The Universe Versus Alex Woods (10 page)

Anyway, despite all the learning I’ve been doing by myself, the Local Education Authority still wrote to my mother saying that if I couldn’t go to school, they might have to send a private tutor round to give me lessons. But luckily we don’t have to pay any extra for this. It’s all included in my mother’s taxes.

Thank you again for my card and for Martin Beech’s meteorite book. I hope you are well and your research is going well and the other astrophysicists have forgiven you for being the first to examine my iron-nickel meteorite. I still plan to donate it to a museum one day, but for now I still like to look at it on quite a regular basis. It’s on my bookcase next to my bed, so it’s usually the first thing I see when I wake up, which is nice.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Woods

Dear Alex,
[Dr Weir replied]

It’s lovely to hear from you again, although I’m very sorry to hear that you’ve been so ill. I know that epilepsy can be a very difficult condition to deal with, but I’ve Googled Dr Enderby and, I must say, it sounds like you’re in very capable hands. Stay positive and I’m sure you’ll continue to get better.

I’m thrilled that you’re taking such an interest in science! You sound as if you already know a great deal about the brain, so I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful neurologist (and if you decide to become an astronomer, so much the better!).

Since you enjoyed Martin Beech’s meteorite book so much, I think you’ll also enjoy The Universe: A Beginner’s Guide [enclosed]. Think of it as a ‘get well soon’ present! It has lots of information about the stars and the planets and the Asteroid Belt, as well as some superb photos from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Do make sure you write again soon. I’ll be very eager to hear how you’re getting on – especially with all the reading!

All my best wishes,

(Dr) Monica Weir

P.S. Please send my warm regards to your mother as well.

Over the next months, I became more and more used to managing my condition. Dr Enderby taught me several exercises designed to help me stop seizures in their earliest stages – as soon as I became aware of my aura. These exercises were all based on staying calm and alert and focussed – on switching my attention away from unwanted thoughts and feelings and towards some kind of anchor.

I watched my breath. I counted to fifty. I named each of the planets and major moons in turn, starting at the Sun and working my way out to the Kuiper Belt. I listed every character from
The Simpsons
I could think of. I remained calm and alert and banished any distractions to a separate corner of my mind and focussed my attention like a laser. It was a very strange experience. I told Dr Enderby that it felt like Jedi training. Dr Enderby replied that it
was
like Jedi training. It was a form of meditation – a way of helping my brain to stay poised and peaceful.

Music was another anchor that I tried. Dr Enderby said that research had shown that, for many people, listening to music could help to slow or stop the progression of a seizure. But you had to
really
listen, and some types of music tended to work better than others. Ideally, the music should be calm and have a reasonably intricate structure. Instrumental classical music had been shown to work the best in most cases. Unfortunately, my mother didn’t own any instrumental classical music. There were only five CDs in the flat. Four were ‘relaxation music’ – whales and dolphins and panpipes and so on – and the other was a weird compilation album from the 1980s. The first track on it was ‘Enola Gay’, an ancient song about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The second was ‘
Neunundneunzig Luftballons
’ by Nena, which also had something to do with nuclear annihilation. This was a popular theme of the 1980s because Ronald Reagan was President of the United States and everyone feared the worst – but that was something I would only come to understand later on, after talking at length with Mr Peterson.

After some experimentation, I found that the dolphins did nothing, the panpipes worked okay, and ‘Enola Gay’ made my seizures considerably worse.

The private tutor sent by the Local Education Authority was called Mrs Sullivan. She was nice enough, but she was only paid to come for three hours a week and most of that was spent going over all the things I already knew. Mrs Sullivan said that the most important thing at that moment was to make sure that I was up to date with everything that would come up in the Key Stage 2 SATs, which I should have taken several months earlier. She wouldn’t teach me anything new – any of the secondary-school stuff I
should
have been learning at that age.

‘One thing at a time, Alex,’ she insisted.

This, unfortunately, made our lessons rather tedious. My attention wandered a lot. I’d decided that I liked learning better when I could do it in my pyjamas in the privacy of the box room.

When I was eventually allowed to sit my SATs, I passed them with no problems at all. But by that time, I was a whole year behind everyone else my age, and the Local Education Authority decreed that when I started secondary school, I’d be starting in the year below. I didn’t know enough to skip a year.

I would have liked to have pointed out to whoever made the final decision that actually I knew quite a lot of things – things that some twelve-year-olds
didn’t
know. I knew a surprising amount about the anatomy and physiology of the brain. I knew the difference between meteoroids, meteors and meteorites. I knew words like achondrite and olfactory and cerebellum. But I don’t suppose this would have made much difference. My self-education had been scattergun, at best, and most of the knowledge in my head was the wrong sort of knowledge. I didn’t know half the things I was
supposed
to know at twelve years old.

I knew that iridium-193 was one of two stable isotopes of iridium, a very rare, very dense metal, but I didn’t know that the periodic table even existed.

I knew how many zeroes there were in a quintillion, but I thought that algebra lived in ponds.

I’d picked up a few Latin words, and a smattering of Elvish, but my French was non-existent.

I’d read more than one book of more than one thousand pages (more than once), but I wouldn’t have been able to identify a metaphor if it poked me in the eye.

By secondary-school standards, I was quite a dunce.

In case you didn’t know, in secondary school – especially in the early years of secondary school – diversity is not celebrated. In secondary school, being different is the worst crime you can commit. Actually, in secondary school, being different is pretty much the
only
crime you can commit. Most of the things the UN considers crimes are not considered crimes at secondary school. Being cruel is fine. Being brutal is fine. Being obnoxious is fine. Being superficial is especially fine. Explosive acts of violence are fine. Taking pleasure in the humiliation of others is fine. Holding someone’s head down the toilet is fine (and the weaker the someone, and the dirtier the toilet, the finer it is). None of these things will hurt your social standing. But being different – that’s unforgivable. Being different is the fast-track to Pariah Town. A pariah is someone who’s excluded from mainstream society. And if you know that at twelve years of age, you’re probably an inhabitant of Pariah Town.

Being different sounds like a simple concept, but actually, it’s quite complex. For a start, there are a few types of difference – a selected few – that are acceptable and won’t result in you getting mud and stones hurled at you. For example, if you’re different because your family is unusually rich (as long as it’s the right kind of rich) and has three cars (the right kind of cars), then you’ll probably be okay. Secondly, there are some combinations of difference that can cancel each other out. For example, if you’re abnormally stupid in almost every area but also happen to have abnormally good hand–eye or foot–eye co-ordination – that is, if you’re abnormally good at sports – then you’ll definitely be okay.

The crime of being different is really the crime of being
offensively
different, and this can be broken down into several sub-crimes.

1)
Being poor
. This is the worst crime you can commit, but, again, it’s not as simple as it sounds. Being ‘poor’ really means not having the right stuff – Nike trainers, an appropriate amount of pocket money, a PlayStation or Xbox, a mobile phone, a flatscreen TV and computer in your bedroom and so on and so forth. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have these things for reasons other than poverty. You’re still poor.

2)
Being physically different
– too small, too gangly, too spotty, buck teeth, braces (to prevent buck teeth), too skinny, too fat (equals
very
fat), too hairy, not hairy enough, excessively ugly, tendency to stutter or stammer, unacceptable pitch of voice, unacceptable accent, unacceptable odour, disproportionate limbs or features, cross-eyed, bug-eyed, lazy-eyed, poor vision/crap glasses, lumps, bumps or humps, excessive freckling, large visible moles, unacceptable skin colour or tone, sickly, disabled, unacceptable bone structure, ginger hair.

3)
Being mentally different
– too clever, too stupid, too swotty, bookish, nerdy, weird hobbies and interests, just weird, incorrect sense of humour.

4)
Having unacceptable friends or relatives
. Associating with people who commit the crimes listed above and below is also a crime – even if you live in their house and have little choice in the matter. Having a parent who won’t let you do all of the things you should be allowed to do – the things everybody else is apparently doing – is also unacceptable.

5)
Being gay
. This has surprisingly little to do with what you do with your private parts (or, more accurately, what you’d
like
to do with your private parts). Being gay is more a state of mind, or sometimes, less often, a state of body. You could almost include it as a sub-crime in 2) and 3), but really, it goes beyond both of these categories. And because of the number of times it crops up as a specific accusation, it definitely deserves its own special category. But the best way to explain what ‘being gay’ means is to tell you some of the things that are gay.
    If you’re a boy, any display of sensitivity is gay. Compassion is gay. Crying is supergay. Reading is usually gay. Certain songs and types of music are gay. ‘Enola Gay’ would certainly be thought gay. Love songs are gay. Love itself is
incredibly
gay, as are any other heartfelt emotions. Singing is gay, but chanting is not gay. Wanking contests are not gay. Neither is all-male cuddling during specially designated periods in football matches, or communal bathing thereafter. (I didn’t invent the rules of gay – I’m just telling you what they are.)
    Girls can be gay too, but it’s much harder for them. And girls don’t tend to call each other gay as much as boys do. When a girl is gay, she’s called a dyke. Reasons for being a dyke include having thick limbs, bad hair or flat shoes.

Usually you have to commit quite a few of these crimes (or one very serious sub-crime) to earn yourself a permanent residence in Pariah Town. But as you’ve probably worked out, I committed crimes in every category.

1) I was poor – despite my mother owning a successful business, a house, a flat and a car. Compared to many single parents, my mother was a tycoon; but as I’ve explained, poorness and poverty aren’t the same in secondary school. I could have taken in photocopies of my mother’s bank statements and this wouldn’t have swayed a single mind. The evidence against me was too damning. I didn’t have the right stuff, therefore I was poor.

2) and 3) My epilepsy meant that I was both physically and mentally different in a very obvious way – I was sick in the body
and
in the mind. I was also quite short and a late developer, but this was just about compensated for by my being kept back a year – although, in most ways, being kept back a year was definitely
not
an advantage. This circumstance presented further evidence that I was probably retarded – even though I knew a lot of strange things (not the right things) and was also a swot. I may well have been unique in that I was the only person who seemed simultaneously too clever
and
too stupid.

4) You know about my mother already.

5) Most of my traits and all the things I liked were super-supergay.
    Needless to say, the early years of secondary school were not a happy time for me.

My secondary school was called the Asquith Academy. My mother chose it for me because it had good exam results and excellent resources and promoted ‘timeless’ values. (This was how the Asquith Academy described itself in its brochure and on its website: ‘The modern school with timeless values.’) It was the kind of school
she
would have hated if she’d been forced to go there. But as I’ve already mentioned, there were different rules concerning what was right for her and what was right for me. The most important thing for her was that she be free to express herself and free to follow her own fantastic beliefs wherever they happened to lead her, disregarding any logical holes along the way. The most important thing for me was that I got excellent exam results so that I’d have the opportunity to do whatever I decided to do
later on
. This was especially important now that I had epilepsy. My mother was determined that I should not get left behind, and she was adamant that no school in the county could refuse me. It didn’t matter how limited spaces were: it would have been discrimination had they turned me away.