CHAPTER III

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the
moment a single man contemplates it, bearing
within him the image of a cathedral.”

—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

Just before noon, the boys left their rooms to find the dining hall. They had been left to their own devices since being shown their rooms, and after unpacking had each taken quite a different course of action. Peter decided to go for a walk through the building to orient himself with his surroundings, then went back to his room to quietly flip through a book he had found in the school library, “The Story of Beatrix Potter: a Biography”. His room comprised of a door at one end and a large Byzantine-arched window at the other, with just enough room for two single beds on either side of the room and a small wardrobe at the foot of each. The window was open with a fresh breeze meandering through. His roommate, who he had not met yet, seemed to keep his half of the room in good condition. Peter had found his roommate’s name on a file sitting on the bed opposite him—Jeremy Fisher. For some reason, the name seemed familiar to Peter, but he brushed it off as just being a common name.

People often say there are two types of people in the world, which of course by any division is true. There are those that are right-handed, and those that aren’t. There are those that love pineapple on pizza, and those that don’t. There are those who are the Monarch of the United Kingdom, and those that certainly are not. The list of ridiculous and trivial divisions go on ad nauseam. For of course always those that are something and those that aren’t must be mutually exclusive and fulfil a complete mathematical set. And so it was with Peter and Jack’s roommates, there are those that are clean and neat and respectable, and those that aren’t. Jack entered his room to find his bed covered in dirty clothes and half eaten packets of food. The teen stench of over-compensatory male deodorant (if you ever work in a high school, you will know this all too well) densely filled the air to the point where Jack coughed and sputtered before opening the stiff and rattly window to let the fresh breeze through, destroying a few spiders’ homes in doing so.

He cleared his bed of his comrade’s mess and dumped it all on the bed opposite, checking a tag on a shirt which had a name written on it as he did so. “COLE BLACK” the tag stated in heavy block letters. “Well, Cole, things had better change,” Jack thought as he opened the wardrobe, finding a collection of bottles half-filled with vodka, cider, and other strong-smelling concoctions. Next to these bottles he found a small pocket knife tucked under a dirty pair of underwear. Right at the bottom of the wardrobe was a collection of photos, sitting on top of a collection of frames. “Guess he had intended to frame these but never did,” Jack thought as he picked up the photos and slowly filed through them.

The first was a physically imposing young man with hair as black as shoe polish, in a stance that people stand in when they want to look dominating and masculine. The next one down was a family, again with the boy. He was looking a bit younger this time, a smaller girl and boy standing on either side of him, and two adults (presumably their parents) behind them. Jack had a quick glance at some writing scrawled on the back: “The Black Family with children: L-R: Ebony, Cole, Jet.” The third photo in the pile was of a beautiful girl whom Jack would later find to be the belladonna Charmaine du Sabre. And the fourth—oh, hello—Jack recognised this boy standing next to Charmaine with a big goofy grin on his face. It was Lorenz from earlier. The next was one of Cole with his arm around the girl, as if on a first date. At this point, Jack guessed at what the situation might be: Cole was going out with Lorenz’s sister. Quickly leafing through the remaining photos, this theory was confirmed. A collection of photos of the du Sabre family and the Black family. But after a few of these congenial portraits the quality turned much more amateur and Jack had to do a double take. What was this? Much to Jack’s surprise, a picture of Charmaine scantily clad in just underwear. And then another, and another, and oh, Lord, now she was naked. Jack felt he should look away, but being sixteen and having photos of such beauty in front of you made it easier said than done. He had every intention to stop out of respect for his new room-mate and the girl, but he was frozen in situ, and continued flipping now more slowly and pointedly through the many raunchy images.

“I need to stop looking at these,” he said to himself. But there were so many, and he was filled with lust over the girl depicted. Surely, Cole wouldn’t notice if he took one and slipped it into his pocket? But maybe that would be too risky. It could fall out, so he quickly grabbed one and pushed it down under his belt and into the crotch of his shorts, tucking it into his underwear—it would be safe there. He took a moment to calm down and check that his “excitement” wasn’t visible and then put the photos back, deciding that he would pretend as though he had run out of time before lunch to move the junk from the wardrobe. And so he left the alcohol, the knife, and the photos, and sheepishly headed off to find Peter and go to lunch—what had he gotten himself into?

“So, what’s your room like?” asked Peter on the way down the stairs.

He thought for a moment, then said, “Yeah, it seems alright. Guy seems a bit messy though, needs to clear out the wardrobe. I think he might be dating Lorenz’s sister. Yours?”

“It seems perfectly fine, nice and neat,” replied Peter.

The dining hall was a cacophony of sound due to boys from the age of twelve to seventeen running about unsettled after class. The space was filled with round tables in rows all down the hall, each table having eight plastic chairs surrounding them. The twins stood just inside the door looking slightly lost until a man sporting a clerical collar came and shook their hands.

“Welcome, lads. You must be Peter…and you must be Jack.” He said, looking at them in turn and getting them the right way around.

“Yes, good guess, sir,” Peter replied.

“Oh, it wasn’t a guess, boys…and it’s ‘Father,’ not ‘Sir’…Father Culpa actually,” he said with a smile. “Now, I have a list of your peer support students. We sit in peer support groups for lunch, you’re at table eight. Come, follow me…all those that are heavy luncheoned, and I shall give you rest,” he let out a small laugh as if he had just made a joke that very few would understand. He led them to the table and gave them a list, speaking further instructions to ensure they were kind and good role models to the younger boys. “Now, also, after classes today. You’ll need to plan a team-building exercise. I’ll pop in to make sure everything is going alright. Just organise some sort of fun activity, a basketball game perhaps? You’ve got quite an interesting group of youngsters, boys. You mainly need to look after young Steerforth, he hasn’t settled in very well. And with the others, just remember to be patient and kind. There’s no such thing as a bad person, just good people who make bad decisions.”

He handed them a sheet of paper with some boring information about the ethos of the school—the usual drivel about inclusion, self-betterment, and “no put-down zones.” Then handwritten at the bottom was the list:

“Group 8:

• T. Steerforth—Yr 7

• J. King—Yr 8

• L. du Sabre—Yr 9

• R. White—Yr 9

• B. Gayer—Yr 10

• V. Graves—Yr 10”

And then scrawled on the bottom, almost like a signature: “UIOGD.”

“Looks like we have Tom in our group…and Lorenz as well” Peter sighed.

After about a minute sitting there, the final lunch bell rung—the one that told all the students to sit down, and the six little youngins found their way to table eight and their new senior caretakers. After brief introductions, Peter made them all share an interesting fact about themselves with the group. The usual sorts of things came up, for example, “my name’s Joe and my favourite food is pineapple pizza,” and “my name’s Victor and I have a pet cat called Hugo,” Then it got to Thomas Steerforth, a boy whom the twins recognised but didn’t make a point of.

After an awkward pause and some encouragement from Peter, Tom gathered up the courage to speak.

“My name’s Thomas. I’m not very interesting.”

“Oh, come now. I’m sure there’s something interesting you can say about yourself,” Peter said gently.

This time, Lorenz decided to take it upon himself to find the words for Tom. “There sure is. Tom, why don’t you tell them about the time you called the Fr. Culpa ‘dad’? Or the time you wet your pants in church? Or the fact that you’re an orphan—that’s a good one!”

“Lorenz!” Peter scolded. “That isn’t necessary, don’t be mean.”

“I’m just trying to help. He can’t seem to get the words out by himself.”

“I’m not an orphan. I’m fostered. My parents are alive,” Tom said sheepishly.

“Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night, Tommy.” Lorenz sneered, at which Jack kicked him under the table.

“Ow! What did you do that for? I’m just helping him. He can’t live in a fairy-tale land forever. If his parents loved him they would…”

“Enough!” said Peter. “Next person.”

“Okay, alors, my name is Lorenz du Sabre and I…” he trailed off, seemingly looking past Peter and Jack to something happening behind them. “And that’s my sister…and her boyfriend,” he nodded past the twins to the pair walking up to the table.

“Lorenz, je dois faire semblant de tu dire quelque chose d’important à propos de notre famille,” Charmaine rapidly spurted on arrival at their table. She needed to pretend that she had news from the family to tell Lorenz, as otherwise she wouldn’t be allowed in St. Benedict’s to visit Cole.

“Hello, Charmaine,” Tom said softly, to which he got some surprised looks and suddenly shrunk into his chair as if he had said a horrific curse word. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, whatever, pourquoi est-ce qu’il me parle? Je dois payer pour mon pain pour le déjeuner. As-tu du changement?” She asked Lorenz

“Oui, je pense.”

“Chouette, merci.”

It was a conversation that Peter could only half keep up with because of his limited French. Something about a pine tree farting and an owl?

“So which one of you am I sharing a room with?” asked Cole, almost as if accusing both of them of encroaching on his territory.

“Hi, I’m your new roomie. My name’s Jack,” he said, standing up and offering an outstretched hand. The hand was left hanging in suspense.

“Okay, can I speak to you privately for a moment?” Jack was now a bit nervous—had he somehow left a clue that he’d seen the photos? Did Cole know about the one he had taken? An intrusively violent strip search flashed through Jack’s mind as they walked away from the table to have a chat.

“Now, John,”

“…Jack.”

“Yeah, whatever. Let me tell you how things work around here. I’ve had my own room since the middle of last year. My old roommate got curious and had to leave.”

“Got curious…had to leave…what does that mean?”

“Don’t you worry about it, bud. Just stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours, and we’ll get along just fine.” He put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “You seem like a decent guy so just stay on my good side and we’ll be alright.”

“Okay, well, why wouldn’t I be on your good side?”

“The last guy—well, you see he asked too many questions. Like ‘where were you last night,’ and ‘where did you get that from.’ Then, he decided to rummage through my things. So, I got rid of him.”

Jack’s mouth dried up like a potsherd. Did Cole know what he had been doing before lunch?

“Now, look here, Jake…”

“Jack.”

“Yeah. Look here. Sometimes I might not come back to my room at night. You know, it’s hard keeping a relationship going over a wall, so we need to take all the opportunities we can get. I’m sure you understand that. Sometimes, maybe I’ll have a visitor in my room for the night. Well, in those cases you can find somewhere else to sleep, maybe the bathroom, or make a friend and bunk in their room occasionally.” Jack just gaped in confusion—how could he be serious about all this?

“And I see Lorenz is in your peer group. You need to know that boy is very close to my heart, and there is an absolutely disgusting conspiracy within the lower years to pin blame on him for things he hasn’t done. Look after him for me, will you, and tell me if anyone is unfair to him. I have my eye on a few of the little runts who think it’s okay to get him in trouble. He’s a good kid.” He seemed to rush through this so that Jack wouldn’t question any of it.

“Also, I have a lot of ‘stuff’—I’ll need some of your wardrobe space, and maybe the area under your bed. Sorry about the state of the room this morning. I was going to clear my clothes off your bed but ran out of time. I’m sure you understand, right?”

You see, Cole was one of those people who thought that the pleasantry of “I’m sure you understand” made anything preceding it acceptable. There are many people who think that—that they can say or do anything and a “you understand right?” or “I hope that’s okay?” or “I’m just kidding” makes everything alright. Murder is okay so long as you end it pleasantly, I’m sure my readers will understand that? It is often said that how somebody says something is much more important than what they say. Perhaps that is true, or perhaps it is a precarious balance in importance between the two. For no matter how nicely you tell someone that they may have to on occasion sleep in a toilet cubicle, and no matter how many times you surround your dialogue with “chap” or “bud” or pats on the back, it does not make it a nice thing to say, or a reasonable request.

“And what if…well, I guess I’m saying…what if I refuse?” Jack finished with a gulp.

Suddenly Cole grabbed Jack by the collar and pushed him against the wall he was standing against, moving his face so close to Jack’s that he could feel his warm breath on his cheek “Then maybe there will be some trouble…and we wouldn’t want that, would we.”

Jack was usually not opposed to “trouble,” and if he was a little bit closer to Cole’s build, his reply may have been quite different. However, being the same height but about fifteen kilograms lighter made him rethink his usual response to aggression.

“No, no of course we wouldn’t. I think we’ll get along just fine,” Jack said with a feigned smile.

But Cole had noticed something strange on Jack’s person. You see, holding him up by his collar had made his shirt taut from his belt up, and a strange shape appeared in his shirt just above his beltline—one of a corner of a piece of card.

“What’s that?” Cole signalled downwards.

“Oh shit,” thought Jack. “It’s a…ummm…a photo of my mum. She died when I was young so I always keep a photo of her with me.”

“Why do you keep it in your pants?”

“Ahhh, well, yes. That’s a very good question and there’s a very good answer to that.”

He had to stop and think for a second, but Cole wasn’t going to change the subject.

“It’s to keep it safe. You see I’m so useless at not losing things, and in my pocket it might fall out. Or be pick-pocketed, you never know who’s around.”

“Okay…can I see it?” Cole was still suspicious about the shaky story.

“Well, you see, Cole. I can’t let you see it because…”

Suddenly Cole went in for the grab, being overcome with curiosity about what it could be. Luckily, Jack managed to squirm out of position and quickly turned to face the wall.

“Cole!” Fr. Culpa called from a few metres away. “What on Earth are you doing?”

“Nothing, Father. Just welcoming Josh here to the new school. Teaching him the secret room 601 handshake you know?” he pretended to give Jack’s hand a friendly little slap. “Anyway, I just finished telling him about your great sermons on Sunday, Father. They really are the highlight of my week.”

“Aha, right, well, I think Jack is feeling welcome enough. Perhaps you can go back to your own table now, and thank you for letting me know your appreciation of my sermons. I guess that means I should sign you up for Thursday night bible study?”

“Oh, no, Father, I’m actually busy on Thursday nights. But the moment that changes I will let you know immediately!”

And so Jack escaped the ordeal, quickly returning to their table while Cole and Fr. Culpa continued to play a cat-and-mouse bible study game.

“Peter, you still have a photo of mum in your wallet don’t you?” he asked frantically.

“Yes, why?”

“It’s a long story, I’ll tell you later. But I need to borrow it and put it down my pants. It’s important.”

Peter looked puzzled but agreed, he was curious about the request but had grown not to question some of Jack’s ridiculous ideas. Jack subtly slunk down in his chair so that the table was up to his chest and tried as discreetly as he could to switch the two photos whilst not arousing suspicion. But what to do with Charmaine’s photo. There was a backpack under the table and so he unzipped it slightly and shoved it in. “Not my problem now,” he thought to himself with a little smirk.