To dare, to strive, to conquer.
Of course I have no way of knowing for sure if it was Miss Dare who sent it to me, but I am sure it was. I wonder where she is—who she is—now. In any case, something tells me that we may not have heard the last of her. The thought does not trouble me as once it might. We have met challenges before and overcome them. Wars; deaths; scandals. Boys and staff may come and go; but St. Oswald’s stands forever. Our little slice of eternity.
Is that why she did it? I can almost believe it was. She has cut a place for herself in the heart of St. Oswald’s; in three months she has become a legend. What now? Will she return to invisibility—a small life, a simple job, perhaps even a family? Is that what monsters do when the heroes grow old?
For a second I let the noise increase. The din was tremendous; as if not thirty but three hundred boys were running riot in the little room. The Bell Tower shook; Meek looked concerned; even the pigeons on the balcony flew off in a clap of feathers. It was a moment that will stay with me for a long time. The winter sunlight slanting through the windows; the tumbled chairs, the scarred desks, the schoolbags strewn across the faded floorboards; the smell of chalk and dust, wood and leather, mice and men. And the boys, of course. Floppy-haired boys, wild-eyed and grinning, shiny foreheads gleaming in the sun; exuberant leapers; inky-fingered reprobates; foot stampers and cap flingers and belly roarers with shirts untucked and subversive socks at the ready.
There are times when a percussive whisper does the trick. At other times, however, on the rare occasion that a statement really needs to be made, one may sometimes resort to a shout.
I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.
Nothing. Not a peep.
Out in the corridor the lesson bell rang, a distant buzz that I sensed rather than heard beneath the classroom roar. For a moment I was sure that this was the end; that I had lost my touch as well as my voice; that the boys, instead of jumping to attention, would simply rise up and stampede at the sound of the bell, leaving me like poor Meek, feeble and protesting in their anarchic wake. For a moment I almost believed it as I stood at the door with my tea mug in my hand and the boys like jack-in-the-boxes jumping with glee.
Then I took two steps onto my quarterdeck, laid both hands on the desktop, and tested my lungs.
“Gentlemen. Silence!”
Just as I thought.
Sound as ever.
About the Author
JOANNE HARRIS is the author of six other novels, Sleep, Pale Sister; Chocolat; Blackberry Wine; Five Quarters of the Orange; Coastliners; and Holy Fools; a short story collection, Jigs & Reels; and two cookbook-memoirs, My French Kitchen and The French Market. Half French and half British, she lives in England.