Daddi was gone to work by the time Happy awoke. There was no evidence of the fight but plenty of the move. Happy woke later than he hoped and thus didn’t have time to find his new school clothes he’d campaigned to buy ahead of class. Most of his middle school things no longer fit him and he’d gotten by with rags at home and to and fro the mall during the quiet, lonely summer months. Mummi stepped in with a solution and Happy wore a newer of Daddi’s buttondowns that was reserved for special occasions. He wore the best jeans from middle school, which now had to be tied higher, eliminating any bagginess in the legs and making them unfashionably slim-looking. Last year’s no-name sneakers were what pained him the most. His shelltoes were to be the lynchpin of his cool attire. Mummi had prioritized his backpack, which housed his 3 inch Five Star padded minder from middle school and a variety of writing instruments.
He had decided to hold shorter, loose strands on the sides of his head with hair get.
The rain has killed the last of the summer air and left an unseasonably cold chill in the air. Happy walked out from the lobby, over the green bridge traversing the ravine and to the end of Garfella Drive. For three years he had turned left here for Smithfield Middle School, but today he turned right for his first day at North Albion Collegiate Institute - a fancy name for a shit school. It was known as a bad place full of gangsters and flunkies, but it was local and Mummi didn’t want him a bus ride away even if his grades allowed a switch to a marginally better high school further into the city. The road to North Albion was dotted with the signature bungalows of the area. The corner lot had the best lawn. It was home to the sole remaining Italian elderly couple in the area. The Itallians had come to Rexdale in the Fifties as the first wave of immigration displacing the traditional whites here. Happy thought it funny when they were considered anything but white themselves. The Italians had created the blueprint that the rest of the races had followed since. They made a temporary home in Rexdale where rent was cheap and buses delayed the requirement for cars. They huddled a half dozen to a house an when they had enough money they collectively conspired to pick a neighbourhood further North to create their own Canada.
The Italians had picked Woodbridge and left slowly, then all at once. The Catholic schools they’d created now hosted the newer Iraqi Christians. The bungalows they vacated were now host to Punjabis, all either to build their own Canada in Brampton. The Italians came when the rubble of the 2nd world war was their at home reality. The Punjabis came in the 70s and 80s, when their homeland was under seige from the central authority in Delhi. Then the Blacks from the Carribean came as well, picking their own sectionof Bramption as well. Then 90s brought the the Tamils when the Sri Lankan Civil War peaked and the Iraqi Christians when their homeland became less welcoming to non-muslisms(check). Now, the Gujuratis were coming to take this on and the waves continued. Happy’s race sat at the crest of the wave but he felt much better behind than the median.
Both sides of the sidewalk were flowing with other Indians. The Blacks would mostly be coming from the other way and the Kipling Strip, where Happy had lived until his parents found an apartment here. Daddi had been mugged there twice which Mummi had been reminding Happy of all summer as the day he approached making his way to the area again.
The bungalows on the road ended to open up on the right side with a running track with North Albion beyond it. On the other side were the low-rise housing projects that served as a soft launch to the Kipling Strip.
Happy walked over the running track and off of it. Wet grass stuck the toes of his old sneakers. A gush of water entered at the rear heal where the padding had worn and wetness creeped into his sock. He cursed in his head. The rear green battered metal doors of the school didn’t open from the outside. Kids pooled at the doors until someone inside opened them to come out and smoke.
He knew he should head to Ms Grant’s homeroom from his visit with Mummi on intro night two weeks prior. Mummi had brought ladoos for Ms Grant and Happy had cried at home when he confirmed that his one good friend, Ram Kainth, wouldn’t be in the same class as him.
He made his way to Ms Grant’s homeroom. The batch of lockers near her door were ajar and lockless, ready for their new inhabitants. Happy walked inside and was the first person there. A chart near the door told him to sit at table five with most of the other S’s. Four desks were positioned inward in a square, just like the other makeshift ‘tables.’ Happy put the straps o his backpack on the shoulders of the chair and unzipped it. He laid out his pen, pencil and eraser like cutlery at a fine dining restaurant. He kept his calculator and ruler stowed until they would be needed. The classroom was in the middle of the west hall with windows shining light in from the football field and the main artery beyond it.
He pulled a thin ruled notebook out of his backpack and starting scribbling rhyming words.
High Pie Oh My
He couldn’t rap but he liked coming up with rhymes on the page. When he spoke he faced stutters, false starts and mistimed bars. When he wrote, none of that mattered.
Ms Grant came back from the bathroom and greeted Happy as a familiar face. Her name was already in chalk with a welcome at the front. The students started filtering in. Most of them were foreign to Ms Grant.
“Hi Happy,” Sweety said.
Sweety Singh gave him a smile as she sat down across from him. In his focus on making a good start he had neglected to read who was seated with him, assuming he would know no one and not care in any way. As the chair to the desk facing him screeched backwards, Happy flipped his journal to the next page and stared at it like it held a response he could read off. It was predictably blank so he met her gaze at last once she’d sat down.
He nodded at Sweety. She had light pink lip gloss on and a sweater with a bunch of tiny fibres sticking up, but it looked like it was part of the style and no because it was old.
He looked away again to steel himself and scanned the other faces in the class to find other familiar faces. He decided he should be more observant to get a heads up but also to have something to do with eyes that wasn’t staring at her. He found he couldn’t quite focus on anyone in particular.
“Did you find your dad?” Sweety said.
“Yeah he was at a friend’s place,” Happy said.
“I heard yelling from your Uncle’s place when I went to take out the trash,” Sweety said. Her place with two doors away. They’d grown up in close proximity and their mums were auntie friends. That’s when you gossip with each other and gossip about each other when apart and some sort of non-agression pact in the times in between.
“I don’t know about that. That’s just how they talk,” Happy said.
Sweety nodded politely and started accentuating her nametag with coloured pencil outlines around each of the six letters. . Happy felt compelled to say something but his well was dryer tahn he hoped. He dipped anyway.
“You ready for the first day. I’m excited,” Happy said.
Sweety reacted with surprise and Happy regretted his choice.
“Well that’s a shame because this teacher is new at this,” Sweety said.
Happy was surprised that she dare utter something so blasphemous. He made sure his voice was low and he was leaned in towards her before he responded.
“What?” Happy said.
“She was an English-as-a-second-language teacher until this year. My sister told me. Too bad we can’t pick our homerooms like our other classes. I picked those well,” Sweety said.
“Yeah you picked what subjects you wanted to study right?” Happy said.
“I also picked the teachers, based on who my sister told me graded the easiest. I’m going to get a good headstart on grades so I can get some wiggle room for next year when things get harder,” Sweety said.
Happy was an only child with no older friends. All his advice on high school had come from Ram, who was. no older than he was. Happy didn’t understand how some people were allowed to have these advantages that he wasn’t. Yet, he was encouraged to heard that Sweety was just as concerned with grades as him. Grades would be how he’d find a way out of his current situation. Even Mummi assured him of that.
“So you’re trying to keep a low profile like me eh? I wonder what are we going to learn in this homeroom?” Happy said.
Sweety looked taken aback by the question.
“Um… no I’m trying to make some friends, especially older ones. It matters who you know and where they end up. I think that’s what this homeroom is for too. To make friends in a new place,” she said.
Happy looked around at this cohort who was supposed to be his new friends. He recognized many faces and names from middle. Many of them had followed each other from kindergarten onwards, Sweety to be one of them. He could’ve called a few of them friends on junior school. By middle school he would settle for doing the odd group project with them. There was also half who were completely foreign, having come from the school strata on the other side of Kipling street. Happy strained to think of how he could have anything in common with this lot. There was one lone gora in the class, sticking out like a marshmellow in chai.
The homeroom held 32 decks in squares of four. There were a half dozen empty desks with name-tags on the, hinting at truant students. Two of them could be found beside Happy. One of them faced away from Happy on Sweety’s side. The one beside him belonged to a student named Saad Sheik. He sounded like a Bollywood star. Ms. Grant walked to the front of class and began. Happy shifted his chair to the right so he could see her. That put his back to the door. He glanced to his left. Sweety had her neck turned instead of her chair. It was long and smooth. Happy to tell where the overappled makeup on her face ended and her skin stone darkened to it’s natural shade of brown. Ms Grant told them all about homeroom including the spoilers provided by Sweety. She was less than five feet tall in indigo denim jeans and a muted pink billowing blouse. She spoke with the enthusiasm of an old poodle. She would teach us Civics so that homeroom had a purpose. There was a textbook to hand out and readings to assign. It all seems very anticlimactic.
15 minutes into class, Happy heard the door open and all the kids broke their concentration on Ms Grant to see a late boy walk in.
“Good morning miss,” the late boy said.
He was on the shorter side, with trimmed hair on the sides of his head that was offset but a bushy jostled top. He didn’t have any fuzz to shave clean. He held a Toronto Raptors fitting cap at his side with one hand while the other tapped his heart over his heart to show sincerity. The sweatshirt underneath his hand had a fullsize replica of the Scarface movie poster, with Al Pacino’s white suit and gun pointed downwards. He wore blue and white Nikes with cross-weaved fabric over the toes. Resigned, Ms. Grant told him to take his seat and then assigned an icebreaker activity. Happy shifted his chair back into the table to face Sweety, eager at the opportunity to get to know her one-on-one. The room erupted in chatter as the late boy read the chart and came over to sit beside Happy.
Saad Sheik.
He pinched the name tag holding his name and rotated it until the letters were facing Sweety. He flicked his chin upwards in a cocky salute. Who was this boy who got off so easily for being obscenely late to the first day of a new school? Who did he think he was harassing an angel like Sweety? Happy couldn’t let this slide without saying something. He was still seated
“Hi,” Happy said.
Saad kept alternating looks at Sweety and the rest of the class. He wasn’t sure if Saad was ignoring him or he’d squeaked like a mouse. He straightened his vertebrae before trying a different tack.
“Late on the first day of school eh?” Happy said, louder.
Saad averted his flirty gaze from Sweety to a quizzical look of Happy. Happy started noticing his heartbeat. Saad locked eyes with Happy before lowering them to examine his shirt.
“You’re the reffest looking Jamaican I’ve ever seen,” Saad said.
Happy was wearing a black t-shirt with white sleeves. A logo over the chest embossed the words MALCOLM X in the green, black and gold of the Jamaican flag. Mummi had snagged it in the bargain bin at the mall.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Happy said.
“You’re fronting like you’re a revolutionary like Malcolm. He started out doing burglaries and shooting heroin. Then he took on the US government. Then he got shot by the FBI for not backing down. You look like you’re back down from a thumb war,” Saad said.
Happy looked at Sweety. She was busying herself with some notes in her journal, presumably pretending to do the icebreaker and not get involved.
“You got Pacino on and you’re not Italian,” Happy said.
“It’s not about being the same race. I got a crew. We’re don’t let anyone fuck with us and all we got is our word and our balls. Are you trying to get jumped?” Saad said.
Happy’s heart was in his throat. He put his arms up, palms out in a plead. He noticed Saad’s nostrils flaring like a bull.
“No I just, I was just making a joke,” Happy said.
“Be nice to him, he lives in my building,” Sweety said.
Saad didn’t speak, recalculating the situation in his head. He looked at the empty seat at their foursome.
“Maybe your seatmate will live in my building,” Saad said, smiling again.
Sweety had her elbows on the table now, journal forgotten. She clasped her hands together so they guarded her full expression. She didn’t peak at the name tag before she spoke.
“Only if you’re neighbour is one Odaine Sterling,” Sweety said.
Saad let out an exaggerated laugh.
“After this morning, I don’t think Odaine will be joining us,” Saad said.
“Oh really? What happened?” Sweety said.
“He brushed past by dog Gobind in the halls just before I got here. Gobind laced him and he started fighting back. The safety officer was on them quick and they both got suspended,” Saad said.
He scanned Sweety’s face to detect if he’d made an impression. She looked concerned. Gobind was one of Happy’s neighbours. He’d seen that boy kicked out of too many classes to mention over the years. He was surprised he’d made it into the same high school as Happy.
“That’s why I was late. I was breaking them up and defending my boy. He didn’t start it,” Saad said.
Sweety nodded, smiling again. Happy was listening intently and calming his heart, thankful to not be the topic of conversation for a bit.
“That’s awful, he’s probably upset,” Sweety said.
Her face looked more amused and engaged than turned off.
“I know Gobind, he lives in my building,” Happy said.
“Alright man,” Saad said, looking dismissive. He turned back to Sweety.
“It’s nothing. We’re having a jam at his place after school. His mom comes home super late and his brother is chill. He rolls with the Brown Blitz just like my bro. You should come and bring your friends,” Saad said.
She would never. What the hell were the Brown Blitz?
“So it’s in our building?” Sweety said.
“Yeah, 10 Garfella. It’s super chill. Gobind’s sister will be there and you can hang with her,” Saad said.
“I think I can come for an hour and tell my mum it’s an after school program. Is it OK if I bring my frield Giselle?” Sweety said.
“Fuck yeah,” Saad said.
Sweety smiled wider.
“You should invite Happy too,” Sweety said.
Saad paused. He turned to Happy.
“You wanna come?” he asked unethusiastically.
Happy thought. This was trouble. He didn’t want to be involved with ruffians and risk his mom seeing.
“Nah I’m good. Thanks a lot though,” Happy said.
“It’s whatever,” Saad was looking squarely at Sweety now. She looked perplexed at Happy’s response but washed her face of it quickly.
“So she’s really an ESL teacher? Great we’re in the retarded class,” Saad said.
“That’s not nice,” Sweety said.
“Yeah I agree. Are you on Messenger? Can I get your addy?” Happy said to Sweety.
Sweety and Saad paused.
“Yeah sure, let me write it down for you,” Sweety said.
She grabbed his notebook and wrote in pretty bubble letters: desiprincess89.
Heart beating, Happy flipped the page on his workbook and pressed it down hard to make sure the letters didn’t fly away.
Happy heard a clacking of heels from the empty mid-period hallway that grew louder with each step. Soon their doorway was eclipsed by a six-foot-tall Amazonian women with the shoulders of a football player. Her grey suit was tight in the arms and baggy in the ankles. She nodded at Ms Grant who pointed to the front of the class like a Vaudeville stage director. She moved with the gait of a cop. At a school like North Albion they needed an enforcer more than a nurturer.
“Good day, I’m Principal Wiltinghead. I’m going to be brief because I’m giving the same speech to every grade nine homeroom today. You’re the second-to-last and I have to catch Mr. William before the bell. Now you make ask ‘why only grades nines and not grade tens, elevens or twelves?’ and I would say ‘good question.‘”
There were no murmurs like had been all through Ms Grants instruction. Principal Wiltinghead scanned the faces of the students and locked eyes with each one in turn for a few seconds before moving on. She spoke with an accented English that seemed from further away from another province.
“That’s because if I can’t reach you in grade nine I think you’re pretty much unreachable. Sorry to say it. I’ve been principal here for ten years. Before me there was a new one every year for the previous three years. I like to think I’ve made it because I’m a realist. Once i see an impressionable grade nine turn into a drug user or a juvenile offender it’s over ninety-nine percent of the time. There are good teachers here ready to help you become great adults. I don’t want to see any of you end up tweaking on the sidewalk.”
While still looking towards the principal, Saad extended his left arm across the table and flicked his fingers open in a jazz hand. He started twitching it like an addict.
Happy snorted without any control over the matter. Saad turned back to look at him in surprise. Happy realized he’d been doing it for Sweety’s benefit, who wasn’t paying attention.
“What’s so funny over there?”
Happy’s nuts curled up into his abdomen. Mrs. Wiltinghead was looking squarely at the two boys.
Neither responded. The rest of the class was looking at them. Happy saw the bemusement on Sweety’s face but it was too subtle for anyone else to pick on if they glanced at her.
“Was is the part about the drug addiction or the gang violence?” she asked.
“But Miss, it wasn’t me, it was him,” Happy pointed ahead at Saad, who snapped his head back incredulously and raised his arms in protest.
“What’s your last name?” Mrs. Wiltinghead said, looking at Saad.
“Sheik. Miss I…”
“Mooses brother?”
“Yes but…”
“Ah, ah. Thank you,” she said, holding up a finger that shut his mouth before returned her glare to Happy.
“You better be careful, I know his brother. If they’re anything alike I don’t think your seatmate looks kindly on tattletales. They call them snitches on the street,” Mrs. Wiltinghead said, proudly smug at incorporating the turn of phrase.
The class ooed and Mrs. Wiltinghead seemed to like when the kids got riled. Saad looked back, with his hand gripping the backrest of his chair, turning the skin on his knuckles a shade whiter. His nostrils flared again.
“And what do you have to say for yourself,” Mrs. Wiltinghead said, looking at Saad.
He mercifully turned back around.
“I plead the fifth,” Saad said.
There was confusion in the class, who probably weren’t the biggest Law and Order fans. Happy had watched enough of it to get the reference that they didn’t get.
Ms. Wiltinghead sighed.
“OK, first of all this is Canada, not America. And second, this isn’t a court of law. You don’t have rights here, we own you while you’re in school,” Ms. Wiltinghead said.
“But don’t we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and all that?” Saad said, as he got up.
The class murmurred as Saad walked to the framed Charter near the class entrance. Ms. Wiltinghead stayed silent at he did it, rather amused. Happy couldn’t believe this affront to authority was even possible.
Saad pointed to the first column of the Charter.
“It says here, ‘Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms’ Aren’t kids included in the term Everyone? Saad said.
Ms. Wiltinghead looked back and forth at Saad and Happy and formed her rebuttal before speaking.
“Oh, you know what, maybe you’re right. Maybe you do have some rights. But rights don’t protect you from consequences. You may not be my best example here, but looking at the terrified look on your co-conspirator’s face, it’ll work on him. Rights don’t mean that if you speak in class, I don’t get to take note on your permanent record, and Ms. Grant can take note on your behaviour mark. And we have the right for that behaviour mark to be as little or as much of your grade as we want it to be. So, Moose’s brother’s friend - can you guess what your behaviour score is currently at?”