Chapter 10 - Prague Anglo-International School
The day before school began Eric and Ursula found they had something in common; something they could finally agree upon.
It was Sunday evening, and they were eating a late dinner out on the terrace. The sun was setting and the vineyard, which they overlooked, was bathed in glorious orange. Moths fluttered madly around the terrace lights, and crickets could be heard serenading each other around the vines. Andrea placed a selection of salads on the table in front of the children, who were trying to ignore each other.
Since the cellar incident, they had not communicated. Even when Ursula got her revenge, by pouring the contents of the compost heap over Eric in his bed, they said nothing. Normally the only communication at dinner time was with Andrea, whom Ursula had come to trust and whom Eric relied on.
They ate in silence and then Eric, hunched over his food, grumbled to himself, “I hate going back to school.”
Ursula, who was staring at the train track at the bottom of the vineyard, replied through a mouthful of salad, “So do I.”
“I can’t do what I want,” continued Eric.
“I get told what to do,” followed Ursula.
“And when to do it.”
“And how to do it.”
They both paused, playing with their food absent-mindedly and watching a passenger train pass by.
“The worst thing of all is...,” began Eric.
“...I can’t just be free,” finished Ursula.
The train chugged out of sight, and they were pulled back to reality. For a split second, they looked at each other and then went back to eating.
When they arrived at school the next morning, Andrea dropped them at the main entrance. Eric ran off, to rid himself of Ursula, as Andrea drove away. Ursula stood alone on the brick path looking up at the building. It was a different world to her old school. For a start, it was definitely not old. Her Parisian school had existed for over eighty years; it was in need of repair, was dirty and covered in graffiti. This school looked brand new. The school sign glistened in the sunlight, and the yellow paint looked fresh.
Children were arriving at the front of the building every few seconds, but none had walked to school. Instead, they were dropped off by adults driving Jaguars, Mercedes, BMWs and other expensive looking cars. All the children were dressed the same as Ursula. They wore black trousers or skirts, red polo necks and blue V-necked sweaters which were taken off the moment they got out of the air-conditioned cars. They all hurried past her into the school while Ursula stood and stared. She felt she was watching a car show, not that she had ever been to one. After watching a Rolls Royce drive by a ‘normal’ car came around the corner, it was a small, green Škoda. Back home it would have seemed quite new, and a target for car thieves, but here it just looked out of place.
The Škoda stopped right beside her and three similar looking girls piled out, laughing and joking. All three of them were smaller than Ursula.
“Hello,” said the oldest looking one, approaching her, “are you waiting for someone?”
“Er, no,” replied Ursula and not knowing what else to say, said, “I’m new.”
“I’m old,” said the girl, “and my name’s Molly.”
She had long hair, a pixie nose and introduced the other girls.
“This is my sister May,” she pointed to the girl with wavy, shoulder length hair. “And this is my cousin Millie,” and she pointed to the other girl who had a bob cut.
All were the same height, about a head shorter than Ursula; all had the same light blond hair and the same skinny bodies.
“Hi,” replied Ursula, “I’m Ursula.”
With the introductions, over, Millie led them into the school building. They were met by a tall man in a straw coloured suit, matching hair and a huge grin.
“Welcome back girls,” he greeted and turning to Ursula said, “and welcome to you, Ursula.”
“Hello,” replied Ursula, surprised that he already knew who she was.
“Anyway, I’m Mr Ball, and I’m the Head teacher,” he waved a clipboard in front of them. “Now then, where are you all going? Let me see.”
He tapped a chewed biro on his clipboard and flipped through pieces of typed paper.
“Ah ha, jolly good, got it.”
Looking up from his clipboard he continued, “Millie you’re in Year 2 with Miss O’Gara and May you’re in Year 4 with Mr O’Shea. The luck of the Irish for you two then,” and he winked.
May and Millie skipped off happily to their classes and Mr Ball flipped through his papers again.
“So, Ursula and Molly, I have two treats for you. The first one is that you’re both in the same Year 7 class, and the second is that you’re going to the Welsh valleys, and you will have Miss Evans as your form teacher.”
Miss Evans was like a beach ball, short and round with a bright smile and matching ginger hair. They found her in a new cupboard, with a tin in her hand, looking at a poster of Johnny Depp. The poster had been roughly stuck to the inside of the door giving the impression of a pupil’s locker rather than a teacher’s cupboard.
“Biscuit?” she asked, in her soft Welsh accent, as the two girls approached.
Without giving them time to answer she thrust a crumbly digestive into their hands.
“This is Johnny,” she explained, placing a loving finger on the poster. “You may gaze on him whenever you need to, but you cannot, on any account, touch. Okay?”
“Okay,” replied the two girls, neither of whom were much interested in Johnny Depp.
“Now then, I don’t know about you but I hate the start of the school year. It scares the willies out of me. I haven’t slept a wink, and I feel rougher than a badger’s behind.”
All of a sudden she stopped, her nose started to twitch like a hungry squirrel, and she commanded, “Stand back!”
She curled up like a tightly wound spring and then unwound, in a flash, with an almighty sneeze that sent her flying backwards into the cupboard. The door slammed shut. All around the school staff, pupils and parents said, “Bless you, Miss Evans.”
“Where was I?” asked Miss Evans, emerging from the cupboard and wiping her nose. “Oh, I know. We were about to have a bit of a chin wag. Pull up a pew and let’s have a natter.”
In the space of one minute, Miss Evans had become Ursula’s favourite teacher ever. They sat down on red chairs, and the three of them talked as the rest of the class arrived. During their chat Ursula was happy to discover that the school year would be busy with productions, sport matches, talent shows and, the icing on the cake, a trip to Pompeii. She was even happier to discover that Eric was in the other Year 7 class, and they wouldn’t be sharing many lessons.
Once everyone had arrived they were lined up at the classroom door.
“We are going on a tour of the school for those of you who are new, and for those of you who are too dopey to remember what it looks like. When we have finished, I will award house points to anyone who can tell me how many…,” Miss Evans paused and touched her nose, “I know, how many security cameras are around the school?”
The school was much bigger and brighter than Ursula’s old school. Multi-coloured display boards covered the walls of the long corridors and in numerous, cosy classrooms. The gym was the size of eight Badminton courts; the theatre was round like Shakespeare’s, the roof on the school was glass, and there were security cameras everywhere.
When they had finished their tour and had arrived back in class, Miss Evans repeated her question, “How many security cameras?”
Ursula was sitting beside Molly at the front of the classroom underneath an interactive whiteboard. She had not seen one before and stared at it, trying to avoid answering the question. She knew the answer but stayed quiet. From previous experience, she knew that other children, and the teachers did not like a ‘know-it-all.'
“Seven,” answered one boy confidently.
“Three,” shouted another.
“Eight,” joined in Molly.
“We’re getting warmer, some good answers there,” and Miss Evans looked at Ursula with a smile. “You’re very quiet Miss Benjamin. Come on, have a guess.”
“Sixteen,” answered Ursula very quietly. She had thought about lying but wanted to try to make a good impression.
“Oh, come on, Ursula, be confident,” encouraged Miss Evans.
“Sixteen,” repeated Ursula loudly.
“Well done, have a biscuit,” and she threw the tin into Ursula’s arms.
The class clapped, and Ursula relaxed. She turned around to thank them, and Miss Evans told her to pass the tin around.
“Right then,” said Miss Evans, pulling a loose thread out of her skirt, “next question. Who can tell me where they are?”
Ursula didn’t mean to do it, but she blurted out the answer without thinking, “main entrance, main reception; the art, languages and science corridors; two in the Primary school plus two at the Seniors’ entrance; two in the car park and five in the playground.”
A hush fell over the class and Miss Evans kneeled close to Ursula and said quietly, “There is only one other person in school who is as observant as that.”
Ursula could guess who it was.
“Did you notice anything else?”
Suddenly Ursula felt she had done wrong and clammed up. Miss Evans put a hand on hers and reassured her that she had done nothing to be worried about.
“Come on, tell us what else you noticed?”
“Tell us Ursula,” shouted a boy from the back.
He was echoed by four or five children saying the same. Ursula could see them, out of the corner of her eyes, leaving their seats and coming closer to her table. All the class were soon around her, hiding her from the outside world.
“Tell us Ursula, please,” asked Molly.
Unused to all this attention she stumbled over her words at first, “Well, er, there are, er, four security guards, the main entrances and primary entrances are controlled by a buzzer system, the car park has an electronic gate, and there is a two metre high fence around the entire school.”
Miss Evans stood up.
“Blow me down with a fart! You know what this means, don’t you?” she said to the whole class.
They nodded; all were part of a secret which Ursula did not know.
“It means there is nowhere in school where you can have a secret cigarette or snog!”
The class laughed.
“Be serious,” said a stocky boy, whose voice Ursula recognized from before.
“I think we need to ask some more questions,” said a girl with piercing eyes who was looking right at Ursula.
“Good idea,” complimented Miss Evans and, kneeling back down, said kindly, “Ursula, this is not a serious test, but it is a sort of test. A bit like smelling your socks, to see what pair is least stinky so you can wear them.”
One by one the children put their hands up and asked questions.
“What is the capital of Mongolia?”
“Ulan Bator,” replied Ursula.
“How do you spell achievement?”
“A, c, h, i, e, v, e, m, e, n, t.”
“What is one thousand seven hundred and sixty-five divided by seventeen?”
“One hundred and three point eight, but I don’t know the rest.”
“What is thirteen times forty-one?”
“Five hundred and thirty-three.”
With each correct answer, the children’s faces became more and more excited and expectant. After the last question, Ursula’s new classmates’ enthusiasm had rubbed off on her, and she was feeling excited herself.
Miss Evans repeated what she had said earlier, “You know what this means, don’t you?”
All the children nodded.
“After three years in school it looks like Mr. Eric Meyer finally has a rival.”
All the children cheered.
That night, on the video phone, she told her grandparents what had happened. They were pleased she had had such a good first day, but she was warned about Eric.
“If this boy has been used to being the best for so long he is not going to take kindly to being challenged by you,” warned Granddad Benjamin.
“Oui, c’est vrai,” agreed Mémé, and they were right.
In the first few weeks of term, the children were tested in every subject. Ursula never told anyone her scores, but everyone seemed to know them. They also knew when she had beaten Eric, when she came close and when they were equal. She was way ahead of anyone in her class, but no one seemed to care as long as she was better than Eric.
It soon became very clear to her that when Eric had arrived his talents and skills were welcomed by everyone. In fact, when Ursula talked with other children about Eric’s first two years in school, nobody had said a bad thing against him. Many children told her that initially everyone had liked him, and the teachers had loved him. This was in sharp contrast to now. Ursula watched the teachers with Eric. It was obvious from the way they talked to him that they no longer liked him, called him arrogant and probably felt threatened by him.
On a few occasions, Eric and Ursula’s classes were merged. In Ursula’s opinion, Eric asked interesting questions but the teachers brushed him away or ignored him. Other children thought he was showing off or were jealous of him. Outside the classroom, more children were envious of Eric’s sporting ability but everyone wanted to be on his team. If you were on Eric’s team, you won, and if you weren’t you lost, it was that simple. From Molly, May and Millie, Ursula discovered that the children were willing her to beat Eric in anything and everything. Unfortunately, it was very obvious to both her and Eric that the teachers wanted the same.
Eric’s frosty way with Ursula had already reached freezing point, and she began to worry what he might do to her. If trapping her in the cellar was his first attack, what would be his second?
As the seasons changed, Ursula began to feel a little more relaxed about Eric. Summer faded away; autumn came and went, and green trees lost their leaves almost overnight. The vineyard turned into a graveyard of brittle vines, and Prague lost its colour. Despite this, Ursula was feeling happy.
School was good and for the first time in her life she found learning fun and being in a classroom comfortable. She did not have to pretend to get things wrong as she did in her old school. She was well liked by her classmates, and she had formed close friendships with Molly, May and Millie. Eric refused to acknowledge that Ursula existed. He would not talk to her, look at her or recognize the fact that she was alive. His attitude suited Ursula fine.
By the end of the first term, there was snow outside, and the temperature never rose above zero. It was the first time in eight years that it had snowed before Christmas and during PE lessons they had to stay inside. In one lesson, at the start of December, their muscular PE teacher, Mr Tait, announced that there would be a contest between all the Year 7s. More importantly, for Eric and Ursula, this meant against each other’s class. Individual pupils faced off in different events and winners scored points. Ursula was, unsurprisingly, paired up against Eric. As the two classes sat on the gym floor, Eric glared at her.
The final competition was to be Eric against Ursula in the rope climb to the ceiling. Two ropes hung close to each other and underneath them were placed red, crash mats. Eric and Ursula took their positions at the bottom of the ropes, and the children sat around the mats. Ursula’s class was cheering her, and shouting her name, but as she turned to the other class, she realized that they were doing exactly the same.
Nobody was shouting for Eric, and she looked across at him. His eyes were full of tears, but his face was full of anger. For a moment, she felt sorry for him but these thoughts quickly disappeared as he mouthed, “No one really wants you, Parents’ Pet Project.”
On the teacher’s whistle, the two of them shimmied up the rope to the top of th
e gym faster than a monkey. Ursula touched the cold metal beam the same instant as Eric. She looked down and was happy to see that she was quite high up. The PE teacher, who did not like draws, called them down and made them race again and again and again. After the ninth stalemate, the end of lesson bell rang and they were allowed to stop. The classes drifted off to the changing rooms and Mr Tait followed them. Ursula sat on her crash mat breathing deeply and looked across at Eric.
He was laying, spread-eagled on the mat, facing the ceiling with his eyes closed. It was the first time Ursula had actually looked at Eric without worrying about the consequences. He looked sad and strangely old. His face was screwed up in anguish, not pain, and he looked almost wrinkled. He even looked as if he was going grey around his ears, but Ursula dismissed this as a trick of the light. Eric shook his head as if shaking off an unpleasant thought, and moved one hand, so the palm faced upwards. She was shocked to see that it was scarred red from burns and the thin skin looked as if it could break and bleed at the slightest touch. She had never seen this before.
“I’m sorry, Eric,” Ursula whispered softly.
Eric jumped up muttering, “You will be.”
He stormed off to the changing rooms.
That night Ursula locked the door to her bedroom. She took off her clothes, put on a yellow nightshirt and got into her warm bed. The curtains had not been drawn, and she sat for a while looking out of the window. High up in the sky she could see the moon, its white light reflected in the snow on the rooftops and the ground. The moon beams entering her room filled it with a ghostly glow.
From the bedside table, she took her hairbrush and pulled it through her black hair. As she did this, she tried to forget about Eric. After one hundred strokes, she had done just that. She placed the brush back on the table and lay her head down on the pillow, sending fallen hair into the air. They drifted slowly towards the floor, black and silver strands glistening in the moonlight.
The week after the rope contest was the worst Ursula had ever had in school. Eric was far too clever to say, or do, anything hurtful to Ursula with all the video cameras around. Instead, he bullied her by doing nothing. At least nothing she could tell the teachers about. In their shared lessons, he would sit nearby and stare at her. Even when the teacher was looking. During break times, he made sure that wherever Ursula went, he was close, watching her. At lunch times, he sat opposite Ursula, his brown eyes fixed upon her. Lots of children thought Eric had a crush on Ursula and, when he was around, kept away. Molly, May and Millie told Ursula to ignore him and not to rise to it. She followed their advice, but his constant menacing attention made it difficult to relax, and she soon found that she was short tempered with her friends.
During the class Christmas party, Ursula left the classroom to go to the toilet. Eric followed her down the corridor. In front of the toilet door, she paused, and Eric stopped right behind her. She could feel his breath on her neck. It was the last straw. She had had enough and spun around to confront him. Their noses were almost touching, and their eyes met.
“Go away, Eric,” Ursula said calmly, trying to avoid using words she had heard before fights in Saint-Denis.
“Why?” Eric replied, equally as calm.
Ursula decided she was going to be completely honest, “Because you are always there, everywhere I go. I can’t escape you, I can’t move without someone commenting about you being there, I am losing friends, it’s awful, you’re suffocating me and I’ve had enough.”
Eric smiled, and it wasn’t malicious nor sinister nor nasty. It was a smile of triumph.
“Good,” he said bluntly, “now you know what it feels like.”
Without saying anything more, Eric walked happily away.
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