William made his way through the snow, piled high as it was on this freezing December day, toward his townhome in the suburbs of Roanoke. His overalls clearly covered his wiry frame underneath his exxageratedly large winter coat, both of them blue, and he had become somewhat embarassed after the neighborhood kids teased him. It made it quite difficult to do his duty everyday--his mother had insisted that he get out at least once a day and play in the snow with his friends--aka, those children who lived close enough to him to accompany him so that he would never have to venture out alone. To say that they never did so begrudgingly...well, he was forbidden to do otherwise.
He ascended the steps to the front door, upon which a green wreath hung, and gazed up at the peephole, knowing his mother would not be able to see him until he had opened the door. He announced himself with a sharp "hi" as he stepped inside, with a cheerful voice he had cultivated with only a few months of practice thus far. He'd only been venturing out into the world by himself for about that long, as he was all of seven years old.
Brushing the remaining snow and mud off of his boots as he had been taught, he trudged the rest of the way inside and allowed the door to close behind him. It was not much warmer indoors than out, as the family had been forced to cut back on heating because they did not have the money to afford it all the time. Nonetheless, he took off his coat and hung it in the closet, then removed his boots and did likewise.
Gazing down at him from above with eyes that seemed to follow him about was a poster of Santa Claus--the jolly bearded man who kept him in check when his parents weren't watching him. Underneath Santa's image on the poster was the word GIVREC...and under that was the definition: "'Tis better to give than to receive." Through the window, he could see another placement of Santa's image across the street--a standing model in someone's lawn, no doubt another device through which Santa could observe him. There was even a Santa patrol--a man dressed in red, carrying a bucket into which men and women dropped money for the poor. But the patrols didn't matter. Only Santa's mind-reading mattered.
William's mother--or "mommy", in baby talk--liked to remind him frequently of the phrase on the next image he saw, framed and hung by the stairs leading up to his room. It read "Santa Claus Is Watching You". This much, William knew to be true, for Santa was practically the sole authority in his life when his mother and father weren't around, or his teacher. He could be quiet, he could think about fun things like playing with his toys, or responsibilities like taking out the garbage and how important they were, but the rest would be too revealing. He only indulged himself in things outside of playing, love for his family, chores and homework on rare occasions, like when he wondered about what was in space or what daddy's work was like--and even those thoughts could be revealing.
At the top of the stairs he could plainly hear mommy's TV blaring the latest talk show. He peeked into her room and saw that she was not present; it was not forbidden for him to lower the volume on the TV, but it should be on at all times, and it could not be lowered to a point where it was completely inaudible, even from his own room.
Upon lowering the TV, he entered his room and barely even registered the baby monitor, still in use even though he felt that he was no longer a--well, no reason to dwell upon that, he reasoned dryly. Better to occupy himself with something that would take his mind off of it, something like homework.
This was more complicated than he had at first imagined. Opening a notebook and seeing the pen lying right next to it, he became compelled to ignore his textbook for the briefest of moments. Finally cracking it open, he knew to what page he was supposed to go, yet he did not. At first he was worried that it might take him too long, that it might not be finished by the time his father came home. But slowly, gradually, he began to doodle in his notebook. It was only one page, after all, though he had been specifically instructed not to waste any, or to clutter his spelling notebook with any unnecessary marks. Still, it was in pencil only; it could be erased.
At first it was a series of simple lines, and this gradually became the beginnings of an image of the schoolfront, which eventually led his mind to a memory of something that had happened earlier.
It seemed inocuous enough, though as he reflected more deeply on it, it stood out more and more. The class had been sitting on the floor in the music room, and the music teacher had them singing a holiday song about sharing. It was a very happy tune--The Two-Minute Song--and as William looked at the faces around him, he could see that they were all exactly the same. This song had them all feeling the same way as him. It was as though a wave of euphoria had grabbed them all, and each of them was so focused that they had forgotten where they were and what time it was, or so it appeared. One sandy-haired girl named Michelle was beaming and bobbing back and forth, up and down to a rhythm she seemed to be imagining accompanying the song. Behind him was Chrissy, a girl who had teased him relentlessly. She had seemed totally devoid of cheer, yet now she was positively lit up with joy. Then there was Jimmy O'Brien--tall and thick, with glasses that made him seem somehow less brutish--and he had made eye contact with William for just a few seconds--eye contact which seemed to say "I see it too!"
It would have been impractical for William to ask him about it. After all, what if it meant nothing at all? Either way, he would be teased by everyone just for asking, for talking about something he was certain everyone else would not understand. So instead, he kept quiet, secure in the knowledge that he was not imagining what he saw, and that there were other kids who saw it just the same.
As these thoughts filled his mind, he had continued scrawling on the notebook page, though he was only semi-aware of what he was drawing until he'd finished recounting the day's events to himself. It was an image of a frowning Santa, and immediately he knew that this could be compromising if discovered. Still, it was toward the back of the notebook, and not all that likely to be found, since nobody had made a habit yet of inspecting it. There was the possibility, but...it offered him a not entirely unwelcome thrill to leave it there all the same.
Then the front door opened.
"Hello, William!" His mother called out from downstairs while brushing off her boots.
"Hi mom!" was his curt response as he quickly flipped to where he was supposed to have started his homework. With luck, his mother wouldn't peek over his shoulder as she was wont to do from time to time. He could hear her putting her boots away in the closet, and then she slowly ascended the loud, creaky stairs toward her bedroom. "Hmm..." she said, noticing something out of the ordinary. He started spelling out words in his notebook with reckless abandon, hoping to fill half the page before she came in. But...
"The TV was too loud, dear? Oh, I'm sorry." She went into her room to turn it up. There were presently commercials issuing forth from it, so she continued to talk while she did whatever it was that she was doing one room away. William wished he could close his door, but this was something he could be reprimanded for, maybe even grounded, so he didn't dare. Instead he listened to his mother's rambling monologue. Sometimes she would speak for hours on end about different things as she went about her business within the house, an ever-present voice which presented to him a single, narrow worldview which was at once comforting and disturbing.
"It looks like Mrs. Harris is at it again." She was referring to their neighbor on the right side. "She's put up her decorations early, and this time she's got an even bigger "Noel" sign in her front yard. It covers the front of the house from end-to-end, can you believe it? Well she's always been out to get me, trying to outdo us, but this war won't be over until we get out Santa out there. Santa's a very powerful one when he's used right. Bright red and white, and this one even has lights on it...."
His mother was either lying, confused or just plain agitated at the moment, because she was clearly contradicting herself. If William had a record, any kind of record that could be proven, of the things she would say from day-to-day, he would be able to verify it. Just once, he would have given anything to be able to prove even to himself that this was happening. It was extremely difficult when one had to question one's own memory every time one was told something, but his mother talked on things at such length and repeated them so often that they quickly covered over the previous assertions.
The problem here was that Mrs. Harris was, only yesterday, a kind old woman with whom his mother was having tea. Mrs. Beeker, on the other side of them, she was the enemy. But they often tended to reverse roles, with one the vicious enemy and the other, a dear ally. But his mother recounted their history as though whichever one was the enemy at the time had always been the enemy, and would continue to be until such time as they were forced into submission. Right now, they had always been at war with Mrs. Harris.
He was tempted to denounce this announcement, this fabrication, very tempted. But his mother often told him that she could read minds--it went right along with her other assertion, that she had eyes in the back of her head. All mothers did, so they could do their jobs. So he simply sat and did his homework, and listened to his mother rant and drone alternatively; when it was done, he waited a little while watching cartoons before he was called downstairs for supper.
Supper was a plethora of "healthy" foods which tasted particularly awful, but it was something he'd become accustomed to. There were these strong, overly-flavorful foods at home, but when he was at school he would spend a dollar fifty on pizza and fries--conventionally considered good recreational foods, but the school produced singularly carboard-tasting pizza and fries. Still, it was the best food he could get a hold of. He'd heard more often than seen real pizza, real fries; he had memories of the things which he couldn't remember too vividly, mired as they were in the muck of time. There were strong scents, strong tastes, not unpleasant, but overwhelmingly inspiring. Were they real? He wasn't certain, although he'd often dream about them, and occasionally see commercials and signs indicating that someone out there was peddling the stuff.
He dwelled on it that night, pretending to be asleep every time his door was opened, one parent or the other looking in on him to see what exactly he was doing. It happened at irritatingly brief intervals, but could always be relied upon to stop at a particular time. William had been able to develop a sense of when exactly that time might be, although he did not have a clock in his room, and did not see any way of getting one. He always just knew. Sometimes it involved propping himself up to check and see if the hall light was still on through the underside of his door. But this was a risky maneuver, since at any moment one of his parents could crack the door to look at him.
His dreams that night pertained to food. A half-memory of chocolate, this time.
The next day at school, the class was assigned another project having to do with Christmas and the magic of Santa Claus, that ever-present man who seemed to get into everything. This time they were to draw images of him on construction paper and put decorations around him. It was during this mind-numbing work that he was passed a note by Chrissy, which he concealed underneath his posterboard, glancing up now and again at the teacher, and promptly read, exposing it one line at a time. It was, however, very short. It read: "Hey I like you, let's play after school."
His heart jumped. This was highly irregular, making this sort of proposition during class--it was the kind of thing that could get him into a lot of trouble, especially since his parents seemed to be encouraging him to spend more time among boys than girls. It was also the type of proposition that excited him, because of its wrongness. He looked around him warily, though everybody seemed to be fully engaged in their projects, and they didn't see the momentary betrayal of shock on his face, the redness in his cheeks. It was imperative to remain impassive, or to appear engrossed in his work, or the school environment. Behaviors that stood out as irregular were examined by everyone, though the true danger lay in authorities. Ever-vigilant, they could punish you for any number of deviations, even when the object wasn't punishment. And Santa was the worst of the bunch. No one ever escaped Santa.
During recess, however, William played on the jungle gym quite near Chrissy, and when they were within earshot of each other, but not looking one another in the eyes, William asked her, "Where d'you wanna play?"
"I was thinking behind my house. There this place back there, it's like a house in a tree, it's soooo cool. Go back behind my house and go like straight back there's like this stream, and you've gotta cross it, then keep going up to the trail and go left. You can see it from there if you look real hard, on the right side."
Her instructions were extremely specific. He hoped he would be able to remember them. She had to stop relaying them to him as soon as her friends came running along, engaged in a game of tag. She was tagged, and had to feign indifference for him as she sprang to her feet, the red sash on her dress waving in the wind as she gave chase.
Home that evening was much the same as the previous evening, as not much at all was prone to change. There were certain constants. His mother would talk about whichever neighbor it was at the given moment whom she had decided was giving her grief; his father would come home from "work", the mystical place where he acquired money, but only once a week; supper would consist of good and bad food alike, none of it subject to his whim; homework would be done in a timely fashion; bedtime would come, the periodic checkups would ensue, and finally, sleep would consume.
School followed the same pattern. Today his focus was more on the Pledge of Allegiance than anything else. He was certain that something about it had changed, yet he couldn't be sure. He thought at one point there was mention of "God" somewhere in it, but it had been removed. Something under God, though he could scarce imagine God sitting upon something for all of eternity. No one else seemed to mind or care, so programmed they were to simply repeat the phrases given to them; once, a fellow student named Charlie Ingsoc had uttered the forgotten word by mistake. He turned red and looked around him to see if anyone had noticed. If they had, they didn't know what to make of it, and the incident was largely ignored, although from that day onward Charlie didn't come back. They were told his family had moved. From that point on, nobody made any mistakes.
William followed the prearranged plan right after school, meeting Chrissy at the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. On a trail at the top of a hill, somewhere just out of sight of the houses in front of it, there was a great old tree, gnarled and twisted, and up in its branches sat a haphazardly constructed treehouse built Santa-knew-when. He walked up to the steps set into the tree trunk and began to climb them, finding them sturdy and supportive. Once at the top, he was not disappointed.
Chrissy sat there with something in her lap. When he popped his head up into the doorless doorway, she threw it at him and giggled as the object--a water balloon--erupted on his head. He immediately appeared frustrated and glared at her with all the intensity his seven-year-old face could muster.
"I could have fallen!" He yelled.
She put her finger to her lips. "Shhhh!! D'you wanna get caught!"
"Just don't do that again!" William insisted as he hauled himself inside.
It was a ramshackle affair, much as he suspected, but it was cool all the same. Even with the weather the way it was outside, he found he still very much wanted to be here, even if there was nothing at all to do. But, as fate would have it, Chrissy produced something from her thick pink jacket pocket that immediately got his attention. It was wrapped in black, with silver lettering, rectangular, and it was being opened.
"You brought candy!" He exclaimed in a half-shout.
She nodded. "Yeah, want some?" She broke off a piece immediately and offered it to him.
He scrambled over to her and took it with fervor. "My mom gives me dessert, but she doesn't think these are good for us," he said around his first bite. "I think these taste lots better than the stuff she wants me to eat. She says fruit's sweet too. I think candy's a lot sweeter."
"Me too," Chrissy agreed.
"D'you ever wonder why they always tell us things that aren't true?"
Chrissy shook her head vigorously. "Why?" She asked absently.
"Well, I don't know why they'd wanna lie. Like the Pledge of Allegiance. I know there's something that was in it before, but it's not in it now."
She shrugged. "I dunno," she told him while jumping to her feet. "Let's play a game."
William sighed and stood up. Chrissy was a fun kid, but she obviously didn't care about the same things as William. It was too bad, because she had the spirit of someone who could do something about it, kind of like him, but it appeared that something like that would never happen.
If there's any hope, it's probably the bullies who can do something, William thought with dismay. The bullies were the only ones who did anything against authority. They could in fact be relied upon to rebel, though the very acts of their rebellion more often than not led to counteract whatever power might be gained from rebellion. They were hurting their grades every time they skipped class or didn't do their homework, and like William was so often told by his parents (if he believed them), without good grades, a person could go nowhere in life. What, then, was his option? Right now, it seemed his only option was to play with Chrissy, so play with her he did.
It was at school the next day that things escalated. She told him about a place in the school where they were making Christmas cookies for the upcoming celebration. Each class would receive a plate of cookies, and there was somewhere within the cafeteria these cookies could be obtained, if only one could avoid getting caught. So, during recess, she took his hand and pulled him inside, right under the watchful eye of their teacher.
They made their way through the empty halls quickly and quietly, William receiving repeated assurances from Chrissy that it was safe, she knew what she was doing. The teachers and students would either be on their way to somewhere in a big obvious line or they would stay inside the classrooms, most often with the doors closed. Most of the time they wouldn't ask questions.
"Haven't you ever gone to the bathroom?" she asked like it was necessary.
Soon they were slipping through the doors to the cafeteria, and they made it all the way to the tables where the cookies were laid out on shiny, silver-colored plastic platters. Chrissy wasted no time in climbing upon a chair and reaching in for one, so William followed suit before long. The two of them finished their first cookies and then looked at each other with pure delight on their faces. Those expressions remained only a few seconds, and they heard the cafeteria door slam shut.
"We're in trouble," William said suddenly.
"You're in trouble." Their teacher, Ms. O'Brien, repeated in an ominous monotone.
She escorted them in silence to the principal's office, where they were seated just opposite the secretary's desk, next to a boy from the other second grade class named Steve Wider. Steve was a pudgy kid with big round glasses and short dark hair, and his eyes looked huge as he gazed at them pleadingly, looking for all the world like a caged hamster. He was sweating, and William could only imagine that the poor guy was in real trouble. But what could he have done? William knew him to be an obedient student, if not necessarily the brightest. He was quick to volunteer for things whenever their classes were doing something together. When the teacher wanted someone to come up and write on the board or answer a question, he was the first to raise his hand. What could he do to land himself in the principal's office? For that matter, if he was here, what did that mean for William and Chrissy??
It wasn't long before Chrissy was called in to speak with him. William sat with his feet dangling from the chair and waited anxiously for his turn. No one spoke to him, and he focused idly on the sound of the secretary making and taking phone calls, though he had no idea what she was talking about, and he also focused on the ambient sounds of pen on paper, doors opening outside, that sort of thing. He had to do something, and it was all their was. Surely if he got up to walk around, he would get yelled at. There were magazines on the table--kids' magazines--but the teacher's stern description of what they had done upon entering the office meant that the secretary knew what he had done, and the principal as well. He could barely bring himself to move, so he dared not grab one of the magazines. What would she think, say?
Minutes that seemed like they might have added up to hours passed as he sat there, watching Steve get more nervous as well. If William could only read a clock--!
Finally, he was called inside. He passed Chrissy on the way, but her head was down and he could not ascertain how it had gone for her. All he knew was that trouble was on the way.
"Sit down, William," said the principal. William looked bleakly at the principal's face, then abruptly looked back down, focused intently on his hands. He took a seat opposite the principal's expansive desk, and tried not to think about how big everything was, including the man himself.
"William, I understand you were found with your friend Chrissy inside the cafeteria, right by the trays of cookies that we were going to give to all the classes later this week. I understand that you thought it would be a good idea to go get some before we were ready to give them to you. Do you understand that you didn't have permission to be in there?"
Mr. Carrington was a smart man. It was kind of scary to think about how smart he had to be in order to be the principal of the school, but William decided that if he didn't try to trick him, he might get out of this okay. After all, what could he possibly come up with to trick Mr. Carrington? So he simply nodded and murmured "Uh-huh."
"That's good, William. Now I don't want to have to call your parents, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to do something about this. So for the next week, you're going to sit in detention during recess. You'll come here and sit in the office just out there," and he indicated the outer office where the secretary sat, "and you'll go back to class when your teacher comes to get you." He then leaned forward, hands interlaced. "Now there's only one thing I have left to ask you, William. Remember, you're not here because we don't like you, alright?"
William nodded.
"Good. Now tell me, was this Chrissy's idea?" The pressure of being in here, of having Mr. Carrington talk to him like this--it was one of his greatest fears. The principal's office was a bad place to be when you'd done something, and it was perhaps the worst thing William could be presented with at the present time. He didn't want to tell on Chrissy at first, but being here, enduring this...it was all too much!
"Yeah, she said we wouldn't get caught..." At this point, a couple tears began to streak down his face, but he continued. "...she said they'd taste good and that we should go and eat some, so she took one and then I took one...I didn't wanna get in trouble!" At this point he looked up at Mr. Carrington, imploring him to have mercy. Mr. Carrington smiled.
"It's alright, William, that's all I needed to know. Like I said, it's not that we don't like you; you're a good student. I can't remember having you in here before now, and I don't expect to have you here again. Just make sure you don't do anything like this again, okay?"
"Okay, " William answered, and he meant it. It was wrong, after all, and his face felt hot with the shame of it all. Why should he get cookies before everyone else, after all? Why should he sneak off, why was he entitled to more than the rest?
"Good. Go back to class. We're done here. Thanks for listening to me, William."
William got up and walked out.
The following day, he and Chrissy did not receive cookies with the rest of the class; they had already eaten their share. They didn't speak, except for once during detention in hushed tones.
"I told on you," she whispered.
"I told on you," he admitted as well.
"It's just so scary coming here, like you have to tell the truth or else they'll figure it out."
"Yeah."
The fun was gone from their conversation. It had become wooden. They were unable to look one another in the eye, not that it was entirely possible to do so before.
"We should play again," William said. Chrissy seemed to be staring into space, trying to avoid talking rather than get in trouble, even though the secretary didn't seem to mind that they were whispering. Surely she could hear them, but who cared what they did at this point? Though she seemed resigned to the new way of the world, she still saw fit to answer him, at least right now.
"We should."
It was without emotion, as though that had been stripped from her.
When next they met, it was well within the boundaries of the paved neighborhood, and they did what all the other kids did--what kids were supposed to do--they rode their bikes, played tag and hide-and-seek, and grew older and wiser and learned the rules and the reasons for them more plainly than ever. They had won the battle with their own rebellion. William was good, and he had made Santa happy.
He ascended the steps to the front door, upon which a green wreath hung, and gazed up at the peephole, knowing his mother would not be able to see him until he had opened the door. He announced himself with a sharp "hi" as he stepped inside, with a cheerful voice he had cultivated with only a few months of practice thus far. He'd only been venturing out into the world by himself for about that long, as he was all of seven years old.
Brushing the remaining snow and mud off of his boots as he had been taught, he trudged the rest of the way inside and allowed the door to close behind him. It was not much warmer indoors than out, as the family had been forced to cut back on heating because they did not have the money to afford it all the time. Nonetheless, he took off his coat and hung it in the closet, then removed his boots and did likewise.
Gazing down at him from above with eyes that seemed to follow him about was a poster of Santa Claus--the jolly bearded man who kept him in check when his parents weren't watching him. Underneath Santa's image on the poster was the word GIVREC...and under that was the definition: "'Tis better to give than to receive." Through the window, he could see another placement of Santa's image across the street--a standing model in someone's lawn, no doubt another device through which Santa could observe him. There was even a Santa patrol--a man dressed in red, carrying a bucket into which men and women dropped money for the poor. But the patrols didn't matter. Only Santa's mind-reading mattered.
William's mother--or "mommy", in baby talk--liked to remind him frequently of the phrase on the next image he saw, framed and hung by the stairs leading up to his room. It read "Santa Claus Is Watching You". This much, William knew to be true, for Santa was practically the sole authority in his life when his mother and father weren't around, or his teacher. He could be quiet, he could think about fun things like playing with his toys, or responsibilities like taking out the garbage and how important they were, but the rest would be too revealing. He only indulged himself in things outside of playing, love for his family, chores and homework on rare occasions, like when he wondered about what was in space or what daddy's work was like--and even those thoughts could be revealing.
At the top of the stairs he could plainly hear mommy's TV blaring the latest talk show. He peeked into her room and saw that she was not present; it was not forbidden for him to lower the volume on the TV, but it should be on at all times, and it could not be lowered to a point where it was completely inaudible, even from his own room.
Upon lowering the TV, he entered his room and barely even registered the baby monitor, still in use even though he felt that he was no longer a--well, no reason to dwell upon that, he reasoned dryly. Better to occupy himself with something that would take his mind off of it, something like homework.
This was more complicated than he had at first imagined. Opening a notebook and seeing the pen lying right next to it, he became compelled to ignore his textbook for the briefest of moments. Finally cracking it open, he knew to what page he was supposed to go, yet he did not. At first he was worried that it might take him too long, that it might not be finished by the time his father came home. But slowly, gradually, he began to doodle in his notebook. It was only one page, after all, though he had been specifically instructed not to waste any, or to clutter his spelling notebook with any unnecessary marks. Still, it was in pencil only; it could be erased.
At first it was a series of simple lines, and this gradually became the beginnings of an image of the schoolfront, which eventually led his mind to a memory of something that had happened earlier.
It seemed inocuous enough, though as he reflected more deeply on it, it stood out more and more. The class had been sitting on the floor in the music room, and the music teacher had them singing a holiday song about sharing. It was a very happy tune--The Two-Minute Song--and as William looked at the faces around him, he could see that they were all exactly the same. This song had them all feeling the same way as him. It was as though a wave of euphoria had grabbed them all, and each of them was so focused that they had forgotten where they were and what time it was, or so it appeared. One sandy-haired girl named Michelle was beaming and bobbing back and forth, up and down to a rhythm she seemed to be imagining accompanying the song. Behind him was Chrissy, a girl who had teased him relentlessly. She had seemed totally devoid of cheer, yet now she was positively lit up with joy. Then there was Jimmy O'Brien--tall and thick, with glasses that made him seem somehow less brutish--and he had made eye contact with William for just a few seconds--eye contact which seemed to say "I see it too!"
It would have been impractical for William to ask him about it. After all, what if it meant nothing at all? Either way, he would be teased by everyone just for asking, for talking about something he was certain everyone else would not understand. So instead, he kept quiet, secure in the knowledge that he was not imagining what he saw, and that there were other kids who saw it just the same.
As these thoughts filled his mind, he had continued scrawling on the notebook page, though he was only semi-aware of what he was drawing until he'd finished recounting the day's events to himself. It was an image of a frowning Santa, and immediately he knew that this could be compromising if discovered. Still, it was toward the back of the notebook, and not all that likely to be found, since nobody had made a habit yet of inspecting it. There was the possibility, but...it offered him a not entirely unwelcome thrill to leave it there all the same.
Then the front door opened.
"Hello, William!" His mother called out from downstairs while brushing off her boots.
"Hi mom!" was his curt response as he quickly flipped to where he was supposed to have started his homework. With luck, his mother wouldn't peek over his shoulder as she was wont to do from time to time. He could hear her putting her boots away in the closet, and then she slowly ascended the loud, creaky stairs toward her bedroom. "Hmm..." she said, noticing something out of the ordinary. He started spelling out words in his notebook with reckless abandon, hoping to fill half the page before she came in. But...
"The TV was too loud, dear? Oh, I'm sorry." She went into her room to turn it up. There were presently commercials issuing forth from it, so she continued to talk while she did whatever it was that she was doing one room away. William wished he could close his door, but this was something he could be reprimanded for, maybe even grounded, so he didn't dare. Instead he listened to his mother's rambling monologue. Sometimes she would speak for hours on end about different things as she went about her business within the house, an ever-present voice which presented to him a single, narrow worldview which was at once comforting and disturbing.
"It looks like Mrs. Harris is at it again." She was referring to their neighbor on the right side. "She's put up her decorations early, and this time she's got an even bigger "Noel" sign in her front yard. It covers the front of the house from end-to-end, can you believe it? Well she's always been out to get me, trying to outdo us, but this war won't be over until we get out Santa out there. Santa's a very powerful one when he's used right. Bright red and white, and this one even has lights on it...."
His mother was either lying, confused or just plain agitated at the moment, because she was clearly contradicting herself. If William had a record, any kind of record that could be proven, of the things she would say from day-to-day, he would be able to verify it. Just once, he would have given anything to be able to prove even to himself that this was happening. It was extremely difficult when one had to question one's own memory every time one was told something, but his mother talked on things at such length and repeated them so often that they quickly covered over the previous assertions.
The problem here was that Mrs. Harris was, only yesterday, a kind old woman with whom his mother was having tea. Mrs. Beeker, on the other side of them, she was the enemy. But they often tended to reverse roles, with one the vicious enemy and the other, a dear ally. But his mother recounted their history as though whichever one was the enemy at the time had always been the enemy, and would continue to be until such time as they were forced into submission. Right now, they had always been at war with Mrs. Harris.
He was tempted to denounce this announcement, this fabrication, very tempted. But his mother often told him that she could read minds--it went right along with her other assertion, that she had eyes in the back of her head. All mothers did, so they could do their jobs. So he simply sat and did his homework, and listened to his mother rant and drone alternatively; when it was done, he waited a little while watching cartoons before he was called downstairs for supper.
Supper was a plethora of "healthy" foods which tasted particularly awful, but it was something he'd become accustomed to. There were these strong, overly-flavorful foods at home, but when he was at school he would spend a dollar fifty on pizza and fries--conventionally considered good recreational foods, but the school produced singularly carboard-tasting pizza and fries. Still, it was the best food he could get a hold of. He'd heard more often than seen real pizza, real fries; he had memories of the things which he couldn't remember too vividly, mired as they were in the muck of time. There were strong scents, strong tastes, not unpleasant, but overwhelmingly inspiring. Were they real? He wasn't certain, although he'd often dream about them, and occasionally see commercials and signs indicating that someone out there was peddling the stuff.
He dwelled on it that night, pretending to be asleep every time his door was opened, one parent or the other looking in on him to see what exactly he was doing. It happened at irritatingly brief intervals, but could always be relied upon to stop at a particular time. William had been able to develop a sense of when exactly that time might be, although he did not have a clock in his room, and did not see any way of getting one. He always just knew. Sometimes it involved propping himself up to check and see if the hall light was still on through the underside of his door. But this was a risky maneuver, since at any moment one of his parents could crack the door to look at him.
His dreams that night pertained to food. A half-memory of chocolate, this time.
The next day at school, the class was assigned another project having to do with Christmas and the magic of Santa Claus, that ever-present man who seemed to get into everything. This time they were to draw images of him on construction paper and put decorations around him. It was during this mind-numbing work that he was passed a note by Chrissy, which he concealed underneath his posterboard, glancing up now and again at the teacher, and promptly read, exposing it one line at a time. It was, however, very short. It read: "Hey I like you, let's play after school."
His heart jumped. This was highly irregular, making this sort of proposition during class--it was the kind of thing that could get him into a lot of trouble, especially since his parents seemed to be encouraging him to spend more time among boys than girls. It was also the type of proposition that excited him, because of its wrongness. He looked around him warily, though everybody seemed to be fully engaged in their projects, and they didn't see the momentary betrayal of shock on his face, the redness in his cheeks. It was imperative to remain impassive, or to appear engrossed in his work, or the school environment. Behaviors that stood out as irregular were examined by everyone, though the true danger lay in authorities. Ever-vigilant, they could punish you for any number of deviations, even when the object wasn't punishment. And Santa was the worst of the bunch. No one ever escaped Santa.
During recess, however, William played on the jungle gym quite near Chrissy, and when they were within earshot of each other, but not looking one another in the eyes, William asked her, "Where d'you wanna play?"
"I was thinking behind my house. There this place back there, it's like a house in a tree, it's soooo cool. Go back behind my house and go like straight back there's like this stream, and you've gotta cross it, then keep going up to the trail and go left. You can see it from there if you look real hard, on the right side."
Her instructions were extremely specific. He hoped he would be able to remember them. She had to stop relaying them to him as soon as her friends came running along, engaged in a game of tag. She was tagged, and had to feign indifference for him as she sprang to her feet, the red sash on her dress waving in the wind as she gave chase.
Home that evening was much the same as the previous evening, as not much at all was prone to change. There were certain constants. His mother would talk about whichever neighbor it was at the given moment whom she had decided was giving her grief; his father would come home from "work", the mystical place where he acquired money, but only once a week; supper would consist of good and bad food alike, none of it subject to his whim; homework would be done in a timely fashion; bedtime would come, the periodic checkups would ensue, and finally, sleep would consume.
School followed the same pattern. Today his focus was more on the Pledge of Allegiance than anything else. He was certain that something about it had changed, yet he couldn't be sure. He thought at one point there was mention of "God" somewhere in it, but it had been removed. Something under God, though he could scarce imagine God sitting upon something for all of eternity. No one else seemed to mind or care, so programmed they were to simply repeat the phrases given to them; once, a fellow student named Charlie Ingsoc had uttered the forgotten word by mistake. He turned red and looked around him to see if anyone had noticed. If they had, they didn't know what to make of it, and the incident was largely ignored, although from that day onward Charlie didn't come back. They were told his family had moved. From that point on, nobody made any mistakes.
William followed the prearranged plan right after school, meeting Chrissy at the most beautiful place he'd ever seen. On a trail at the top of a hill, somewhere just out of sight of the houses in front of it, there was a great old tree, gnarled and twisted, and up in its branches sat a haphazardly constructed treehouse built Santa-knew-when. He walked up to the steps set into the tree trunk and began to climb them, finding them sturdy and supportive. Once at the top, he was not disappointed.
Chrissy sat there with something in her lap. When he popped his head up into the doorless doorway, she threw it at him and giggled as the object--a water balloon--erupted on his head. He immediately appeared frustrated and glared at her with all the intensity his seven-year-old face could muster.
"I could have fallen!" He yelled.
She put her finger to her lips. "Shhhh!! D'you wanna get caught!"
"Just don't do that again!" William insisted as he hauled himself inside.
It was a ramshackle affair, much as he suspected, but it was cool all the same. Even with the weather the way it was outside, he found he still very much wanted to be here, even if there was nothing at all to do. But, as fate would have it, Chrissy produced something from her thick pink jacket pocket that immediately got his attention. It was wrapped in black, with silver lettering, rectangular, and it was being opened.
"You brought candy!" He exclaimed in a half-shout.
She nodded. "Yeah, want some?" She broke off a piece immediately and offered it to him.
He scrambled over to her and took it with fervor. "My mom gives me dessert, but she doesn't think these are good for us," he said around his first bite. "I think these taste lots better than the stuff she wants me to eat. She says fruit's sweet too. I think candy's a lot sweeter."
"Me too," Chrissy agreed.
"D'you ever wonder why they always tell us things that aren't true?"
Chrissy shook her head vigorously. "Why?" She asked absently.
"Well, I don't know why they'd wanna lie. Like the Pledge of Allegiance. I know there's something that was in it before, but it's not in it now."
She shrugged. "I dunno," she told him while jumping to her feet. "Let's play a game."
William sighed and stood up. Chrissy was a fun kid, but she obviously didn't care about the same things as William. It was too bad, because she had the spirit of someone who could do something about it, kind of like him, but it appeared that something like that would never happen.
If there's any hope, it's probably the bullies who can do something, William thought with dismay. The bullies were the only ones who did anything against authority. They could in fact be relied upon to rebel, though the very acts of their rebellion more often than not led to counteract whatever power might be gained from rebellion. They were hurting their grades every time they skipped class or didn't do their homework, and like William was so often told by his parents (if he believed them), without good grades, a person could go nowhere in life. What, then, was his option? Right now, it seemed his only option was to play with Chrissy, so play with her he did.
It was at school the next day that things escalated. She told him about a place in the school where they were making Christmas cookies for the upcoming celebration. Each class would receive a plate of cookies, and there was somewhere within the cafeteria these cookies could be obtained, if only one could avoid getting caught. So, during recess, she took his hand and pulled him inside, right under the watchful eye of their teacher.
They made their way through the empty halls quickly and quietly, William receiving repeated assurances from Chrissy that it was safe, she knew what she was doing. The teachers and students would either be on their way to somewhere in a big obvious line or they would stay inside the classrooms, most often with the doors closed. Most of the time they wouldn't ask questions.
"Haven't you ever gone to the bathroom?" she asked like it was necessary.
Soon they were slipping through the doors to the cafeteria, and they made it all the way to the tables where the cookies were laid out on shiny, silver-colored plastic platters. Chrissy wasted no time in climbing upon a chair and reaching in for one, so William followed suit before long. The two of them finished their first cookies and then looked at each other with pure delight on their faces. Those expressions remained only a few seconds, and they heard the cafeteria door slam shut.
"We're in trouble," William said suddenly.
"You're in trouble." Their teacher, Ms. O'Brien, repeated in an ominous monotone.
She escorted them in silence to the principal's office, where they were seated just opposite the secretary's desk, next to a boy from the other second grade class named Steve Wider. Steve was a pudgy kid with big round glasses and short dark hair, and his eyes looked huge as he gazed at them pleadingly, looking for all the world like a caged hamster. He was sweating, and William could only imagine that the poor guy was in real trouble. But what could he have done? William knew him to be an obedient student, if not necessarily the brightest. He was quick to volunteer for things whenever their classes were doing something together. When the teacher wanted someone to come up and write on the board or answer a question, he was the first to raise his hand. What could he do to land himself in the principal's office? For that matter, if he was here, what did that mean for William and Chrissy??
It wasn't long before Chrissy was called in to speak with him. William sat with his feet dangling from the chair and waited anxiously for his turn. No one spoke to him, and he focused idly on the sound of the secretary making and taking phone calls, though he had no idea what she was talking about, and he also focused on the ambient sounds of pen on paper, doors opening outside, that sort of thing. He had to do something, and it was all their was. Surely if he got up to walk around, he would get yelled at. There were magazines on the table--kids' magazines--but the teacher's stern description of what they had done upon entering the office meant that the secretary knew what he had done, and the principal as well. He could barely bring himself to move, so he dared not grab one of the magazines. What would she think, say?
Minutes that seemed like they might have added up to hours passed as he sat there, watching Steve get more nervous as well. If William could only read a clock--!
Finally, he was called inside. He passed Chrissy on the way, but her head was down and he could not ascertain how it had gone for her. All he knew was that trouble was on the way.
"Sit down, William," said the principal. William looked bleakly at the principal's face, then abruptly looked back down, focused intently on his hands. He took a seat opposite the principal's expansive desk, and tried not to think about how big everything was, including the man himself.
"William, I understand you were found with your friend Chrissy inside the cafeteria, right by the trays of cookies that we were going to give to all the classes later this week. I understand that you thought it would be a good idea to go get some before we were ready to give them to you. Do you understand that you didn't have permission to be in there?"
Mr. Carrington was a smart man. It was kind of scary to think about how smart he had to be in order to be the principal of the school, but William decided that if he didn't try to trick him, he might get out of this okay. After all, what could he possibly come up with to trick Mr. Carrington? So he simply nodded and murmured "Uh-huh."
"That's good, William. Now I don't want to have to call your parents, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to do something about this. So for the next week, you're going to sit in detention during recess. You'll come here and sit in the office just out there," and he indicated the outer office where the secretary sat, "and you'll go back to class when your teacher comes to get you." He then leaned forward, hands interlaced. "Now there's only one thing I have left to ask you, William. Remember, you're not here because we don't like you, alright?"
William nodded.
"Good. Now tell me, was this Chrissy's idea?" The pressure of being in here, of having Mr. Carrington talk to him like this--it was one of his greatest fears. The principal's office was a bad place to be when you'd done something, and it was perhaps the worst thing William could be presented with at the present time. He didn't want to tell on Chrissy at first, but being here, enduring this...it was all too much!
"Yeah, she said we wouldn't get caught..." At this point, a couple tears began to streak down his face, but he continued. "...she said they'd taste good and that we should go and eat some, so she took one and then I took one...I didn't wanna get in trouble!" At this point he looked up at Mr. Carrington, imploring him to have mercy. Mr. Carrington smiled.
"It's alright, William, that's all I needed to know. Like I said, it's not that we don't like you; you're a good student. I can't remember having you in here before now, and I don't expect to have you here again. Just make sure you don't do anything like this again, okay?"
"Okay, " William answered, and he meant it. It was wrong, after all, and his face felt hot with the shame of it all. Why should he get cookies before everyone else, after all? Why should he sneak off, why was he entitled to more than the rest?
"Good. Go back to class. We're done here. Thanks for listening to me, William."
William got up and walked out.
The following day, he and Chrissy did not receive cookies with the rest of the class; they had already eaten their share. They didn't speak, except for once during detention in hushed tones.
"I told on you," she whispered.
"I told on you," he admitted as well.
"It's just so scary coming here, like you have to tell the truth or else they'll figure it out."
"Yeah."
The fun was gone from their conversation. It had become wooden. They were unable to look one another in the eye, not that it was entirely possible to do so before.
"We should play again," William said. Chrissy seemed to be staring into space, trying to avoid talking rather than get in trouble, even though the secretary didn't seem to mind that they were whispering. Surely she could hear them, but who cared what they did at this point? Though she seemed resigned to the new way of the world, she still saw fit to answer him, at least right now.
"We should."
It was without emotion, as though that had been stripped from her.
When next they met, it was well within the boundaries of the paved neighborhood, and they did what all the other kids did--what kids were supposed to do--they rode their bikes, played tag and hide-and-seek, and grew older and wiser and learned the rules and the reasons for them more plainly than ever. They had won the battle with their own rebellion. William was good, and he had made Santa happy.
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