No Rules (12 page)

‘I like what you've done with the place,' said Melanie.

Ian went to the sink and wet a washcloth then walked over and dabbed it on Friday's bloody forehead.

‘Oww!' wailed Friday, her eyes snapping open. ‘What did you do to my head?'

‘I'm administering first aid,' said Ian, dabbing her head a little more forcefully than he needed to.

‘Oww!' said Friday. ‘Stop it.'

‘I wouldn't have to do this if you'd just left me well enough alone,' said Ian. He went over to the first-aid cupboard on the wall and took out a dressing and elasticated bandage.

‘What are you even doing here?' asked Friday. ‘You were expelled from Highcrest.'

‘Thanks to you,' said Ian bitterly.

‘I'm not the one who got the paper with the watermarks made up,' said Friday.

‘But you were the goody-two-shoes who had to point it out to everyone, weren't you?' argued Ian.

‘If you're so angry about everything I would have thought you'd be glad to get out of here,' said Friday.

Ian clammed up, pressing his lips together.

‘Oh Friday, for a super-clever person you can be quite the dope sometimes,' said Melanie.

‘What are you talking about?' said Friday.

‘Ian is just like you,' said Melanie. ‘He comes from a really dysfunctional family. This is his home.'

‘Where does your mother think you are, anyway?' asked Friday. ‘Won't she put out a missing person report when she realises you're missing?'

‘She thinks I'm on a month-long hiking trip with an outward-bound group that specialises in helping
young people come to terms with their anger issues,' said Ian.

‘How did you convince her of that?' asked Friday.

‘I got her to sign the application forms and drive me to the station,' said Ian. ‘And I've arranged for someone who actually is on an outward-bound hiking trip to send her postcards from me once a week from remote locations.'

‘You didn't pretend to poison the whole school last night, did you?' asked Friday.

‘What?!' exclaimed Ian.

‘Someone conducted an elaborate deathcap mushroom poisoning hoax,' explained Melanie.

‘But it was stroganoff night!' exclaimed Ian. ‘I can understand wanting to poison the school, but ruining such a good dinner, that's just wrong.'

‘There have been a lot of strange things going on here since you left,' said Friday.

‘We've missed having you around. You know what you should do?' said Melanie. ‘Hire Friday to find out who framed you with the forged letters.'

‘I'm not asking for favours,' said Ian.

‘It wouldn't be a favour,' said Melanie. ‘It would be like Tristan and the furniture. You'd be hiring her to do a job.'

‘So I'd be the boss?' said Ian, smiling for the first time.

‘Exactly,' said Melanie.

‘Hey,' said Friday, ‘I don't have to take the job.'

‘Of course you do,' said Melanie. ‘There is an irresistible mystery here. Someone fired all the teachers and framed Ian. Someone is stirring up trouble with the poisoning and the other weird things going on. You'd have to investigate that even if Ian wasn't your boyfriend.'

‘He's not my boyfriend,' said Friday.

‘No,' said Ian, ‘now I'm your employer.'

‘If I do take the job,' said Friday, ‘what will you pay me?'

‘I haven't got any money,' said Ian.

‘I don't need money,' said Friday. ‘My school fees are paid up for the next nine months.'

‘What do you want?' asked Ian.

‘I don't know,' said Friday. ‘A favour. A blank cheque favour. I can ask you to do one thing at any time, no questions asked.'

‘No way,' said Ian.

‘Fine,' said Friday, starting to stand up, ‘I'll get back to class.'

‘All right, all right,' said Ian. ‘You've got a deal. If you find out who framed me and get me re-admitted, I'll owe you one favour.'

They shook hands on it.

‘What are we going to tell Tristan about his furniture?' asked Melanie, as she and Friday walked back to the main buildings of the school.

‘We're going to return them,' said Friday.

‘What?' exclaimed Melanie. ‘But Ian's using them.'

‘We'll just shove Harris' furniture across to Tristan's side of the room and tell him they're his,' said Friday.

‘Isn't that immoral?' asked Melanie.

‘Only if I accept payment for solving the case,' said Friday.

‘Are you going to accept payment for solving the case?' asked Melanie.

‘Of course,' said Friday. ‘I'll give it to Harris. He deserves compensation for having to share a room with Tristan for so long.'

Friday wasn't sure how to start off in her investigation to clear Ian's name. She was sitting in study hall, tilting back in her chair and staring at the ceiling, which was usually something Melanie did, but in Friday's case she was wide awake and scowling with concentration.

‘It's frustrating that we don't have internet access here,' said Friday. ‘What I really need to do is investigate paper.'

‘Paper?' said Melanie. ‘What is there to know? It's flat. It's white. It absorbs ink.'

‘I need to know more about watermarks, for a start,' said Friday. ‘The stationery used to fire all the teachers was very elaborately forged. My general knowledge is much greater than the vast majority of the population, but even I have no idea how you would go about forging a watermark.'

‘Ahem.'

Friday looked up. Gretel Dekker and Johanna Ottarson were politely standing over her. They were two tall blonde girls. Gretel was the school's badminton champion. Johanna looked like a surfer, but when she spoke she sounded like the Swedish chef from
The Muppet Show
.

‘Can I help you?' asked Friday.

‘I don't think Gretel really does have a scratchy throat,' said Melanie. ‘So I'm pretty sure the only reason she would make that noise is because she wants your help but is too polite to disrupt you while you're thinking.'

‘We do have a slight problem,' said Gretel. ‘We don't know if it's something you could help with. But we don't know who to turn to.'

‘A member of the teaching staff has more authority than me,' said Friday.

‘But this situation was created by a member of the teaching staff,' said Johanna.

‘It's VP Pete,' said Gretel. ‘We're in his genealogy class. We tried complaining to him, but he just laughed and told us that independent problem-solving was part of the education process. We wouldn't learn if he solved our problems for us.'

‘So what is the problem?' asked Friday.

‘We're being bullied,' said Gretel.

‘And he set this up?' said Melanie.

‘Yes, to teach us about racism,' said Johanna.

‘He's teaching you to be racist?' asked Melanie.

‘No,' said Gretel.

‘Actually, if you think about it, he kind of is,' said Johanna, looking confused as she came to the realisation herself.

‘Okay, you'd better start from the beginning,' said Friday. ‘What's going on?'

‘Our class has been selected to take part in a sociological experiment,' explained Gretel.

‘You poor things,' said Melanie. ‘Getting selected for something is never good.'

‘What's the experiment?' asked Friday.

‘The blue eyes/brown eyes experiment,' said Johanna.

‘Ah,' said Friday, ‘the experiment developed the day after Martin Luther King Jr died to demonstrate for an all-white group of children how racism worked.'

‘That's right,' said Gretel.

‘How does it work?' asked Melanie. ‘The experiment, I mean.'

‘In the class all the children with brown eyes have to sit at the back of the room wearing brown collars, and the blue-eyed children sit at the front and are given preferential treatment,' explained Friday. ‘Longer breaks, less work, extra courtesy, things like that.'

‘That's right,' said Johanna. ‘Except VP Pete is doing it the other way around. The brown-eyed children are getting preferential treatment.'

‘And Mirabella Peterson is using it as an excuse to be really mean,' said Gretel.

‘Mirabella is always mean,' said Melanie.

‘But now she's getting away with it,' said Johanna.

‘The worse she behaves, the more delighted
VP Pete is,' said Gretel. ‘He says it shows that his experiment is really working.'

‘And if anyone gets upset or cries about the bullying,' said Johanna, ‘he's ecstatic. He says that shows we're really learning how terrible racism is.'

‘I'll come and investigate,' said Friday.

‘I'll come, too,' said Melanie.

‘Thank you,' said Gretel. ‘You've both got brown eyes, so you should be all right.'

‘Although they were threatening to bring in a hazelnut test,' said Johanna.

‘What's a hazelnut test?' asked Friday.

‘They hold up a hazelnut next to your eye,' said Gretel. ‘If your eye is darker than the hazelnut, you're considered superior to people with light brown eyes.'

‘That's not in the original experimental method,' said Friday.

‘No, Mirabella has been making improvements,' said Johanna. ‘You'll see.'

When the four girls arrived at the genealogy class they discovered that for the most part it looked like a regular classroom. The students' project work was pinned up on all the walls. And each student had researched a large and elaborate family tree, which had been illustrated with photos and portraits where possible. But at the front of the room there was a large banner saying:

 

BROWN EYES GOOD

BLUE EYES BAD

 

‘I'm surprised,' said Friday.

‘That VP Pete would allow this?' asked Gretel.

‘That Mirabella managed to write a sign without making a spelling mistake,' said Friday.

‘She didn't do it herself,' said Johanna. ‘She made the blue-eyed students do it.'

Friday checked her watch. ‘We've got five minutes until your class starts,' she said. ‘I'll have a look around.'

The desks and chairs had been divided. Half the chairs were evenly spaced at the front of the room. The other half of the furniture was crammed into a corner at the back.

‘Is that where the blue-eyed students have to sit?' asked Friday.

‘That's where we sat last week,' said Gretel.

‘This week, Mirabella decided we weren't good enough and we should sit on the floor,' said Johanna.

‘Are you allowed to lie on the floor?' asked Melanie. ‘You could just take a nap and forget about your worries.'

‘We have to take notes for the brown-eyed students,' said Gretel.

‘That's just cruel,' said Melanie.

Friday was studying one of the family trees on the wall. ‘Look, here's Lizzie and Max Abercrombie's family.'

‘They've got a lot of twins in their family tree,' observed Melanie. ‘Even their dad has a twin. It's horrifying to think there's two of them.'

‘Lizzie and Max won't speak of him in class,' said Gretel. ‘They are ashamed of their uncle because he has a conviction for welfare fraud.'

‘They're not ashamed that he's a criminal,' said Johanna. ‘They're ashamed that he was on welfare.'

‘It looks like they've got lots of interesting relatives,' said Friday. ‘It says here that their grandmother was an aviatrix, their grandfather was a stationery magnate, their great grandfather was an advocate for domestic animal rights and their great great aunt won a bronze medal at the 1904 Olympics for croquet.'

‘I didn't know croquet was an Olympic sport,' said Melanie.

‘It isn't anymore,' said Friday. ‘There were a lot of
silly sports included in the 1904 Olympics. Croquet, the plunge for distance, wax bullet duelling.'

‘All sports are silly,' said Melanie. ‘They just seem sillier because no one does them anymore.'

‘This is intriguing,' said Friday. She had moved along to the next display.

‘What is it?' asked Melanie.

‘Mirabella Peterson's family tree,' said Friday.

Johanna rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, we've heard about it endlessly. How her family has a long proud history in industrial cleaning products.'

‘No,' said Friday, ‘I mean this photograph of her parents. Have a look.'

The other three girls came over to have a closer see.

‘Mirabella looks just like her parents,' said Melanie. ‘The same chin, hair colour and forehead. It's uncanny.'

‘Except her parents both have blue eyes,' said Friday.

‘Oh, yes,' said Gretel.

‘I'd never noticed that,' said Johanna.

‘That probably explains why she has such an issue about it,' said Melanie. ‘She might have felt like the odd one out at home.'

‘What are you doing in here?'

The girls turned round to see Mirabella Peterson herself, standing in the doorway.

‘Blue eyes are supposed to wait in the corridor until all the brown eyes are seated,' Mirabella reminded them.

Gretel and Johanna scurried out.

‘And you two shouldn't be here at all,' said Mirabella. The rest of the class were filing in.

‘I quite agree with that,' said VP Pete cheerfully, as he followed the students into the room. ‘Are you two girls lost? Do I have to give you detention so you can spend some time studying your schedule more closely?'

‘I thought you didn't believe in detention,' said Melanie.

‘Flexibility is so important for an educator,' said VP Pete with a false smile. ‘For you two, I'm prepared to make an exception.'

‘We're here because you've been allowing Mirabella Peterson to unfairly persecute the blue-eyed students,' said Friday.

VP Pete chuckled. ‘That's the whole point. I'm teaching my students empathy by demonstrating what injustice feels like.'

‘That doesn't make any sense,' said Friday. ‘That's like a geography teacher shoving his students out of an airplane to teach them what it feels like to be a raindrop.'

‘Don't suggest that to Mr Maclean,' said Melanie. ‘He just might do it.'

‘Are you criticising my lesson plan?' asked VP Pete.

‘Yes, I am,' said Friday. ‘Any sane person would. But that is not the only reason why Mirabella's tyranny should be stopped immediately.'

‘I wish you had blue eyes so I could shove you out in the corridor,' said Mirabella menacingly.

‘I bet you do,' said Friday. ‘But you can't, because my eyes are brown.'

‘Not as brown as a hazelnut!' yelled Mirabella.

‘No,' agreed Friday. ‘But they're browner than yours.'

Everyone in the room gasped.

Melanie stepped closer to her best friend. ‘Friday, I'm not sure if you've gone insane or if you're suffering from colour blindness but Mirabella's eyes are clearly as brown as a piece of dark chocolate.'

‘No,' said Friday. ‘That's not genetically possible.'

‘Throw her out!' yelled Mirabella. ‘She's an eye-colour traitor!'

‘Look at the photo on her family tree,' said Friday. ‘Both her parents have blue eyes. Blue eyes are a recessive gene. So it is genetically impossible for two blue-eyed people to have a brown-eyed child.'

Everyone gasped again and looked at Mirabella.

‘So she's adopted?' asked Melanie.

‘Of course not,' said Friday. ‘She has every other genetic similarity. The pinched nose, the square jaw.'

‘Then how are her eyes brown?' asked Gretel.

‘Contact lenses,' said Friday.

‘That's ridiculous,' said VP Pete.

‘Physical vanity always is,' said Friday. ‘But in teenage girls, it is a strong driving force. Thanks to increasing racial diversity in popular culture, blue eyes are no longer the cliché of beauty they once were. These days, the majority of music and movie stars have brown eyes. They are more fashionable. And Mirabella always wants to be fashionable.'

‘Is this true?' asked VP Pete.

‘You can't prove anything,' said Mirabella.

‘I just have,' said Friday.

‘She's right!' said Melanie, as she peered at
Mirabella. ‘If you look really closely, you can see the edge of her contact lenses.'

‘All right, all right!' said Mirabella. ‘So I'm wearing brown-tinted contact lenses. That's not a crime. This dumb experiment wasn't my idea. No one said I had to have
naturally
brown eyes.'

‘I'm disappointed in you,' said VP Pete. ‘Cheating on a social experiment is very serious indeed.'

‘No, actually, it's not,' said Friday. ‘This experiment is the ridiculous thing. Students don't need lessons on how to be cruel to one another. They're all masters of it already. No one knows more about cruelty and intolerance than a teenage girl. The social pressure you've put on these students is just silly.' Friday turned to face the students. ‘If you all refuse to participate, you will demonstrate your empathy far better than if you continue with this insulting charade.'

‘I want to quit,' said Trea Babcock. ‘Bullying is fine when it's off the cuff. But doing it every day is just boring.'

‘Even I'm getting fed up with it,' admitted Mirabella. ‘Coming up with new ways to make people miserable is not fun when it's homework.'

‘We want Miss Darnston back,' said Gretel.

‘Yeah,' agreed the rest of the class.

‘So what do you say, Vice Principal?' asked Friday.

VP Pete was clearly fuming. ‘You can each write a 5000-word analysis about what you've learned.'

The class groaned.

‘You see,' said Friday. ‘You've just demonstrated there are so many simpler ways to demonstrate what injustice feels like.'