For History Class

Windflowers

Mikkel and Magnus snug before their fire, Mikkel on Magnus lap.
—The first four are pretty hopeless. No other gods, no idols, no saying God's name except when praying, no working on Sunday. As we don't talk about your parents and I've promised not to ask, you can't do much about the fifth except be nice to others' parents.
—Not me.
—Fine. You're your own man. You may not even be human at all, but the godling Eros with smuts on his nose, in disguise as a Dane.
—You'd better believe it.
—What do you make of number six?
ÑWhat it says. Don't kill. It's mean to kill anything. Everything wants to live. What's the next, Magnus, being grown up?
—Adultery means fucking another man's wife, or the wife fucking a man she's not married to.
—What if they want to?
—Well, God says they shouldn't.
—Big deal. But the next one is good. Stealing is mean. You might take something somebody needs, or likes a lot.
—False witness is fibbing when you ought to tell the truth.
—Like in court.
—Anywhere. Covet means to want something so bad that you're liable to steal it, or seduce, or be sneaky about getting it.
—But all that's already in the other don'ts.
—So there are really only three commandments. Don't kill, lie, or steal.
—Yes, but you might have to do all three. We have to kill Germans in a war, and you might have to kill somebody who's trying to kill you. You lie if the truth is going to get you or somebody you like into big trouble. You steal if you're hungry. If you were sick, Magnus, and needed a medicine, I'd steal it and be proud of myself.
—What a moralist!
—What's a moralist?
—Somebody who knows what's right and what's wrong.
—But everybody knows what's right and what's wrong, don't they?
—No.
—They don't?
—Absolutely not.
—So they don't. Where's that leave us?
—Well, there's the rule for fair play: don't do to anybody what you wouldn't like them to do to you.
Silence. Scrounging in paper bag for more peapods.
—And there are laws.
—Don't walk on the grass.
—Exactly. And then there's the undeniable fact that some of us love each other.
—Is love sex, Magnus?
—Nope.
Silence. Wiggling.
—Love is eating peapods out of the same bag.

Rietveld Table

—You've played it so fucking cool, Magnus, that half the school is in shock, gossip swarming like bees. You come into class with Mikkel here, and nobody knows who he is or where he comes from, and him neat as an ad for kiddy togs, in a red-and-blue-checked shirt, stone-washed jeans we would all kill for, black trainers, and, oh sweet Jesus, those wide yellow braces the likes of which nobody's seen, and with the textbook and a notebook that maybe the Crown Prince gave him, and him as cool as Daniel strolling into the lions, taking a seat not in the front row, where you could save him when we started to eat him, but back in the third, with Asgar, Ole, and Ejnar.
—Is Ole the big round specs and flop of hair down to his nose? Mikkel asked. Just who the fuck are you? is what he asked me. I said I was Mikkel Rasmussen and did he want to make anything of it?
—Holt is a social critic, Mikkel. He likes to talk.
—And the disappearing act after class, when there was practically a queue to quiz Mikkel, smell him, find out what his jeans cost and where the yellow braces come from, but he'd melted away into thin air.
—To be decanted again in geography, Magnus said, with the same effect, except that word had already spread that a new boy of unknown origin and status had been turned loose into the order of things.
—You made this table, Magnus? Dutch De Stijl design, you say? And this room, apartment I suppose it is, O wow! You realize that I'm the most hated person in the whole school, getting invited here for lunch with Mikkel and you, getting to ask all the good questions. Start answering with the nifty yellow braces.
—They're a present from Corporal Redclover, who was with Magnus at the Fort. We came up for the weekend once. He's from the Faeroes. He's my other best friend. Magnus sent him lots of money and told him to take me around to Jespersen's and say that I was going to Oak Hill Boys School. Thomas, that's Corporal Redclover, was in his Class A uniform, parade dress with all the insignia patches and stripes and buttons, and for the fun of it a big pistol in its white holster, and his baton. And I was in my rattiest jeans, my barracks rat's pants as Magnus calls them. Well, and well, ha! this snooty department-store snob would have been happier if I weren't there, and when he asked, to make sure he'd heard right, the Oak Hill School? Thomas gave him a look that meant that if he didn't get on with it the Royal Artillery, Second Battalion, Company B, would not like it at all, and would roll up their howitzers and take his department store out.
—It's great to have friends. I've never had the Army with me to buy socks and shirts.
—Eat up, Holt. You're our second guest, after Solveg.
—Solveg's been up here? I suppose he took in the one bed, which, by the way, I know I'm not to peddle as paparazzi dirt, none of anybody's business.
—Hr. Solveg showed me how he's dressed for teaching swimming, wearing a red cap and whistle and nothing else. Magnus says his red cap and size XL hang-down are all the authority he needs.
—That's for sure, Holt said. If I know Sten, he asked to see yours.
—Because I haven't been to his gym yet. He's an empiricist. That means somebody who has to see for himself.
—I'll bet it does.
—Sten, Magnus said, says that Phys Ed is the only place for a philosopher anymore.

A Sense of Place

—I like Holt, Mikkel said. He's neat. I like all the trees and the walks. I guess there's every kind of person in the world here. Everybody's from somewhere else, aren't they? Some boys talk real funny. There's a library with about a thousand books in it.
—We can check out any we want.
—They call barracks dorms, and when people ask me what dorm I'm in I say I'm in private quarters. Most of the boys I've met are friendly, but some are snooty, you know. And some try to talk English to me.
—You aren't feeling out of place, are you, Mikkel? I am, sort of.
—I don't think so. I'm at home, here, with you. Everybody else is away from home.
—We're going to make our big room here a home like nobody's ever had before, a place that's all ours, exactly the way we want it.

A Rose Is Also Its Thorns

—Well, Mikkel said, I was going from your classroom over to the gym, and there was this shit, I think his name's Peder Hanssen, said something real nasty to me. I wasn't even looking at him. What I didn't know was that Holt heard him. I didn't know Holt was anywhere about. I suppose I said something nasty back at him.
—We're not asking what, Magnus said. Meanwhile, he's in the infirmary and Holt is in Rask's office. I have several versions. What did happen?
—Well, before I knew what was going on, Holt was on him like a tiger, had his face against the walk and was kicking his butt, I mean hard. Ka-whop! Ka-whop! Hr. What's-his-name, the Social Studies rabbit with the little eyes, threw his books down, actually up and they fell in front of him, and he danced around trying not to step on them. He came over and demanded that Holt stop this brutality. Well, Holt looked knives at Social Studies, and gave Hanssen one more kick, for good measure. Hanssen by this time was crying and saying that he was being killed. His legs didn't work when they tried to walk him, to the infirmary I suppose, and some snitch had gone to bring back the Headmaster. Nobody knew I had anything to do with it. Poor Holt. Is he in big trouble?
—I'm going over to find out. You stay here.
—I'm going with you. I've got to thank Holt, if only through a window. He can read my mind.

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