Nowhere Boy: Chapter 4 PDF

CHAPTER FOUR On the morning of September 1, 2015, Max muttered a tense goodbye to his parents, then plunged into the crush of kids in navy-blue uniforms streaming into the courtyard of Ecole du Bonheur. He still couldn't believe the name of his new school was the School of Happiness. It was like...

CHAPTER FOUR On the morning of September 1, 2015, Max muttered a tense goodbye to his parents, then plunged into the crush of kids in navy-blue uniforms streaming into the courtyard of Ecole du Bonheur. He still couldn't believe the name of his new school was the School of Happiness. It was like some cosmic joke. Max breathed deep and rubbed his clammy palms. In just seven hours, he told himself, his first day would be over. It was going to be fine. Like his parents had reminded him, he'd already done sixth grade once, and in Belgium it was still elementary school. He'd omitted this embarrassing detail when he'd Skyped with Kevin and Malik, but they had been too busy telling him about coding camp and the epic water-gun battle they'd had at Malik's house to ask him much anyway. Max let himself be funneled past an enormous sliding door and into a brick passageway. The chatter and shouts blended together in a way that was at once familiar---the typical noise of a schoolyard---and strange. Here and there, a word registered in Max's head: *coucou*, the funny word for "hi," or *l'été*, summer, which already seemed a distant memory under the cool, cloudy sky. But mostly the words were incomprehensible, giving Max the same detached, dreamlike feeling he'd often had since arriving in Brussels, like he might still blink and wake up and find himself home in his bed in Washington. As the crowd spilled into the asphalt courtyard, Max looked for the line for 6B. But if there was an order to the chaos of kids running around and giving one another adultlike cheek kisses and throwing their wide backpacks into piles on the ground and kicking around a soccer ball, Max couldn't see it. He finally spotted a paper sign for 6B, which had been unhelpfully hidden by the head of Madame Legrand, a tall, unsmiling blond woman. "*Mex How-Weird*," she said, turning to him as he trotted over. For a split second Max thought she'd called him weird, but then he realized that she was just pronouncing his name in her thick French accent. This made him grin until he realized she was staring at him without a smile, waiting for the answer. "Yes," he said, then, feeling stupid, "*oui.*" A girl with thick glasses and long, dark hair who was standing in front of the teacher bit her lip and looked down. Max knew he'd done something not quite right. "*Oui, Madame*," Madame Legrand said with an emphasis on the *Madame*. "*Oui, Madame,*" Max repeated. Madame Legrand pressed her lips together like she was considering whether this "*Oui, Madame*" was acceptable. Max wondered if maybe they would just keep saying this to each other like some sort of funny skit, but to his relief, a bell rang and she waved him into the line and led everyone inside. The first hour of class passed quickly, as all everyone basically did was take out new school supplies and organize them in their desks. Max didn't know the names for most of the school supplies, nor did he understand Madame Legrand's instructions about where to put them, but he was sitting behind the girl with the glasses and long hair, whose name was Farah, and he just copied her. The classroom was small and old-fashioned, with rows of desks that opened for storage instead of lockers, blackboards and chalk instead of smart boards, and not a single computer. He even had to load a cartridge of ink into the fountain pen they were required to use, a task that made Max feel like he'd traveled not just to a different country, but to a different century. When everything was in its place, Madame Legrand wrote some lines on the board. Twenty-nine fountain pens leaped upright as everyone started copying the phrases into their notebooks. Max started to write too, but the nib of his fountain pen only scratched dryly against the paper. He gave it a shake and tried again. He could see the impression of the letter in the paper, but there was still no ink. Max looked around---everyone else was busy writing. He unscrewed his pen and took out the cartridge. Had he loaded it wrong? Max sensed movement behind him and turned around. A big, sandy-haired kid was staring at Max, his eyes on the pen. He unscrewed his own pen, then took the nib and mimed the action of poking the top of the cartridge with it. Max instantly understood. *Merci,* he mouthed. The big kid grinned. Then Max turned back around and did the same. The second he put the nib of the pen on the paper, he saw a comforting blot of blue ink. But the next thing he knew, the ink was pouring out over his paper and all over his fingers. The big kid behind him made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a snort, but Max had no time even to shoot him a dirty look. The ink was everywhere. Max tried to blot his fingers on his blue Oxford shirt, soaking it with big blotches. He pressed his fingers against the paper, leaving fingerprints, but the ink was everywhere now---staining his nails, between his fingers. Max raised his hand. But Madame Legrand, who was still writing on the board, didn't see him. He felt a trickle of sweat down the side of his face and rubbed it before he realized that he probably now had ink on his face too. Luckily, he knew what to say. "*Excusez-moi.*" Madame Legrand turned around with a look that seemed to say *How dare* you interrupt me! *"Où est la toilette?"* Then he remembered and added, "*Madame.*" Madame Legrand had a lot to say on this subject. Max was pretty sure her passionate answer was not a simple "Take a left and then turn right." But he couldn't understand a word of it, so when she was done, he repeated the question. "Où est la toilette, Madame?" The big kid behind him was laughing even harder. Max felt the urge to turn around and kick him. Madame Legrand sighed deeply. "*Où sont les toilettes?"* she corrected. Then she added, "At the end of the hall." Just like that. In heavily accented but perfect English. Instead of making Max feel better, hearing her speak English made him feel like even more of a moron. Lunchtime wasn't much better. Max took the mystery soup and the plate of sausage, potatoes and something purple the lunch attendant handed him. It tasted better than it looked, but before he could really dig in, a bell rang and everyone rushed to clear the table. Then, in the same disorderly way as in the morning, kids mobbed the door for recess. One of his favorite parts of middle school had been that he no longer had recess, only free periods, where he could hang out and play Talisman with Kevin and Malik. But now he was back to having recess, a full hour of it. As the hoard pushed Max out the door and into the rain, he realized something else. Unlike in America, where even the threat of rain had turned outdoor recess into indoor recess, which was basically computer games or a movie, the School of Happiness didn't cancel for bad weather. From the spongy-topped athletic court where the kids congregated, Max could see through a fence and over the wall to the backyard of the town house his family had rented. His bedroom on the third floor was probably less than fifty yards away, and yet it felt as far away and unreachable as his life back home. A group of boys began to play soccer, organizing themselves into teams, while several others surrounded Max with expressions of friendly curiosity. "Do you speak English?" asked a boy with curly red hair from his class. It was such a relief to hear English that Max didn't really think about the slight oddness of the question. "Yeah," he said, returning the kid's smile. "You do too?" The boy's face lit up. "Do you speak English?" he repeated. Max nodded. "Yes, I said---" But before he could finish, the red-haired kid burst out laughing. "Coca-Cola!" said the boy next to him. "Shut up and dance with me! This woman is my destiny!" the red-haired kid shouted back, swiveling his hips. Max recognized the chorus from the Walk the Moon song that had been playing all summer on the radio. With a sinking feeling, he realized that they didn't know any English other than "Do you speak English?," "Coca-Cola" and some song lyrics. "Yeah, guys, good," he said. *"Bonne anglais."* A cheer went up from the boys as they high-fived one another. Max took the opportunity to slide away and insert himself into the soccer game, mainly by running up and down the sidelines. Some of the kids were pretty good and Max hoped they wouldn't pass to him, but they seemed to hog the ball less than the kids back home did, and inevitably someone kicked it toward him. He tried to stop it, but his foot slipped on the wet foam and it rolled out of bounds. Max gave an irritated look, like this wasn't the sort of thing that normally happened to him. He noticed the big, sandy-haired kid who'd given him the bad tip about the pen staring at him in disbelief. "Oscar!" someone shouted, and the big kid started to run toward the ball, which was back in play, knocking over a smaller defender in his way. His huge foot reared back and hit the ball so hard that it shot across the court, bounced off the goal post and before Max had time to react, hit him in the face with such force that he was knocked backward. For a few seconds, all Max saw was the gray Belgian sky, raindrops smacking against him. Then his field of vision filled with faces. "*Ça va? Ça va?"* they said. He was helped upright. He could feel the pain now, throbbing around his eye. More babble around him. Then an adult shouting, scattering the kids until only Farah remained. She took his arm carefully, like he was an old woman, and with the aide led him to the principal's office. Even though he was clearly a victim, Max wondered if he was in trouble. But instead of the principal, he was delivered to the secretary, who led him to a nook outside her office where she motioned him to lie down on a bench and covered him with a blanket. She made a lot of clucking noises, then fetched a cold pack. *Do they not even have* *a nurse's office?* Max thought. He could feel the skin around his eye bruise and tighten---he'd definitely have a black eye. *But at least*, he thought sourly, *I'm out of the rain*. It was at this moment that Max came up with a new name for his new school: the School of Misery.