Creative Commons – The Plainsrunner – Chapter Twenty-Seven

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Tallgrass goes to school. He gets more education than he expected.

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Chapter Twenty-Seven – School

When Tallgrass started going to school he got a whole new perspective on life. Up to that point he’d been sheltered from the worst of the bigotry that thrived in the city. He hadn’t felt the full virulence with which city people despised those who came there from away. They looked down on those who came in from the towns up and down the coast, but they saved their full contempt for those who came from the villages.

Tallgrass hadn’t seen any of that, being surrounded by people who loved him, and he was shocked speechless the first time it happened to him. After his mother dropped him off and left, he was met by a small group of boys who welcomed him in the way only such children can. They surrounded him and began to torment him.

“Hey Runny,” said a boy with a fat, sneery face as he shoved him, “when did they let you into town?”

Tallgrass caught his balance but was unable to form a reply, so he tried to walk past them.

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked the boy as he snatched at Tallgrass’s bag. “And what do we have here?” He opened the bag and dumped it on the floor. “Get the money and the food,” he told the other boys, as he threw the bag in Tallgrass’s face. When he saw how much there was he said, “You better bring more tomorrow, Runny, or there’s going to be trouble.” He gave him a last shove before they walked away, laughing.

Tallgrass looked around at the other children, none of whom looked as if they wanted to help him. Some were smirking. Some simply looked away, uninterested now that the action was over. There was only one who looked different. Who looked at him with something approaching sympathy. It was a boy who was small like him, apparently here for the first time as well.

After Tallgrass picked up his stuff and put it back in his bag, he straightened up and noticed an adult watching him. He thought this must be one of the teachers and he looked to see if he was going to do anything, or even ask him how he was. But he did nothing. He just looked away, his face carefully blank.

Tallgrass stood for a moment as the meaning sank in. Then he had to fight the pricking of tears and the jumping of incipient sobs. As he got control of that, he moved off down the hallway looking for his classroom. He felt someone beside him and turned to see the small boy who’d been watching him. After a moment when many things wheeled through his mind, he finally said, “Good morning. My name is Tallgrass.”

“Oh,” said the boy, a shy smile of recognition briefly lighting his face. “My name is Seagrass. We’re almost the same.”

Tallgrass said, “So we are.” Then he pointed with his chin and asked, “Did they pick on you, too?”

Seagrass looked at the floor, then said, “Yes. Just before you got here.” His voice almost disappeared as he said, “I was kind of glad you did because then they left me alone.” He looked out of his prey eye and said, “Sorry.”

“Okay,” said Tallgrass, thinking that he’d probably have done the same. “What were they picking on you for?”

“I don’t know,” said Seagrass. “Maybe it’s because I’m an orphan.” He shrugged. “Maybe just because they could.”

“You’re an orphan?”

“Yes. They tell me my mother and father came up the coast when she was pregnant, and then my father died trying to protect them when they were robbed.” Seagrass’s face was bland as he told what was obviously an old story. “Then they told me my mother died giving birth.”

“Well, don’t they know that?” asked Tallgrass. “Maybe if they knew, then they wouldn’t be so mean.”

Seagrass looked at him and shook his head. He hadn’t had quite such a gentle upbringing. “I’ve learned that if you tell them things like that, then they just have more ways to hurt you.”

Tallgrass didn’t have anything to say to that. It was so blunt and so hard that he somehow knew that it was something he needed to think about. There was something else that he wondered about though. Something more immediate. “How did they know?” he asked. “If they’re picking on you because you’re an orphan, then how did they know?”

“Maybe they don’t,” said Seagrass. “Maybe it’s just because we’re small, or new.” He shrugged. “They won’t bother us for a while now. Let’s find out where we’re supposed to go.”

It turned out they would be in the same classroom. Seagrass was right that they wouldn’t be bothered for a while. The bully who stole Tallgrass’s money and lunch, along with his two accomplices, were not in his class. If that lifted his spirits, they were soon brought down again by his classmates. He got a rude introduction to the practice of establishing a pecking order, and he and Seagrass found themselves at the bottom of it pretty quickly.

It seemed like as soon as he would introduce himself to someone, they would react in one of a few ways. The nicest of them would smile politely and find some way to move on. They weren’t mean, but they made it clear that they wouldn’t be his friend, either. Then there were the ones who immediately shunned him. They didn’t waste time being polite. They just turned their backs on him. Finally there were the ones who were overtly antagonistic. They didn’t avoid him. They found some way to clearly show that they didn’t like him. They never used his name. They called him “Runner” or “Runny.” These were names he’d overheard before when people complained about him running on the grass, but he hadn’t worried about them. He’d just let his mother and the Professor take care of it. Now he was beginning to feel the sting in them.

Eventually he made the connection between his name and their reaction. His name, and Seagrass’s, both marked them as non-city people. That almost took the spirit right out of him. If these children hated him for his name, for who he was, then things were never going to get better. He might have given up if not for two things. He had made one friend: Seagrass. And he found that he loved learning.

He spent the rest of the day immersed in the excitement of learning. He forgot about his classmates. He didn’t pay any attention to the shunning or the contempt. When he raised his hand to answer the teacher’s questions, or to ask his own, he didn’t see the resentment in the other children’s faces. The day went by in a happy kaleidoscope of new ideas, and he was genuinely surprised when he was accosted by the bullies on his way out of the school grounds.

“Hey Runny!” said the one with the fat, sneery face. “Where are you going in such a hurry?” He grabbed the strap of Tallgrass’s bag. “I got something to tell you.”

Tallgrass waited.

The bully said, “Well?”

Tallgrass didn’t know what to do. He said, nervously, “Well what?”

The bully shook him by the strap. “Well, what have you got to say for yourself?”

Tallgrass was confused. He just wanted this to be over so he could go home to his mother. Thinking of her, he wished fervently that she could be here to take care of this. The bully shook him again, and he blurted, “You said you wanted to tell me something.”

That set the bully back. He looked surprised, then embarrassed, and then his eyes became small and resentful. He pushed Tallgrass and said, “You just make sure you bring more money tomorrow, Runny. You just remember that. Or else.” He turned and led his accomplices in search of another victim.

Shaking, Tallgrass straightened his pack and turned to go. As he turned he saw Seagrass, small and almost invisible. They gave tiny waves and made their separate ways out of there.