Chapter Three
Mr Sheldon was a tall
man, probably somewhere in his forties, although his white hair
made him look much older. In fact, along with his grey three-piece
suit and heavy silver-framed glasses, he looked exactly as April
had always imagined a distinguished college professor would look.
The fact that he was also the head teacher at Ravenwood only added
to his air of importance. Headmasters didn’t normally take classes,
of course, but April was quickly learning that Ravenwood was some
way from the usual definition of ‘normal’. Mr Sheldon strode up and
down in front of the philosophy class, telling stories of long-dead
Greeks and Germans that should have been deadly dull, but he
somehow made them fascinating; it was like watching a particularly
good documentary on TV. But still … something wasn’t quite right,
April thought, as she sat at the back maintaining her ‘head down,
stay off the radar’ policy. There was something about Mr Sheldon,
something in the picture that didn’t quite fit. He put her on edge,
for some reason. Maybe it was just that she wasn’t used to actually
listening to a teacher. Not just hearing their words and picking a
few relevant sound bites out of the drone, but really listening to what they were saying, then really
thinking about it. It was certainly a new experience for April,
especially as there were plenty of distractions. The gorgeous blond
boy, Benjamin, was sitting three rows in front of her and kept
turning to whisper to his friend. Every time he did, she could see
his slightly wicked smile and his cheekbones and his … Hmm, now
what had she been saying about concentrating?
‘So how many of you
have seen Star Trek?’ said Mr Sheldon
in his deep, honeyed voice. A few arms tentatively raised -
not as many as you’d think,
given the geek factor in this school,
thought April. Mr Sheldon was obviously thinking the same thing as
he smiled. ‘I suspect a few of are hiding your light under a
bushel,’ he said, eliciting some guilty laughs.
‘All right, so how
many of you have seen Back to the
Future?’
A lot more hands were
raised, mostly by eager pupils in the front two rows.
‘So what’s the main
idea behind it?’
A boy in the very
front row put up a hand. April realised it was Jonathon, Davina’s
boyfriend.
‘Time travel,’ said
Jonathon confidently. ‘Marty McFly travels through time - past,
present and future - in the mad professor’s car, which is a sort of
time machine, fixing various problems in order to save his
family.’
There was another
round of giggles, and Mr Sheldon nodded.
‘Very good, Jonathon.
That sort of story is generally described as science fiction, but
in reality, there’s very little science involved. We don’t have the
technology create a “flux capacitor”. Consequently, it’s more
accurate to say that Back to the Future is actually philosophical
fiction. When Marty changes the past, it changes events in the
future.’
April was glad to see
other people around her frowning too.
‘Which leads us to
the central problem, when you’re writing about time travel,’
continued Mr Sheldon. ‘Can anyone tell me what it’s called?
Benjamin?’
Benjamin didn’t even
look up. ‘The Grandfather Paradox,’ he said in an offhand tone, as
if it was obvious.
‘Excellent. The
Grandfather Paradox: what if you built your own time machine,
zipped back seventy or eighty years and killed your grandfather
when he was a boy? If Granddad was dead and never met Grandma, that
means one of your parents would never have existed and therefore
you wouldn’t be around to build that time machine.’
Mr Sheldon looked at
the furrowed brows of the class and laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not
testing you on your movie knowledge, I’m simply using it as an
example of philosophy in action for the benefit of our newer class
members.’
Oh God, thought April, don’t
point me out, please.
‘Those of us who have
been studying this for some time know that the beauty of philosophy
is that for any given phenomenon - time travel, the existence of
God, free will - you can come up with several hypotheses that will
seem to explain it just as well as the accepted explanation. As
we’ve discussed before, there are no right answers in philosophy.
Although please note that doesn’t mean you will automatically get
an A for turning up to your exam.’
Everyone
laughed.
‘Okay, let’s consider
another age-old conundrum: the chicken and the egg.’
He lifted one hand
and pointed to the back of the class. April’s heart jumped as she
thought she was going to be asked to speak, but the teacher was
pointing to the plump girl with rosy cheeks sitting next to
her.
‘Emily. Which came
first, the chicken or the egg?’
‘The egg,’ answered
the girl confidently.
Mr Sheldon nodded.
‘Very well. Why?’
‘Well, in nature DNA
can only be modified in the womb, or in this case the egg. So as
evolution is a series of genetic mutations, it must have happened
before the chicken was born, which means, in the egg.’
Mr Sheldon clapped
his hands. ‘Splendid. A perfect scientific answer. But this is a
philosophy class, so what’s the problem with this
theorem?’
He paused and let his
eyes sweep around the room. ‘How about you, Miss
Dunne?’
With a lurch, April
realised he was looking straight at her. How did he know she wasn’t
paying attention?
April, can you tell
us what’s wrong with Emily’s rather straightforward, by-the-book
answer?’
She glanced to her
side and saw that all of the rosiness had drained from Emily’s
cheeks and she was now glaring at April.
‘Wrong?’ stuttered
April.
‘It does seem to
address all the possibilities, doesn’t it?’ said Mr Sheldon,
stroking his chin. ‘Evolution, mutations - it all sounds very
straightforward, I suppose.’ Mr Sheldon shook his head slightly and
turned back to his eager students at the front. ‘Perhaps someone
else can—’
‘Evolution,’ blurted
April.
‘I’m
sorry?’
‘Well, uh, Emily’s
explanation assumes that evolution is correct.’
Mr Sheldon chuckled.
‘It seems we have a true Christian in our midst, ladies and
gentlemen,’ he said, raising more laughter. ‘No, no,’ said Mr
Sheldon, raising his hand to silence the jeers. ‘Enough. She is
quite correct. Emily’s scientific explanation assumes far too much.
And April is at least thinking for herself.’
April felt herself
blush.
‘Of course, before we
give her a round of applause, we should consider how narrow an answer hers is,’ continued Mr Sheldon.
April felt the blush increase as she realised that Benjamin
Osbourne had turned to look at her. He turned back to his friend
and whispered something and they both laughed.
‘Miss Dunne may be
thinking for herself,’ said Mr Sheldon, ‘but she’s still thinking
along conventional lines. Just because you have seen one chicken
emerge from an egg, can you assume that the same will be true for
the millions of eggs produced every year? Is that logical? Does
that make sense? If you see a chair with four legs, does that mean
all chairs have four legs? No. The reality is that in absolute terms, we know almost nothing about
eggs, where they come from, what they are or whether they are
related to chickens. This is what philosophy is all about: turning
lazy thinking on its head and questioning everything you see,
everything you think you know.’
April was now glaring
at Mr Sheldon, but the teacher had moved on.
‘Consider this: what
do you really know about the people around you? What do you know
about your mother, father, brothers and sisters? Does your brother
take heroin? Is your sister a virgin?’
There were a few
nervous titters, but Mr Sheldon wasn’t smiling.
‘What about the
person beside you?’
April wasn’t inclined
to look at the girl next to her; even without turning her head she
could tell Emily was glowering at her. Instead she looked the other
way - and her breath caught in her throat. Gabriel Swift was
staring directly at her from the end of the row, his eyes narrowed.
April looked away quickly, her blush now approaching pillar-box
red.
‘What do you really
know about your classmates?’ Mr Sheldon was saying. ‘Just because
they come to your school, sit next to you every day, you assume
they are benign. Perhaps they are. Perhaps they’re not. Perhaps
they’re planning on blowing up this class. Perhaps they’re planning
something worse.
There was more
strained laughter. April glanced up at Gabriel again, but he had
sat back in his chair and another pupil was blocking her
view.
‘But that’s what I
want you to consider in this class, in this school,’ continued Mr
Sheldon. ‘This is Ravenwood, people. Here we expect you to look at
things from a different angle. Probe, think, question, investigate.
The world is much more interesting that way, I promise
you.’
The bell rang and the
students began to scrabble their books into bags. Mr Sheldon
clapped his hands and opened up a cardboard box on his
desk.
‘Okay, class, before
you disappear, your homework is to read this book,’ he said, waving
a thick volume in the air. He began to hand them out as the
students shuffled past. There was some groaning as they looked at
the heavy tome.
‘Don’t worry, this is
the author’s complete works, not a single novel. Read as many as
you wish, but I only require you to read the short story “Random
Quest”. It’s easy to read and has everything you could want: war,
romance and time travel. Imagine Brad and Angelina in the lead
roles if it helps. We’ll discuss it next lesson.’
As April filed past
the teacher, he handed her the thick book. ‘Good thinking there,
April,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I’m pleased.’
Before April could
react, Mr Sheldon had turned away to shout at two girls poring over
a magazine.
‘Now this is what I’m
talking about,’ said Mr Sheldon, snatching the offending mag and
dropping it into the waste-paper basket next to his desk.
‘Celebrity culture has played a confidence trick on you, people.
God frowns on the worship of graven images, ladies, haven’t you
heard? Think for yourselves! ’
‘But it’s got the
last interview with Alix Graves in it,’ complained the taller of
the girls.
‘Alix Graves is dead,
Lucy,’ said Mr Sheldon. ‘I’m sure you’ll have found someone else to
obsess over by next week.’
April looked up,
surprised both by the insensitivity and the fact that a teacher
would even have heard of Alix Graves. As she did, Gabriel barged
past her, sending her spinning, and she dropped her books with a
clatter. As she bent to scoop them up, she heard giggles and felt
all eyes on her. Great, just what I
need, she thought. So much for staying
under the radar.
‘Are you all
right?’
She looked up into
Benjamin Osbourne’s blue eyes. He bent to help her up, his face
concerned. God, he’s good-looking,
thought April.
‘Yes, yes, fine,’ she
muttered as she quickly gathered her belongings and moved into the
corridor. She glanced back and saw that Benjamin was still watching
her, a smile playing around his perfect mouth.
‘You’re sure you’re
okay?’
April nodded and
almost ran down the corridor. But she wasn’t fine, far from it. She
had been humiliated and laughed at, she’d felt out of her depth and
… well, Benjamin must think she was a clumsy, stupid new girl with
a bright red face. But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the thing
that had upset her most was that strange boy, Gabriel, barging into
her. She couldn’t swear to it, but she was fairly sure he had
whispered something to her as he pushed past. And it had sounded
very much like, ‘Get out.’