Andy Starts School

Andy Brown was five, and faced his first day of school with mingled excitement and trepidation. Unlike all the others, Andy had little experience of social interaction with children of his own age. Andy’s aunt introduced him to the teacher on duty who asked the same question she’d asked all the other parents or guardians who’d brought their youngsters to start school. ‘Will you be staying with your child for the first hour or so?’

‘No. Andy is very self-sufficient. He’ll be all right.’

His aunt tenderly kissed him goodbye. ‘If I’m not here when school finishes, just come home.’

Andy observed that all his new classmates had a parent with them. Mostly their mother although there were a couple of fathers giving moral support to their offspring.

The whole morning was spent sorting out various things. Andy was disappointed that he hadn’t learned anything.

At lunch time, the students got out the lunches that their proud parents had given to them. Andy felt left out. He’d had very little to eat that day and the sight of the others eating made his hunger more intense.

He went off to the edge of the sealed playground to the bushes at the side and found some milk thistle leaves that he started eating. Milk thistle leaves are good food, loaded with vitamin C and other valuable nutrients, but they simply don’t have all the protein, carbohydrates and fats that a five-year-old boy needs.

After finishing lunch, the others came and started playing. Andy was too shy to try to join in, until he heard panicked screaming. Andy rushed to the sound, seeing a terrified group of five-year-olds in a corner, with an equally terrified Tiger Snake between them and the open playground. Andy dodged between the escaping children and grabbed the snake behind the head with his right hand.

As he walked towards the scrub holding the metre-long snake in his hand, the snake wrapped itself around Andy’s neck. 

He tried to control it, but the snake was stronger than his thin arms. Two much stronger five-year-olds came to help. With Andy giving instructions, the three of them carried the deadly reptile to the bush and released it safely. The shocked snake moved away from the school grounds as fast as it could slither. A horrified teacher arrived just in time to see them release the snake.

Andy couldn’t understand the fuss that ensued. All the students were rounded up and brought back into the school. The three who had handled the snake were examined carefully to make sure they had no bites. Andy discovered that the other two were Charlie George and Susan Cowly. Both were several inches taller than him, and Charlie was the tallest student in the class.

A snake catcher was summoned, but the snake had left hurriedly. Charlie’s mother and Susan’s father were called to the school. The school secretary found they had no phone number for Andy’s Auntie Liza, his legal guardian. The principal decided to wait until she came to pick up Andy from the school before he had a meeting with the three of them.

He spoke to the teacher who had met the new students. ‘What does Miss Jonasson look like? Can you recognise her?’

‘She’s very distinctive. You just need to imagine the opposite of her nephew. Andy Brown is tiny, with brown eyes, brown skin and light brown curly hair with a reddish tinge. 

‘His aunt is well over six feet tall, with long, straight, platinum blonde hair and light blue eyes; a stereotypical Scandinavian. If she took even a little care over her looks, she’d be a stunningly beautiful woman, but she has a rather dissipated appearance.

‘The only thing in common between Andy and his aunt is that they’re both very thin.’

While the principal interviewed the responsible adults, the school secretary looked after the three children. 

She made them drinks of Akta-Vite and gave them a plate of the assorted biscuits normally used for the staff room refreshment. They were young children, so it was no surprise to her that Charlie and Susan had three each. Andy didn’t stop at three. He was very polite, asking each time as he took another, but soon there were none left. The tiny boy had eaten most of the half kilogram family sized packet of assorted biscuits, as well as drinking four mugs of Akta-Vite. 

Susan George asked the question that both Liza Jonasson and Dr. Graham Cowly were thinking of. ‘What have they done. Are they in trouble?’

‘Your three children only started school today, but they’ve already done something I’ve never experienced, or even imagined, in all my years in teaching. I’m still not sure whether to suspend all three, or to recommend them for a Group Bravery Citation.

‘Miss Jonasson, does Andy have any idea how dangerous Tiger Snakes are?’

‘Yes, Andy’s very knowledgeable about native animals and he knows that Tiger snakes are deadly. What did he do?’

‘He picked up a large Tiger Snake and, with the aid of Charlie and Susan, he carried it to the edge of the bush. The three of them probably saved one or more of their classmates from being bitten. I think the best we can do is for you three to tell your children to be careful what they do.’

The next day, the three of them were lionised by their classmates. The others discovered that, once they took the trouble to talk to Andy, the very shy boy was well worth talking to. He joined in with their games and the others saw that he had no lunch. Charlie and Susan gave him some food from their lunches. 

Almost immediately, the three of them became firm friends, and Charlie named their little group, “The Three Musketeers.” Charlie also assigned the three of them nicknames from the legends of the Wild West. Susan was “Annie”, after Annie Oakley, Charlie was “Wyatt”, after Wyatt Earp while Andy was “Doc”, after Doc Holiday. To Andy, Charlie was like the big brother he’d never had, and Charlie sometimes called Andy his little brother. Andy’s feelings for Susan were more complex, and he was far too young to understand what he felt for the girl. Susan was much too shy to tell Andy that she loved him.

Andy enjoyed the social side of school, but found the academic side boring. 

The teacher had separated the ones who’d been to kindergarten and the parent-helper had tested their reading. A few of them had been separated into a subclass of advanced students and given special tuition. Andy was in the rest, repeating letter names and sounds and counting.

Eventually, the parent volunteer who helped with the reading got around to Andy. ‘Can you read at all?’

‘Yes, I’ve borrowed this book from the school library.’

The surprised parent looked at the book, Tarka the Otter. ‘You mean you’re just looking at the pictures?’

‘No, I’ve been reading it as well. The Otter seems a bit like a Rakali. May I read a bit to you?’

Andy started reading the book out loud; he didn’t know every word, but he was reading a book suitable for a child at least four years older than him. 

It slowly dawned on the parent that Andy was the best reader in the class. 

He’d also made the observation of the slight similarity between Otters and the native Rakali, suggesting that he not only understood what he was reading, but was making sensible deductions from it. 

The parent could see that the little boy knew a lot more than she did about the Rakali.

After further testing, Andy, Charlie and Susan were all promoted from the reception class to year one, only a few weeks after starting school; the three musketeers were still together.

The school did not rank students within classes below year five, but it was evident that all three were still well ahead of all the others and they were promoted to year two at the end of the semester.

Charlie’s Birthday

Andy was the youngest student in the school. 

The others in his reception class had all been five when they started, like Andy, but were a bit older than him. Charlie was the oldest of that student intake and turned six not long after starting school. He invited Andy, Susan, and a few others to his party.

Andy’s Auntie Liza mostly let him do what he wanted, but Andy just didn’t understand her moods. He had no idea that the aunt he loved was a drug addict. When he asked her permission to go to the party, she was in the depression that followed a high. 

‘No, you can’t go to any parties. You don’t have any good clothes and we can’t invite anyone back here. If anyone knew what we’re living in, we’d both be in very serious trouble.’ 

His aunt didn’t explain that the “very serious trouble” in Andy’s case, meant that he was likely to be murdered.

Charlie and Susan told Andy afterwards how nice the party had been. It was the same with the other party invitations Andy had to decline. 

At the end of the year, the three of them were promoted to year three while most of the children who’d started school with them were promoted from the reception class to year one. 

The three musketeers were now two years ahead of their age group. In the class, they were doing normal year three work, but often Charlie would bring one of the science or mathematics text books that his father used for teaching at the local high school. 

This was Andy’s greatest delight, as he learned real things with his two best friends.

In year three, it was unmistakable that they were by far the best academically. Physically, it was a different matter. Charlie and Susan were fully capable of holding their own against their older classmates, winning more than their share of races in both running and swimming. 

Andy was the slowest runner, and couldn’t afford to go swimming with the rest.

The Shop Lifter

One day, as Andy carried his big teddy bear through the local supermarket, following his aunt, there was a disturbance. The manager had observed a woman stealing something. Afterwards, Andy talked about it to his two best friends. ‘Is it wrong to take things from a supermarket?’

Susan told him, in no uncertain tones. ‘Of course, it is; stealing is a crime.’

‘But Auntie Liza told me that it doesn’t matter. We’re just taking a few little things from a very rich man.’

‘John Moore owns the supermarket, but he isn’t rich. He works eighty hours a week and only just manages to pay his mortgage each month.’

Charlie asked, ‘What did you mean? Are you taking stuff without paying?’

‘Yes. We’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. Auntie Liza tells me what things we need and I put them in the pockets of my teddy bear when no one is looking. I didn’t realise it was wrong. I’ll never do it again!’

Andy was amazed by his aunt’s reaction when he told her his decision to never steal again; he’d expected her to be angry. Instead, she looked at him with a very strange expression. It was almost as if his aunt was proud of him.

Liza Jonasson had a monkey on her back and a hyena at her throat.

 She was addicted to drugs, but much worse than that, an international drug syndicate had its teeth locked into her life. Without the syndicate’s interference, she would have beaten her addiction years before.

Andy’s action in refusing to steal, even though he knew that much of their food came from his thefts, had consequences that no one could have foreseen. It gave his aunt back the courage she had lost. 

She changed from a helpless victim to a woman prepared to risk her life for others. His aunt resolved, there and then, to never take any drugs again. 

It set the scene for a deadly David and Goliath showdown, many years later.

It was a battle to the death between the incredibly powerful international drug syndicate with tendrils in six of the seven continents, and a little old man.

Every afternoon, when Susan George came to pick up Charlie to take him home, she gave a treat to all three children. Susan George also put something extra in Charlie’s lunch box for him to give to Andy each day, and Susan Cowly’s parents did the same. 

The adults were privately extremely critical of the woman who seemed to keep Andy half-starved and dressed him in ragged and ill-assorted clothes.

The Serial Killers

The parents of young boys in New South Wales were terrified. Nice looking boys, about ten years old, were being abducted and murdered. So far three had been killed. Forensic examination of the crime scenes had identified two separate sets of male DNA, not linked to any known criminals. The police knew it was at least two men, but had no other good clues.

It was a pupil free day at the school and Susan George went out to the corner store, leaving Charlie playing chess against the computer, with the doors locked. Charlie looked out of the front window and saw two men walking past. He looked back to the computer screen, forgetting the men, until the front door burst open. The men grabbed the boy as he tried to flee. A thick bag was tied over his head and upper body and the men carried him out, ignoring his struggles.

Reaching home, Susan George was horrified to find the front door open and Charlie missing. She called the triple zero emergency number, and two constables came to the house. In the local police station, Inspector Stratford immediately took charge of the case. 

Charlie was bundled into the back of a car, and taken a short distance before being dragged out. The terrified boy couldn’t see anything, but could smell the pure forest smells. The men took the bag off his head. 

As he was being held by one man, Charlie screamed. 

At the boy’s screams, the expression on the other man’s face turned to delight. It was the terror they inflicted on their little boy victims that gave him his main pleasure.

They’d come off a dirt track and didn’t realise that they were close to a minor road. Someone just driving along the road nearly a hundred meters away would not hear the screams. The men were taken by surprise by the Fury that attacked them. The tall thin woman with the very long disordered hair and ragged untidy clothes flattened one man with a single punch. 

The man holding Charlie released the boy to meet the onslaught of the avenging angel. He punched the woman in the face. She fell back, and he pulled a handgun out of his pocket. As the man’s attention was on the strange woman, Charlie turned and kicked the man between the legs with all his adrenalin enhanced young strength. The man went down, clutching himself in agony. The other man on the ground was recovering. He also pulled a gun out.

Liza shouted. ‘Run, Charlie!’

As the boy ran, he heard a vehicle and ran towards the road. Liza followed him, hearing gunshots behind as the men fired at them. Charlie reached the road, running out into the middle. An oncoming car screeched to a halt and two others also stopped.  The murderers, seeing the cars, ran back the other way, to their car.

At the George home, Constable Williams took the call. He reassured Susan George. ‘Charlie’s all right. He’s unhurt and he’s with a police patrol, but they’re taking him to the hospital to be checked. We’ll take you there.’

One the way, he explained in more detail. ‘He was abducted and taken into the forest, but someone heard them and intervened. In the fight, Charlie and his rescuer escaped; they ran to the road and passing motorists called triple zero.’

‘Who was the man that saved him?’

‘It was a woman named Liza Jonasson.’

´I know her! Her nephew is Charlie’s best friend.’

At the hospital, Susan was reunited with her son. 

A police officer explained, ‘Inspector John Stratford and Senior Constable Veronica Simms are taking the witness statement from Miss Jonasson. They’ll want to formally interview Charlie next, but you’ll be present, as well as a hospital doctor, to make sure Charlie isn’t traumatised by describing what happened.’

Despite the fears of the adults, Charlie took his abduction and intended murder in his stride, giving simple factual replies to the questions.

While they were in hospital, other police officers, under the command of the inspector, had been looking for the murderers. 

Before they left, the drama had played out, and Inspector Stratford explained what had happened. ‘They were the suspects the New South Wales police were after. It appears as if they stole a car in Oxley, drove to Melbourne, abandoned the car, and took the ferry here. They stole another car in Launceston. The car was seen from a patrol car, and the officers gave chase. 

‘The car they were chasing lost control on a bend and hit a tree. Both men in it were killed. We’ve recovered two guns, and there’s little doubt that they’re the men who abducted Charlie and killed the boys in New South Wales. We’re getting DNA from the bodies to confirm it.’

Charlie was fine, but Liza was taking longer to recover. Her injury from being punched was minor, but emotionally she was still very shaken up. Susan took her home to have a cup of tea. Charlie offered her a plate of cupcakes. ‘I made these myself with Mummy watching me. I use less sugar than the recipe says.’

Liza bit into the cake. ‘It’s very nice.’ 

‘Do you think Andy would like some? Where is he?’

‘Andy’s at home, and I’m sure he’d love some of these cakes. You’re a very good cook.’

Susan asked, ‘Is Andy safe alone in your house?’

‘Yes, Andy is amazingly self-sufficient. When he was two, he survived five weeks in the forest, not only surviving, but even looking after his baby brother, Pete.’

‘I didn’t know that Andy has a brother! He’s never mentioned him to Annie and me.’

‘Pete was lucky enough to be adopted. Andy has forgotten his existence completely.’

Susan asked, ‘Why were they alone in the forest?’

‘Andy’s mother was my identical twin sister, Ingrid. She and Andy’s father both died, and it was five weeks before the two boys were found. Andy not only successful fed his baby brother, but even killed a Tasmanian Devil that attacked them.’

‘At two years old! How did he kill it?’

‘He bombarded it from a height with big tins of baby formula.’

Charlie said, ‘I wish I had a brother.’

Susan explained. ‘Ian and I had planned to have two children, but for medical reasons, I can’t have any more children. Ian and I have applied to adopt a child, but there are very few children in Australia available for adoption. How did Andy’s parents die?’

‘The coroner gave a verdict of, “death by misadventure”. Supposedly, they fell over a cliff, but I’ve always had some doubts about that. I was in the Northern Territory at the time and they didn’t even locate me until a couple of months later.

‘Pete was only a baby and he was adopted. I expect he’s being very well looked after, wherever he is. Andy was unlucky and ended up with me as a guardian. 

‘I’m the worst mother substitute imaginable. Our home is only a house by courtesy because it’s the place we live in. Your place is a palace by comparison.’

Susan objected. ‘Our place is just an ordinary little three-bedroomed house.’

Charlie added, ‘But our back garden is fantastic! We even have our own swimming hole. Can Andy swim?’

‘Andy’s a good swimmer; he swims every morning right through the year. In the summer, he swims in the evenings as well.’

There were two problems. Andy needed parents who could look after him properly, and the George family wanted to adopt a child. The solution was so blindingly obvious that it needed a little child to articulate it. ‘Let’s adopt Andy! He’d be a fantastic little brother for me.’

Charlie’s mother objected. ‘But your father has never even met Andy.’

‘We’ll invite him to my birthday party next Saturday, and he can sleep over with me. Everyone likes Andy and I’m sure Dad will love him. Andy is fantastic at maths and physics, just like Dad.’

‘The legal things involved in adopting a child can take years.’

‘So what? Andy will just live with us while the courts sort everything out. He’ll be my brother in fact, whatever the law says.’

They continued discussing it for quite a while. Before she left, Liza wrote a long letter, addressed to the Family Court of Australia. It was the confession of a number of crimes she’d committed, as well as requesting the Family Court to allow the Georges to adopt Andy. Susan was amazed about the confessions. 

Once the police got hold of the letter, Liza, and a great many other people, were likely to go to prison. She put it carefully inside her diary, making an entry herself about the strange events of the day.

Liza took all the remaining cupcakes home for Andy. 

There was a more serious problem with the George family adopting Andy than the law. The real reason Andy hadn’t been adopted into a loving family at two and a half was because of the international drug syndicate that had its teeth firmly set into Liza’s life. 

The money that Liza got from the government as Andy’s foster mother went to the syndicate. Andy was also a hostage to the syndicate. Liza loved her nephew, and the threat of him being killed by the syndicate was the constant one that prevented Liza escaping their clutches.

Much more senior members of the syndicate now wanted a very strange thing from her. By agreeing to it, she could break their hold on her. She would miss Andy, but now she knew that he would be well looked after, being adopted into the ideal family. Liza got back to the falling down lean to they lived in. Andy had been starting to get worried. His aunt had gone to pick mushrooms, so he was surprised as well as delighted by the cupcakes. ‘Where did you get these?’

‘I’ve been with Susan George; Charlie made these. Andy, if you could have a brother, who would you choose?’

‘Charlie!’

‘Charlie will be turning seven next week, his party is on Saturday, and you’ve been invited to go.’

‘But haven’t you always said that I can’t go to parties because my clothes are all ragged?’

‘Yes, I explained that and many other things to Mrs. George. Charlie has a lot of clothes that he’s grown out of that will fit you. You’ll go there early on Saturday morning; Charlie and his parents will find some nice clothes for you. After the party, you’ll be having a sleepover with Charlie. He’ll give you some pyjamas.’

‘I’ve never met Charlie’s father. Do you think he’ll like me?’

‘You’re a very nice boy and everyone likes you; just act the way you normally do. Andy, you know that your mother was my identical twin sister?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your father was the greatest nuclear physicist of this century and probably the greatest mathematical physicist ever. Ian George is a mathematician and a brilliant physicist. Your father was thin, but six feet five, and Ian George is the same height and build. Your father and Ian George are amazingly similar. 

‘Susan and Ian are looking for a boy to adopt and they’d be ideal parents for you.’

‘But I’ll miss you.’

‘And I’ll miss you too, very much. Andy, always remember that I love you as a mother loves her son and I deeply regret not being able to look after you properly. Don’t worry, I promise that I’ll come back to check that you’re all right. Tomorrow is Friday, but Charlie won’t be going to school. His father is at a physics congress in Canberra, so Charlie and his mother will be going to Hobart airport to pick him up. 

‘I’ll be leaving as well tomorrow. Remember, go to Charlie’s house early on Saturday morning.’

The next morning, after Andy had gone to school as usual, Liza combed her hair well. Then she caught a bus to Hobart, and went to a hairdresser she knew where they bought hair for wigs. 

‘You see this picture? If you cut my hair and gave me this short hair style, how much would you pay me for my hair?’

Human hair is a saleable commodity for making high quality wigs. The most common colour of hair offered for sale is black, so it isn’t worth as much as some colours. The colour that fetches the highest price is natural platinum blond; exactly the colour of Liza’s hair. They soon came to an agreement about the price and Liza left with the short hair style specified by the syndicate and both parties well satisfied by the transaction. 

The hairdresser had incorrectly thought that the picture Liza had showed him was of her, before her hair had grown.

Liza caught a plane to the mainland. She was happy for the first time in years, knowing that Andy was now safe and would be looked after well. 

She anticipated her future life. She knew there’d be danger, but Liza was no coward; Andy’s action in refusing to do wrong had restored her natural courage. Liza had not used any drugs since Andy’s refusal to steal, and looked forward to meeting the challenges of the future.

Susan George was looking forward to adopting Andy. 

He was a delightful boy and would be a perfect brother for Charlie. Ian had never met him, but Charlie had told his father a lot about “Doc”, and Ian would love him as soon as they got to know each other.

Charlie was looking forward to his best friend becoming his brother, anticipating the fun they’d have together. He continued the happy thoughts in his dreams.

Ian’s plane was arriving early on Friday, the next day. Susan George cautioned, ‘Daddy will be very tired. Let’s not tell him about your adventure with the serial killers and our plan to adopt Andy until we’re back home.’

Susan was driving. 

Ian was a superb off-road driver, but Susan was much better at handling the multiple problems of driving on the road with traffic coming from several directions and drivers behaving unpredictably. They went along the road, now well away from the metropolitan area of Hobart, the smallest of the six state capitals of Australia. Charlie, in the back seat behind his mother on the right-hand side of the car, fell asleep.

Ian was next to his wife and turned to check Charlie He was sleeping peacefully, despite his dangerous adventure of the previous day, which Ian still knew nothing about. Charlie smiled in his sleep as he dreamed of the fun he and Andy would have together as brothers.

There was no other traffic visible. A minor road joined the main road they were on from the right-hand side, meeting the main road at right angles. There was a stop sign on the minor road so the main road traffic could go straight on, even if anyone was joining the main road from the right.

As Ian smiled at his wife, he had only a fraction of a second glimpse of a car that had appeared over the crest of the hill on the minor road. It went straight through the stop sign, smashing it out of the ground, before slamming into the right-hand side of the car where Susan and Charlie were.

The appalling news spread quickly, and the primary school principal and staff decided that Charlie’s class had to be told immediately. 

The whole class burst into tears. This was expected; it was a normal and healthy reaction for young children who’d just received tragic news. The principal said, ‘As long as Charlie is alive in your memories, he’s not completely dead.’

After school, Susan Cowley and Andy talked, and pledged, ‘We’ll never forget Charlie.’ Despite the pledge, Andy’s and Susan’s subconscious minds had already started blanking out their conscious memories of Charlie to avoid thinking about his death. Andy, at two years old, had blocked the memory of his parents being murdered, and of the incredible way the devil had really died. 

Now the two children were erecting powerful mental blocks to protect their sanity. As little children, they were not capable of handling the reality of what had happened.

Ian woke up in hospital. He saw Don West, Roger Seven and Miriam Jezebel, his three best friends from the high school he taught at. He knew from their expressions that his wife and son were dead.

As Liza Jonasson went to sleep on Saturday night, she smiled as she thought of Andy enjoying himself with his friends at Charlie’s party and eating as much as he liked. Andy went to sleep with the gnawing ache of hunger in his stomach, thinking awful thoughts of how his friend had died.

Late on Sunday, Liza imagined that Charlie was introducing Andy to his wonderful new life with parents and a big brother. 

Andy was desperate for food. He watched a bird taking discarded scraps of food from a rubbish bin, and started looking in bins himself. 

He soon found a breakfast cereal box with three dry flakes still in the bottom. He consumed them in seconds. Then he found the rind from a segment of watermelon, chewing it well as he swallowed it. 

A man saw Andy looking into bins along the road and shouted at him. Andy ran off.

Epilogue

Andy’s and Susan’s subconsciousnesses both blocked out their memories of Charlie and the happy times they’d had together, very effectively. Even meeting Charlie’s father and hearing about the wife and son he’d lost was not enough to reawaken that part of their memories. Liza had told Andy that he was going to be adopted, but it was part of his memories of Charlie and had been blocked out from his conscious memory.

Charlie had told Ian about his friends, Doc and Annie, but had never mentioned their real names to his father, only their nicknames. Ian had no idea that Andy and Susan had been his son’s best friends, or that he’d very nearly become Andy’s father.

High School

In the years that had elapsed since the loss of his family, Ian George had adjusted, after a fashion. 

Part of his strong paternal instinct had transferred to his students. 

Normally, the first day of a new school year had become a happy day for him as he got to know the new students in his class who’d just moved up from primary school. This year, he couldn’t help thinking that this was the year that Charlie would have started high school, if his young life hadn’t been cut short.

As he studied the final reports from the various primary schools on the students who were just starting high school, he became aware of a minor mystery. 

The primary school that Charlie had gone to had got by far the highest average marks in the national literacy and numeracy test in the whole country. In the past, the school had been around midway, and there’d been no change in teachers.

The class included the student with the highest national mark; he’d got full marks in all the science and maths problems in the test.

This even included the ones which were much too hard for any primary school age student, put in just to see if any student made an attempt at answering them. 

Ian was sure that there were no students in his high school, and very few, if any, of the students he’d known at university, who could have answered even half of them correctly. The student had also got outstanding results in the all the other subjects. Ian imagined that the boy would be a nerd with spectacles and a tiger mum pushing him into studying every minute of the day.

There was a second student with outstanding results, placed fourth in the whole country. Ian did some quick calculations. Even with the two exceptional students excluded, the class average was still the highest in the country. A fresh wave of depression swept over Ian as he wondered what result Charlie would have got.

As Ian rode his bike to the school on the first day, he passed a barefoot little boy jogging slowly along the road, carrying a used disposable plastic shopping bag. 

He’d glimpsed the boy around the district occasionally without taking any special notice of him. 

The little boy looked about seven, and Ian wondered if his mother knew he was out by himself.

Ian put his bike in the bike rack in the staff car park and went inside to get ready for the incoming students. He went and stood under the notice telling the new students where to assemble. The boy he’d passed was in the school grounds, now wearing shoes that were about to fall apart. He still had the plastic bag, but there was less in it. He walked self-consciously towards Ian. 

As he approached, the teacher noted several strange things about him. His curly brown hair looked as if the boy’s mother had cut it the previous day, but not done a good job, especially at the back. The boy was wearing an odd assortment of old looking clothes but they were clean and well ironed. The boy himself looked as if he was scrubbed scrupulously clean. Ian had no idea that the boy had scrubbed himself clean with a paste made of fine wood ash, and washed it off in a mountain stream.

The timid looking boy spoke softly and very shyly. ‘Excuse me sir, are you a teacher?’

‘Yes, I’m Mr. George. I’ll be the class teacher of one first year class for the new students. Mr. Earl will be the other first year high school class teacher. Are you starting high school today?’ Ian assumed the boy had gone to the wrong school.

‘Yes, sir. My name is Andy Brown.’

Ian was staggered. Not in his wildest fantasies, would he have guessed that this diminutive ragamuffin had been the top primary school student in the country. He recovered quickly. ‘Yes, you’ll be in my class.’

Alan Earl came out. Like Ian, he had a clipboard. ‘Andy, this is Mr. Earl, the other first year class teacher; Alan, this is Andy Brown.’

‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Good morning, Andy.’

The next two students to arrive were in Alan Earl’s class. Then a girl called a greeting. ‘Andy!’

After they had talked briefly, Andy introduced the girl to his new teacher. ‘Susan, this is Mr. George, my new class teacher. Sir, this is my best friend, Susan Cowly.’

‘Mr. George sir, please sir, may I be in the same class as Andy?’

Both teachers smiled before Ian explained. ‘All students have already been allocated to their classes, but, yes, you and Andy are both in my class.’ Susan was the other exceptional student. She’d just turned twelve, but looked no more than ten. She was still much taller and stronger looking than Andy.

Andy was by far the smallest high school student Ian had ever taught, but he failed to realise immediately that the boy was severely malnourished. He’d noticed on the first day that Andy had an enormous slice of Christmas cake for lunch. He had no idea that it had been found in a rubbish bin, and thought that the boy was being given excessively rich food.

Normally, malnutrition causes listlessness and, frequently, sub normal intelligence. Andy had neither of these; partly because he had been extremely well fed until he was two and a half. The main effect of malnutrition on Andy was to delay his development. 

Andy chose a small desk in a back corner of the classroom, and mostly behaved himself.

After a week, Andy and Susan came to Ian George at the start of lunch, and Andy asked in his shy way, ‘Sir, do you teach year twelve physics and maths?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sir, if it’s not too much trouble, can we borrow the year twelve text books, so we can study at lunchtime?’

‘Of course. Please feel free to ask any questions about them you like.’ After that, one or two lunch times a week, the two would spend the first half hour working on the senior text books. Soon, several of the older students joined them, and Ian noticed a remarkable improvement in the results of the students who came.

In his own class, all the students were performing well above their apparent abilities. The influence of Andy and Susan was at least as strong as it had been in primary school.

Andy got full marks in every science and maths test, and frequently got top marks in English, music, history, geography and art.

He struggled with learning French.

Ian George privately considered the remarkable similarity of his own aptitudes at eleven to those of Andy’s. 

A major difference was physical. Ian had reached six feet tall before his twelfth birthday and had dominated his age group in sports and athletics at the small outback school he’d attended. Andy got full marks in the theory side of the physical education and sport subject, but came a consistent last in the physical side. Nevertheless, the extreme effort Andy put out endeared him to Roger Seven, the senior sports teacher.

This was partly because Roger was the shortest PE teacher, of either gender, in the country. Roger was scrupulously fair in his marking, but remembered how much he himself had struggled because of his short stature and very late development as a child and teenager. 

The school had a zero-tolerance policy on bullying, but no one seemed to want to bully Andy, despite his enormous differences. There was also no sign of any racial taunts aimed at Andy by other students.

Everyone, teachers as well as students, liked Andy. He was Ian’s favourite student, but when he caught Andy reading a Phantom comic when he should have been listening to the geography lesson, Ian was intensely annoyed, devising a cruel and unusual punishment. 

It wasn’t until a long time later, that Ian realised that the punishment was of the same type he might have devised for his own son.

The consequences of the punishment, which was never carried out, lead to Andy’s body being found buried in the forest.