Just Deserts (2 page)

I touched my upper lip with my finger. It was tender. After a quick but brutal scrubbing, the drawn-on moustache, along with a layer of skin, had gone, leaving my skin red and raw. I didn't know who had done this to me, but when I found out, they were going to pay. They thought this was so clever. I'd show them clever. No, scratch that, I'd show them mean and nasty.

On the wall behind the secretary's desk, noisily ticking away, was a big, ornate clock. I'd been sitting here for over twenty minutes. It was almost reassuring to be kept waiting. It probably meant that whatever the headmaster wanted to see me about wasn't really that important and that the two clowns who'd woken me up—who were, unbelievably, afraid of him—had misinterpreted the whole thing.

There was only one other possible explanation. Perhaps he was keeping me waiting as a form of payback, just to establish his status as the alpha dog. That was so pathetic, so juvenile. But whatever, it was fine with me. I had no desire to be the alpha dog in this place. I had no desire to even
be
in this place.

It wasn't as if this was the world's best private school. It wasn't even in the top echelon. It was simply the best school that would accept me under the circumstances and on such short notice. The “best” schools weren't so willing to consider me as a candidate for admission. I had to admit they did have some cause, but I'd never done anything really
that
serious. What self-respecting, thinking person wouldn't defy the rules from time to time? And as far as I was concerned, respect had to be earned, and none of those prissy teachers had done that. There had been graffiti and some vandalism, but it wasn't that significant and it wasn't as if restitution hadn't been given to cover the damage. And who
didn't drink underage? I guess the sin was in being caught.

Apparently even schools that charge exorbitant tuition fees weren't willing to accept just anybody or any behaviour. I'd pushed beyond those limits. After numerous sanctions and suspensions, I had been “asked to leave” by several of Europe's finest institutes of high school education, and several more had been offered the distinction of having me as a student and declined. In the end, a deal was struck between this school and my father's bank account. Everybody and everything had a price, and they'd finally arrived at one they could both live with.

The new athletic centre, construction already underway, would bear our name: the Chambers Gymnasium. I don't suppose my father had to pay for all of it, but I'm sure it was a hefty percentage of the total cost. Amazing how much he was willing to shell out to keep me in school, or at least to keep me on the other side of the Atlantic, away from him. I tried my best to see the whole thing as amusing, although I don't imagine he was laughing. It was a small revenge, and maybe petty of me, but I did get enjoyment out of his having to spend a prince's ransom to keep his son away.

The ticking of the clock seemed to be getting louder. Even that was echoing painfully in my head. Just how much
had
I had to drink? I only hoped that whatever the
headmaster had to say to me, he'd say it quietly. Yelling would be cruel and unusual punishment.

Now every ticking second sounded like the clock's announcing that I was being put in my place, made to wait. I got up.

“Is it going to be long?” I asked.

“I would imagine it will take as long as necessary,” the secretary replied.

“Is there somebody else in there with him?”

“There is not.”

“Is he on the telephone?”

She looked taken aback. As if she was so far above me or my questions that she was shocked I'd even dared to talk to her.

“I don't really know, but I certainly don't think it is any of your business to ask!” she snapped, trying to sound official, officious, important and—

We both turned at the sound of the headmaster's door opening. McWilliams stood there, filling the doorway. Of course he was in his tacky suit and a perfectly knotted school tie. He wore a serious expression on his bloated, reddish face, and his walrus moustache was practically smothering his upper lip. Even my drawn-on version looked better than his real one.

I couldn't help thinking that his reddish face matched the colour of my painfully scrubbed upper lip, but perhaps if his tie weren't so tight, he'd have a
more normal complexion. I'd always wondered if he looked that way because he secretly drank. I know I'd have drunk myself into oblivion if I'd ended up like him, just trying to forget that I was stuck in this hell-hole. It would be terribly ironic if he was a closet alcoholic and was going to give me grief for drinking.

“Hold all my calls,” he said to his secretary. As if any call to him could be that important.

I'd heard all the talk about what he'd done for a living before coming here, first as a teacher and then as the headmaster. Apparently he used to be some sort of special forces soldier with the British army, trained in weapons and martial arts and … that must have been a long time ago. There wasn't much that was special about him now, and probably the only thing he could wrestle to the ground was a crumpet.

“Come,” he said in his clipped English accent, motioning to me before disappearing back inside his office.

One-word commands were the norm for him, as if we were all trained collies. Or I guess soldiers under his command. There was something so irritating about somebody so obviously my inferior being in a position to give me orders and enforce them … or at least try to enforce them.

I hesitated for a second—a small protest against being ordered about by somebody like him—and then walked ever so slowly through the open door. I
wanted him to know that even if I was doing what he'd requested, it was by my own choice.

He was already sitting. His head was down, his eyes aimed at his desk, focusing on some
tremendously
important task. It was as if he was making the point that although he'd invited me in, I was of so little importance that he'd already forgotten me in the seconds that had elapsed between calling me in and my arrival.

I walked over and stood in front of his desk, beside the chair that faced him. I knew the routine well enough to know that I wasn't supposed to take a seat until I'd received that order as well. I wondered how long he'd leave me standing. I wondered even more if I should just take a seat and see his reaction. No, that would be plain stupid, and I didn't want to have to deal with the consequences if I was asked to leave this place, too … No, wait, that wasn't going to happen. Any thought that he'd kick me out was ridiculous. The guarantee of my continued enrolment was being constructed as I stood there, and there was no way he'd risk losing that. I could expect some sort of discipline for whatever it was I'd done, but it wouldn't be more than a slap on the wrist. That way he could save face with the other students and staff, and we could all pretend that he actually had some control over me and my behaviour. As long as I didn't spill the beans
as to how minor the consequence had been, nobody would be the wiser.

I had a pretty good idea about the range of punishments I might receive. After all, this wasn't the first time I'd been caught drinking. The whole place was so provincial, so puritanical, so Victorian era, so stuffy, so
British
. They all acted as though they still had an empire. That was long gone, and they should have lost the superior attitude along with it. After all, we were in Europe, and people in Europe took the occasional drink or two. It wasn't as though there was really even a drinking age here in France, and even if there was, the international schools were run like little independent fiefdoms—the residents were mostly the children of foreign diplomats, the rich and powerful, people used to not having to follow rules.

“Mr. Chambers,” Mr. McWilliams began.

Everybody here was called by their last name. How military and formal and pretentious and British-boarding-school.

“Yes … sir.” Equally pretentious. All teachers here were to be addressed as “sir” or “madam” or “miss.” I'd given him his “sir,” but hesitated just long enough to keep him guessing about whether or not it was coming. He knew how I felt, unless he was an idiot. I'd give him the thin veneer of respect he needed to keep up his illusion of being in charge.

“Do you know why you are here?” he asked.

“Sorry, sir, I thought you'd know. I was only responding to your invitation to attend.”

He looked a little thrown by my statement, but the surprise soon turned to anger. I loved the way his face got redder and redder the angrier he got. The man had a serious problem with high blood pressure. Or maybe I was right about the closet drinking. Maybe I should have brought along a bottle to share with him, or was he due for a stint in rehab?

“You are telling me that you have
no
idea why you are here?” He was trying to stay calm, but there was a slight rise in the pitch of his voice. So much for all that supposed martial arts training and staying in command of your emotions.

“No, I don't …
sir
.”

“Do you think lying will in any way diminish the gravity of the situation?” he asked.

That was obviously a rhetorical question, and I certainly was not going to answer. The secret was to never give away anything—including information—for free. Maybe he didn't even
know
about the drinking and was simply dealing with a report from one of my teachers about a late paper or a failed test—or my crooked tie.

“Are you going to deny that you were drinking?” he asked now.

Okay, at least I knew why I was here.

“You still smell of alcohol,” he added.

I guess having that shot before I came to his office wasn't the brightest thing to do, but I needed a little “hair of the dog” to settle my shaking hands.

“I did use mouthwash this morning, and perhaps my aftershave has a little alcohol in it,” I replied.

His face got redder. I expected his voice to rise another notch as well. His bass became a baritone and then a tenor as he got angrier. I was willing to bet that if I got him annoyed enough, I could make him sound like a counter-tenor who'd been sucking back helium.

“Are you just going to stand there, straight-faced, and boldly lie?” he snapped, his voice now another quarter octave higher, as predicted.

“I'm not lying, sir. I think aftershave does have alcohol in it, and I did use mouthwash this morning.”

His face was even more flushed now—a major blood pressure rush. I couldn't help but wonder: if he had a cerebral aneurism, would I be criminally responsible?

“And you had nothing to drink. Is that what you are saying?”

“No, sir, I didn't say that. I merely said that there's an alcohol base in both my mouthwash and aftershave, and that is probably what you're smelling as alcohol this morning.”

“The best lie is half the truth,” he snapped. “Has anybody ever told you that?”

“No, sir, but I'm offended you would think I've been lying. I have not denied that I consumed some alcohol.”

“Of course you did!”

“Respectfully,”
I said, the word dripping with sarcasm, “I have to disagree. You didn't ask me, ever, if I had been drinking. You simply asked if I knew why I was here, and it would have been wrong for me to suppose I knew what my headmaster was thinking. If you had asked me whether I'd been drinking, I would certainly have said yes.”

“So you admit to your infraction
.”

“Yes …
sir,
and I am prepared to accept my punishment.”

“Are you really?”

I didn't like the way he said that. The pitch of his voice had dropped down to an almost normal level.

“Do you have any idea how much you drank?” he asked.

That sounded like another trick question. “The amount doesn't matter. The fact that I consumed any alcohol is a violation of policy.”

“I think you should see the proof of your actions.”

Proof? What was he going to do, show me the bottles with my fingerprints on them? Hold a little private kangaroo court with himself as judge, jury and executioner? Enough—my head was hurting and I was badly in need of another drink, and quite
frankly, I was beginning to think he wasn't going to be offering me one, so I needed to get back to my room. What did he want? I'd admitted to my offence, so why not just punish me instead of making this into a piece of performance art?

“I imagine you're familiar with YouTube,” he said.

“Of course I'm familiar …” My stomach sank. This did not sound like it was going to be a good thing.

He turned his laptop around so that I could see the screen. The figures were small, but I instantly recognized the shirt on one of them—it was my shirt, with me in it. This was not going to be good at all.

He clicked on the clip and it started to roll. In a few short seconds, I realized just how bad it was. Not only was I chugging from a bottle of vodka while wearing my drawn-on imitation of his moustache, but between gulps I was insulting our school, the queen of England, his mother—in fact his whole family lineage—and his manhood. It all started to come back to me—the drinking, being egged on by my “friends.” I'd been set up and I was going to get revenge on those jerks … I just wish I'd seen it coming.

The picture froze. “I don't think we need to see any more,” he said.

That was the first thing he'd said all morning that I agreed with.

“At this point, this little episode has registered, in the vernacular, close to seven thousand ‘hits,'” he declared.

“It's been seen that many times?” I gasped.

“I've been told that it might in fact go ‘viral,' making us
both
international laughingstocks.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“Are you?”

I nodded my head. I
was
sorry. Sorry that I was a laughingstock and sorry that I was going to get into more trouble than I'd imagined. What was that thing he said about half the truth being the best lie? Maybe the best thing was to get somebody else in trouble, too.