Edgar took a deep drag from the cigarette he held between his fingers.
He exhaled, and as he blew out, Blue Skies Industrial Park came into view ; its shabby buildings, with the paint peeling off their wall, lowlifes and hobos sitting at sidewalks and abandoned workers bustling in and out of their workstations.
He breathed in once again, but all he wanted to do was breathe out. He wanted to breathe out this life he was living; he was seventeen, and he was not schooled. He could count, but he could not calculate; he could speak, but he could not spell; he could read and write, but he could not understand a few words, and that would ruin the entire experience of literacy.
He felt like a tramp. Maybe he was one. But was it really his fault?
His parents could not afford primary education for their son. Was it their fault?
No.
He always maintained that some people are just born less fortunate. He was one of those few.
But he was not the only one. There were so many others who could not study at the only school in the city, either due to lack of money or due to expulsion on the most ridiculous of grounds. And sometimes, unreasonable too.
Bullworth Academy.
He thought of that building and sighed.
He was a student there once, yes. Oh, he was. When he was but a toddler. He loved school. He learnt so many things there.
And then one day, he was called to the principal's office. A letter was handed over to him, and he was told to give it to his parents.
That night, he saw both his parents cry for the first time.
He could comprehend absolutely nothing, except for the fact that he did not have to get up early the next morning and go to school. He did not mind getting up early, he had said, but he was sent to his room.
And for the next few years he loitered around Blue Skies Industrial Park, playing with the dogs that ran around and making imaginary friends.
He made a lot of friends in the neighbourhood, and was shocked to find so many people just like him, so many people who could not go to school. But somehow, they did not mind much.
He did.
He missed school.
Every minute of it.
When he was around ten or eleven, he followed Zoe to school. Zoe was one of his best friends. They played together every evening. The only problem was that she had to leave slightly early, because she had to complete her homework and go to sleep.
She was a student at Bullworth Academy.
He followed her into the main school building. She did not realize. He got a lot of weird looks from the students, but he did not mind. He loved the place.
He could not follow her into the classrooms, so he roamed around the campus, evading the prefects. At lunchtime, she spotted him and came running to him, and asked him what he was doing there.
"I want to study," said Edgar.
"But you're not allowed in here. They'll punish you and your parents if they find you here."
Edgar felt tears well up in his eyes, and he hugged Zoe. Zoe reciprocated gently, and was surprised to find her eyes moist, too. But she had a plan.
"Sneak into the Girls' Dorm at 3:30 every day. Make your way, stealthily, through the halls to Mandy's room. Enter it and hid in the cupboard. We both will teach you every evening."
Mandy was Zoe's best friend. She stayed in the Girls' Dorm, and Zoe would spend a night there sometimes, and they both would talk about everything in general.
Mandy had heard a lot about Edgar, and took great pleasure in teaching him with Zoe. He was a year older, and it saddened Mandy to see that such a bright boy could not afford education. Many a time, Zoe would tell her about the struggles her parents are going through to pay for her education, and Mandy considered herself very lucky.
The trio were caught one day. The matron walked right into the room, and before Edgar had time to hide like he always did, she found the two girls teaching him. They were marched to the principal's office, and received a stern lecture from him.
Zoe and Mandy were let off with a very strict warning, but Edgar was not. A boy had been found in the Girls' Dorm. That night, the principal himself came to Edgar's house, with two policemen. He emotionally tortured his parents, threatening to get both of them arrested for their son's "crime", and that if their son was found anywhere around the campus, he would definitely take very serious action. He then left.
Edgar breathed out another cloud of smoke, and was surprised to see that the tears that fell were as heavy as the ones that were shed that fateful night.
It was that night when, Edgar felt, he had become a man.
The leader within him bloomed. Very soon, he headed the gang of dropouts that lived in the Blue Skies Industrial Area. He represented the oppressed, the downtrodden, the unfortunate.
But deep within, he still loved school. He loved everything about it – right from the subjects that were taught to the feel of sitting down on a bench in a classroom.
He just didn't like Bullworth Academy.