“I shared the idea with the students, to an enthusiastic response. There were many wonderful and creative entries. Unfortunately I could only pick one, and I felt that this one was the most representative of what we are trying to instill in the students here at Lakeside. But as Mr. Gondale said, I want to give proper credit where credit is due. Our artist, Mr. Chill Holinground,” she said, handing over the floor.
Chill didn't move to center stage. With the turning of heads and thunderous applause, center stage moved to Chill.
Chill looked at the crowd. His eyes hesitated for a moment on Sara and then moved to me. “For all who dare to dream,” he said, pulling the rope and bringing everything crashing down.
The mural had been changed. The basic elements were the sameâa row of faces above with the school in the background. But the faces were no longer of famous people. They were the faces of a number of teachers, some with their backs to us, others looking up at a central figure who looked ominously down on everything. It was the face from the composite sketch, only this time he was in brilliant color,
hair flaming. It was Mr. Sfinkter, the demonic clown.
Mr. Sfinkter's clothing looked more military than academic. He was wearing boots that were crushing Sara's and my heads. Beneath us, in Sfinkter's enormous shadow, were a variety of other students painted in black and white. I noticed that the school had bars on the windows and a fence surrounding it with spirals of barbwire at the top.
Chill had changed my phrase from “The future is bright if you're not afraid of the light” to “The future is bright if you don't get crushed by the darkness.”
In the mural, Ms. Surette had an expression of confusion on her face, as if she knew something was wrong but didn't know what. In the corner by her feet was Chill's unreadable symbol of original design.
The group of teachers stood in silence. The assembled members of the community looked confused.
I looked at Chill's mom. She was staring at the painting. I was sure she was realizing
what had happened at the station. She looked at Chill.
The students erupted in the loudest applause yet.
“Cover it up! Cover it up!” Mr. Gondale was yelling while grabbing the top of the curtain and lifting it.
It took a minute before some of the other teachers jumped in and assisted.
Mr. Sfinkter was standing off to the side. He looked very much like he did in the mural, only it was his face that was flaming, not his hair. His eyes darted about. I realized that he was being torn apart, not knowing what to do. He wanted to put on a brave face for the teachers, but his anger wasn't letting him.
When the curtain was finally up and covering the mural, the principal looked around. Chill was still standing where he had been when the curtain fell, his expression unchanged.
“You!” the principal yelled. He noticed the watching crowd and toned it down. “You, to my office, now.”
Chill nodded as if everything was going as he'd expected it to go. He turned and started to walk toward the office.
“You too, Ms. Surette.” Ms. Surette was still staring at the mural. It was as if she could see it through the curtain. Dazed, she looked at the principal. She nodded.
The principal quickly caught up to Chill. Mr. Sfinkter wasn't far behind, followed by Orchid and her camera crew. Ms. Surette looked at the wall again before following.
As I watched them disappearing down the hall, I knew that Chill wasn't going to slip out of this trick as he had all the others. I also saw that he'd accepted that fact.
The students had booed when they put the curtain back up and were now laughing and talking.
“He's going to get expelled for sure,” I heard Mac say.
That's when I made my break for the lynch mob that was heading to the office gallows. I got there just before everyone went inside.
“I did it,” I yelled.
They all turned around, including the camera.
“It was me.” I hadn't thought this through. “I got into the school. I broke in last night. And I changed the mural.”
I saw a vein in Mr. Sfinkter's forehead start to throb.
“Is he an abusive teacher?” the cameraman asked.
“Everyone in my office!” Mr. Gondale said before I could reply.
We all filed into the office. The principal stood at the door. He stopped the cameraman.
“Not you!”
“Freedom of the press!” the cameraman said.
“Just wait here, Don,” Orchid told him.
“I can't let you in either,” Mr. Gondale told Orchid.
“He's my son!” she firmly stated. “Now get out of my way!”
And he did.
They didn't care which one of us had done it. In their eyes, we were both guilty enough to be punished. Mr. Gondale and Orchid started venting immediately with simultaneous scolding.
The principal was ranting to all who wanted to listen and those who didn't.
“In all my years. I have never seen anything like this. There is no excuse,” he babbled.
Orchid got involved too. She questioned his ability to run the school and accused him of not supervising his students or teachers.
But most of Orchid's shouting was focused at Chill and me.
The more people yelled, the calmer Mr. Sfinkter became. Ms. Surette stood in the corner, looking like someone had asked her a question she didn't know the answer to. Chill sat in a chair, listening intently but not saying a word.
I tried to defend us, but all I got out was “But...He...Well...” And eventually “Sorry.”
“Sorry isn't going to cut it,” Mr. Gondale said. “You're both going to be suspended immediately while we determine whether or not to take further action.”
“What about our exams?” I asked.
“If you're allowed back, you'll have to do the semester over again.”
A small smile crept across Mr. Sfinkter's face.
“What?” Orchid said.
“This school has a zero-tolerance bullying policy,” Mr. Gondale said. “And they have to learn that there are consequences to their actions.”
“What about his actions?” Ms. Holinground said, pointing accusingly at Mr. Sfinkter.
“I think Mr. Sfinkter is the victim in all this, wouldn't you say?”
“No, no I wouldn't say!” she yelled. “What we saw out there is the effect. I'd like to know the cause. And your âzero-tolerance policy' should be just as stringent for teachers who bully as it is for students.”
“That's insulting,” Mr. Sfinkter said, no trace left of the smirk that he wore so proudly moments before. “How dare you accuse meâ”
“Keep your bow tie on, Bozo,” Orchid said, cutting him off.
I do love her so.
“All I'm saying is that there should be some kind of investigation before anyone is threatened with expulsion. The lack of one would not only be unfair, but it would look like the school was trying to cover something up.”
“I can assure you, we're not trying to cover anything up, Ms. Holinground,” the principal said in a patronizing tone.
“Tell it to my viewers,” she replied.
As much as I would like to believe she was doing this for me, it was clear that Orchid was a bear protecting her cub. Judging by the look on Mr. Gondale's face, he'd just seen the length of her claws.
“I agree with Ms. Holinground,” Ms. Surette said, having found the answer she was looking for.
“You,” Mr. Sfinkter said. “You're to blame for all this, leaving these children unsupervised.”
“First of all,” Ms. Surette replied, “they're not children, Mr. Sfinkter. Secondly, I felt I could leave them unsupervised because they've never given me reason to distrust them.”
“Now they have,” he stated. The vein reappeared.
“And I'd like to know the reason for it,” Ms. Surette said.
“This is ridiculous. They did it because I make them work for their grades.”
“I think maybe...” the principal started.
“You're not actually considering letting them get away with this?” Mr. Sfinkter demanded.
“No one's getting away with anything. I just think it might be in the best interest of the school to further investigate before passing judgment,” Mr. Gondale reasoned.
“You're joking!” Mr. Sfinkter said, his face bright red. “They're delinquents! And you're putting their word against mine! A respected teacher and author of four published books.”
“Three, and they are self-published,” Chill said quietly, breaking his silence.
Now, I had never checked who published the books; it's impressive enough that he wrote them. But judging by the way the vein on Mr. Sfinkter's head was pulsating, I'd say that not only was Chill telling the truth, but that he'd hit a sore spot.
“I will not have my reputation put in question by a mouthy little daydreamer and a gimp!”
The office fell silent. It was so quiet you could hear Mr. Sfinkter's mask shatter on the floor.
“I...I...I...” he stuttered. His stutters turned to gasps, then to a kind of choking sound. He grabbed his arm and collapsed to the floor like a bulk bag of gummy bears slipping off the storeroom shelf.
We all just stood there stunned as Mr. Sfinkter lay dying at our feet. I think part of our immobility came from shock, part from disbelief, and part from some dark little corner of our minds that thought it was for the best. But not Chill.
Chill dropped down, started to perform cpr and yelled to the principal to call 911, which snapped us all awake and we did what we could to help.
It seems that if you save someone's life, even if you're partially responsible for almost bringing it to an end, a multitude of sins can be forgiven. Chill and I were allowed to take our exams and complete the semester. Our punishment was to spend the first three weeks of our summer holidays restoring the mural to its original, approved, form. There was no iPod this time and no tarp, as the principal and Ms. Surette were by at least twice an hour to check on us.
After we finished, Chill had to do another month of “volunteering” down at the station for his Crime Stoppers stunt. His mom figured out what happened after seeing the painting, and though she didn't tell anyone else, she wasn't going to let him off no matter what the motive.
During that month the station manager saw some of his drawings and gave him a part-time job doing courtroom sketches. Then he got another with the police doing, you guessed it, composite drawings.
I was put under a month of parental house arrest and had to clean the garage and do all
the yard work for the summer. Mom and Dad were both impressed by my book, though, saying that it showed a lot of promise. For my birthday they got me a new laptop, one gift certificate for our local bookstore and another for the stationery store.
There was never an investigation because Mr. Sfinkter decided to retire, saying that teaching wasn't his true calling. The last I heard, he was working on a book about his near-death experience and all the people that he'd met there in the light. They didn't want him to leave, but he knew his work on earth wasn't doneâwhen it is his time, he apparently has an “in.”
I didn't say anything to Chill for a while about everything that happened. Though he saved Mr. Sfinkter's life, he blamed himself for having to. Just like with that kid in elementary school, he'd never meant it to go that far. It was well into the summer before I finally brought it up.
“Chill?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“What you did, it was cool.”
“No,” he told me, coldly and firmly, looking up at me from his drawings. “It wasn't,” and then he lowered his head again, returning to his sketching, and we never spoke of it again.
Well, he never spoke of it again...
Colin Frizzell
is an author, a poet and a screenwriter living in Toronto, Ontario. This is his first novel.
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