Well, what can I say? I was wrong.
The Gospel According to Tummy – 6
Okay, so me dad was a conservative politician. I’m not proud of it, okay? He was in charge of the constituency office of the Secretary of State for Education of our great country. He wanted to be in charge of the Secretary’s office in Whitehall and he was doing quite a bit of boot licking to achieve that. Me guess was that what he really wanted was a job that would keep him away from me mum as much as possible, and to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t blame him. Me parents were fighting most of the time, and it wasn’t a pretty sight, because me mum usually got very drunk and very loud. Then she would start to rant, and you began to wonder why she got married and had kids in the first place. Me mum was the kind of person who wouldn’t hesitate a second to identify horrible disasters like hurricanes or earthquakes as acts of God, as punishment for people’s sins. But whenever something bad happened to
her
, she always blamed other people, never God. Most of the time she blamed me dad because he was a politician and should have been able to make the world the way he wanted it, or rather, the way
she
wanted it. And he was trying. He’d been trying very hard for years, but no matter what he did, it was never good enough for me mum. Nothing anyone did was ever good enough for me mum. But me dad kept trying. He’d have done anything for me mum. Not to make her happy, but to make her stop bickering.
Do you know whose idea it was for the Education Secretary to come back to his old school and give a speech at the school anniversary? It wasn’t the idea of the school or of the Secretary. It was me mum’s idea. She talked me dad into it, and then me dad talked the Secretary into it. The Secretary didn’t want to do it at first, because he was being very busy campaigning for the upcoming election. But me dad convinced him that it would be a great opportunity to reach out to the young people in his constituency. Then somehow the Secretary found out that Peter Tholen, the music producer, would be there as well, and that this would attract some media attention because Tholen usually didn’t do public appearances, so the Secretary finally agreed. Me dad was really excited about this. He had worked so hard for this and he said that if it went well, he might have a good chance to be appointed the Secretary’s personal assistant at his office in Whitehall. And it meant that one day he might take over the Secretary’s seat in parliament. So yeah, me dad was really looking forward to that school anniversary event and hoping that after all those years of hard work it would his career a big boost.
And then Julian came along and destroyed it all.
The Gospel According to Ginger – 5
All right, so Tummy had been right about Momoko. He had indeed met her in the school corridor that day. When he first told us about it, it didn’t make any sense, but now it did. What we didn’t know at the time was that two very famous alumni of our school were invited and scheduled to appear at our anniversary gala event. One of them was Timothy Gardener, the Education Secretary. The other was Peter Tholen, the music producer. They both graduated in the same year, back in 1978 or whenever it was, and now they were invited back to their former school to impress us students with what great people this school had produced in the past. The guys and I actually knew about Gardener being invited, because we had found a couple of emails going back and forth between him and our head teacher Mr Richardson when Michael hacked into Mr Lewis’s computer. However, we didn’t know about Tholen’s appearance until two days before the actual event when Mr Richardson told us during morning assembly. He also told us that Momoko Suzuki would be there with a camera team, because she was doing a piece on Tholen for her TV programme
Inside Momoko
. It was rather exciting news, and I do mean exciting. I mean, we were a young band and suddenly we got a gig in front of the most powerful music producer in the world. No pressure there. Despite our lack of ambition to become professional musicians, Tummy, Michael, and I were totally freaking out and shitting our pants. Julian was the only one who couldn’t understand the whole excitement because, believe it or not, he had no idea who Peter Tholen was. Ignorance is bliss, I guess. But to be fair, even if Julian had known who Tholen was, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference to him. Live performances freaked him out no matter who was watching, and the only reason why he could sing to a live crowd was because the stage lights usually blinded him so much that he couldn’t see the audience. Julian was very torn when it came to live performances. He was like a drug addict. He loved the adrenaline, but he hated the things he had to do to get high. But like a hooker on crack he did them anyway because he needed to get high. And on our school anniversary, it seems, he wanted to get higher than ever before.
After our first song, which went down very well with the audience, Mr Richardson briefly made his way back to the stage to introduce Peter Tholen, the first guest speaker of the night. I had been watching him the whole evening. When Richardson was giving his long and boring speech, Tholen had been texting on his mobile the whole time, but when we played our first song, he put his phone away and watched us quite attentively, and after we finished he offered us generous applause.
Then he walked up onto the stage with a big, fat grin on his face, and he gave us two thumbs up as he passed us. It felt nice to be recognized by one of the biggest music producers in the world, but at the same time it seemed so sleazy. He stepped up to the microphone, still looking in our direction and grinning at us, and he said, “That was really, really good. Three yeses from me.”
Some of the students in the auditorium cheered, while others giggled at the poor Simon Cowell impression. And then Tholen said, “We should have a little chat after the show.”
There was polite laughter from the audience at what they must have thought to be an innocent little joke to break the ice. But it wasn’t a joke, nor was there anything remotely innocent about it as we were to find out later.
Tholen talked for about ten minutes. A couple of anecdotes from his time in this very school, a few jokes about teachers none of us had ever heard of, and then a recap of his long and successful career in which, so it seemed, every single thing he had been taught in our school had been of essential importance at one point or another. He must have loved this school so much that it made one wonder why he had left it in the first place. It was quite pathetic, really.
After Tholen had finished his speech, he introduced our second song,
Jerusalem
. But then he didn’t leave the stage and return to his front row seat the way he was supposed to. Instead, he stood right next to us, put his hands in his pockets and stared at us with his goofy grin throughout the whole song. To be honest, I thought it was rather creepy.
After the song, Tholen applauded us and then he looked into the auditorium and pointed both his hands at us as if he were proud of himself for having discovered us. Then Mr Richardson re-entered the stage to introduce the main speaker of the evening, Education Secretary Timothy Gardener. We stayed put because we were supposed to play another song after his speech, but of course that never happened.
Gardener’s speech was remarkably similar to that of Tholen, except it didn’t have any of the jokes and puns and funny anecdotes. It was utterly boring. Never before had the distinction between a man who worked in entertainment and one who worked in politics been so obvious and so revealing. Gardener kept rambling on and on about youth and learning and education, and somehow he managed to make his way from there to his party’s favourite topic: freedom and responsibility of the individual. And that’s when Julian couldn’t hold himself back any longer.
The Gospel According to Michael – 6
It started out so nicely and all according to plan. First our head teacher Mr Richardson gave his welcome speech, praising everybody and everything; the school, the staff, the teachers, the parents, the alumni. Hell, he even praised the students. That was somewhat odd, because I couldn’t really remember Mr Richardson speaking favourably of the student body before, and there he was going on and on about how great and creative and dedicated we all were. I kept peeking at the audience from backstage while Mr Richardson was speaking. Parents and honorary guests had pleased smiles on their faces. All I could see in the students’ faces, however, was astonishment and disbelief. Anyway, his speech came to an end, and there was lots of applause, and then he introduced Puerity as if we were the bloody Beatles or something.
“A great example of the creativity and the talent this school is so proud of,” he said.
We entered the stage. I sat behind my drum kit, Ginger stood behind her keyboard, and Tummy and Julian plugged in their guitars. Julian placed himself behind his microphone stand. He put both his hands on the microphone as though he needed to hold onto something because otherwise he might have just collapsed.
“Thank you,” he said. “But we’re not really that talented.”
Roaring laughter from the audience.
Julian turned around and looked helplessly at me and the others. In his face I could see the question he didn’t dare ask aloud.
Why are they laughing at me?
It was one of those moments that made me think Julian was bloody autistic or something. It sometimes confused him when people laughed at something he said, because even if he said the most hilarious thing in the world, chances were he was being dead serious.
I shook my head dismissively. “Go on,” I said.
Julian turned back towards the audience and put both his hands on the guitar. I counted 1-2-3-4 and we played our first song of the night. The song was
Gaudeamus Igitur
, a special request by Mr Richardson. It’s an old students’ classic with Latin lyrics along the lines of ‘Let’s rejoice while we’re young’. Yeah right, as if it’s such a great thing to be young and have your life run by teachers and parents.
I had been watching Julian the whole time since we got on stage. He was so nervous that evening, more nervous than I had ever seen him before. But I attributed it to the fact that we were playing in front of a couple of hundred people, including a cabinet member and the most famous music producer in the world. We were all nervous, and who would blame us? But Julian really seemed more restless and fidgety than ever. He kept shuffling his feet and running his fingers through his thick black hair, and he kept touching the left back pocket of his trousers to make sure his notes were still there. Because Julian had a plan that nobody, not even I, knew about. His plan was as simple as it was ambitious. He wanted to bring down the government. Ten weeks before the general election.
After our second song, Mr Richardson introduced the Education Secretary. Gardener had been invited to give a speech in honour of his former school, but being the politician that he was it turned into an election campaign speech pretty quickly, and when Gardener started talking about freedom and responsibility, Julian cleared his throat and interrupted him, much to everyone’s surprise.
“Excuse me, Mr Secretary, sir,” he said.
Gardener turned and looked across the stage at Julian, slightly bemused. “Do you have a question?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t going to take any questions tonight,” Gardener said, “but for a talented young man such as yourself I shall make an exception. Go ahead.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I was just wondering, how is it possible that your idea of freedom involves imposing a 9 p.m. curfew for everyone under the age of 18 in this country?”
A murmur went through the audience, and the dignitaries in the first row exchanged nervous glances.
Gardener looked at Julian and said, “What?”
To most people it probably sounded like,
what the hell are you talking about?
, but to us it was quite obvious that what he was really saying was,
I know exactly what you’re talking about, but where the hell did you get that information?
That’s the question that Julian heard, and he was prepared to give an answer.
“On April 25th you sent an email to the Prime Minister and to your fellow cabinet members, containing a draft bill titled the
School and Community Safety Act
, together with comprehensive plans to reform the school system under the title
Faith in Education and Academic Freedom
. In the
School and Community Safety Act
you propose a 9 p.m. curfew for any person under the age of 18 in order to secure the safety of our streets at night time. Why do you think it’s a good idea to lock young people up, sir? And how is that ‘freedom’?”
The under 18-year-olds in the audience started booing. Gardener looked at Richardson. Richardson looked at Tummy’s dad. Tummy’s dad looked at Tummy. Tummy looked at Julian. Julian looked at Gardener.
“Well, Sir?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, son,” Gardener said, but it didn’t sound very convincing.
“I can help your memory, sir.” Julian pulled his papers out of his pocket. “It says
School and Community Safety Act
, sir. It has your name and the address of your ministry on it. It’s signed by you, sir. Surely you must remember? And this other paper is titled
Faith in Education and Academic Freedom
. It says—among many other things—that in order to appease members of religions other than Christianity, school staff and students will no longer be allowed to wear any religious symbols such as crucifixes. But it doesn’t say anything about Muslim teachers and headscarves. Does that mean that Muslim teachers and students will still be allowed to wear their religious symbols so they won’t get offended? It also says that every school will have to arrange for a designated prayer room so that Muslim staff and students can practice their religion. But it doesn’t say anything about prayer rooms for Christians, Jews or Buddhists. Will they, too, be allowed to practice their religion, or would that offend the Muslims? It also says that students will be prohibited from eating outside the school cafeteria during the month of Ramadan. I could go on.