CORONA

CORONA

At lunch, while most teachers were trying to eat, the youth outside had gathered together to chant:

—MOONEY! MOONEY! MOONEY!

The staff room’s communal microwave was loudly alerting that it had finished its heating of a sandwich, but all the teachers could hear were children shouting:

—MOONEY! MOONEY! MOONEY!

Mr. Greenwood, the school’s careerist social climber, kissed his teeth and flipped over the front of his newspaper, loudly exclaiming:

—What is going on out there?

With this remark he intended to impress upon the rest of the staff—but particularly on upper-management, who sat about together in one corner of the room —an air of his own authority. He wanted to to imply that he was a man who would take action in times of crisis. Therefore, without saying another word, Mr. Greenwood upped from his chair and left the room promptly – making a show of it, the whole way.

The children outside had amassed into a spectacular ring shape, leaving an open area in the centre of them for god knows what. Mr. Greenwood spotted Miss Kelly by the wall, talking to Mrs. Owens, and he was immediately filled with a sense of rage at their professional impotency. 

—Hi Lee. Hi Leigh. Everything okay? We heard a lot of noise from the staff room.

—Oh? said Mrs. Owens, raising an eyebrow. —We’re fine, don’t worry. They’re just having fun. 

Mr. Greenwood smiled politely —Yes, it looks like it.

 There was a long pause, and the two women turned back, hoping that he would leave and they could continue their prior conversation. He looked at the children’s mass, his mind swirling in search of some kind of clearly demonstrable problem: Disorder, Hygiene, Noise Pollution…

—It just really seems like a health and safety issue. He said, patronisingly.

–I don’t think-

—CHILDREN! Greenwood barked, cutting her off as he bounded hurriedly past them toward the crowd.

God. He wondered. What could make them act like that?

When he reached the edge of the ring, Mr. Greenwood realised he had underestimated its thickness. It was a six-child-deep wall. He initially assumed that this was only a single friend-group, but the reality was far more severe. As he pushed through the crowd, he saw children from all-different classes and years—eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds—united in this amorphous blob that seemed to move further away from him the deeper in he got, like he was a sheepdog among sheep or a repulsive electromagnetic field.

As Mr. Greenwood stumbled through into the open centre, he was suddenly struck by the kaleidoscopic sense that every child was spread infinitely in every direction. His attempts to shout them down into a dumb placidity were ignored and then drowned out as they moved into a new chant:

—GOAT! GOAT! GOAT!

Its single syllable repeating over and over. Then expanding:

—MOONEY IS THE GOAT! GOAT! / MOONEY IS THE GOAT! / MOONEY IS THE GOAT! GOAT! / MOONEY IS THE GOAT! 

—That’s enough! Greenwood screamed. —Boys! Girls! Stop! Stop this nonsense! You’re in trouble—big trouble! You’ll lose all your golden time. All of it! I’ll get Mrs. Knight. I’ll phone your parents. Your AQE scores—think about your future!!!

He fought desperately for them all to hear him, but whatever he said was inconsequential to the crowd. Without a single finger laid upon him, nor in fact a single sound addressed specifically at him, Greenwood was pushed into submission. It was their mere presence that was shrinking him, their collective vision which drained his will. He felt as if they were stealing his electrons, shucking the basic atomic structure that underpinned his being. He could not reason any longer, nor could he even understand the value of reason. When he had entered the crowd, only seconds ago, he had felt determined to do something that he felt was severely important, but now he had no sense of what that was—the desire was as alien to him as thirst was to a fish. It felt like years since he had first left the staff room, and that man, so concerned as he was, bore no resemblance to the new Greenwood; timid and servile.

He attempted to make his way back out, but the children would not let him. They were linked tightly at the arm, and each press he made against them was absorbed and rebounded back onto him. He tried again and again, but they could not be breached. Their blue-knit jumpers were fastened together like chainmail.

—Do The Mooney! A voice shouted, but at this stage Greenwood could not even remember who Mooney was.

—DO IT! Shouted another voice. And then another, the same thing; or, the same kind of thing. All of them now were chanting their own variation of words at different rates, but the underlying command was clear:

—Greenwood—Do the Mooney!

He felt a deep underlying stubbornness that told him he should not be a circus performer for these children but what was most immediate to him was his fear, and his duty. He was now keenly aware of his subservience to the ring, even faintly pleasured by his newfound pathetic self.

—How? He pleaded. —How can I do it?

A girl at the apex of the ring made herself clear to him. He vaguely remembered her as Ella – a girly girl who liked ponies and flowers and things. She stuck her tongue out. The others mirrored her. Greenwood followed. She raised her hands, then shook wildly. baying a wild:

—AAAAAGGGHHHH!

The innermost ring of children followed her actions, then the second, the third, the fourth, and so on… all began rehearsing this same frenzied motion.

They all danced, the rhythms of the light day breaking over the clouds. It was as joyful as if it were a holy movement, as freely as if there were no teachers, and there was no school, as if this hundred twenty one strong legion had congregated here out of sheer chance. 

Finally, Greenwood too understood it and he, as well, began to do the Mooney.