Last night I had the strangest dream.
It was my first day of Grade 9. I came to class, and instead of chairs and tables in the classroom, there was an enormous swimming pool. Instead of a teacher behind a desk, there was a strange sea creature – like an oversized anemone, I suppose, or a huge sea sponge. And all the other kids in my class were already in the pool, floating calmly.
Now I was in the pool, too. But I was not floating, Ms Hiller. I was struggling. I splashed frantically towards the anemone and I asked it, Where should I go? What should I do? How do I stay afloat? The anemone didn’t answer, and I was terrified, because I wasn’t sure at all how to be, and I was worried that if I didn’t work it out, I’d drown.
I’m not sure why I am writing this, except that when we came in, you said only one word: ‘Write.’
It’s my first day of Grade 9, Ms Hiller, and I’m not in a pool and you’re not an anemone . . . but I still don’t know what to do.
The whole class seemed bewildered. It wasn’t only me. But I was the only one who raised her hand to ask what exactly you wanted us to write.
‘What’s your name?’ you asked me.
‘Clementine,’ I answered.
You nodded and smiled and said, ‘Write about her. Write Clementine.’
And after that I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I sat with my mouth opening and closing, like a goldfish.
My sister, Sophie, was in your philosophy class when she was in Grade 9. She’d come home after your lessons and tell me all about Foucault and Alain de Botton. I read de Botton’s book Essays in Love after Sophie told me I should. It was all about love’s endings and beginnings, and it fascinated me. It made me think about what it might be like, to fall properly in love.
Sophie loaned me Foucault, as well. He’s less accessible, but I’m sure I could understand him. If somebody taught me how.
You are meant to teach me, aren’t you, Ms Hiller? You’re not meant to come into class on the first day and say, ‘Write.’
Blue fish, red fish, green fish . . .
That’s what you said to write, if our heads were empty, until they filled again.
Blue fish, red fish, green fish . . .
It’s not only my mind that is deserted. In case you can’t see, Ms Hiller, Gemma Gleave is texting under her desk. Clarissa Docklands is drawing butterflies on her arm. Gryff Willcox and Waylon Ogilvie are passing notes to each other and sniggering.
A few of the others are writing, but I can see that Shelley Peterson is doing her maths homework, and Ioannis Poulos is probably working on song lyrics for his band, Joseph’s Trench Coat.
Blue fish, red fish, green fish . . .
None of us is learning philosophy. You can’t learn anything by writing about fish.