Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,146

hero for going against all the other small-minded people in his town to defend the black man who had been accused of rape. Sitting next to me, Tracey yelled across the room to interrupt him. “Oh, for God’s sake, shut your gob, you stupid bloody nancy boy! Nobody cares what you think, you little poof!”

“Shut up yourself,” Malcolm said, waving his hand at her.

Tracey laughed and gave a limp-wristed flap of her hand in imitation of him. “Hah! Look at the state of you, you nasty little queer.”

Her laugh fell from her face, however, as Ms. Hastings, in a few sweeping strides, marched across the classroom to stand next to her desk. “What did you just say, Tracey?” she asked in the quiet voice she reserved for the moments when she was most angry.

“Nothing, Ms. Hastings.” Tracey dropped her eyes to make a study of her desk.

“Really?” Ms. Hastings folded her arms and looked at Tracey steadily. “Because that’s not what I heard.”

“I didn’t say anything, Ms. Hastings,” Tracey said, still not looking away from her desk.

“I see. So I must be delusional, then, is that it?”

“What?” Tracey looked up, a perplexed frown on her face. A ripple of stifled giggles rolled across the room.

“Are you suggesting I’m hearing voices in my head, Tracey?” The giggles grew louder, but stopped abruptly when Ms. Hastings swept the room with her eyes.

“No, Ms. Hastings.”

“Good. Because I know what I heard, which was you insulting a fellow pupil in the most offensive manner.”

“I only called him a poof and—” This time the giggles erupted into a ragged wave of laughter.

“I know exactly what you called him, Tracey,” Ms. Hastings said. “I think we’ve established that there’s nothing wrong with my hearing. And if anyone else thinks there’s anything funny about using those words they can join you every afternoon next week in detention.” She lifted a single eyebrow and looked around the room. All the laughter ceased.

“Detention? Every day?” Tracey looked at Ms. Hastings with an expression of horror. “But Ms. Hastings, I—”

“Detention, a week of it,” Ms. Hastings said firmly. “And I do not want to hear those words cross your lips again.”

“No, Ms. Hastings,” Tracey muttered. Her features compressed into a picture of simmering rage, she dropped her eyes to her desk again.

Ms. Hastings returned to the front of the classroom, placed her hands on her hips, and sighed heavily. “I am very disappointed to see any of you using these sorts of words as insults,” she said gravely. “Making fun of someone because they’re different, or because you think they’re different, is hurtful and cruel and very, very wrong. I would have hoped that from our reading you’d already learned this, but I see that some people are slower than others.” One of the boys raised his hand. “Yes, Andrew?”

“But being a homo, that’s not the same as being black like the man in the book. Being a homo is … well, it’s perverted.” He turned his lips downward in an expression of disgust.

“The term, Andrew, is homosexual. And it’s a natural part of the human condition.”

I leaned forward in my seat. While Tracey grumbled beside me, I wanted to make sure I could hear every word Ms. Hastings said. “Homosexuality,” she continued, “has certainly been around for a long time, and in some societies—like ancient Greece, for example—it was considered quite normal. All those famous Greek philosophers and thinkers, a lot of them were homosexuals. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle—”

“Who the hell were they?” a boy shouted from the back.

“They were some of the most influential men of Western culture. And it wasn’t just men who were homosexual.” At this, I felt a bolt of excited interest rush through me. “One of the most talented women poets in ancient Greece was also gay. Sappho. She lived on the island of Lesbos.” At this, a few sniggers rippled around the classroom. Beside me, Tracey snorted. But I wasn’t paying any attention to Tracey at all. She could have disappeared into thin air as far as I was concerned.

“There have also been many, many writers and famous people since then who’ve been gay,” Ms. Hastings continued. “Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, Alexander the Great, to name just a few. In fact, homosexuals have often been some of the most influential and talented people in society.”

“But why are they like that?” another boy yelled.

With a musical jingle from her colorful bangles, Ms. Hastings folded her arms in front of her and pressed her