The Tale of the Pointer

When I think about my co-ed high school years, two boys come to mind. One of them full of meanness, and the other full of mischief. The mean one, Mark, dreamed up many ways to torment me physically and mentally. I spent my last two years at High School dreaming up and sometimes succeeding in getting even with him. I recollect he took it very well. That’s another story.

Years later, when I bumped into him unexpectedly at a Super Market with a babe in my arms, he seemed delighted to see me. He positively grinned, complemented me on my cute child, and wondered how I had been doing. As if I had been a friend. I never saw him again but I am happy he found out his evil actions hadn’t scarred me forever. Even though I had a life without Mark after he had left school six months before me, I found school life had descended into monotony without him. I came to the conclusion that school bored him. I had been both easy to pick on and free entertainment. Back then, I behaved very prim and proper. Shades of ‘Grease’ the musical, without the music. There had been no malice on his part, just a desire to show off, communicate, and a boyish inadequacy to do so. I’ve heard this is sometimes the case. When he asked me to the school prom. I almost fell over in shock. I could never have trusted him. If things had been different, I believe we could have been friends.

The boy who played pranks in my first year at High School didn’t play them on me. I already knew Stuart before we sat in the same class. One of my girlfriends at a different Primary School used to regale me with all the mischief of a boy at her school, Stuart. I don’t know what I imagined about him physically but the first time I saw him, he played the handsome Prince in their school production of Sleeping Beauty. Oh, my. What a good-looking guy. Vivienne, who became my friend in High School, played the sleeping princess who was woken up with a kiss. Stuart’s kiss. She always had a crush on him.

Despite this, I wasn't happy to have him in my class during my first year at High School. I remember wondering just what he may get up to, in keeping with all the stories I had already heard. His crimes went from trying to guillotine the mice’s tails in the glass sliding door of their wooden cage at Science class, to a year-long tussle with a particularly unconventional English teacher called Mr. Botting. This story is about him. This teacher knew I wanted to write and the fact I told him, gave me the incentive to follow through. I think he may not be impressed with this story though it is unlikely he will read it. He would, at the very least, accuse me of hyperbole. I looked at his teaching methods through the eyes of an innocent schoolgirl.

This is the first time telling the story from the teacher and his pointers point of view. I don’t mean the breed of dog. I mean the long wooden stick which reaches from hand to blackboard when teaching in a classroom. (Back in the days of blackboards I’m afraid) I mentioned it because of Stuart’s persistent schemes to foil its use.

We were newbies (turds – 3^rd formers) at High School, our uniforms were new, and the building had just completed. We sat wide-eyed and excited over our first English class of the year. How our English teacher started this first class left most of us in a state of shock.

Mr. Botting entered the class, took his chalk and drew a horizontal zig-zag up on the board. He gazed at us with cynicism. It looked like he was launching into a Math's lesson on angles.

“Please tell me what this is?” he asked.

“A zig-zag,” replied someone in the class.

“Mmm,” said Mr.. Botting. “Not what I had I mind. Any other ideas?”

“A mountain range,” someone said.

“No,” he said, smirking.

“Hills and valleys,’ suggested another.

“I’ll have to tell you then,” he said with a smile. “It’s what some of your heads will look like after I knock some sense into them with my pointer.”

Interesting, I thought, this must be a lesson on similes and hyperboles. I knew the type of corporal punishment already mentioned would never be allowed.

None of us laughed. When I looked at Stuart’s face, I didn’t read shock. I saw the twinkle in his eye and determination in the set of his jaw. Curious.

Mr. Botting went up to someone who appeared to be dreaming. Thwack! His pointer whacked the desk before him giving us all a fright.

The first mentioned use of a pointer could never happen. A thump down on a desk to wake up a pupil, already had. Its third use would be as a pointer, directing our focus to key words on a blackboard full of items being taught. I was wrong.

Within a few weeks we came to a startling conclusion; Mr. Botting couldn’t teach without it in his hand. As he talked, he paced and twirled that damn pointer around and around the fingers of one hand, and then back again. This distracted us, no end. What was he trying to do? Hypnotize us? Lull us to sleep to frighten us out of our wits by cracking it down on a desk or two?

His level of achievement in pointer spinning is almost impossible. I know this because I practiced . . .and practiced. I couldn’t reach nearly his level of expertise. I’d rehearsed and mastered using chop sticks and wowed my family when we ate Asian cuisine. I have failed at mastering the pointer twirl to this day. Instead of learning poetry and drama I wasted time trying to spin a pencil. Irritates me when I think about it.

Stuart used to come into class, hunt out the pointer and hide it in plain, though not obvious, sight. On top of a door frame, behind the door, under items on the teacher’s desk. He also had a knack of remaining inscrutable. Mr. Botting always kept his sense of humor and seemed to notice where it had been placed, every time. It came to his attention that the culprit was Stuart. This boy was often in trouble.

Mr. Botting had another habit. As it became too warm in the class he would saunter over to a particular window, open it, and peer out. It looked out over an area of asphalt outside the canteen. As our English room was on the second floor, directly below, a large section of roofing housed part of the locker and toilet block of the building. If anything fell out of a window onto the roof it remained there. Unless it was something essential. Then it required a ladder and expertise to retrieve it. Hair accessories snatched out of the girls’ hair by boys and flung out of the windows were not considered necessary. Mr. Botting opened the same window each time the classroom became stuffy.

Several months into the year, Stuart came into English class one day looking like a young man on a mission. He retrieved the pointer and informed the class he had devised a scheme where the accessory would be so well hidden, Mr. Botting would be at his wits end. He would be unable to teach, and if everyone disavowed all knowledge, he would be so frustrated it would test if his teaching ability was indeed ‘all tied up’ with handling his pointer.

All we had to do was keep our mouths shut, act innocent, and pretend we were expiring of the heat. Sounded a strange series of requests but we promised we could do it. An amazing thing about Stuart. He had everyone eating out of his hand and being obliging. You couldn’t hate him.

We watched him tie a piece of string onto the middle of the pointer, suspend it out of the window, and then hold onto a thread of it before snapping the window shut again.

His plan became clear. Class would start, we would act as if we were hot, Mr. Botting would sashay to his favorite window and open it, only to see his pointer clatter down onto the roof below. He would be ballistic. It would be obvious some wily person had set it up. Would Mr. Botting suspect any of us? Would we all be in trouble?

I remembered his threat to turn the top of our heads into hills and valleys by beating us with his pointer. If the pointer ended up on the roof, it seemed unlikely he could use it to punish us. We’d seen one deranged teacher cane a whole class of boys and girls once. Mr. Botting didn’t seem so bad. None of us had been whacked over the head . . . yet.

We informed Stuart that laying on the expiring-from-the-heat act shouldn’t be overdone as it would look too obvious. We didn’t want to be implicated if the situation became tricky. The idea had been dreamed up by him, after all

We were all seated by the time Mr. Botting came in and started the lesson. As he spoke he glanced around. We assumed he’d be temporarily content, believing his pointer stood somewhere blending into the surrounds.

Finally, it came to breaking point.

“Has anyone seen my pointer?” he asked.

We all deliberately looked blank.

Mr. Botting scrutinized our faces, especially Stuart’s. “Stuart, have you seen my pointer?”

Stuart shrugged. “I don’t see your pointer anywhere, Sir.”

“Has anyone put my pointer anywhere?” he asked with the same careful look at our faces.

Some of us shook our heads, some shrugged and looked at each other puzzled.

Stuart yawned and wiped his brow. “It’s so warm in here.”

Mr. Botting looked at him for a moment. “Well then, why don’t you open the window?”

“But Sir, you usually open it.” Mr. Botting glared at him. Stuart went and opened the window next to the one Mr. Botting usually opened but with difficulty.

This must have been the reason for the other window to be opened each time.

“Stuart, why don’t you open the other window while you are at it?”

Stuart looked a tad discomfited. “I don’t think we need it, Sir.” He paced back to his desk.

Mr. Botting stared at him and Stuart stared back. I had the suspicion Mr. Botting could read his mind.

“Stuart, do you know where my pointer is?”

Stuart shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He yawned and again, wiped his brow. “Sir I’m really hot. I think the other window needs to be opened.”

“What is this thing about the window? Just open it. Is this something to do with my pointer?”

Stuart had dug himself into a hole. We looked at each other and still played dumb.

“From your inability to answer, I’ve concluded my suspicions are correct. Go over and open the window. If anything happens to my pointer you are in for the cane!”

“But Sir, you normally open the window yourself.”

“You seemed to be banking on it. I suspect it has something to do with my pointer. What did you do?”

“Don’t worry, Sir. I’ll get your pointer.” He dashed over to the window and examined the closed edge for any wisp of the string to hold onto.

The lesson continued and in time Stuart gingerly opened the window and retrieved the pointer for Mr. Botting.

“Stuart, you have this huge thing about my pointer. Lucky for you, you’ve returned it. What were you thinking?”

“Well Sir, it was an experiment. We wondered if you could actually do a lesson without your pointer. You normally go over to the window so it seemed a great idea for the pointer to fall onto the roof at the same time.”

“All you’ve done is disrupt this lesson! Detention for the rest of the week.”

“Aw. Sir. I got you your pointer back.”

“Enough! Next time don’t even look at my pointer. You’ve been warned”

Afterwards, there were no more pointer shenanigans. Mr. Botting still twirled it and we could never decide if he could teach without it. As for Stuart, he still got up to mischief elsewhere.

Another indignity we endured in English class happened this way. One day Mr. Botting came in while the boys ran around acting up and creating mayhem. Teacher expressed his disgust and gave the whole class 500 lines to do at home, to be handed in the following day. This teacher was a law unto himself. Naturally, all the innocent girls felt very aggrieved they had been disciplined. All the diligent students did the work. Some of the naughtiest boys who avoid homework, prepared pages of scribbles or less pages. At class the next day we all handed in our lines which he picked up and immediately stuffed into the rubbish bin.

“Aren’t you going to check them?” someone called out.

“But why? I’m not the one being punished.”

“What if someone didn’t do theirs?” called out another classmate.

“How is it my problem? Let’s get on with the lesson,” he said, as he grabbed his pointer.