DG Loves AR. True!
Dianne Bates
When we were in first year at high school, my friend Doris Gulgong had a crush on our French teacher. His name was Alex Rostrum, but everyone called him Rooster. Nobody except Doris liked Rooster.
‘It's not “silver plate”,' he'd scream. ‘It's s'il vous plaît. Repeat after me, s'il vous plaît.'
‘Silver plate,' we'd chorus back at him.
None of the teachers liked our class very much. Perhaps it had something to do with the time Marshall Fielding was secretly smoking in class and his desk caught fire. Or when Spike Harrison put rotten egg gas in the staff room for a joke. Or when Judith Webber started a rumour that the maths teacher, Mr Watson, was having an affair with the deputy principal, Ms Baldwin. Mrs Watson caused a scene in the playground when she found out.
So our French lessons with Rooster continued, and with each lesson he grew more and more sarcastic. For some insane reason, Doris fell further and further in love.
‘I just adore the way he says, “It's not ‘mercy buttercups', you morons, it's merci beaucoup”,' Doris mooned. ‘His eyes flash like neon lights when he's mad. He's so gorgeous!'
‘You've got to be joking,' I said. ‘Why, he must be fifty if he's a day! And besides, if he's so gorgeous, how come he hasn't got a girlfriend?'
‘He's just shy,' Doris said by way of excuse. This was true. Once we'd discovered that Rooster was prone to blushing, we flirted madly with him at every opportunity just for the pleasure of watching his face ripen.
‘I don't know why you can't see his natural charm and sex appeal,' Doris went on.
Doris had a reputation for insanity, so I forgave her. It's hard to be normal when you're the daughter of the head of the languages department. Besides, I liked her. And I felt sorry for her, too: she was asthmatic and missed a lot of school.
The rest of us, though, were getting pretty sick of Rooster's sarcasm as well as his ridiculous French translations, so, egged on by Marshall Fielding and his offsider, Spike, we set out to make Rooster's life as miserable as he made ours. Someone found out – quite by accident – that Rooster was allergic to flowers, so bunches started appearing on the teacher's desk every time we had French.
The first time they appeared, Rooster sniffed the air suspiciously as soon as he walked into the room. Then he started sniffling and his eyes watered. He pulled the flowers out of the vase, went out on to the balcony, and threw them as far as he could.
Inside the classroom we all moaned. But we hadn't counted on Alice McInerny. Everyone – guys especially – had a soft spot for Alice with her flawless skin and baby blue eyes. Alice wanted to be an actress when she left school, and now she had a great opportunity to practise for her budding career. She pretended to be really upset about Rooster tossing out the flowers, and she did it so well that after a while I wondered if she wasn't genuine.
‘I grew them myself, just so I could give them to you, sir,' she said in a tearful voice, ‘… and you threw them out.'
The class held its breath. Rooster reddened. Alice sniffed. And Doris grunted with disgust.
‘I'm sorry,' Rooster said gruffly. ‘I didn't realise.'
Alice rewarded him with a Nobel prize of a smile and we watched as a wave of crimson washed over his face. Alice's talent was astounding!
‘Bitch,' Doris muttered beside me.
We continued to bring flowers to school every day we had French. And each time Rooster would smile kindly at Alice and say, ‘I'm sorry, but I get hay fever. I'll just leave them up here on the cupboard near the window away from the desk, where I can see them.' And Alice would smile coyly in her best Hollywood style.
One day Rooster hit on the bright idea of using conversational French in class.
‘What's that?' Alice asked.
‘What do you think it is?' he replied.
‘I dunno. Is it a French word?'
Rooster thumped his forehead. ‘And they teach you English!' he moaned. ‘I want the class to talk in French all through the lesson, starting from now.'
‘Sir, that's not fair!' Judith Webber yelled. Rooster roared back at her in French (I think he told her to shut up). We all shut up.
Only a few goody-goodies in the class – Kate Curran, Sean Gilchrist, Muscles Mayne, Cheryl Mannix and love-struck Doris – showed any enthusiasm. The rest of us slumped in our desks, hoping not to be chosen. After a while Marshall and Spike and some of the other kids started flicking paper pellets around the classroom when Rooster wasn't looking. The girls were passing notes. One landed on my desk. It read: I found out Mrs Green's first name. It's Delvene. (Mrs Green was our music teacher.)
I looked across at Doris, trying to catch her attention so I could chuck the note to her. But Doris didn't seem interested. Her face was as white as a sheet, and she was gasping for breath. I could tell she was having an asthma attack. I put up my hand.
‘Sir, Doris is sick,' I said.
Doris glared at me. She hated missing Rooster's class; she would sit through hell and high water, even asthma, to be in the same room, breathing the same air, as her beloved Mr Rostrum.
‘I think you'd better go to sick bay, Doris,' Rooster said.
‘You spoke in English!' Judith roared accusingly at him.
This time he ignored her. He helped Doris to her feet. I thought Doris was going to faint – not from asthma, but because her darling had held her arm. I knew she would never wash that arm again.
‘Whoo-hoo, sir's in love with Gulgong!' whistled Spike.
‘Are you all right?' Rooster asked Doris. She nodded. You could see she was too choked up with asthma (and love) to talk.
‘Off you go then,' Rooster said to her.
Then he walked to the front of the room. ‘Ouvrez vos livres,' he commanded.
We looked at one another, puzzled, and then watched Muscles, Cheryl and a few others open their books. I waved at Doris as she walked out of the room. She ignored me.
The translation exercise that Rooster set was difficult. I laboured over it, and was looking up at the ceiling for inspiration, trying to think of the French word for ‘bananas', when Rooster picked up a piece of paper near my foot. I realised it was the note about Mrs Green's name that I'd been trying to pass on to Doris.
Rooster looked at me. ‘Small things amuse small minds,' he said.
‘I never wrote it!' I protested.
‘Get on with your work,' he growled.
Before I put pen to paper, however, Rooster let fly a series of sneezes that sounded like a backfiring Kawasaki.
Everyone laughed.
‘Ged od wid your work!' he roared.
Moments later the quiet of the room was shattered by Rooster demanding, ‘Who did this?'
I looked up. He was standing by the wastepaper basket waving another scrap of paper at the class.
‘Did you write this, Deborah Mitchell?'
‘What is it?' I asked.
Rooster came up and shoved it under my nose.
‘This!' His face was red and blotchy. I had never seen him so mad.
I recognised the writing immediately. It read DG LOVES AR. Doris must have thrown the paper out on her way to sick bay, and Rooster spied it when he went to throw the other note in the bin.
‘I never wrote it,' I protested again.
‘Who did?'
‘I don't know.'
‘What is it, Debbie?' Judith Webber strained to read it from the back of the room.
Rooster fixed her with one of his famous ‘I'vespotted-the-trouble-maker' looks, threw back his head and crowed ‘Aha!' Then his expression changed. ‘I might have guessed you would have something to do with this, Miss Webber,' he sneered.
‘I don't know what you're talking about,' Judith said, standing with her hands on her hips.
‘I will not have rumours about me circulating around this school!' Rooster declared.
By now the rest of the class were as curious as cats. ‘What's going on?' they asked.
Again Judith and I declared our innocence.
Nobody would own up to having written what Rooster declared was ‘a vile piece of slander'.
‘You will all be kept in during lunch hour,' he told the class. ‘And you will be kept in every day until the person responsible owns up. I've had enough of this class and its idiotic little games.'
Of course nobody was prepared to admit guilt. And Doris was still in sick bay. By the time Rooster released us from detention, ten minutes before the end of the lunch period, everyone was fuming. Most of them blamed Judith and me for the note.
‘One of youse had better tell pretty soon, or there'll be trouble,' Marshall threatened.
After school I went around to Doris's place to tell her the grim news. When she met me at the door, I could tell straight away that she knew.
‘My father,' she said. ‘He heard Mr Rostrum talking about it in the staff room. Mr Rostrum thinks the note was about him and Mrs Green.'
‘But Mrs Green is married. I don't get it,' I said.
‘You remember the rumour Judith put around about Mr Watson and Ms Baldwin?'
I nodded.
‘Well, Mr Rostrum thought you or Judith was starting another rumour. About him and Mrs Green. Mrs Delvene Green … DG.'
‘Oh no! He thinks DG is Delvene Green, and really it's you.' I sat down. ‘What are you going to do?'
Doris was white. ‘I think I'd better go and tell him the truth before it goes any further,' she said.
Poor Doris. Everyone was really mad at her for losing their lunch hour. There was a big meeting with her dad, Deputy Principal Ms Baldwin, and Rooster. Ms Baldwin wasn't very understanding. Especially after all the trouble the other rumour about her and Mr Watson caused. In fact, it was Ms Baldwin who suggested the lunchtime detention. A whole month. Supervised by herself and the Rooster.
By the end of the month Doris couldn't stand the sight of Rooster. And she detested Ms Baldwin.
‘Those two are monsters!' she often said, showing us pages and pages of new French vocabulary they forced on her. But the good thing was that her French improved incredibly, so much so that she topped the subject in the mid-year exams. In fact, when a postcard arrived from France addressed to her, Doris translated for the class.
We all crowded around her as she read, ‘Sarah (nee Baldwin) and I are having a brilliant honeymoon. So glad you and your mates in Year Seven are NOT here!'
It was signed, Yours sincerely, Mr A Rostrum.