Autumn Music by Dulcie M. Stone

Author:Dulcie M. Stone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palmer Higgs

John Lane returned a month later. Grey and emaciated and withdrawn and grieving for his lost wife, he was virtually unapproachable. Appeal to him would be a cruel intrusion. Although he resumed his duties, Miss Dixon remained de facto principal. Even though his former teacher continued to plead Sean’s cause with the distant bureaucrats, Heatherfield Primary School was eventually compelled to give formal notice that time had caught up. Distraught, she couldn’t disagree. Both logic and respect for Sean conceded that he no longer belonged at primary school.

One last concession was granted. Sean could stay on at school until the year’s end, with a brutal non-negotiable condition. If any other child should be educationally disadvantaged because of him, no matter what the nature of the disruption, Sean must immediately leave.

Miss Dixon, empathising, confided John Lane’s bitter comment, “Another way of saying if he’s teased too much, he pays the price.”

At least she’d been given time to prepare Sean. There was no time to wallow. Plans were needed. So what next? The high school in Roland had been ruled out. Any secondary school willing to enrol someone like Sean would be far away, if such a place existed. For Sean there was no formal educational step to climb. He was also too young to get a job, even supposing one could be found. How to fill the long lonely days?

There was an interim bonus. Bernie Cooper disappeared overnight. Though Harriet Cooper remained nominal president of the Mother’s Club, meetings were held in the secretary’s house and Harriet was an absentee. Gossip circulated news of Bernie’s immediate transfer to a distant special school. Heartbreaking for Harriet and Joe. Bernie was their only child, the child of middle age.

Speculation on his parents’ reaction was rife, rumour rampant. To be near their son, they were selling up and leaving. They were going to bring him home and employ special full-time help. Joe had gone political, lobbying at federal level for additional finance, at state level attacking the Education Department. Harriet was suffering a breakdown. No one had seen any of the three. What their actual reaction was, no one knew. Rumour flourished.

In the classroom, Sean was again seated centre front where he paid attention, concentrated and reportedly ignored any teasing which the children, deprived of Bernie’s presence, attempted to turn exclusively on him.

His general knowledge – of nature, social structure, history, anything that related to the story-telling he loved, was near equal to his junior class-mates. Though his reading plateaued, he wrote beautifully, even when he did not fully comprehend what he was writing. Simplified by the introduction of decimal currency, maths needed for basic transactions was no problem, although his academic mathematics remained well below par. Meanwhile the teasing, militantly policed by ever-vigilant Miss Dixon, significantly decreased. Everything promised the last few months of his schooling to be trouble free.

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