Third grade had been a sunny year of learning and affirmation despite being younger than usual.Sister Mary Christopher was rosy cheeked and smiling. When I finished my work I was allowed to read anything from the classroom bookcase. I walked to and from school with cliched joy in my heart.So I was unprepared for Grade Four.
Naturally quick at schoolwork and sociable, I used to quietly talk to my desk mate after completing an exercise if there was nothing else to do.The previous year that had not been a problem but under the tyranny of Sister Mary Sebastian I could only sit motionless at my desk, an energetic child who would swim miles in a squad every week.As much as I feared the consequences, and since no other reading was permitted, I was unable to remember not to speak.It was always a surprise to hear the barking voice of that gnarled vindictive old nun ordering me to come out in front of the class to receive my punishment for the crime of communication.
Struck by fear and remorse I would reluctantly present myself for a pronouncement of my crime, a denunciation of my character and an exhortation to behave better before the inevitable mortification of the flesh.The instrument of my correction was a feather duster, which sounds laughably innocuous unless you realize that it had a sturdy but flexible shaft. It was grasped by the feathered end and then the vicious bamboo rod was repeatedly brought down on the tiny pale bravely outstretched eight year old hands.This was known as getting a six and I would get a six two or three times a schoolday. I developed permanently painful purple swollen joints so that I couldn't pick up my schoolbag or grip anything firmly with either hand.
Meanwhile I had another problem.Three boys from my class had taken to waiting for me on the way home from school, and , in a remarkable parody of my classroom persecution, would list my character flaws while working themselves up to a beating. I couldn't see how I could defend myself against the greater number so I just tried to be as inoffensive as possible, though to little avail.
The painful year crept on until the day I could cope no more.Having already had two sixes on my arthritic looking fingers, I was called out for the third time in a day.I knew I could not bear another strike on my inflamed joints, started walking towards the front of the class then suddenly and with immense shame turned and ran crying from the room.
I waited outside, sitting in the playground, expecting my teacher or a messenger to demand my return but no one appeared.I sat for a couple of hours until school finished for the day then retrieved my bag by hooking my arm through the straps, as I now needed to do, and walked home, with my usual confrontation on the way.Then I pretended to my mother that all was well because I feared that she might find out how contemptibly wicked I truly was.My father was a recovering alcoholic working long hours and nights on call .He was a good father but understandably(now) irritable, very large and a bit scary. I was fearful of disappointing him also.
So I kept going to school each day then hanging back as the others went inside until I was alone in the schoolyard. I had previously discovered that I could climb onto the flat school roof when retrieving a ball, so I would now climb up there out of view of the classroom windows and sit a while in the strange solitude before I could no longer stay there.Then I would climb down and leave the school grounds,an eight ear old walking the suburban streets for hours.I rehearsed a response if any adult were to question me : I was doing an errand; I was ill and heading home; I was going to an appointment with the doctor or dentist. I'm sure that my stories would have been transparent but no one asked what I was doing during two weeks.Hard to believe but, even stranger, no one from the school seemed to have noticed my absence despite my growing apprehension.Each day I would return once to eat my lunch on the roof then leave again and try to be close enough to the school to hear the end -of -class bell,retrieve my bag unseen and mingle with the departing throng.I was never challenged, my parents never notified of my absence,but after two weeks of silent lonely days I could stand my exile no more.
I returned to my class as though nothing had changed, although for a while my finger joints were no longer swollen. My after school classmate abuse also continued unabated.I would lie in bed in the dark imagining how I could prevail over the bullies.I had heard that they were cowards but I remained sceptical of this, and I had also heard that a group of bullies usually has a ringleader who must be defeated in order to stop the attacks.I knew who that was but he was sporty, strong and a year older and I wasn't confident that his friends would stand by while I settled with him so I continued to just try to minimize the damage.However, I was gradually working up the courage to fight back.
Finally, one day late in the year, I dumped my schoolbag in an inconvenient place at home semi-deliberately, still not entirely brave, and as expected my mother asked me to move it.This time I didn't conceal my sore hands and knowingly but in trepidation hooked my arm through the straps to pick it up instead of using my hand and pretending it didn't hurt. She noticed immediately and asked me why I picked it up like that.After initially feigning ignorance I told her the story and showed her my traumatized hands then waited for her reaction,fearing the worst.To my amazement she didn't berate me or even express disappointment in me. She just told me that she was going up to the school and that I should await her return.I wasn't sure if I was in trouble or not and waited in limbo for an hour wondering if limbo was about to become purgatory.When she returned she didn't say anything for a while so I asked if I was to be punished.To my relief she said that not only was I not in trouble, but that Sister Sebastian would not hit me again.I could scarcely believe my good fortune.Later that night I reflected on my reversal of fortune. It seemed that confronting a problem might be a better strategy than just enduring and waiting for it to go away.I made up my mind.
Next day, after basking in my newfound immunity to corporal punishment, I left school determined to end my other torment. Curiously confident, I sought out the bullies and, clearly unnerving them, confronted them with manifest intent.I told the ringleader I would take no more and wrestled him to the ground then pinned him down while his sidekicks stood by passively.Eventually he said that he gave up and I allowed him up only to have him dishonour his concession.However I pinned him into submission again because the swimming had made me very strong for my age.When he realized he was not going to win he ditched his friends and invited me to watch cartoons with him at his house not far away on the same road home.
I would like to say we became lifelong friends but we did not; and I would like to say that standing up to bullies will always succeed but if I had not been stronger than my tormentor things may have ended badly.Perhaps the lesson is that is better to face up to problems, to make a plan and act on it than to simply tolerate oppression.
I had become an atheist by the age of ten years.
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