For those who were bold enough to listen to him, his message was simple. “Open your eyes and see the world,” he would say. “Nobody need be hungry in this land. The local people have existed here blissfully for thousands of years. You can too, if you adapt to the country rather than demand that it adapt to you.”
He saw many of his friends exchange knowing glances as he followed Ede along the busy street this day. A group of dirty-looking homeless men, gathered around a small fire on a vacant block of land near one of the stores, waved to him and called out greetings. “Why be ye so glad-ragged up this day, young Brennan?” one of the men called out.
The boy smiled and waved back. “I am starting school today,” he replied. “My aunty has bought me all new clothes and a schoolbag.”
“Well, good on yer, lad,” the man called back, “and good luck ter ye an’ all. But don’t forget to still come and have a yarn with us sometimes.”
Brennan assured them that he would as he increased his pace to keep up with Ede, his mind already drifting back into his daydreams.
He couldn’t remember when he had decided that he must have come from another world. Where this other world might be or how he came to leave it behind was a mystery that seemed to continually set him apart. Even so, this vague explanation for his unique abilities gave him some measure of comfort, allowing him to be able to concentrate on his life and set aside his apparent differences. His lack of knowledge of his past therefore did not trouble him greatly. He could see no point in fretting about things that he could not change, and anyway he knew Ede would explain it all to him one day. He smiled whenever he thought of Ede. Turning his attention back to the street, he watched her striding out briskly up ahead, pausing now and then to peer into a shop window while he ran to catch up with her.
Brennan loved Ede very much, and he especially loved their quiet, private kind of life. Very few people ever called at the cottage, and he preferred it that way. In the serenity of their home, she had often told him stories of her early life in the ‘old country’, how she had travelled across the sea in a great boat to this land, how John Greenway had built a successful business empire in this rough, new land. He clutched his new leather school bag tightly. The pleasant smell of the new leather quickly filled his nostrils, blocking out the pungent stench of the overcrowded city. The bag contained his pencils, some cheese sandwiches and an orange.
Then the small sandstone schoolhouse finally stood before them. Of course he’d known this day would eventually come. Ede had said he was already quite a few years late in going to school: he was about ten years old, she thought, and he should have started school when he’d been six. But her mind was easily distracted. It was a wonder to Brennan that she had remembered to drag him off to school today at all, though he had hoped she would forget again. But somehow she had remembered, so there was no turning back now. He broke into another run and caught up with her just as she arrived at the schoolyard. There she introduced him to the teacher, a severe-looking man named Mister Hill, who intimidated the boy at once. As Brennan stood shyly beside his aunt, the teacher’s critical gaze began to make him self-conscious about his ill-fitting new clothes and his long, unkempt hair.
Ede then looked about the schoolyard at the squealing children. “Why are there boys and girls together here?” she asked sharply. “I thought they had to attend separate schools.”
Hill snorted, glaring fiercely at the old woman. “Perhaps they should, madam,” he growled. “But you will see that I am only one man, and teachers are hard to find in this wild land. Either you accept things as they are, or you can take the boy away and educate him yourself. It is all the same to me.”
Ede stared back at him for a moment before shrugging her bony shoulders. “As you say then,” she agreed. “I don’t suppose it makes any difference in the long run.”
“Off you go now and play with the other urchins then, boy,” Hill snapped sharply. “I need to get some details from your guardian. Just be sure to come running to the classroom with the others when you hear the bell to start the lessons.”
After being dismissed, Brennan wandered about the schoolyard for a while, watching the other children at play and generally idling about. When the bell rang, he followed the teeming mass of children into the small schoolhouse and quickly found himself a seat on the hard wooden bench seat. The long desk in front of him had little slots at the front for his pencils, and a deep recess for his writing slate and a ruler. The other children seemed friendly enough, and he soon relaxed. After finding the place confusing at first, he soon began to find it amusing to sit and listen to the teacher speak of reading and writing, geography and arithmetic. The books on these subjects were issued to him before the first lesson. Excited, he started at once to leaf through the well-thumbed, grubby pages. Oblivious to the tittering of his classmates, he scanned through them eagerly, reading the contents and looking at the pictures. The huge store of knowledge the books contained teased his hunger to learn.
“Please close that book at once and pay attention,” Hill suddenly snapped, striking the desk top with his long cane and making Brennan jump with fright. “You will have plenty of opportunities in the future to read the books, boy,” the teacher added in a gentler, kinder tone. “For now, however, you must listen to me, and I will guide the entire class through the lesson together.”
Brennan closed the book and stared straight ahead, waiting for Mister Hill to return to the front of the class and begin the lesson. “We have a new boy with us today,” the teacher began. “You must all make him welcome; his name is Brennan. Stand up, boy, so we can all see you.” Brennan rose uncertainly. A few giggles rippled about the room until Hill’s stern gaze froze the student body once again to silence. “Brennan is a little late in beginning school,” he continued when the room was again quiet. “We will need to be patient with him until he catches up with the rest of us.”
He then took up one of the books and surveyed his small charges. “Now let us read from Charles Dickens. The story is David Copperfield and we will begin on page thirty-two. Laura, please start us off.”
A red-haired girl stood up and began to read clearly and confidently until Hill told her to stop. He then called on each of the other students in turn to read a few lines from the story until at last it was Brennan’s turn.
Not wishing to embarrass the boy, Hill was about to pass him by when Brennan rose and began to read easily, acting out the speaking parts and ‘living’ the story as Ede had taught him. Hill was clearly impressed, allowing Brennan to read two whole pages before calling him to silence. When Brennan sat down, he noted the mixed looks of envy or resentment that passed among his fellow pupils.
Chapter
2
When lunchtime came, Brennan took his cheese sandwiches and his orange and went looking for a warm place in the sun where he could sit and eat his food.
“Come over here, new boy,” a girl with red hair and and a splash of freckles across her nose called out to him. He recognised her as the first girl to read during the morning class. She beckoned him over to where she sat on a log against the fence. “I want to talk to you.”
Brennan walked over to her slowly. He had not met too many girls before, and he did not like being bossed about by one on his first day at school. She saw his resentment and smiled warmly; the smile cooled his anger at once as he sat on the log beside her. She had a small, pretty face. Apart from his own, her eyes were the bluest Brennan had ever seen.
“My name is Laura,” she said. “I did not mean to sound so bossy, but most of the kids pick on me because I have such red hair; it makes me a bit pushy at times. I wanted to get off on the right foot with you.” She smiled again. “I suppose I wanted us to be friends. I