Mark Eddinghurst

The problem with Allsworth Academy is that it’s a hypocrite. From the tall sandstone entryway, an arch that yawns like it’s too good for you and is bored, to the hallways just as tall, with gnarled wooden skirting, olive green walls, and black-white chequered floors. They’re marred, ruddy with the scuff marks of a million over-polished black shoes, only to be polished again each morning by cleaners trying to mask it. It’s all like decades-old fashion a wearer’s afraid to abandon because it’s what makes them them. But then the dust drifts in with the morning light through windows, and all the tears, wrinkles, and stains in that fashion’s lain bare, no matter the wearer’s desperate smile. Every morning as I sit here, at my wooden desk in the shadowy classroom corner, I think the same: Allsworth Academy demands neatness and properness from its students, yet it sags. It’s a hypocrite.

“Mark Eddinghurst,” came Mrs. Sanders voice. I raise my hand as if by instinct, and then the names troll on and on. I used to sit and wonder whether everyone’s faces really suited their names, as Mrs. Sanders called them during registration, but then I started feeling bad about it. Only because I compared myself to them, and didn’t like what I saw. “Mark’s a strong name,” Father said. “There’s punch to it. Now are you going to back that up with your fists, boy, or will they stay limp at your sides while you take lumps from everyone else? Are lumps all you take from them?” I remember those words, spoken from his stocky face as impenetrable as a bank vault. They hit worse than the bruises from break.

As Mrs. Sanders reeled off the names, like showing off a collection, I thought of myself: mousy, weak from knees to frame to face, eyes sunken behind glasses like moles cowering in burrows. My glasses’ frames are black like they coordinate with my hair, draping over my cheeks as I wish it’d curtain the rest of me.

I’m not as strong as the name Mark’s meant to be, I guess. But Allsworth Academy’s a drab, dusty, outdated mess itself, so why’s it judging? It’s got no right making me want to keep my head down as I trudge to class, making me notice how scuffed those floors are.

It’s the same classroom we use for registration as for English. It means fewer floor tiles to walk over – fewer cracks and stains that the Academy wears like medals. But instead, it means staring at the same peeling beige wallpaper and wooden wall panelling for an hour longer. As Nadia Barnsby rises from her seat to give a report before the class, I imagine the whole room envies her. The tarnished cupboard handles wondering why they don’t glisten anymore, like her necklace. That peeling wallpaper, darkened by damp, wishing it looked as bright as her strawberry blonde hair does, once more. Tall windows bordered by age-old panes all mottled in rust, disapproving of the bangles she wears, the necklace, the small military tattoo just beneath her skirt. When she walks forward, and the sun hides beneath clouds, it’s like the windows decide she doesn’t deserve to be shone upon – not if she’s sullying the dress code so. Maybe I envy her too. Their disapproval doesn’t mean a thing as she holds her paper before her and begins to read aloud, all keen and confident. How did anyone just ignore that kind of thing? That disapproval?

I hadn’t been listening to her, so I don’t remember where she said she was going this Summer. That’s what today was all about; giving reports on our holiday plans. Mrs. Sander just sat, listening and nodding while Nadia spoke, like this was all a masterpiece she’d composed. Her grey hair sat tied in a bun, crowning a wrinkled face that was used to smiling, but I could tell just by the corners of her mouth how artificial those smiles were. Not longer a means to ease and encourage pupils, but instead just part of the job that could be refreshed no more than the tiles or wallpaper could be. Her cardigan was the same navy blue as our blazers, like that was her one unique trait, but was careful not be too unique.

That time-chewed cardigan, see-sawing nod, and hook-held smile were as awful as the reports being read. No one cared what anyone did on Summer; it was just a chance for the lucky few to boast while everyone else watched the clock upon the wall that had long stopped ticking, as if pressuring it to get going again.

“They say the weather’s real changeable, so I’m taking two cases – one just full of different jackets,” Nadia crooned. “The hotel has the best service, though, so they’ll carry all that to the room from the minibus.”

I know why I don’t like this, really. The real reason. Nadia speaks, and I’m reminded of father again.

“You’re cold?” he said once. “You’d freeze to death if you put up with the mornings I did in boot camp, boy. They’d use that beak you call a nose as an icepick. They’d lift that skinny frame of yours right up, and strike down with you! You’re cold, boy? Then fill out, y’goddamn twig.”

Everything Nadia said just made me remember, like her excitement and my memories were a mocking dance. Her words and my thoughts took turns: “We’ll be in the middle of town, so walking to the beach will take a while.”

“If you missed the bus, boy, you’ll walk to school. No, I don’t care if it’s raining. Once you’re in military school – and I am sending you there, getting you out my sight – you’ll wish walks in the rain were all you got.”

“We’re going to the aquarium, too. We’ve already booked tickets. There’s so many species to just look at – you could spend the whole day staring! There’s...”

“Did I say you could look at me, boy? Keep your head down, it’s all you’re good at.”

“I’ll just have to hope my brother behaves. Last year, in Monza, he was almost thrown out of a cafe for...”

“They didn’t throw me out,” Father was drunk as could be, that night. “It was a discharge, boy – that’s what y’tell people. Sounds better. What business is it of yours, aye? If they didn’t, you’d have no one lookin’ after you. Your mommy’s not comin’ back, boy, and you’d better do well once it’s your turn out there. I wont open the door if they send you home early.”

“There are some streets we’re meant to avoid, though. The outskirts have a homeless problem. It’s really so sad, ‘cause...”

“You don’t look like me, boy. Not with that weak, pale, beak-nosed face of yours.” I held back a shudder. That night was the most I’d seen him drink. “I never trusted your mum. The day I went on duty, I knew she was out boozin’, and doin’ lines, and chasin’ guys behin’ my back. If – If I find out you’re one of theirs,” he said, sitting alone in the armchair surrounded by the black of night. All that gleamed were his bloodshot eyes and the blade of his knife, pointed right at me as I stood in the hall doorway. “You’re out. Out on the street. And that’s if I keep you in one piece.”

The memories rushed over me in waves, until I heard Mrs. Sanders speak. “Mark,” she called. “Please pay attention.”

My fists clench, and I hate myself for it. Voices giggle all around me, and I hate them more. No, I want to reply. Nobody cares where she’s going. It’s bullshit – it’s another stupid resort that’s all cleanly and proud up front, but everyone’s boozing, and doing lines, and chasing each other where the pricks in suits and bow-ties don’t want you to see. People point knives there, too, and people get killed. And nobody helps them. I can tell my face is red by the way the giggling grows louder. My hair isn’t long enough yet; it can’t hide me well. Places like that are as fake as your smile, I want to say. They’re as bad as this place, telling everyone how great they are when they’re really just a mess. I wont be enjoying the beach, or the aquarium, or a holiday with family. I’ll be in the rain all summer, used like an icepick, worrying whether my father is really my father, then worrying about getting discharged. That’s how my summer will be, and if I’m going to be shouted at and disciplined in military school, then I’m damned going to do some shouting of my own, right now!

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am,” I say.

The class is almost over. The whole semester is, in fact, and Summer will feel like it just crept up on us. The one giving his report now is Joseph Ferrentz, one of the voices who laughed earlier. I always saw myself in him, but in the worst possible way, like he’s who I should have tried to be. Broad-shouldered, chiselled, dark hair cropped neat like he doesn’t have to hide. There he stands, tall and straight like the drill sergeant, not the new and confused recruit. He has a voice that grips like a vice, punctuating every word as iron-hard as a vice would be. Every syllable like a round of gunfire, and everyone had better pay attention to it if they know what’s good for them. I just know he’d do better in the military than me if even his speech carries that pinpoint accuracy. He was even the one who convinced Nadia to get that tattoo. So why can’t he take my place? Maybe I’d be better at something else. A suit-clad, bow-tied barker at Nadia’s resort, maybe. It’s not that I mean to sulk and mope – father never once approved of it – but I know summer's going to be trouble. I can’t help feeling like this when everyone else is so excited, and have things to look forward to, can I? Joseph’s still talking, and the windows aren’t shunning him as they did Nadia; they wouldn’t dare, or else his gunfire would break them. The cupboard handles aren’t petty and envious now; they’d salute, if they could just get their elevation right. The wallpaper doesn’t want to sag while Joseph’s up there, because it thinks it should take his example, and be straight and prim again.

I can’t look at him, because I know what will happen after class. Those bruises from break I remembered earlier came from a run-in with him. But if I am going to military school, and do have to toughen up, I don’t have many chances left. Semester’s almost done. My turn to speak is next, and as Joseph finishes and sits back down at his desk, I think quick. I could dress the whole thing up, and tell the class I’ll spend summer learning to fight, to survive, to track enemies, to master espionage, and every other cliché. I could say all that while looking Joseph dead in the eye – that’ll show him. That’ll make everyone remember me as something more than the mouse in the corner, hidden in his hair. My dad’s arranging it all, I could say. He used to be in the army. He’s got connections. Yeah, I could spin all this.

“Mark Eddinghurst,” said Mrs. Sanders, in the same tone as during registration. “You’re up next.”

I was about to rise, and paused. Could I say that about father when they knew he had a drinking habit? Could I honestly say I was learning to fight, and expects gasps instead of laughter? I hesitated, and everyone noticed I wasn’t holding any report.

“Mark?” Mrs. Sanders pushed. “Is something the matter?”

“I… didn’t do it, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I didn’t write anything.” I honestly just forgot. I had been worrying about summer, that’s honestly all it was. I hoped I could make it up as I went. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I forgot.”

There was no laughing this time. Just that smug silence I’d grown used to. It wasn’t the first time I’d messed up this semester, and people only laugh at the same joke so often.

Mrs. Sanders glared at me, and even her false smile was struggling to stay afloat. “I see,” she said. And that was all.

Class was over, and next up was Chemistry. Usually, that meant walking over those ever-sneering tiles and towards the other side of Allsworth, but instead I turned downstairs, through the vestibule, and outdoors. This was because Joseph had a free period, and this was where he often spent them.

He stood outside the vestibule with three of his friends, and it always seemed to me that the biggest difference between them all is just what they wear, and their hair colour. Just as tall, strong-of-arm, and confident. Even their laughs sound similar, and as I walk up, I catch what they’re saying. That’s because it’s quiet here otherwise. Just me, and them. And they’re talking about me, stopping only once I’m spotted.

“And here he is,” Joseph began. “What do you want?”

“I might not be back after summer. Dad’s sending me to military school.”

There was silence for a moment, then a couple of his friends laughed like they couldn’t be sure whether it was a joke. Joseph just began grinning, and somehow that was worse. “You can’t even take the bottle out your dad’s hand to stop him hitting you with it,” he said, as he leaned closer. “So what’re you going to do in the military?”

“I don’t know, and don’t know how long I’ll be there, either. I might not come back.”

“Aye? And why would I care if –”

He went silent as suddenly as glass breaks, right as I punched his jaw. A sound like glass breaking would have been perfect – just what I wanted – in exchange for all those bruises before. As soon as the shock wears away, the others lower their school bags off their shoulders and hurry to grab me, just like the police did to father during one of his louder, angrier nights. The neighbours called authorities, but no one was about to step in and help me now that I’d set this in motion. I swung again, hoping to hit his jaw some more, but as his friends seized my arms and shoulders, Joseph grabbed my fist mid-swing. I winced as I learnt that Joseph’s voice wasn’t all that was vice-like.

Joseph’s friends begin pushing, punching, hitting me all over; pain spikes through my shoulder, my breath turns to a knot of agony as I’m spiked in the gut, my glasses are shattered. But I had to do something, before summer began. It’s going to be much more painful, I can just tell, and so I have to muster some backbone. I have to.

My fists aren’t limp at my sides this time. Joseph picks me up, and I can barely brace myself as I feel the wind for just a moment before hitting the tarmac head first. But no one’s using me as an icepick yet. My neck feels as broken and battered as my glasses, but worst will be the bruises. Proof I’m still taking lumps.

There’s still a few days before summer starts. If I’m too sore to get out of bed in time, I’ll have to walk to school, even if it’s raining. But maybe I’ll take fewer lumps tomorrow.