Читать книгу Angela 3 - David A. Bedford - Страница 7

Angela, Fiona Banbury, and Benjie Cooper met outside the main doors of the school on the first day of classes. They smiled at each other, not needing too many words to be companionable, given all they had been through together.

“Where’s Michaela?” asked Angela.

“I saw her go inside a few minutes ago,” offered Benjie.

“Let’s see if we can find her and Yves and Sonya,” Angela suggested.

They entered the cool building. Angela wondered why they had been standing outside in the heat, dripping with sweat, instead of moving inside to talk. They had been too happy to see each other and reluctant, maybe, to start the school year. Once you walked through the doors, you felt the weight of officialdom. Half expecting to be confronted by the KittyKats, their name for the five mean girls, they made their way to home room. Coach Ferguson was in charge, as usual and (as usual) was chomping on a large wad of chewing gum. Kitty Johnson, the leader of the KittyKats, was at the back, busy talking and having no attention to give to them. All for the better, thought Angela. Ferguson took roll with his fanciful renditions of any last names that were not strictly well-known Texas Anglo, German, or Czech. Angela was reminded of how baseball announcers on TV pronounced all the players’ names as if they were English.

After the pledges, there were no unusual announcements, so Angela, Fiona, Benjie, Michaela, Ives, and the remaining honors students converged on Mr. Logan’s room for pre-calculus. Being seniors, they were not nearly as put off or intimidated by their teachers as in previous years. They were even inclined to be indulgent with Logan. There were three new students this year: one tall guy with the merest hint of Mayan features, a girl with light brown, wavy hair and hazel eyes, and another guy who looked Italian. Angela managed to talk to the first two before class started.

“Hi, I’m Angela Fournier,” she said by way of starting the conversation with the girl.

“I’m María Emilia Guzmán Toledo. Nice to meet you.”

“Where are you from?”

“McAllen. At least, that’s where I grew up. I was born in Mexico City but my parents moved to the U.S. when I was two. Dad’s an accountant.”

“Wow, that’s cool,” said Angela, who, having grown up in San Antonio, was used to people with all sorts of varying Mexican backgrounds, ranging from people who descended from families who settled there before any Anglos came, to recent immigrants.

She turned to the boy. “And you. What’s your name?”

“Juan Carlos Rodríguez Peña. I was born in Dallas, but my parents are from Jalapa, in Veracruz, Mexico.”

“Hi, nice to meet you, too.”

Angela started to address the other new kid, but Logan began talking. The class settled down, no longer feeling a need to cause trouble. Angela wondered whether they had become appreciably more mature as seniors. The teacher opened with a story about Sir Isaac Newton, who invented the calculus because he was frustrated with the limits of existing mathematics in explaining what we know as classical mechanics (large-scale physics). Then he proceeded to lock up his notebooks in a trunk and say nothing about his new math for twenty-seven years. Apparently, Logan thought it was supremely funny. Angela could concede that it was interesting and odd.

So far so good, the friends agreed after class. It went without saying that they were apprehensive about getting into the real math. Fiona said:

“I know. It’s like Angela said. If other seniors have made it through pre-calculus, chances are we will, too.”

“Thanks a lot,” Benjie replied with his patented tinge of sarcasm.

“Look!” said Michaela, holding up a pencil sketch of Isaac Newton working away at calculations.

After admiring the drawing with suitable exclamations, the group headed for Romano’s class. As usual, Romano was chatting comfortably with students before the bell rang. Angela headed for the other new boy and introduced herself.

“Hi,” he answered. “My name is Alcides Menotti.” He had a slight accent, unlike the other two, who spoke perfect American English. “I’m from Argentina. My parents are doctors. We came first to New York a couple of years ago and moved down here this year.”

“Wow, that is so cool!” Angela wanted to say more, but Romano called the class to order. He took roll and then started into to the lesson.

“This year we will be studying government systems: ideology, political culture, and practice. For example, our ideology in the U.S. is democratic and market-oriented. We aspire to be ruled by law, not by persons. Most countries outside North America and Europe tend to an authoritarian ideology: a person or group rules and determines what is law in practice, with little regard for whatever the constitution of the country may say. Finally, a totalitarian ideology wants to control all aspects of the life of the people, especially the information they have access to. The Nazi regime in Germany of the 1930s and 40s, and the Soviet Union, which existed from 1922 to 1991, were examples of totalitarian systems.

“In terms of their practice, or how governments actually work, they can be classified as monarchical, which means ruled by one person; oligarchical, ruled by a small group; plutocratic, ruled by the rich, and so on. Finally, the political culture has do to with the concepts and values a society has concerning what a government should be like and do. These usually persist in spite of changes of regimes, practices, and ideology. For example, one can see that the contemporary Russian government, which is democratic in name, has many similarities with the old Tsarist governments and with the communist Soviet period. Any one country can have a mixture of these different practices in its governing system.

“So, what is the U.S. like? What is its system?”

“Democratic,” offered Benjie.

“Yes it is. What makes it democratic?”

“We elect the President, senators, representatives, governors and so on. And we can write or call them and tell them how we think they should vote on laws,” Fiona offered.

“In our town,” said Angela, “we can organize a referendum to change things.”

“Yeah! And in California they are always voting on proposals for new laws at every election,” added Yves.

Romano stepped in: “Do we have any other ways to describe our governing system? Yes, Keller.”

“We are a republic, not a democracy.”

“What makes us a republic?” asked Romano.

“We don’t make the laws directly. We have a constitution and it says how laws are made and who makes them.”

“That is one definition of a republic versus a democracy,” Romano replied. “All of you pointed out real ways we practice government in the U.S. Definitions of ‘republic’ and ‘democracy’ tend to overlap quite a bit, but not entirely.” He pulled out a Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and read, “Democracy: ‘a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.’ ” He turned ahead toward the end of the dictionary and read: “Republic: ‘a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch’ – that’s a king or queen to you guys – (the class laughed) ‘…in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.’ So, yes, Keller, we are a republic and yes, Benjie, we are a democracy. We have elements of both, with the national government much like the definition of the republic and also some like a democracy. Class, what makes us a republic?”

“We are ruled by laws.”

“We have an elected president, not a king.”

“We don’t have direct rule by majority.”

“Excellent!” Romano indicated, smiling with approval. “How are we like a democracy?”

The class jumped in as before.

“The power is in the people.”

“Yeah, but we do it indirectly.”

“We elect representatives in periodic elections.”

“We have the best of both!”

“Let’s hope so,” said Romano. “We have had tension between the two systems from early on in our history. Under the Articles of Confederation, some states, like Massachusetts, had a single-chamber legislature which voted by majority, close to a direct democratic system. When they passed laws eliminating all debts, something the majority of residents in the commonwealth wanted, the wealthy became alarmed. That was one of many motives for calling for the Constitutional Convention, which resulted in a national government that was much more centralized, but indirect and removed from rule by popular majorities. Now, we have some students from other countries in this class. What is your country like? Let’s see, María.”

“Yes, professor. Please call me María Emilia, or just Emilia.”

“Sure.”

“Well, I came to the U.S. when I was just two years old, so I am really an American. But I get a lot of information about Mexico from my parents and from reading. The idea I get is that during most of the last century its ideology was socialist and democratic. The same party ruled for seventy years but now different parties get elected. I think, though that the rich have always run the country. What people say and what they do can be very different, especially with politicians.”

Alcides jumped in: “Yeah, where I’m from, we all say we want democracy but what we really want is a caudillo – a strongman or strongwoman, even – to solve all our problems. You see that all through our history.”

“Thank you, Emilia and Alcides,” answered Romano, who explained to the class what Angela had already found out: that Alcides was originally from Argentina. “So you see, class, that political culture changes very slowly and that ideologies may or may not reflect how politics actually work. I know Mexico has an elected congress…”

The bell rang at that point and the class said “Awww…” Romano smiled and said, “Get out of here! We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”

As Angela and her friends headed to Spanish, they compared notes excitedly.

“My head is spinning,” Benjie commented.

“I love it! We’re going to learn so much this year,” Angela gushed.

“I like it,” Yves put in.

“I can just imagine what some people will say to all this,” mused Fiona.

“What do you mean?” asked Angela.

“You know, the Kellers of this world.”

“Yeah, well. We can’t live in fear, can we?”

“No way!” said Benjie.

They walked into Spanish class, where Mrs. Sepúlveda greeted each one, one at a time.

“Buen día, Angela, ¿cómo está?”

“Bien gracias, señora ¿y usted?” Angela replied.

“Muy bien. ¿Cómo está, Benjamín? …

The teacher spent the hour mostly reviewing to set her students at ease, but there was an opportunity to start on narrating stories in past time. Angela was delighted because she had been waiting for the time in which she could talk about what she did earlier in the day or last week in Spanish. Her intuition told her it would be a huge accomplishment if she could do that.

At lunch Angela, Fiona, Benjie, Michaela, and Yves sat together and invited Emilia, Juan Carlos, and Alcides to join them. Angela was full of questions: how did they like Sargasso Beach? What music did they listen to? What food did they eat in their homes? Soon they were all talking and laughing loudly and Sonya, Angela’s dance classmate, joined them presently. Michaela impressed everyone with her drawings of the teachers and Benjie told funny stories. At one point Kitty Johnson walked past on her way back from leaving her tray at the hatch, eyeing them with haughtily disapproving superiority.

“Nice to see you, too!” muttered Benjie at her retreating back.

“Not a nice person?” asked Alcides.

“She’s the leader of a group of mean girls,” Fiona explained.

“I saw that movie!” Alcides laughed. “It was funny.”

“You saw it in Argentina?” asked Angela.

“Sure, we get all the movies down there. They put subtitles.”

“Well that was fiction,” explained Fiona, “but in real life it’s not funny. Benjie named them the KittyKats, because of their names: Kitty, Kat, Casey…”

“Ashley and McKenzie!” Benjie finished the list for her.

“Who are their parents?” asked Emilia.

“Well, let’s see,” said Fiona. “Kitty’s mom was a cheerleader and beauty queen in high school and still is a social climber. Her father owns a pest extermination and industrial cleanup company and they make industrial amounts of money. Kat’s family is sad. I think her mother drinks a lot and her dad, I don’t know. The group makes her feel she’s somebody, I guess. Casey’s father is some sort of preacher and her mom stays at home and they keep her very controlled, but at school she gets her excitement by acting wild. Her parents don’t know anything about it.”

Benjie took up the thread: “Ashley has no father and her mom barely keeps things going working two jobs.”

“I think she’s starved for male attention,” Fiona commented.

“McKenzie’s mom is a beautician,” put in Michaela, “and her father is a partner in a computer consulting company.”

“They’re mostly really conservative,” added Fiona.

“Everyone’s a conservative in the U.S.,” said Alcides.

“Well, not everyone,” countered Angela.

“I’m hyperbolizing, but I mean by comparison.”

“Yes,” Sonya agreed. “In Europe most countries have a much stronger left wing.”

Angela enjoyed how the conversation moved from people to politics. People really need to talk more about issues and less about other people, she thought. They were interrupted by the bell signaling the end of lunch and time to move to the next class. Angela headed for P.E. After lunch again! Fortunately that day they went through some explanations of what they would be doing in 12^th– grade P.E. and then did stretching exercises in the air-conditioned gym. After a few minutes trotting around the perimeter of the basketball court, it was time to shower and change.

Next was geography with Newsom, a domineering teacher with a dangerous temper. Angela, Fiona, and even Benjie, who was exuberant and tended to react loudly, had learned to keep quiet and not provoke him. Newsom began his litany of class procedure, consisting primarily of the prohibition of questioning what he said or indeed of asking questions at all. When he finished and said “Any questions?” the three rolled their eyes and exchanged meaningful looks of disdain but said nothing.

“Geography,” Newsom lectured, “is the study of all aspects of a given place, whether a city, region, country or group of countries. We look at the terrain, the climate, the availability of water, other resources of all kinds, the economic activity, and the social organization, thus getting a complete picture of the place and how it works.”

Angela thought that you also needed history and the spiritual nature of the people to understand them but knew better than to voice her ideas. She looked at Fiona, who was tapping her fingers on the desk and not looking very amused. Benjie was breathing deeply and his nostrils were moving out and in, but he said nothing.

Newsom droned on: “This course is limited to the honors curriculum, so you are privileged. No one does geography any more in this country. But I say: if you don’t know where other places are, you don’t know where you are.”

Well now, that does make some sense, Angela mused.

In the hallway before the next class, Juan Carlos asked, “Is Mr. Newsom always so angry?”

“He was delightful today. Just wait,” answered Benjie.

“Believe me: don’t ask questions,” suggested Fiona, “and take notes.”

Angela said: “Geography may turn out to be interesting. It’s so big picture, if you know what I mean.”

They were at the door of Mrs. Perez, the English teacher. Angela and her friends approved of her because she treated them fairly, kept the class under control, liked the students, and really taught. She exchanged some words in Spanish with Alcides. When everyone settled into their chairs, Mrs. Perez announced:

“This year we will be doing a lot of writing. The main project will be a research paper that we will be doing together with Mr. Romano’s class. We’ve done research papers before, so you know the format and you know how to research. This time we will go into a topic in much more depth. You can do a topic in history or political science: Romano will help with the content and I will help with the writing. You may also choose to write about the work of an author who does solid historical novels or who deals with issues affecting society, for example Robin Cook, who explores the effects of the commercialization of our health care system, someone like that. Be thinking about a topic you would like to explore.”

“Mrs. Perez, that will be a lot of work,” objected Yves, although with good humor.

“Yes it will,” she answered. “But you will have all year to work on it. You will learn a lot in the process, not the least of which will be how to do college-level research and reporting. You’ll be glad you had this training.”

She went on to give them the upcoming deadlines for assignments and talked about the first composition and put up on the screen a page from Bill Bryson as an example of well-written prose and an engaging style. Then the students began writing on their first text and the teacher circulated, reading what they were producing and giving suggestions.

After class the friends gathered briefly in the hall. Alcides laughed: “It’s not going to be easy for me. English is still new and I have problems with the spelling.”

“In a few days we can all get together and compare what we are doing,” Angela said. “I’ll ask my mom if we can study at my house.”

Her friends from the previous years smiled, knowing they would be welcome there and Emilia, Juan Carlos, and Alcides were pleased at the idea. Then they all went in different directions. Angela headed to dance class, feeling excited. She was the first to arrive and Ms. Amberg met her happily:

“Hi, Angela. This is going to be a great year. We have three big shows and parts for all of you. Maybe more parts than dancers!” she joked. Just then Jo, another senior dancer who at times felt highly competitive towards Angela walked in, closely followed by a knot of other dancers, including Sonya. When all the students had arrived and sat on the floor, Ms. Amberg greeted everyone and said:

“We have a twenty per cent increase in male dancers this year. Last year we had five and now we have six!”

The girls giggled happily and then applauded raucously. The boys smiled.

“We have three productions this time around and there will be parts for all the dancers.”

They all looked at her expectantly.

“In November we will do a choreographed review of Americana for Veterans Day. In March there will be big dance scenes from operas and musicals and then the first week of May the school musical will be South Pacific, which has several dance numbers and of course needs male dancers.”

The girls cheered again, happy to have more boys in dance. The boys, Angela observed, seemed delighted to be among so many girls.

“Now all of you begin saving up because I am planning on a big field trip next month. It will be overnight so there will be some hotel costs and several meals. We will have some fund raisers to help out.”

She explained a little more about the field trip and then set them to doing stretching exercises. After that was practice at the barre, followed by a sequence of jazz steps everyone enjoyed. Angela was tired, relaxed, and happy, still feeling the wonder of music and movement, when her mom, Susan Fournier, picked her up. She recounted the day’s events happily all the way home.

When the front door opened, the first to appear was Thelonius, the black Burmese cat, who wound his way around Angela’s ankles and then Susan’s, purring loudly. Amy, Angela’s little sister came bounding behind Thelonius and jumped up to put her arms around Angela’s neck.

“Hi, Angela! How was school? Did you like your classes? Did you meet new friends? I did!”

“That’s great, Amy,” Angela answered, laughing because she was reminded of herself pelting people with questions to find out about them. “I like my classes and I met new friends, two whose parents came from Mexico and one who came a couple of years ago with his family from Argentina.”

Amy let go of Angela’s neck and settled back on the ground. “Where’s Argentina?”

“A long way from here. A quarter of the way around the world in South America.”

“Wow!” Amy reacted, pondering just what all that could mean.

“Gigi!” It was her brother Andrew, who would be going back to San Antonio in a few days to start his junior year at college.

Angela hugged him. Then they all filed into the house. After putting her things in her room, Angela joined the rest in the kitchen, where preparations were being made to start cooking dinner. As Susan pulled ingredients out of the refrigerator and pantry, Andrew teased Amy by calling things by their wrong name to her loud protestations.

“And this is an onion,” he said, holding up a lemon.

“No it isn’t! It’s a lemon. Andrew, you’re weird.”

“Give her a break,” ordered Susan.

“Ok, Mom. You’re right, Amy. It’s really not an onion… it’s an alligator.”

Amy stuck her tongue out at Andrew. Watching them all, Angela was overcome by giggles, frustration, and affection. She tapped Andrew on his shoulder. “Here,” she said. “Let’s peel potatoes for Mom.”

Dinner was delicious and Andrew behaved himself, chatting comfortably with everyone. Angela felt happy to see that he was feeling stable and upbeat. He had seemed calmer and less angry this summer about their parents’ divorce. Everyone went to bed in a good mood, for once.

***

The following morning, Fiona met Angela outside the front door.

“We’ve got trouble,” she announced.