he knew it was stupid, or not realistic. But he... they were, to him.

-

Miss Edwards knew what had happened in Kennaston Central High. To him, around him, and ~because~ of what had happened to him. She knew exactly why he was the first boy to ever be enrolled at Balantine's Girls' Academy.

She knew about Saundra too. She even said her name. That Mr. J had mentioned her.

Over a long and tearful lunch hour she began to see that Saundra and the boys at Central were very much the same, to Craig. And as often as he said he was stupid, she kept saying he wasn't.

So he missed science, again. The class he wouldn't even be going to, probably, while he ate in her office. And they talked.

----

When they met Karen and Shelly in the halls on the way to second afternoon class, they took over from Miss Edwards. Then, when she was out of sight, they pulled him into the closest washroom.

"You look like you've been maced!" Shelly stared into his eyes and frowned, almost... well, more sad than frown, as she saw he'd been crying. She pulled him into a hug before Karen could, a second later.

It was the wrong thing to do, for him, almost like a conditioned reflex.

----

In biology, after Karen went in first and whispered to Mrs. Bell something to explain why they were so late, Crag was happy - or at least not mortified - to find that nobody mentioned the concealer that Karen had insisted she dab under his eyes. The eye-drops helped too.

Mrs. Bell didn't even embarrass him by doing the introduction thing, but just said a kind of formal hello and pointed out a seat, and got right back to the class.

----

Lynda saw Craig only after the small crowd of girls spread out from around him. Megan's friends Nayleen and Naomi, and Shelly, she thought. But five or six others, and she saw the quick hugs from Shelly and Nayleen. And Karen, the tall one. Shelly's long one. The way she touched his face.

All the girls touched him goodbye, or made touching reaches to him.

He still cried a little in the car, but not like the first day, and not from the pain of remembering. More like it was a long, hard day and he had to cry. Like he was supposed to. Like she was happy to help with, with Megan, even if it was surprising to find the makeup, which she didn't mention.

----

End of part one