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Sport 7: Winter 1991

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In the year following my appearance in the film for television of the book written by the man who had stood behind the perfectly black window, I wrote an expository essay of several pages for the Principal of my school so that I might become Headboy of my school. I had not been the chief character in the film, just as I had known in the moment of darkness in the sound-room that I would never be such a character, but I had been one of the boy-actors who were the friends of the chief character.

Two or three other boys were also writing expository essays for the Principal on why they, too, wanted to be Headboy of the school. We were all candidates for the position and it was understood that among this field I was favourite. I remember looking up at the Honours Board in the main foyer outside the Principal's office and imagining my name being added to the select list of Headboys and Headgirls which went back to 1954 and which included the names of some boys and girls who were now dead but remained immortal.

I can recall no details of the pages which I wrote when I was aged twelve years, nor can I remember the name or the face of the boy who became Headboy after the Principal had read what we had written. I remember only that the reasons I wrote of for wanting to become Headboy were concerned, in the main part, with revenge.

I took for my exposition the case of my older brother who had left the school three years before I had entered it. I wrote of my brother as a helpless victim of numerous injustices at the hands of school bullies. I wrote of the cruelties he had suffered and of the anguish I had heard my parents express at my brother's future when I had been standing in the passageway of our house late at night with bare feet. I wrote of my desire to see punished any boy who did such things to another boy as to cause that boy's entire future to be put in doubt. I believe that most of the writing of the essay was concerned with my hatred of the boys who had done such things to my brother as to cause me to dislike my brother's weakness.

I remember feeling humiliated when another boy whom I cannot remember was announced as Headboy. Yet, even worse than this, I remember the terror I felt when the pages of my expository essay which page 33 contained my secret plan of revenge were not returned to me by the Principal. I believed that these pages were being held in school files as evidence against me and that, at some point in the future, they would be used to bring me down.

I believe, now, that I decided then that I would never again be the sort of person who would run for any public office, or apply for any position of responsibility or leadership. I also believe, now, that I decided then that I would one day be able to write several pages outlining truthfully the story of my plan of revenge for the weakness I disliked in my older brother but until that day I would only be able to pretend to write such pages.