Do You Think This Is Strange? (2 page)

“Could you please repeat yourself?” I asked.

He cleared his throat. “I said—”

“Just the last sentence.”

He glowered at me. Bill sighed with exasperation.

“I said”—he spoke slowly—“what is so interesting outside my window, Mr. Wyland?”

I didn't answer. Instead, I stared at the top of his desk.

“Although I appreciate the circumstances of . . .” He paused and drummed his fingers in thought. “The circumstances of your, let's call it your unique condition—”

“Why should we call it my unique condition?”

“Mr. Wyland, it's neither relevant nor appropriate to discuss—”

“It's autism,” I interrupted. “It's not Voldemort.”

McClintock stared at me, his fingers gripping his report so tightly the tips were paste white. He said nothing about Voldemort. Instead, he cleared his throat.

I don't think he liked Harry Potter movies.

—

Later, as we drove home, Bill told me I was a Real Case.

“Voldemort,” he said. “Jesus, Freddy, where do you come up with that stuff?”

“I didn't,” I said. “J.K. Rowling did.”

He shook his head. “You're a case, you know that? A real case.”

“A case of what?” I asked.

“Exactly.”

“Don't drive over manhole covers, Bill,” I reminded him.

“You could call me Dad once in a while, you know.”

“I know,” I said.

—

Here is what McClintock did instead of explaining why my autism and Voldemort were similar. He laid his report on the table and aligned the pages against the palm of his hand.

“Be all that as it may,” McClintock began, then said nothing, and I think he wanted me to agree that it may, in fact, be all that.

“The point is, Mr. Wyland, you were daydreaming instead of taking this seriously. Autism or no autism, it doesn't excuse you from the responsibility of polite society. At a time as serious as this, I expect you to be less interested in what's going on outside the window and more interested in what's going on inside my office.”

He picked up his judgment papers and tapped them on the desk. “Having read the reasons for my decision, do you have anything to say?”

Stick to the script
, the threads urged.

“It's impossible for me to say no.”

That's not part of the script.

He adjusted his glasses, waiting.

I continued, “In order for me to tell you I have nothing to say, I have to say it, which means I have something to say.”

“Jesus, Freddy,” Bill—I mean
Dad
—said and massaged his temples.

“All right,” said the quote-headmaster-unquote. “Do you have nothing to say?”

“In order to tell you I have nothing to say, I have to say it. Therefore—”

Bill put his hand on my arm. “Okay,” he said. “You made your point.” He turned to the quote-headmaster-unquote. “He has nothing to say.”

Quote-Headmaster-unquote McClintock took a solemn breath. “Frederick,” he said, “do you have anything you wish to say, regarding your expulsion from Templeton College?”

“I have nothing I wish to say,” I replied.

He tapped his papers one more time. “If that's all, then—”

“Not to you,” I said.

He gaped at me.

My father snorted. Later, he would incorrectly diagnose McClintock with a strange medical condition.

“That guy had a serious stick up his ass,” he told me.

“Sticks aren't serious,” I replied.

—

The rain stopped just before we left the
principal's
office. I walked with my father across the school parking lot. As we approached the car, I slowed my pace, my frown deepening. The left rear tire was on the white line of the parking space. The paint was recent, and the line almost glowed. It was unmistakably there. My father looked at me, at the car, at the tire, at the white line. He sighed.

“Not now, Freddy,” he said. “Not now.”

“You probably could have backed up and drove in straighter,” I told him.

“And you could have not been expelled,” he answered. “I guess that makes us even, doesn't it?”

“There's no correlation between the two.”

He took his keys from his pocket. “Right again, kid.”

I skirted around to the passenger door, careful not to step on the line.

“Can we stop for ice cream?”

“The car, Freddy,” he said through gritted teeth. “Get in the car.”

—

Listen
: The rain began again and the wiper motor went
whirrrr, thump
.

“Why did you hit him?” my father asked.

“Because he tried to hit me,” I replied.

“Why did he try to hit you?”

“Because he tried to hit me.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father slump with frustration. I added, “Before that, I pushed him. Before that, he pushed me. Before that, I told him that he was standing in front of my locker.”

Whirrrr. Thump. Whirrrr. Thump. Whirrrr. Thump.

“That's it?” he said at last. “That's what caused you to hit him?”

“Yes,” I said.

Whirrrr. Thump. Whirrrr. Thump. Whirrrr. Thump.

I didn't tell my father the reason we had a confrontation: Chad Kennedy was blocking my access to the locker, by holding Oscar Tolstoy against it.

It was evident that Chad was comfortable in this position, but that Oscar wasn't. It was further evident that there was a disagreement under discussion. Oscar was against my locker, his feet a couple of inches off the ground, Chad's right forearm across his chest, and he was trying to explain early marketing of baseball cards.

“Oh my God!” shouted Chad. “Can't you just shut up about the baseball cards!”

I didn't mention this to my father because it wasn't relevant. I was not trying to influence the conversation Chad Kennedy was having with Oscar Tolstoy.

This is what I told my father: “He was blocking my locker, and I told him to move away from my locker.”

“By
hitting
him.”

“No,” I said. “By telling him to move. I hit him because he tried to hit me and I wanted to warn him not to hit me anymore.”

“Why didn't you just
tell
him that?”

“He wouldn't have listened.”

“Christ, Freddy,” my father said. “He didn't listen to you even when you hit him!”

—

That night, I sat in bed, legs crossed,
The Twentieth Century in Review
pressing comfortably on my lap. I turned the pages slowly and stared at the wall.

Two forward. One back. Two forward. One back.

A new school was not a light matter. It wasn't going to be a private school, either. Public schools have public parking lots with faded lines and manhole covers. I don't like public parking lots. I don't like faded lines.

I don't like manhole covers.

My new homeroom might not have comfortable chairs. My desk might be on the wrong side of the room. I would need a new locker, and it might be on the wrong side of the hallway.

The logistics were
appalling
.

Not surprisingly, I had trouble falling asleep. When the early morning came, it found me in the same place, legs crossed, my book still on my lap. Three of the pages ripped out during the night. My wrists sore.

I was too agitated to listen to the birds gossip. I tried to stare at the wall in front of me, but the clock kept resetting itself. And the olive green wall was disconsolate.
Get up and get on with your life, son
, it told me.
There's no comfort here.

I took my book from my lap and climbed out of bed. I showered, brushed my teeth, and slouched downstairs. Pouring a bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal, I sat at the kitchen table, chewing slowly, staring straight ahead.

I heard the stirrings of my father, the flushing of a toilet, his groggy steps down the hall. He shuffled into the kitchen. As he walked past me, he ruffled my hair.

He made coffee and stood at the counter while it brewed.

I poured another bowl of Cap'n Crunch.

“One serving only,” he said, not taking his eyes off the coffee pot.

“I'm hungry,” I told him.

“No, you're not.” He poured his coffee. I dumped the cereal back into the box. As I did, I pilfered a small handful and shovelled the cereal into my mouth. He frowned at me but said nothing.

After he sat down, he said, “You can stay home today. I have to make arrangements to get you into another school.”

I looked past him at the scratched kitchen drawer. The handle was loose.

“You know,” he added, “I'm losing a full day's wage because I have to find you a new school. Why am I always coming to get you out of situations like this? Why, Freddy?”

He waited, expecting an answer.

“Where's Mom?” I asked.

He slammed the table with his fist so hard that the cereal box fell over and spilled cereal everywhere. A muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched. He stared at me, breathing heavily through his nose.

I put my spoon down and sat, staring at the wall.

4:32. 4:33.

One week after I was expelled from Templeton College, Bill drove me to my new school, stopping one block away. He swept his arm in a grand gesture.

“There you go,” he said. “Hampton Park Senior Secondary.”

“It's not a park,” I said, clutching my backpack to my chest.

“Nothing escapes you, does it,” he said. “Now go.”

“Okay.” I didn't move.

He knew why I was reluctant to move. “They know you're coming. Go to the office. They'll tell you what to do.” He smiled slightly. “I'd come with you, but I thought you might prefer not going into your new high school with your daddy holding your hand.”

“I don't want to hold your hand.”

“That makes two of us.”

I got out of the car.

“Freddy,” he called to me. I stopped but didn't turn around. “Try not to get expelled too quickly.”

“Okay,” I answered and carried on.

My new life awaited.

Hampton Park Senior Secondary was unremarkable. It was a public school, scrupulous like a public school must be, with budgetary trade-offs like floors getting swept at the end of every second day. The neighbourhood was aging, and its children grown into teenagers. It was the closest to my home, and the quickest at which to register.

I held no opinion about the school at which I was now enrolled. There was nothing about it on Wikipedia, and its Facebook page was no more and no less remarkable than any of the thirty representative high school Facebook pages I examined as reference points.

There was no football team of note, so there was no face to the school. There was no central auditorium in which an arts program could flourish. There wasn't any kind of website for the school council, probably because there wasn't anything interesting happening at the school.

I was going to be a new faceless person at a faceless school. Quite likely, everyone here would see me as just another ant in the colony. The school was probably ripe with cliques and friend packs, and I would be marginalized and ignored for the rest of my final school year.

I was excited about the prospect.

All I had to do was find corners in the school where I wouldn't be bothered. All I had to do was find corners where the scent was lost to the rest of the ants.

As it turned out, at least one corner included a comfortable sofa chair. Jim Worley insisted it was magic.

Jim Worley was my assigned counsellor. I was his
counsellee
. He referred to me as his patient.

“I'm kidding, of course,” he admitted. School counsellors are not trained doctors; they require nothing more than a bachelor of education. Anything beyond that is duck sauce.

“Sit,” he said and motioned to the sofa chair in the corner. “Just sink into that thing.” He patted me on the arm before he realized he had just touched me. He drew back his arm quickly. Not knowing what to do with his hands, he shoved them in the pockets of his pressed jeans and stood in the middle of his office, rocking on the balls of his feet.

As instructed, I sunk into that thing. It was not standard school-district issue. It was a chair he personally brought to his office so that students might feel more comfortable. I know this because it was one of the first things he told me. He was proud of his duck sauce sofa chair.

“Comfortable, isn't it?” he asked. After a few moments of silence, I inferred he was expecting a reply.

I ran my hands over the fabric of the chair. “Did you make it yourself?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, Frederick,” he said. “It was made by master craftsmen in
China
.” He raised his eyebrows and nodded, a pleased look on his face. “Do you know where China is?”

“It's across the South China Sea from Taiwan,” I said as I looked at the tag on the cushion. “Which is where this chair was made.”

He was silent. After a moment, he cleared his throat, then moved behind his desk.

Jim Worley told me he was going to be my scheduled conversation. He had to satisfy his duties as my educational assistant, and a simple check-in each day would suffice. Therefore, after lunch I was to check in.

“Every day,” he said, “I want you to report your status.”

“Okay,” I replied, looking for an open space on the wall to project my clock.

He sat with a sigh as if sitting down was a great physical accomplishment. “How are things today, Frederick?”

“Yellow.”

He smiled. “Excuse me?”

“I'm here against my will.”

He nodded slowly. “I see. Let's try and fix that.”

“Okay.”

I stared at his desk. His smile remained. After a moment, it flickered. He tapped his fingers.