Mr Reinfeldt, it would also be preferable if you knocked before entering my classroom.
Steven beamed with pleasure, obviously she believed him.
Reinfeldt squinted at Steven.
If I find out that it was you, it will be the cane, not for fighting, for lying, and (turning to Miss Hartley) it is this schools policy that after school assistance is conducted with open doors.
He turned to leave feeling that he had just had the last word.
It was a confidential counseling session Mr Reinfeldt not just assistance with school work, and how would you feel if Mr Murray our esteemed Principal held his personal interviews with you with his door wide open for anybody to walk past to see and hear what was going on?
Steven was impressed. Reinfeldt obviously was not.
Well we may just take this up with Mr Murray Miss Hartley.
He strode out the door. And left it open of course. Miss Hartley looked around at Steven, a little smile playing at the edge of her lips.
Well, did you like that?
Wouldnt have missed it for the world Miss Hartley, and Steven knew what he was talking about.
Funnily enough, from that time on at school, Gilly was almost friendly with Steven, well courteous most times. Steven often caught him looking at him when he thought he wasnt being observed. The look was almost always the same, a strange sense of studious interest or curiosity mixed with a little annoyance. And he called him Stag. Steven wasnt fooled one bit though, he knew that deep down, Gilly had been severely embarrassed before not only two of his mates, but also in front of what Gilly perceived, was all the first formers, as if Steven had arranged for them to be there as witnesses.
Gilly wasnt a total fool, he now knew what Steven was capable of but he also harboured half a belief that it may have just been blind fool luck (Steven knew this as a certainty but there was no way in the world he was going to let on to anybody, especially Gilly). Gilly was going to play this game a little more careful from now on, study his opponent a little more, get to know him better, maybe even befriend him if he had to. But when the time was right, he would plan it down to the most trivial detail before striking. And strike he would, he told himself every day.
The most perplexing thing for Gilly was Stevens reluctance to boast or even casually mention the incident to anybody. Gilly himself wanted to discuss it with Steven because he wanted to be sure in his own mind that Steven wasnt some black belt in Judo, or Aikido, or some such thing. Gilly waited oh so patiently for Steven to mention something whenever one of the other kids asked him how he had done the deed but every time, Steven brushed them off or shrugged his shoulders as an answer. Even Snake and Brady said that Steven wasnt saying anything different whenever Gilly wasnt around. And of course, after a couple of days, nobody talked about it anymore because it was old news.
To Steven, this was the coolest thing he could do. He let people think whatever they wanted to about how he managed to deck Gilly. He wasnt going to add or take away from it knowing full well that they would eventually come to their own conclusions that he was in fact something more than he was ever going to let on about. That was the cool thing, you achieve something by sheer luck and you get turned into a legend by basically acting ignorant.
Even some of the teachers looked at Steven now with a little bit more respect (Reinfeldt wasnt one of them). Steven showed no interest and absolutely no aptitude for mathematics and old Mr Temple (the boys called him Shirley, but not to his face of course) had given up a year ago trying to get him to do anything positive about it.
Steven, would you like to give me an answer to this equation?
Temple asked him in class the very next day. Steven was shocked, Temple had hardly said two words to him in class in almost a year, and now here he was asking him to act as if he was a normal member of the class. Steven looked at Temple and saw a glint of hope in his eyes. He shook his head and wondered how in hell punching somebody one day made him any different in maths the next but there was Temple, looking expectant and hopeful.
Ah, Mr Temple, if you could just move away from in front of the board?. Im sorry Mr Temple
Mr Temple resumed normality almost immediately, totally oblivious that he had placed such high hopes onto Steven just because he had slugged a bully yesterday when nobody had expected him of being capable of such actions. Temple realized he had clutched at straws, he knew Steven to be bright but as they say, you cant lead a dead horse to water. Or was that flogging a dead horse? Whatever, it didnt matter anymore, the boy was just as dumb as the Gillespie kid that he had punched. His attention in an instant, was on his more favoured students, knowing that the right answer was but seconds away.
Steven graduated from High School with excellent results. He excelled at athletics and ball games such as softball and cricket and got high distinctions for English (of course), Geography, Social Studies and History, distinctions for Science (it was rigged! ) and Technical Drawing, and a pass for Maths. Such was the education system at the time, because Steven sat for advanced classes, his maths exams were marked according to his student rating. He couldnt fail even if he didnt answer one single question! You just went down a level as far as your mark was concerned (or two levels in Stevens case). Steven was not amused to discover this fact as he knew he would have done the same for geography and probably tech drawing as well, and that way he would have had more time to do the things he wanted to do, like English, or girls.
He always maintained a bevy of girlfriends throughout school, they all thought he was cute and because of his slightly smaller than average statue, they probably believed he was quite innocent as well. Two or three of them knew better than that and if they talked as much as most girls seemed to, then more than likely quite a few other girls probably knew as well.
That Glenda Archer, she was a honey, tall and slim with beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes, but a surfie chick. He recalled first seeing her one Saturday night sitting on the brick fence around the Catholic Church with about six other girls and a couple of weeds hanging around them like flies, but there was something about Glenda that made him look twice.
He and a couple of friends had just come from the local servo where they had scoffed hamburgers and chips to satisfy the hunger perpetrated from sharing a bottle of Blackberry Nip. They had pooled their resources and got one of the other kids elder brothers to buy them the bottle ($3.95 plus the buck he pocketed as his, for expenses) from the local bottle shop. They had sunk the contents quite quickly behind the aforementioned church fence with all intentions of going on to the teenagers dance in the church hall next door but hunger had seen them go off to the servo first. And now, on their return, (minus Harry who had raced off to the toilet at the first sight of his burger) was this smorgasbord of girls with only a couple of weeds to deal with first.