Chapter 19 The Same Blue Polo Shirt
The Same Blue Polo Shirt
It’s still warm when the autumn term starts at Beartown School.
The sun is shining, the clouds are drifting light and high, the temperature is still lying treacherously about short sleeves and garden furniture, but if you’ve lived here all your life you can feel winter coming.
The cold will soon freeze the lakes, snowflakes will fall, heavy as oven gloves, and darkness will land on the town as if it had been attacked from behind by an angry giant who tosses all the buildings into a black sack to use on the model railway in the secret room in his basement.
It feels as though in Beartown every year comes to an end in August, which may be why it’s so easy to love a sport that starts in September. Outside the school building someone has hung green flags in the trees. This seems innocent enough to a lot of people, but to others it is a provocation.
It doesn’t start here. But it gets worse from here.
Ana and Maya are standing two hundred feet from the entrance, taking deep breaths and holding each other by the hand.
All summer they have been free, but a school is a different sort of island.
It’s not the sort where you can hide away with your best friend but one where you drift ashore unwillingly after some terrible accident.
All the pupils are shipwrecked here, none of them has chosen the company of the others, they’re all just trying to stay alive until the term is over and they can get out of here.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to get my rifle?” Ana asks.
Maya laughs. “Fairly sure.”
“I wouldn’t shoot anyone. Not badly, anyway,” Ana promises.
“You can put laxative in the milk dispenser in the cafeteria if anyone’s stupid,” Maya says.
“And take the lightbulbs out of all the bathrooms and stretch plastic wrap across all the toilets,” Ana nods.
Maya laughs. “You’re so sick.”
“Don’t let the bastards see you cry,” Ana whispers.
“Never,” Maya replies.
They walk into the school side by side. The stares cut into their skin, the silence threatens to burst their temples, but they walk with their heads held high.
The two of them against the world. The walk to Maya’s locker is less than a hundred feet, but nothing in life will ever frighten them so much.
Two young women striding straight through a school full of whispers, without lowering their eyes once.
You can’t show these women a damn thing after what they’ve already seen.
William Lyt is marching along the corridor surrounded by four of his teammates.
Maybe they’re not actively seeking out foes, maybe they just swing around the corner and bump into Bobo by accident.
But the fight is instantaneous, almost instinctive in its clumsiness, and in the narrow corridor the young men flail around as if they’d stumbled into a swarm of bees.
In the spring, when Amat stood up at that meeting in the rink and said he’d seen Kevin rape Maya, some of these guys set off toward the Hollow one night to punish him.
Bobo was with them but changed sides at the last minute.
If he hadn’t taken such a severe beating for his new friend, they might well have killed Amat. That fight isn’t over yet.
Someone pushes Bobo, and he falls backward along the corridor.
Everyone is shouting, but Lyt and his allies quickly fall silent.
Bobo is lying on the floor, and a couple of feet behind him stands Benji.
He doesn’t say anything, just stands there with his eyes half open and his hair a mess, as if they’d started the fight next to the bench he’d spent the night sleeping under.
Hands in pockets, an arrogant look in his eye, so certain of his own effect that it isn’t even meant to be threatening.
“Are we going to do this now, Lyt, or do you want to fetch more friends first?” Benji asks, as if he was wondering if Lyt wanted a medium or large drink with his burger.
Lyt’s friends glance at him for guidance.
Lyt meets Benji’s gaze, but not for long.
He manages to utter an insult, but it doesn’t sound particularly convincing as he mumbles, “Who cares, we’ll do this on the ice instead.
Good luck with your goddamn lesbian coach!
She suits you! You’ve always played like pussies! ”
Benji is standing on his toes, Lyt on his heels.
When the teachers come hurrying through the corridor, Lyt raises his hands a little too quickly and pretends it’s their fault, and he sets off in the other direction.
But Benji doesn’t move, doesn’t look down, and everyone who sees that knows what it means for the balance of power in the school.
One of the pupils who pays extra attention is Leo Andersson.
Maya and Ana are standing at Maya’s locker when they hear the commotion and shouting.
It’s as if school buildings are intentionally built with acoustics so that sounds will always reach you no matter where you are, so that the pupils will never be able to escape one another.
Maya sees the staff hurry toward the disturbance, sees some final-year students swinging wildly at each other farther along one of the corridors.
She realizes it’s ridiculous the moment the words leave her mouth, but she asks out loud, “What are they fighting about now?”
A girl the same age as her spins around a couple of feet away, her voice dripping with derision when she replies, “Don’t act stupid, you lying piece of—”
One of the girl’s friends stops her before she says the last word.
As if that makes any difference. Maya stares at her slightly too long.
The girl’s eyes are wide open, her fingernails digging into her palms as she shouts, “Like you don’t know what they’re fighting about!
You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? The fact that all the trouble in this whole damn town is about you!
Maya Andersson, Beartown’s very own little princess! ”
She says Maya’s name as if she were spitting on her grave. The girl’s friends pull her away. She’s got a red Hed Hockey badge on her backpack—her boyfriend and brother both play there. They used to be friends with Kevin Erdahl.
Maya and Ana stay where they are, leaning against the lockers so hard they can feel the metal doors shake in time with their heartbeats.
This will never end. Never. Maya groans in resignation, “How many things can they actually hate me for? I’m either a rape victim or a lying bitch or a . . . a princess?”
Ana stands beside her, staring at the floor, then clears her throat noisily and suggests, “Look . . . if it’s any consolation, I still think you’re just a perfectly ordinary idiot!”
Maya’s mouth struggles to remain solemn but can’t resist breaking into a broad grin. “You’re so stu—”
“Says the idiot!” Ana snorts.
Maya bursts out laughing.
You must never let the bastards see you do the opposite.
Bobo is crawling about on the floor like an overweight deer. Amat runs over and holds out his hand and together with Benji pulls him to his feet, groaning.
Amat grins. “How can you possibly be so heavy but so easy to knock over?”
Bobo, who isn’t exactly known for his sharp wits, unexpectedly manages to fire back, “My cock affects my center of gravity.”
Amat and Benji’s laughter echoes along the corridor. They’re the only three members of last season’s junior team who are still with Beartown Ice Hockey, and right now that feels as though it might just be enough.
“Have you heard I’m practicing with the A-team today?” Amat asks excitedly.
Bobo nods, then looks suddenly perplexed. “What did Lyt mean, ‘lesbian coach’?”
Amat and Benji stare at him in surprise. “You haven’t heard that Beartown’s A-team has got a new coach?”
Bobo’s face radiates incomprehension. Rumors may spread quickly in Beartown, but not quickly enough to reach Bobo.
“Yeah, but a lesbian? We’re going to have a lesbian coach?”
Benji says nothing. But Amat clears his throat. “Bobo . . . we said the A-team.”
“Are you saying I don’t belong on the A-team?” Bobo snaps.
Amat shrugs. “If we need an extra obstacle in training, maybe. Your skates are actually faster when you’re not wearing them . . .”
Benji bursts out laughing and Bobo tries to grab Amat, but Amat is far, far too quick for him.
They’re joking, all three of them, but deep down none of them knows if he’s really good enough. If there’s any chance of their making the A-team. And where would that leave them? If they’re no longer hockey players?
The school slowly fills with staff and students. A new term, equal measures of expectation and anxiety, bittersweet reunions with everyone you love and everyone you hate, and the knowledge that there’s no way to avoid breathing the same air as both groups.
In the headmaster’s office sits a young teacher, Jeanette, making a last attempt to persuade the man in the smart jacket who’s massaging his temples in front of her.
“Just give me a chance! Let me turn it into part of PE!”
The headmaster sighs. “Please, Jeanette. After everything that happened this spring, I just want to get this school through one term without any scandals and attention from the media—and you want to teach the students how to fight?”
“It’s not . . . for heaven’s sake . . . it’s martial arts!” Jeanette snaps.
“What did you say it was called again?”
“MMA, mixed martial arts,” Jeanette repeats patiently.
The headmaster rolls his eyes. “ ‘Arts’? It always seems a bit odd to call it an ‘art,’ don’t you think? It’s not like you can put on an exhibition of broken noses, is it?”
Jeanette clasps her hands together in her lap, possibly to stop herself from throwing something at him.
“Martial arts teaches students discipline and respect for their own and other people’s bodies.
I’ve already got somewhere to do it, up at Adri Ovich’s kennels, just let me ask the students if they’re interested, and—”
The headmaster polishes his glasses more thoroughly than necessary. “I’m sorry, Jeanette. The parents would go mad. They’d see it as you teaching their children to be violent. We can’t afford any more controversy.”
He stands up to indicate that it’s time for Jeanette to leave his office, but the moment he opens the door a hand very nearly hits him in the face. The man standing outside was just about to knock on the door.
“I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a very long year,” the headmaster mutters.
Jeanette is standing behind him, unable to conceal her curiosity. “Hi!” she says.
The man in the doorway smiles. “I’m . . . I’m starting work here today?” he says.
“Yes! Our new philosophy and history teacher!” the headmaster exclaims, grabbing some sheets of paper from a shelf before adding “And maths and science and . . . French? Do you speak French?”
The male teacher in the doorway looks as though he’s about to protest, but Jeanette gestures with a smile that he should go along with it. The headmaster heaves a pile of books and papers into his arms. “Best get going, then! Your schedule’s on top there!”
The teacher thanks him and sets off along the corridor. The headmaster watches him go and sighs, “Freshly qualified. I know I should be happy that he’s come here of his own volition, but dear Lord, Jeanette? How old do you think he is?”
“Twenty-five? Twenty-six?” Jeanette guesses.
“And you saw the way he looks.”
“I didn’t notice a thing,” Jeanette deadpans.
“The school is raging with hormones, and we employ a teacher who looks like he’s in a bloody boy band! We’ll have to lock up half the female students,” the headmaster mutters.
Jeanette coughs under her breath. “And probably some of the female teachers, too.”
“What?” the headmaster says.
“What?” Jeanette repeats innocently.
“Did you say something?”
“No! I’ve got a class now!”
The headmaster mutters unhappily, “You can put up one poster about your martial arts training. One poster, Jeanette!”
Jeanette nods and goes out into the corridor. She pins up four posters and watches the new teacher’s hips as she heads after him along the corridor.
The new teacher is standing in the classroom writing on the board as the students tumble into the room in little clusters.
When the bell rings, it can barely be heard over the scrape of chairs and the sound of backpacks being dropped on the floor, as well as the enthusiastic chatter about everything that’s happened during the summer and the fight that just broke out in the corridor.
Benji comes in last of all, and hardly anyone notices him.
His hair is still a mess, his denim shirt is half tucked in, as if he’d just pulled on his pants in a darkened room.
He looks the way he did when he got out of the bed in a cabin in a campsite between Beartown and Hed not long ago, on the night that was full of Nietzsche and cold beer and warm hands.
All the other students in the room are too preoccupied with one another and themselves to see the new teacher turn toward the door and lose his breath. Benji’s not an easy young man to surprise, but he stops, his chest pounding with shock.
The teacher is wearing the same blue polo shirt as he was that night.