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Sport 10: Autumn 1993

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page 23

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In the dusty classrooms we held our ideas quietly against our sides, like chicks under the mothers' wings. Only occasionally did a small head pop through the feathers, singing its hungry demanding song. Not Eddie though. Eddie with his jokes and his charming highwayman smiles. He let them all out, all the chicks, opened his wings wide, wide and made grand feather umbrellas over their heads. No, more than that, he orchestrated them to a harmony of hunger, demands, challenges, ideas.

Eddie balances on the back legs of his chair and the heels of his feet. He hasn't done his homework and the teacher has asked him if he wants to get his Sixth Form Certificate.

Eddie questions the relevance of studying European history.

'It's good to know your history,' the teacher replies, simply.

'It's not my history,' he replies, rocking on his chair and looking straight at the teacher.

'Well, we've inherited an English constitution,' the teacher counters, her hand resting on the history textbook as if swearing her life on it. Eddie thumps his chair back onto the floor and looks disgusted, as though he has been misinformed about the cause for this gathering and he never would have come if he'd known.

'My ancestors aren't English either, they're Irish,' states the girl with the thick brown plait. 'My ancestors are Scottish,' ventures the red-haired girl. Our challenges pop up like bubbles will inevitably do when a bottle is held under water for a time. When the girl with the plait says, 'It was practically genocide, what the English did to the Irish,' the teacher, whose flush is deepening, says briskly, 'I think you are splitting hairs for the sake of argument. You can all settle down now and open your history books on page one-oh-one.' We turn to our books, our shoulders falling from their anxious-excited tension, each dog-eared page seems to sigh and shuffle, restless and bored. And then it lies down to die.

But Eddie has deserted ship; he sits silently and draws on the lid of his desk.

Eddie smoked dope at school and swore at the teachers. So he could be expelled, quite legitimately. 'Only two Maoris left in the seventh form now,' Eddie said. 'Lucky they're well behaved.' One down, only Maxine to go. Maxine. Elevated out of her proper place by wealthy parents. They would just have to wait her out.

page 24

   The uncommon children are gathered in the common room in their silks and musks and patchwork and fur.