The Cockney Canuck - 8. Chapter 8 First Day of School

I was already awake and thinking about the day ahead before Daniel’s alarm sounded at six-fifteen. I heard him stirring then the light came on.

“Robbie, it’s time to get up man.”

“Yeah, I’m awake.” I stretched my arms and waited for my eyes to adjust to the light.

I had been dreading this day, long before I even arrived in Canada. I got out of bed, stood up and then sat straight back down again trying to wake myself up and concentrate on what I was sure would turn out to be one of most difficult days of my life. The room was cold and I was still tired despite resting for most of yesterday and going to bed ridiculously early. It was only three and a half days since I had arrived; probably not long enough for my body to adjust to the five-hour time difference with London.

“Do you wanna use the shower first?” asked Daniel. He was standing in front of me in only his boxer shorts. I was already used to seeing him like this; he always wore as little as possible around the house. It didn’t bother me; in fact, I quite liked the fact that he seemed to be relaxed about me being there. After all, I considered myself a guest in his room and I wouldn’t have wanted him to have to change the way he lived because of me.

I stood up, yawned and peered through the blinds to see outside. The approaching daylight was beginning to turn one-half of the sky a light blue and I was able to see up to the end of the decking. Most of the mess that we had made in the snow yesterday had gone meaning there had been fresh snowfall again during the night. Everything in sight was covered in a new layer of almost pure white, crispy snow. I was well aware by now just how cold it was out there and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to leaving the house.

I jumped back in bed as I heard someone coming downstairs. “Just checking that you're awake hun,” said Sue. “Have you got everything that you need?” I didn’t know what it was that I needed but I nodded. She told me that I had an hour to get ready before the bus arrived and went back upstairs to organise breakfast. At least the house was warming up now that the heating had been going for a while.

Canadians seemed to know a thing or two about keeping warm. They lived in a country where the winters were long, harsh and unforgiving. Their lifestyles, however, didn’t reflect this at all and regardless of what Tom said, they didn’t live in igloos. They lived in big, warm, well-insulated, double-glazed houses, with spacious rooms, basements, and connected garages. The cold didn’t affect them because they never got cold, unless by choice as we did the previous day.

My thoughts quickly returned to matters that were more urgent as the door opened and Daniel walked in with nothing but a towel around his waist dripping water from his hair. He didn’t look at me or say anything. He wasn’t a talker; it was one of his many qualities.

I grabbed my towel and a clean pair of boxers and headed towards the shower in my underwear, Daniel style.

The nerves had returned that morning with a vengeance and I was shaking as I stood under the warm water. I suppose it was a mixture of anticipation and excitement with a bit of fear thrown in for good measure. I didn’t feel anything like as nervous as I did the day I arrived, but it was a lot worse than the usual first day of school jitters. For a start, I would be starting school more than half way through the academic year, which I knew wouldn’t be easy. I had no idea how good the education system was in Canada and how it compared with the UK. No one had been able to tell me that because each school is different I suppose. However judging by the few kids of high school age that I had met so far, I got the impression that Stephenson was probably better than the one that I had attended in London.

I stepped out of the shower and began drying myself off. I needed to stop worrying about what may or may not happen in school and just deal with it at the time. It may be that once again, I was worried about something that would never happen.

‘I just wish that Tom were here. I enjoyed going to school with Tom’.

I put on my clean pair of briefs, wrapped the towel around my waist and walked briskly out into the family room and straight into Nicola!

I must have jumped a foot in the air and froze in front of her.

I attempted to step around her but she moved across to block my manoeuvre while looking me up and down with a wicked smile.

“I didn’t realise you had such a sexy body.” She ran her tongue over her lips in a provocative way. She was joking but I still blushed and stepped backwards away from her not knowing where to look and holding onto my towel as if my life depended on it.

“Excuse me.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” she said. “Am I in your way?”

I skipped around her and ran to the bedroom shutting the door behind me as she laughed her way up the stairs. It was not a good start to the day for me and I could have done without that added embarrassment on top of everything else that I was about to endure.

“What’s up with her?” asked Daniel who was now dressed and combing his hair.

“I don’t know but she scared the bloody hell out of me. She’s all ready to leave by the looks of her. Does she enjoy going to school?”

“Of course she does, she’s popular at school. All the girls want to be her friend and all the guys want to date her. She has everyone running around after her, you’ll see.”

‘I’d rather not’.

I dropped my towel secure in the knowledge that I was wearing my clean underwear underneath. Daniel was watching and gave me a strange look before he headed upstairs.

“Kill the light on your way out dude,” he said. “You’ve got half an hour if you want to grab some breakfast.”

I nodded to him and started on the clothes that I had left out.

Even though I believed that Nicola was taking it too far, I knew that she had made a valid point when she had said that it was important to make the right impression. My mom had always told me that first impressions were vital, so it stood to reason that today of all days, I had to look and act at least somewhat cool. I had no real desire to be one of the popular kids like Nicola, but I didn’t want to be at the other end of the spectrum either. I knew that I was going to stick out like a sore thumb anyway, because of my accent and I was prepared for a few jibes. However, I certainly didn’t want to be bullied or made fun of, so I needed to get the respect of most of my classmates from the off. This was something that I didn’t think would be too difficult to do, providing I just acted normal and didn’t make any big blunders.

I had prepared a mental list of three rules that I needed to follow to be accepted and have a chance of being happy. This was the most important part as far as I was concerned. I took a deep breath and went over the rules again in my head as I stood studying myself in the mirror.

‘Rule number one. I must never reveal to anyone that I’m gay. It’s as simple as that, no one must ever find out, and I must never, ever, ever confess this or come out to anyone at school! This was the most important rule. I only have to go through another two and a half years. This should be easy enough all I have to do is not tell anyone’.

‘Rule number two. Don’t let anything or anybody get to me. I am bound to be given a good deal of stick about being English. If I can just laugh it off and not let it bother me then it will quickly become old news. Tom always avoided jibes by giving the impression that he just didn’t give a shit about anything’.

‘Rule number three. Keep the lowest possible profile and try to stay out of any trouble and away from any possible confrontations. Try not to lose my temper, but let others know that I won’t be intimidated’.

I was certain that my happiness at this school would depend on how closely I could follow these rules and any academic achievements depended on how happy I was at school. Everything was closely linked in my complex mind and everything had to be in a certain order.

‘Why were my cheeks always so red? It was too much. Why couldn’t they be the same colour as the rest of me? Was Don right about me putting on weight, am I starting to get fat? Or am I too skinny. I need to start working out again’.

I wasn’t happy with the clothes that I had chosen. I didn’t like the shirt and thought that it looked too formal. It looked smart but probably not cool.

‘Maybe I need to wear something else; yes, this was way too formal. I’m going to school not church’.

Daniel was wearing jeans and a sweater. I needed to be more casual or risk looking like a nerd. For the first time in my school life, I could suddenly understand the benefits of wearing a school uniform, as we did in England. I wouldn’t have had this problem over there. I used to hate having to wear that uniform and the thought of not having to over here had been one of the plus points in my book. Now I rather wished that we had to wear them here too.

I quickly changed my best shirt for a more relaxed lumberjack type shirt. This had to be acceptable in Canada. Then I ran back the bathroom to spend the next ten minutes brushing my teeth and combing my hair.

‘Okay, I might not look that cool but I don’t look gay or English either. It’ll have to do, I’m ready’.

“Are you OK?” asked Sue as I entered the kitchen feeling, and I hoped, looking like a regular Canadian school kid. “I was just about to send out a search party for you. There’s not much time left but do you want something to eat?”

“No thanks,” I said. “I’m a bit too nervous to eat anything right now. I’ll just have some fruit juice,” and I sat on one of the kitchen stools next to Amy, who was devouring a bowl of cereal.

I noticed Nicola checking herself out in front of the mirror in the hallway. She walked into the kitchen, looked over at me and winked. “Hey Robbie, I almost didn’t recognise you with your clothes on,” she said.

Once again, I was blushing and trying to look away from her. “Funny,” I replied sarcastically but she just laughed.

“I want the two of you to look after Robbie today,” said Sue. “It’s not nice on your first day and he’s a little nervous.”

I cringed at that.

‘I was nervous, but I didn’t need to be looked after. I would be alright on my own’.

“Yes mom,” said Daniel.

“I can hold your hand if you want Robbie,” said Nicola.

“NO!” I said loudly.

“I was only kidding,” she said, “You didn’t think that I was actually going to hold hands with you.” She laughed again; she was enjoying watching me make a fool of myself. I hadn’t seen her that happy since I got here. It was good to see her laughing for a change, but not at my expense.

‘Ignore her. I need to keep cool and stop letting things bother me. I need to be more like Tom’.

Amy smiled sweetly at me as she finished her bowl of cereal and got up to get herself ready. She danced her way through the kitchen.

‘Where did she get all that energy’?

“Don’t be nervous Robbie, school is fun and you’ll make lots of friends,” she said. Now it was my turn to laugh. She always did this to me. She was just too cute for words.

“Stand,” said Nicola and I did this straight away without even thinking. She turned me around by my shoulders until I was facing her.

“What now?” I sighed reluctantly.

She didn’t reply, instead, she just stood there looking me up and down with a serious expression. Amy and Daniel began to laugh and Sue just sighed and shook her head. I stared directly at her, but she avoided any eye contact.

“I need to be sure that you’re not going to embarrass me at school,” she said before unbuttoning the top two buttons of my shirt. “Leave it like that” she said, “It looks better.” Then she started flicking my hair around with her hands. I tried to stop her but she pushed my hand out of the way. I had spent ages combing it and now I probably looked as if I had just woken up. She stood back and gave me a critical look before smiling at me. “That’s better,” she said, “you looked like a dork with your hair all combed like that. It looks better messed up. And your clothes look a bit too new, but you're okay I guess.”

“They are new,” I replied.

“She said you look okay,” said Daniel. “She never says that about me.” He was finding this funny.

“That’s because I gave up on you years ago,” she said. “But there’s still a chance for Robbie to fit in with the cool kids.”

I pulled a face at Daniel and grabbed my coat.

“It’s a real outside chance though,” she continued, “but still a chance.”

Now it was Daniel who pulled a face at me. I could see Nicola smiling to herself in the mirror. She had got her way and had a bit of fun, but I wasn’t sure how much of this charade was humour. I got the feeling that it mattered more than she wanted us to believe. I was suddenly pleased that I had decided to change my shirt at the last minute; she would probably have ripped the other one off my back.

Amy was the first to be ready and after she had walked around and given us all a quick hug, she headed out the door to catch her bus, which would arrive before ours. That kid had so much love in her, how could anyone fail to be impressed.

I stood there in my new boots, coat, hat and gloves looking every bit the Canadian school kid and as ready as I would ever be. I tried to give the impression that I was relaxed about it and really didn’t give a damn, but my face said otherwise and inside my stomach was tied in knots as I watched the clock hands move into the position that told us it was time to leave.

“Don’t let Nicola worry you, dear, you look fine and you smell lovely,” said Sue as she pulled me in for a good luck hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I hope it goes well for you.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” I said and I could see Nicola looking at her watch and rolling her eyes.

We managed to get ourselves to the roadside just as the dirty yellow school bus came chugging up the hill and pulled up right where we were standing.

There were only a handful of kids already on the bus when we got on. I got a few inquisitive looks from some of them as I followed Daniel and squeezed in beside him about halfway down.

“It’s not the most comfortable ride,” said Daniel “but it beats walking eh.” I nodded but wasn’t convinced.

I had to remind myself that he too was still relatively new to this school. He had started grade nine in September and was only five months into his four years of high school. Nicola had gone straight to the back of the bus and I remembered what Tom had told me the day before. He was only joking but it seemed that Daniel had no intention of following his sister to the rear and it was a relief for me when he didn’t. It seemed as if we both knew our place and it wasn’t at the back of the bus.

It was Nicola’s voice that I could hear above everyone else, even above the jarring noise of the engine. I heard my name mentioned a couple of times and it made me cringe as I realised than any anonymity that I had would likely be short lived. Nicola didn’t seem like the type to keep quiet about the fact that she had just acquired another family member and I was already bracing myself to face a barrage of questions and plenty of interest from the other kids in school. This wasn’t how I had particularly wanted it to be, I would have preferred to have somehow slipped in under the radar without too much fuss or attention but I guess this was never likely to be possible considering the circumstances.

The bus clattered down the hill stopping at almost every block to pick up yet another kid and it was quickly starting to fill up. With everybody kitted out in full winter gear with bulky coats, snow boots and carrying bags filled with books, gym kits and lunches it was getting a little crowded and noisy. I could no longer hear Nicola above the sound of thirty or so over excited kids all trying to talk at the same time.

The last kid to be picked up only just made it on time and was running towards the bus as it slowed down. He nearly slipped up on the ice as he came to a stop much to the amusement of many of the kids on the bus that seemed to know him. He was laughing and out of breath as he walked towards us and sat opposite me on one of the few remaining seats. He turned around to wave at a few of his friends sitting further back. He had this fresh faced, happy kid look and the most beautiful eyes and blond hair, most of which was hidden under a comical woolly bobble hat.

‘I really need to stop staring at every good-looking boy that I see; I haven’t even got to school yet’.

The bus did a series of sharp turns which either had me holding on to avoid sliding off the seat or squashing Daniel up against the window, then it joined the main road and the engine screamed as it sped towards the school. There were no more stops before it pulled into the busy car park to take its place behind other buses exactly the same.

I had been able to recognise the distinctive and brightly coloured school building in the distance long before the bus pulled into the car park. Just in case there was still any doubt, written across the top of the building in huge white letters was Sir William Stephenson Collegiate and Vocational Institute. That was the official name of the school known by students and staff alike simply as Stephenson.

Despite the advice that I received from Daniel’s friends, Doug and Billy over the weekend and studying every page of the school web site I still had no idea what a Canadian school was going to be like. I knew that it would be run much the same as my school in England but I was certain that it was going to be a lot different in other ways and I didn’t want there to be any surprises. It would have been impossible not to be impressed by the photographs on the school website and if I believed what I had read then I was about to have the time of my life, so why was I so nervous?

“Remember that our bus route is number four,” said Daniel as we waited in line to get off. “It’s the only bus route that goes past our house so you need to be on it.” I nodded to let him know that I would be okay and I didn’t feel the need to write it down.

We got off the bus and waited for Nicola who was accompanied by the two friends that she had been sitting with. She introduced me as her cousin from England and I said hello as we walked the short distance from the bus stops to the main entrance and lobby.

The school had three floors with a stairwell on each side of the building. The main entrance and lobby was situated in the northeast stairwell and separated the main classrooms from the cafeteria and auditorium. At the other end was the sports hall. The whole building was covered by a huge overhanging roof, which was supported by giant metal tubes running from the ground in pairs and at angles so that each pair was a giant v shape.

Inside it was bright, modern and clean, with a lot of open space. Daniel said he would probably see me at lunch in the cafeteria that was opposite where we were standing. He said good luck and patted me on the back, while Nicola took me to the reception. “If you need to ask me anything at lunch I always sit at the furthest table by the window in the cafeteria okay?”

“Yes, young man, can I help you?” asked the middle-aged secretary. She had a pointed nose and a sharp unfriendly looking face. I was caught day dreaming, looking at a cute boy who was standing just along the counter from me.

“Oh, this is my first day,” I said. “I was told to report here.”

She cut me off “Robert Fullerton,” she said.

“Robbie,” I replied.

“It says Robert on the admissions form.”

“I prefer Robbie,” I said, and she looked at me as if I were being deliberately awkward. “Everybody calls me Robbie.” I felt like I had to give her some kind of reason or explanation for wanting to be called a variation of the name that was written on her form.

“Okay ROBBIE, follow me into the main office then we can get you signed in and prepare for your induction and orientation and then hand you over to Mrs Whitcomb.”

I laughed and she gave me stern look over the top of her glasses.

“Sorry.”

‘I thought I was going to school not joining the fucking space programme’.

I noticed that my behaviour had caught the attention of the cute kid along the counter who was now watching me as I gathered my stuff together. I resisted the urge to smile at him and followed the secretary into the main office where she told me to take a seat and take my coat off. It was a relief because it was unbearably warm.

‘If I don’t stop eyeballing every cute looking boy that I see in school, my secret’s going to be common knowledge in no time’.

I had to admit, that other than the excessive temperature and the secretary, I liked what I had seen so far and it seemed like a friendly enough place. I had a feeling that I was going to like it here even without Tom.

The secretary returned with a small laminated card that seemed have a list of instructions on it. “It’s to reset the combination for your locker,” she said “number 491 in the southeast corridor on the first floor. You can leave your coat and bag in there and change into a pair of comfortable shoes if you’ve brought some.” I nodded. “They’re alphabet based locks so you’ll need to think of a memorable word or name consisting of four letters to use as a combination. No swear words please.”

She must have read my mind. I gave the instructions a quick glance.

“At the moment the lock is set to P-L-A-Y. Once you’ve set your combination you must let me know what it is so we can keep a record. This is just in case we need to get into your locker for any reason if you’re not at school. If we have any reason to believe that you're using this locker to store anything illegal then we will search it, with or without your permission, understand.”

“What constitutes illegal?” I knew what she meant but I wasn’t impressed by the way that she was talking to me.

“Firearms or weapons of any kind, drugs without a prescription, alcohol, lasers, pornography, hand cuffs, everything is listed in the handbook you’ll be given.”

‘Handcuffs? Why would anyone bring handcuffs into school? Kinky’.

“I don’t have any of those things,” I said.

“I wasn’t implying that you do,” she said, “I was just reading from the handbook. You can go to your locker to set your combination after the anthem but make sure you come straight back here because Mrs Whitcomb has a busy schedule and she won’t appreciate you holding her up.”

Where else am I going to go? Who is this Mrs Whitcomb? And what did she mean by anthem?

Before I could ask, a voice came over the public address system asking everybody to stand for the national anthem.

‘You're having a laugh’.

I stayed put and she furiously signalled with her hand for me to stand up frowning at me for not already doing so. She stood to attention as if she was in the army and gave me a hard stare as the first strains of the Canadian national anthem began to play through the speakers. I barely recognised the tune and found the whole episode a little bizarre. The harder her stare the more amusing I found it, but I did as I was told and stood throughout, taking the opportunity to look out of the window at the huge car park and wondering how many teachers worked here.

‘There has to be over a hundred cars parked out there’.

My body language and obvious mocking of the national anthem had clearly riled the secretary and instantly created an enemy for me within the school hierarchy. My actions weren’t intended as an insult, I hadn't been expecting it, that’s all. It wasn’t something that we ever had to do in England and I couldn’t imagine anyone in my old school actually doing this without laughing. You never saw the union jack at my English school either, but at Stephenson, it seemed like you couldn’t look in any direction without seeing the now familiar red maple leaf emblem. Outside the front of the school, there was an enormous flag that flew from a pole higher than the roof. It was a pattern that was repeated outside of every public building, bank, sports arena, park, beach, gas station as well as random stores and even outside the front of people’s houses. I found this excessive patriotism a little disturbing at first; it seemed over the top and unnecessary. It was the complete opposite to the UK where the union jack had come to symbolise the extreme right wing and only the Queen could get away with flying it.

The secretary relaxed ever so slightly after the anthem. “I take it that they don’t play your national anthem where you come from?” She said sternly.

“Only if we win a gold medal,” I replied sarcastically.

“In this country” she said, “the national anthem is played at the start of every school day when all students are expected to quietly stand at attention, it teaches you to respect your new country.”

I glared at her and wondered if she had a husband or partner. If anybody needed a sex life, it was her, although the thought of it nearly made me sick. I suspected that she was just reading from the rule book again but I didn’t like being judged like that by anyone. She didn’t know me and she wasn’t even a teacher.

I respected Canada; I just didn’t need the national anthem piped into my brain every morning. If anything having to stand up for this every morning would probably lower my opinion of this country.

She handed me a book and I couldn’t help laughing when I looked at the cover. ‘William Stephenson CVI Student Handbook’.

‘It’s the bleeding handbook and it’s got a maple leaf on the front cover’.

“You are advised to read it. I don’t know what it’s like where you come from but here you will be expected to abide by the rules at all times. We take education very seriously in this country.” She was being very condescending and even talking to me slowly as if I had a problem understanding English.

“I actually come from Canada; if it makes any difference, I was born here.” It was my mother talking, I even sounded a bit like her.

It wasn’t a good start, but it wasn’t my fault either. I needed to calm down and she needed to lay off me, before I lost it and showed this old battle-axe how rude and disrespectful, I could really be. I had visions of me being expelled on my first day. How would that go down with the new family?

“Students should show respect for teachers and staff at all times and behave in a way that befits …”

“Ahem … excuse me, Miss Pringle.” A tall, handsome, middle-aged man with lots of grey hair and a friendly smile, walked towards us interrupting her. “Robbie Fullerton?”

“Yes Sir,” I replied, showing plenty of respect. He reached out his hand for me to shake.

“I’m Mr Andrews, the principle here at Stephenson CVI.” He looked me over as we shook hands.

“Pleased to meet you, Sir,” I said and he gave me a warm generous smile that made me feel at home.

“We have actually met before,” he said, “but it was a long time ago and you were only very young. I’m so pleased that you’re going to be attending our school.”

I was a bit confused by all this, but not nearly as much as the secretary who looked like she had swallowed her false teeth and was speechless maybe for the first time ever.

“I was just inducting Mr Fullerton into the school, Mr Andrews,” she finally said with a frown.

“Well thank you, Miss Pringle,” he said, “I can take over the … err induction from here, if you don’t mind. I’ve known Robbie for a long time now and I’m a close friend of the family, there are a couple of things that I need to tell him.”

“Oh,” she said. She seemed quite put out. I was under the impression that he had wanted her to leave us alone, but she didn’t take the hint.

“In private,” he said and I gave her a massive smile that would absolutely guarantee that she would hate me forever.

‘Get over it bitch’!

Miss Pringle screwed up her face and pointed out her lips as if she had just taken poison. I had to hold back the urge to poke my tongue out at her, as she turned around and marched smartly back out to the reception.

‘How can anyone who’s named after a potato chip expect to be taken seriously’?

I liked this man and felt instantly relaxed in his company. He had a certain calmness about him that would make anyone feel comfortable, except perhaps for Miss Pringle.

He waited until she had left the room before continuing. “Mrs Whitcomb will be here in about thirty minutes,” he said, “she’s the student success officer here at Stephenson and she will take you through the assessments which are used to determine what level you have achieved at your previous school so that we can make sure that you’re in the right classes here. She is a bit of whirlwind but she’s very good at her job and a good person to have on your side too. You’ll see what I mean.”

“The secretary said that I should go to my locker and leave my stuff there before Mrs Whitcomb gets here.” I said.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll come with you and give you a quick tour of the school.”

“Great,” I said, picking up my stuff. I was sure that he didn’t do this for most of the students, but he had said he had known me for a long time, which meant that he would have known me when I was here before.

“The school was only built five years ago,” he said “but it’s not too difficult to find your way around. Your homeroom will be in room 1E I believe which is the first-floor room E and your locker will be nearby.”

“It’s very impressive,” I said, “I’ve been looking at it on the website over the weekend.”

“Good. I’m glad that you’re interested,” he replied as we walked out of the office and past a still grim looking Miss Pringle. It has a lot of unique features that you may have read about like our solar panels on the roof.” I was more interested in finding out how he knew me.

All the lockers were in the same bright yellow that was predominant throughout the school. After finding my locker, Mr Andrews showed me how to set my password for the lock and then turned away politely, while I entered the letters that I had chosen. While I changed my shoes, I could see him looking into a classroom through a porthole window, smiling and giving a quick wave to some of the students and the teacher. I got the impression that he was very popular with the students here and it was easy to see why. He seemed very approachable, friendly and also quite young for a principal.

Once I was free of baggage, he gave me a whistle-stop tour of the school, starting with a with a visit to the third floor to see the art department and then the library before walking back to the ground floor.

At the north end of the school was the impressive sports hall that he was particularly keen on showing me. There was a gymnasium, weight training room and fitness room plus a basketball court. He told me that outside they had a football pitch, full-size athletics track, and a baseball diamond whatever that was. When I looked out of the window though, all I could see was piles of snow.

“We also use the Cobourg Community Centre, which had an ice rink, and swimming pool, he said. “It’s about two hundred metres down the road. I’m guessing that you’re a good swimmer Robbie.” I stopped walking and looked at him.

“You knew my mother didn’t you?” I said. It made perfect sense that this is how he had met me before.

“Yes Robbie I did,” and as he said this he reached over and put his hand on my shoulder to comfort me. “I’m very sorry that she passed away.”

I held myself together but I could sense that he was also genuinely upset when he talked about her. He was obviously a close friend and I wondered how long he had known her and why they had become such good friends.

“Coming to Canada has helped to take my mind off it,” I said.

'He Knows Don and Sue. I should have guessed when he said that he was a friend of the family. It means that that anything that happens at school will get back to them'.

When we returned to the office, I had to face the obnoxious Miss Pringle again and let her know the code that I had chosen for my locker. She gave me a slip of paper and I wrote it down and handed it to her with a smile. G-A-Y-1. She looked back at me with an expression of disgust as if she had just caught me pissing in the corridor.

Mrs Whitcomb was a thin woman probably in her mid-forties with straight black shoulder length hair it was her job to assess me and find out what level I was at so that I could be placed in the right grade and class. As today was going to be my first day at a Canadian school, I would need to sit an English literacy exam as well as a couple of other small tests. Then in the afternoon, she would take me to see all of my new teachers for a short assessment. They would decide if I would need any additional lessons to bring me up to grade 10 standards. All of this was likely to take up the rest of the day, which meant that I wouldn’t be starting any actual classes now until tomorrow.

“How did it go?” said Daniel as he approached my table holding a tray of food.

I had arrived in the cafeteria before him and was already half way through my lunch. “It was okay,” I said and then told him about Miss Pringle and the national anthem.

Daniel laughed “Oh yeah, I forgot to warn you about her.”

After a short time, we were joined at the table by Daniel’s friend Doug, one of the guys that had visited the house on Saturday. He insisted on giving both Daniel and me a high five accompanied by a loud greeting.

“Well if it isn’t my favourite Englishman, Robbie.” He said almost shouting, “How’s it going my man? How are you finding the Canadian education system?”

I laughed but could see a few of the other kids turn around to look at me wondering what all the fuss was about. So much for my plan to keep a low profile. Doug just wasn’t a low profile kind of a guy.

After lunch, I returned to the office to meet up again with Mrs Whitcomb who had greeted me with the good news that I had easily passed my English literacy exam, which she said, was a good starting point.

We spent the afternoon running around the school and meeting my new teachers in each subject. Then I would have to sit down and complete a small assessment, which consisted of a basic written exam and a verbal question and answer session with the teacher. Mrs Whitcomb explained to me how the system worked and told me what I would need to do in order to graduate with a diploma or OSSD, Ontario Secondary School Diploma. To achieve this I would need to accumulate a number of credits although I wasn’t sure exactly what you had to do to get them. This was a completely different system to the one used in the UK where students were judged on the results of a single exam taken in each subject during the last year of school.

The English test in the morning had been successful but the tests that I had to do in the other subjects that afternoon had been a disaster and it soon became apparent that it was no longer a case of if I would need extra tuition but how much extra tuition I would need. I began to fear the worst. I was a long way behind academically and it was almost embarrassing. I wasn’t surprised to find out that most of my new teachers assessed me below the standard necessary to get the credits from grade 10 that would count towards my diploma.

Mrs Whitcomb was clearly unhappy with some of the assessments and after pouring over some of the results, she told me that she was confident of squeezing the necessary credits out of the teachers to get us through. I had no idea how she intended to do this but I was sure that if it wasn’t for her intervention and guile I would probably have been put back a year.

She wasn’t really a teacher but I got the impression that the teachers feared her somewhat. Mr Andrews had referred to her as a bit of a whirlwind but tornado may have been a better description.

After an exhausting day trying to keep up with her, I ended up more or less where I had started the day in the school office with the Principal. Mrs Whitcomb had succeeded in securing the extra credits that were needed but it meant that there were two subjects that I would need to do extra work on to catch up. One of these was the dreaded math, which I already knew I was behind with, and the other one was Canadian history, which had never studied before but was a compulsory lesson. The end result of all this was much better than I had expected and Mrs Whitcomb and Principal Andrews both seemed reasonably happy. I was told that I would start regular classes the following day, but to gain the extra two credits that I still needed, I would have to attend the after school programme. It meant two extra periods a week after normal lessons had finished, so I would have to stay for an extra hour and a half every Tuesday and Thursday.

Thanks to my previous school and my reluctance to do the necessary work, I now faced an uphill task just to reach the same level as Canadian students who were the same age as me. I knew that the only reason that I was still in grade ten was Mrs Whitcomb’s bullying tactics and the influence of the school principal who just happened to be a friend of the family and an old friend of my mom. In reality, I was nowhere near the level of any of the other students in any of my classes and everyone knew this. It was a farce and I was sure that eventually I would be found out for the fake that I was, even if it wasn’t my idea. I wasn’t capable of doing Daniel’s homework let alone mine and he was a year behind me. I had a feeling that I would have to go back to primary school to find my true level.