Frontier - 17. FR Chapter 17

“If I can please ma’am, I would like to ask my brother to show me where this incident took place, and I will be close by, but out of sight, if you can have a few teachers nearby but out of sight, just in case something happens?” I asked the staff member.

“Well, since you are his older brother, and a student at this school, I guess we can do that,” she said to me.

Turning to Jedd, I smiled. “Can you show me where this all happened. I will follow you from a distance. Just walk to where it happened and stop there, and wait for a few moments, ok?” I said to Jedd, and he nodded his head.

I watched Jedd head off towards the middle of the Junior school, where I hadn’t been before, and I carefully followed him. A few minutes later, in a long wide hallway, I saw Jedd stop and he leaned against the wall, before he looked around. Then I saw him freeze dead still, and I moved a little closer without being too obvious.

“Hey, new boy, have you come back for some more. Where is your school bag, so I can check its contents,” I heard an older boy say. I spotted him approaching my brother, and give him a little shove.

I quickly made up the distance between where I was to where Jedd and this bully were standing. Before he knew what was happening, I grabbed the collar of his jacket, so he couldn’t escape.

“Hello. My name is Anton, and I am this new boy’s older brother. His name is Jedd by the way. What is your name?” I said to the bully, and he gave a crooked smile.

“I’m not telling you. You’re a stranger,” the bully said.

“If you look at my uniform, you will see that I also attend this school, and I don’t need to know your name, because she will tell me,” I said as the teacher I spoke to earlier was rapidly approaching us.

“Billy Grassy, I should have guessed that it was you,” the teacher said when she arrived.

“Ok, Billy, let me tell you something that happened just last week, at my brothers last school. They were bullied and physically assaulted by five older students, around your age, for which our other brother has just had emergency surgery, and is currently recovering.

The five students who caused the injuries on both of my brothers, are all currently serving three months in Juvenile Detention in Perth. If you continuing bullying, you will probably end up in the same place. Do you want that to happen?” I said to Billy. I saw Billy swallow and his eyes widened in fear, as he began to shake his head.

“That is good to hear. Now I suggest that you go and find all the other students that are bullies in Junior school, and tell them this story, and let them know that me and a lot of other students are watching for anyone who is a bully. You got that?” I said to Billy, with my face only inches away from his.

I turned to the teacher. “Anything that you would like to add, Ma’am?” I asked her, and I could see that she was trying not to smile.

“No, you have covered everything just perfectly,” she replied, and I let go of Billy.

“You can go now, Billy, but walk. Remember, no running in the hallways,” I said to him as he turned and walked away rapidly.

Jedd hugged me tightly, once Billy had left, and I bent down and hugged him too. “It’s ok now, Buddy. You won’t have any more troubles any more,” I said to my brother. I suddenly noticed Finn and Toby rapidly approaching, with another staff member in tow.

“Hey, guys. What’s happening?” I asked as they arrived.

“We heard that Jedd was having trouble, so we came straight away, via the admin office,” Toby said as he pointed his thumb towards the approaching staff member and I chuckled, before facing the staff member already present.

“Is there somewhere, that we can chat,” I said to her. She looked through the window of the nearby classroom, and seeing that it was empty, she opened the door and walked in, with us following. Once the door was closed, I faced everyone gathered.

“If you don’t know, my name is Anton Hamilton. I am a half-brother to Jedd here, and also Neale, who is currently recovering from surgery in hospital in Perth,” I started to say. I looked at Toby and Finn, who both smiled and nodded their heads for me to go on. “As I said earlier, my brothers have recently been victims of school bullies at Leeman Primary.

I am glad that the culprits are now serving three month’s juvenile detention, with no early release. Sadly, it seems to be also happening here at this school as well, in both the junior and senior schools, and that is why, along with my good friends here, we have set up a student initiative operated by the Student Leadership team.

“We monitor and stop any bullying and any form of discrimination, whether it be sexual orientation, race or religion, that may occur on school grounds during school hours. That includes inappropriate behaviour of staff members. With that being said, I presume you have already heard about the Chemistry teacher. It was our team that took action when it happened, and I presume you know what has happened.

“Toby and Finn here, plus Simon, Mike and myself make up the senior leadership team. We have two or three team members for each year as part of the team in the senior school, and we are currently dealing with one other incident, in our second day of starting, plus this one here today,” I announced to the two teachers.”

“Ma’am, Finn and I both have brothers in junior school. Both are in year 6, and they know about the SLT - Student Leadership Team - and want to be part of it,” Toby announced, which surprised me a little, as I didn’t know this information.

“Why have we not heard or been told of this?” one of the teachers asked.

“Because we wanted it to be a student run and managed initiative. You saw how I handled the bully that caused Jedd some distress - a non-physical solution, that has results. The incident over in the senior school, has been handled by the year 8 and 9 SLT members.

They have informed the bully concerned that he is being watched carefully, and they suggested that he stop bullying students. We are waiting to see if this is going to work or not,” I announced.

“Well, I am very impressed, Mr Hamilton, and by the way, I am Junior school deputy, Anne Links. Can we look at expanding your programme to cover the Junior school?” the second teacher said.

I was unaware that she was the deputy principal till she announced it. “Yes Ma’am, we would be happy to do that, but I would suggest that SLT members be for just years 5 and 6, as I feel that any students younger would not fully understand how we operate,” I said to the deputy principal.

“I have to agree with you on that, and I hear that we already have two students interested in being involved. I believe them to be Giles, your brother Finn, and Vern, your brother Toby. Let’s see if we can have another meeting about this early next week,” the deputy principal said.

Once the deputy principal and teacher had left, I assured Jedd that he was safe now, and that we would have two students watch this Billy for the rest of the day. I told him we had to go back to Senior school, and to wait at reception when school ended. I would meet him there. I gave him another hug, before Toby, Finn and I left.

Although we missed our lunch break, we returned to the senior school before the first bell, and since we had a study period in the library, we didn’t need to rush too much, so we headed to the cafeteria to grab a fruit drink and a snack, just to get some food in us, before heading to the library.

“Can you guys come over to the yacht sometime on Saturday?” I whispered to Finn and Toby.

“Just us two, or the others in the team as well?” Toby whispered back.

“Well, I was just thinking you two, as I feel I connect better with you two, than I do with any of the others,” I replied.

“I can understand that. Yes, I will be able to come,” Finn replied.

“Yep, I will come too,” Toby added with a big smile.

About five minutes later, we were surprised to see Mr Langton approach us and stop at our table.

“Come with me you three please,” he said quietly, before he walked away, towards the front door of the library.

A few minutes later, we were seated in the administration conference room. Mr Langton said nothing, and we could only guess that this must have something to do with what happened at the Junior school. We waited in silence, till the door opened, and Ms Links from the Junior school and Mr Masterton, the school’s principal entered the room, and sat on either side of Mr Langton.

“Relax, you guys are not in trouble,” Mr Masterton said with a smile, and all three of us let out a breath of air in relief. “What you guys have done, we think is a wonderful thing, and you have already proven that it works.”

“I came over to see Mr Masterton, soon after you left the Junior school, and I explained to my colleagues what you had told me and the teacher at Junior school, and what we witnessed in front of the bully – Billy. I mentioned that you currently are working on an issue over here with a year 9 bully,” Ms Links said.

“You boys have shown responsibility, plus respect and courtesy to your elders. Can you please give us some more information on who is involved in the Student Leadership Team, and what you have done so far?” Mr Langton said to us, and both Toby and Finn looked at me, and I chuckled as I stood up.

“Well it looks like it’s up to me,” I said, as I made my way to the white board at the end of the room, and picked up a whiteboard marker.

On the whiteboard, I wrote Senior Leadership Team in capital letters, and I wrote the five team members below it, next I wrote Y7 to Y11, evenly spaced underneath this, before turning to my audience.

“Something that I have been thinking about, but haven’t had a chance to mention to the Senior team, is having a senior team member assigned as mentor to each year team.” I saw both Toby and Finn smiling and nodding their heads in agreement.

Once again, I went through the story of what my brothers went through with bullying, and explained what one senior team member did to deal with the year 9 bully, and that the student was now being watched by SLT members at all morning and lunch time breaks, as well as before school and as school ends.

I explained that we were a student initiative, run by students, with our aim being to resolve any discrimination or bullying issues in a minimal confrontational and non-physical manner. After I had finished my presentation, I sat down and we waited for a response from the staff. Mr Masterton looked at each of his colleagues, who both smiled.

“Gentlemen, I congratulate you in this initiative. It is fresh, effective, and we already know that it works. We are happy for your Senior leadership team to continue managing this programme.

“The only thing we need to do, is to have either a regular meeting or a report, to show clarity on what you are doing, in-case there are any complaints made. It’s to show good governance within the school,” Mr Masterton said to us.

“I am happy to give you some of my spare time, to put together a Mission Statement, and Rules of Operation, and maybe with that we can develop a way of reporting back to us, the school management,” Ms Links said to us.

“We need to meet with the rest of the Senior Leadership Team, which we will do over the weekend. So if we can get back to you after that?” I said to the staff, and they agreed, and the meeting was called to an end.

As we left the admin area, I stopped when the sound of the bell rang, and I looked over to the clock on the reception wall, which read 2.15pm, “We are late for last class,” I said, as we quickly walked to our lockers, to gather our last books for the day, and made our way to our classes.

Since we were in the same last class, we were a little surprised when the teacher said nothing as we walked into the art classroom. She just smiled, and indicated for us to take a seat. When the end of day bell sounded, we waited till most of the students had left.

“How would you guys like to stay overnight tomorrow night? That way we can invite the other two members of the senior team over on Saturday for a team meeting,” I suggested,

“Which two are… oh yeah, I forgot that Simon works for you,” Toby said with a big smile.

“I am wondering if I should have Mike and Sam over as well, and then invite the rest of the team to come over for a BBQ lunch and meeting on Saturday,” I suggested.

“I agree with you on that, Bro. Let’s do it that way. It will be fun having us on the yacht, and we can check out the Jacuzzi again,” Finn said, and we all laughed, as we stood and left the classroom.

We caught up with Mike, Simon and Sam at the lockers, and sorted our books, and locked our lockers.

“Guys, can we have a few minutes to chat? I have something to say,” I announced and I headed outdoors, and off to one side away from the crowds of students heading home. “Guys, can you see if you can get permission to stay overnight at my place tomorrow night, as we need to have a senior team meeting? Maybe don’t mention that my place is a yacht.

Tell your parents that there will be adult supervision, and there will be no alcohol, and on Saturday we will have the whole team over for a BBQ lunch and meeting,” I said, and everyone agreed to seek permission to come.

Once we had collected Jedd, we rode back to the marina. “This will be an interesting weekend. Have you told your gramps and crew about this?” Simon asked.

“Nope, everyone gets back from their break today, so I will announce it today,” I replied as we neared the marina. This is when I spotted a new yacht mast in the marina.

“What the ….? We have another yacht in the marina, and…” Simon said stopping what he was saying when we rounded the corner to see the catamaran, Frontier, moored at the marina, next to the trimaran, Last Frontier. We both stopped, hardly believing what we saw in front of us.

“Ok, what is going on here?” I said as we rode the final fifty or so metres to the jetty, and we locked up the bikes against the light pole. When we turned to face the two yachts, we saw Jasper standing on the Trimaran fly-bridge, and Gramps standing on the catamaran fly-bridge.

“Ok, you two. What is all of this?” I asked as we approached the two yachts. Moments later Jasper and Gramps were on the main decks of each yacht, with big smiles on their faces, and Simon just laughed at the situation.

“I was able to get a great deal with the sale of my property in the city, and because some of the family were missing being on the yacht, I decided that it would be a good idea to bring the yacht back here, so we could have both yachts available for charters. When on charter, I would skipper the Frontier, with one of the lads as 1^st mate, your mum would be the cook and steward, and maybe the boys can assist with that as well in a small way.

“Jasper will remain as skipper of the Last Frontier. You, Anton, will be 1^st mate and Simon as cook, plus one of the lads as steward. When not on charter, the lads will live on board the Last Frontier,” Gramps announced to us.

I thought about what Gramps just said, and I could see the merits of what he said. “Any news from Mum?” I asked Gramps.

“Yes, she rang about an hour ago. Neale is recovering well, and he will be back home by the end of next week. She knows about the catamaran being back at Jurien Bay,” Gramps said with a smile.

“Do we have any charters this weekend?” I asked as casually as possible.

“Yes, on Sunday we have an all-day charter on the Last Frontier, from 8am to 4pm,” Jasper replied.

“It’s for a group of 16 people, who want to explore the nearby islands and do some snorkelling,” Gramps added with a smile.

‘That is good. Our first since we have got back. It’s small but it’s a start,” I said with a grin.

“We are charging $160 per person. That covers morning and afternoon teas, lunch, soft drinks and bottled water. They are bringing their own snorkelling gear,” Jasper said to me.

I looked at Simon and he just smiled.

“We sort of made plans for this weekend, so you will have to count Simon and me out of the charter,” I said to Gramps and Jasper.

“Oh, anything we should know about,” gramps asked.

“We have established a student leadership team to reduce and stop discrimination and bullying at our school. We need to have a couple of meetings, the first with the senior leadership team, which we are both in, which we have planned as an overnight gathering tomorrow night, here on board the yacht. Then a meeting of all the team members for a BBQ lunch on Saturday. Depending on how that goes, the senior team may need to meet again on Sunday,” I announced.

“I see, does this have anything to do with Neale and Jedd at their last school?” Gramps asked.

“Yes, it does, and also to do with what happened today as well,” I said and I looked down at Jedd, who was still holding my hand and leaning against my side.

“What happened today?” Gramps said in a concerned voice.

“It is ok. We have resolved the problem, and no one got seriously hurt.”