Thank you for all of your kind words. I am ecstatic that even a fraction of DPS fans are already growing to love Kathleen as much as I do. She has lived in my mind for over month, so to put her on the page is both a relief and a risk. Please continue leaving comments. Each one truly make my day a lot brighter, and I hope this update brightens the day for you.
'Alas, Love, what is this thou wouldst with me?
What honour shalt thou have to quench my breath,
Or what shall my heart broken profit thee?
O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,'
~ The Complaint of Lisa by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1878)
Chapter Three - The powerful play goes on
Kathleen sunk low into the worn fabric of her armchair. A Tale of two Cities* lay open on her lap, its pages illuminated by one of the lamps emitting soft light into the senior common room. Someone had drawn the thick, red curtains over the autumn view, shielding the room from the approaching darkness. A low hum sustained in the relative quiet, an unusual state in the rare moments of unsupervised time.
Knox was away, reluctantly attending a dinner with his father's work friend Mr Danburry, and his family. His absence may not have been wholly responsible for the tranquillity, but it certainly helped to regulate the tone. Meeks and Pitts were stationed at a table not far from her armchair, preoccupied with the radio they had been building since her second night. The other boys were doing homework, playing darts or chatting in small groups. She felt more at ease with each passing day at Welton Academy. Almost a week had passed an already she sensed the beginning of attachments. She would miss these boys when she left, but at the same time, she ached for her current friends indescribably.
"I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." Sydney Carton's words pierced her heart. Charles Dickens was without a doubt one of her favourite authors, even if Cameron turned up his nose every time she quoted his work. Cameron didn't read anything fictional, in fact, he hardly did anything for the sake of fun.
"How was dinner?" Kathleen looked up, startled by Charlie's question. Against the heavy, wooden door stood Knox with his jacket slung over one shoulder, and a far-away look in his eyes. She hadn't heard him come in.
"Huh?" Knox asked, shaken from his daze.
"How was dinner?" Charlie repeated.
His eyes dropped as he let the door take his weight. "Terrible."
Kathleen closed her book, "why, what happened?" She swapped the comfort of the cushioned seat for a resin wood chair at the table. Even Cameron placed his designated math pencil behind his ear as Knox approached, exhaling further words of despondency.
"Tonight," he sighed, sinking down into a chair, "I met the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my entire life."
"Are you crazy? What's wrong with that?" Neil cried, voicing everyone's thoughts.
"Because she's practically engaged, to Chet Danburry."
Groans echoed around the two tables. Meeks looked particularly disturbed, while Neil pushed his textbook away to offer his support to Knox.
"To bad," Pitts mumbled, reaching over to pat Knox on the back.
"That guy could eat a football!" Charlie exclaimed.
Kathleen felt her brows furrow. She leaned forward to catch the scrunched-up paper Knox threw down. "Who is Chet Danburry?" She asked, smoothing out the creases to reveal a legal services business card that had taken the brunt of Knox's frustration. The details were for Mr Danburry.
"He's a football player at the local high school, the walking stereotype of a jock." Neil explained, "he used to come here but he flunked out in fourth year."
Charlie chuckled darkly, "the knucklehead deserved it."
"It really is too bad," Pitts repeated sympathetically.
"It's worse than to bad Pitts," Knox implored, "It's a tragedy. A girl this beautiful in love with such a jerk!"
"All the good one's go for the jerks."
Kathleen pivoted in her seat to face him. "That's a little unfair," she objected, thinking of the boy dramas discussed in halls of St Mary's, "as long as someone isn't abusive, it's none of our business who any person chooses to date."
"Sorry," Pitts mumbled.
"Forget her" Cameron broke in, reaching for Neil's abandoned Trig book. He pointed to the problem, oblivious to the disbelief etched into Charlie's features. "Open your trig book and try to figure out problem five."
"I can't just forget her Cameron!" Knox exclaimed, "and I certainly can't think about trig."
"I hate to say it, but maybe he's right. The chances of seeing her again are slim, and like you said she already has a boyfriend." Kathleen spoke apologetically, provoking a smile as she held up the business card and ripped it down the middle. Suddenly, the radio which Meeks and Pitts had been working on sprung to life, saving Knox from further conversation.
"WE'VE GOT IT!"
"All right gentlemen, five minutes," came the voice of Hager, interrupting the celebrations of the pair as the door opened. Instantaneously, they swept the radio under the table.
"Let's go!" The supervisor gave Kathleen a pointed look before herding the darts players into tidying up. She rose from the chair and picked up her book with a little more haste.
"Did you see her naked?" Charlie asked, darting out of Knox's range on his way out of the room. Kathleen caught Knox's annoyance and swatted him lightly with her book.
"What did I say?"
"You know what you said, Dalton."
Kathleen said goodbye to the boys as they split off to their respective dormitories, leaving Meeks and Pitts trying to convince the teacher that they really did have a science experiment. Here, the skills taught in debate club were - and not for the first time - successfully put to use.
XXXX
"Come on, we're going to be late to English!" Kathleen tugged at Todd's arm, half dragging him down the corridor.
"You were the one who insisted on checking the post!" He laughed, quickening his pace slightly as they flew down the flagstone hallways of the ground floor.
"Nancy said she would write," she repeated for what felt like tenth time this morning. "I can't arrange to see her until I know she's arrived at her aunt's house," she whined.
Todd shook his head, "I can't believe that her aunt lives in town. It's so lucky."
"What can I say? I'm a lucky person!"
They rounded the final corner, not bothering to collect themselves before rushing into English with apologies for their slight tardiness. As expected, Mr Keating simply nodded as they slipped quietly behind their desks and lifted the lids to collect their hymnals.
"Thank you for joining us, Mr Anderson and Miss Murray," he smiled at the late comers. "Mr Perry, would you read to us the first paragraph of the preface titled 'Understanding Poetry,' please."
"Understanding poetry," read Neil, pushing up his reading glasses, "by J. Evans Pritchard, PHD. To fully understand poetry, we must be fluent with its metre and rhyme and figure of speech. Then ask two questions. One, how artfully have the objectives of the poem been rendered? Two, how important are those objectives..."
Kathleen, like many others, began taking notes as Mr Keating drew a graph on the blackboard.
"And its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness." Neil continued to read, "A sonnet by Byron might score high on the vertical but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet on the other hand might score high both horizontally and vertically. Yielding a massive total area. Thereby revealing the poem to be truly great..."
She paused, wondering if she had heard the theory correctly. How could such subjective measures dominate critical concerns? Her frown increased with each word Neil read, and she saw her confusion mirrored in his own expression. She watched as Mr Keating plotted the examples accordingly, and her irritation increased with the insult to Byron. He had always been one of her father's, and then her own, favourite poets.
"Excrement."
Her head shot up. "Excrement," repeated Mr Keating. "That's what I think of Mr J. Evans Pritchard. We're not laying pipe, we're talking about poetry," he announced. "How can you describe poetry like American bandstand. Oh, I like Byron. I give him a forty-two, but I can't dance to him."
Kathleen needed no encouragement to draw a thick, blotchy line through her notes.
"Now," Mr Keating said, "I want you to rip out that page." His words provoked nothing but blank and even worried looks. "Go on, rip out the entire page. You heard me, rip it out."
A loud tearing noise ripped through the silence. Kathleen, along with the rest of the class turned to see Charlie holding up the page with a smirk.
"Thank you, Mr Dalton!" Mr Keating called over the disbelieving laughter. "Tell you what. Don't just rip out that page. Rip out the entire introduction. I want it gone, history, leave nothing of it."
Sounds of ripping began to appear from various directions. Charlie threw his page at her, the challenge evident in his countenance. She threw it back, holding her own book in full view as she began ripping out the pages of the introduction.
"BE GONE J EVANS PRITCHARD, PHD!" Mr Keating bellowed, "RIP, RIP, RIP IT OUT. I WANT TO HEAR NOTHING BUT RIPPING OF MR PRITCHARD!" His frantic gestures came to halt as he passed Cameron's row. Kathleen saw him register the distress dripping from Cameron's face. She fought her laughter at the sight of Mr Keating reassuring him, "It's not the bible. You won't go to hell for this." He gave the stressed student a last comforting pat on the shoulder before disappearing into the closet.
"We shouldn't be doing this," Cameron complained.
"Rip," Neil replied, ignoring Cameron's concerns.
It soon escalated into a paper fight. Screwed up notes and introduction pages flew through the air like deadly missiles. Kathleen felt something hit her shoulder, she turned to see Charlie grinning as he threw another ball of paper at her.
"It's on!" She laughed as she chucked her own pages at him, one hitting him in the chest, while she threw the other at Pitts.
In the midst of the chaos, their Latin teacher stormed in, the door hit the wall with a thud that could barely be heard over the commotion. In the same moment, Kathleen's eyes landed on Charlie's drawing. He only laughed at her wide-eyed shock.
"WHAT HELL IS GOING ON HERE?" Mr. McAllister demanded.
Charlie ripped the rude drawing out of his notebook and popped the page into his mouth before the teacher had a chance to see it, causing Kathleen to choke down her laughter.
"I don't hear enough rip!" Mr Keating returned from the closet with a trashcan.
"Mr Keating," the teacher's eyebrows rose, "I didn't know you were here."
"Mr McAllister," he greeted, smiling casually "I am."
Pitts snorted.
"Ah, so you are, excuse me." The Latin professor hurriedly backed out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
"Keep ripping lady and gentlemen. This is a war, and the casualties could be your hearts and souls" he carried the trashcan around for everybody to dispose of the paper. "Armies of academics, measuring poetry," he mocked. "NO. We will not have that here. In my class you will learn to think for yourselves again. You will learn to savour words and language. No matter what anybody tells you. Words and ideas can change the world."
Mr Keating strode down the centre of the classroom and looked around at each student. "I see the look in Mr Pitts eye, that 19th century literature has nothing to do with going to business school or medical school. Right? Maybe. Mr Hopkins, you might agree with him, you may think that we should simply study our Mr Pritchard and learn our rhyme and metre and go quietly about the business of achieving other ambitions." He paused. "Now huddle up."
Kathleen and the others from the far row came forward to sit on top of the desks of those sat closer to their professor. She joined Todd and Charlie by Neil's desk.
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race and the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law and business aren't generic, these are noble pursuits that sustain life but poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. And to quote from Whitman;
'Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,
—What good amid these, O me, O life?'*
"Answer? That you are here. That life exists and identity. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"
The moment that the students left the classroom, it was like a trance had been broken, except everything seemed brighter, louder, more important. They headed to lunch talking about how mad and fantastic Mr Keating was.
Just after prayer, Neil pulled out an old, red book. "Hey, I found his senior annual in the library."
"Let me look at that!" Cameron snatched the book from Neil.
"Captain of the soccer team, editor of the school annual, Cambridge bound, thigh man and member of the dead poets society," Neil listed from memory as he dug into his lunch.
Cameron read it with rare admiration before passing it along, "man most likely to do anything."
"Thigh man? Mr K. was a hell raiser!" Applauded Charlie, handing it to Kathleen under the table.
"What's the Dead Poets Society?" She asked.
"I don't know, no other mention of it," Neil replied.
"Why don't you ask?" Cameron stated, snapping the book shut as she passed it back to him. His eyes almost met Dr. Hager's as the teacher's gaze rested a little too close for comfort. "After lunch," he muttered, stuffing the annual into Neil's satchel without comment.
XXXX
Once they felt satiated, the gang headed out to find Mr Keating. His proclivity for lunchtime walks in the ground was well-known, so they took a chance and found him whistling on the green. It was an odd habit they had learnt to expect.
"Sir!" Neil received no response. "O'Captain, my Captain?"
Mr Keating stopped and turned immediately. Kathleen shook her head in amusement.
"We were just looking in your old annual," Neil explained handing the red book over.
"No, that's not me," Mr Keating laughed nostalgically at the worn pages. He thumbed through the book, eyes lost in the hazy fog of the past.
"We were just wondering," Kathleen began, stepping forward as he reached the end, "what is the Dead Poets Society?"
"I doubt the present administration would look favourably upon that," he warned, "especially your grandfather. It's probably best not to mention it to him."
Kathleen nodded solemnly.
"Why?" Neil crouched next to his teacher, "what was it?"
Mr Keating studied the teens for a minute, "can you keep a secret?"
The group nodded, kneeling down to join the conference.
"The Dead Poets," he explained, "were dedicated to sucking the marrow out of life. That's a phrase by Thoreau that we would invoke at the beginning of every meeting. We would gather at the old Indian cave and take turns reading from Thoreau, Whitman, Shelley, the biggies," he smiled. "Even some of our own verse. In the enchantment of the moment we let poetry work magic."
Knox frowned, "You mean it was just a bunch of guys sitting around reading poetry."
"No, Mr Overstreet." Keating shook his head, "It wasn't just guys. We weren't a Greek organisation." He winked at Kathleen who smiled in return. "We were romantics!" His hands wove gestures of magic. "We didn't just read poetry, we let it drip from out tongues like honey. Spirits soared, woman swooned, and Gods were created. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh?"
He analysed the captivated students and handed back the annual. "Thank you, Mr Perry, for this stroll down amnesia lane. Burn that, especially my picture." And with those parting words, the Captain went on his way towards the lake. Every individual was frozen. The school bell sounded, but they remained rooted to the spot, united under the spell.
Neil broke the silence, "I say we go tonight."
"Tonight?" repeated Charlie.
"Wait a minute," Cameron protested.
"Everybody in?" Neil ploughed on, ignoring the few mutterings of disagreement.
Kathleen considered Mr Keating's words. His warning against Nolan certainly held the appeal of youthful rebellion, besides, she would be a fool to let her grandfather know about anything she did out of his sight. Adding one more to the list was hardly a chore. "Sounds good" she said.
Neil nodded.
"Where is this cave?" Asked Pitts, beginning to back up towards the main building.
"I know where it is," Neil replied, falling into step with him, "it's beyond the stream."
"Sounds boring to me," Cameron huffed, quickening his pace.
"Don't go then," Charlie said, nodding at Neil and Kathleen.
Three in.
"Do you know how many de-merits we're talking Dalton?"
"So, don't come, please."
"All I'm saying is that we have to be careful. We can't get caught."
She almost bumped into Todd as she turned to face the owner of such a thoughtless statement. "Nobody's planning to, Cameron," she called over her right shoulder. Charlie spoke in harmony with her as they exchanged a look of exasperation, "no shit, Sherlock."
"YOU THERE, HURRY UP!" Bellowed Mr Hager from the steps.
"Alright," Neil spoke quickly, "who's in?"
"Oh, come on Neil, Hager-"
"Forget Hager, Cameron!"
"I'm in," Charlie shrugged.
"And me," Kathleen reaffirmed.
"I'M WARNING YOU!" Hager's irate shouts drew a sigh of consent from Cameron.
"I don't know, Neil." Pitts began walking again, glancing worriedly at the staff member prowling the steps.
"What, Pitts?" Neil followed him.
"Come on!" Charlie encouraged the others.
"Even Cameron is coming," Kathleen coaxed, hurrying to catch up with Pitts and Neil whose strides covered twice the distance of her own. Meeks was a few paces behind the tallest pair, a frown creased his forehead.
Meeks intervened, "his grades are hurting."
His excusing argument fell flat. Neil looked almost offended by the knowledge. "We can help him, Meeks."
"What is this? A midnight study group," Pitts snapped, disregarding the offers to extend group study periods in compensation for the lack of sleep.
"Pitts, you're coming," Neil concluded. "Meeks? Are your grades hurting to?"
"I'll try anything once."
"Except sex!" Charlie hollered, bounding up the stone steps. "What about you, Knox?"
"I don't know, Charlie..." He hesitated.
Charlie put his hands on his shoulders, "It'll help you get Chris."
"Yeah? How?"
"Women swoon," he chuckled, running off to class.
"WHY? Why do they swoon? Kathleen, you're a woman!" Knox called after the group as they dashed off to supervised study.
XXXX
Charlie somehow managed to procure a map of the grounds within half an hour of study. One by one, they slipped across to his table to help pinpoint the location of the cave as quietly as possible. Unfortunately, they hadn't succeeded.
"For God sake, stop chattering and sit down," the teacher reprimanded the group for a third time. Reluctantly, Kathleen and Neil trudged back to their table where Todd was waiting, leaving Charlie and Cameron to argue about the dangers. Knox was left as the sole referee, and Meeks had moved to help Pitts with his homework alone.
"Hey, Todd," Kathleen asked as she shuffled along the bench, "are you coming along?"
"No."
Neil fell into place on his other side. "Why not?" Neil whispered, "you heard Keating, you were there. Don't you want to do something like that?"
"Yes, but-but"
"But what?" Kathleen said softly.
"Keating said that everybody took turns reading and I-" He shrugged, looking down. "I don't want to do that."
Neil and Kathleen's concerned eyes met behind his tense shoulders.
"Gosh," Neil breathed, "you really have a problem with that."
"No-no, I-" Todd took a deep breath, his hands clutching the edges of the table as if he would fly off without an anchor. "I just don't want to do it, that's all. Okay?"
"Alright," he said.
"Kat?" Todd looked at Kathleen pleadingly.
"You don't have to read anything out loud, but please come," she bit her lip.
"She's right. You don't have to read; you can just listen."
"But that's not how it works," Todd objected.
Neil smiled. "Forget how it works! What if they said it was okay?"
"What? are you going to go up and ask them if-" Todd trailed off, realising that Neil would do exactly that.
"I'll be right back." Neil darted away right on que. He slid behind the other table with ease, but his hushed whispers once again caught the attention of their supervisor. His admonishing glare was enough for Neil to sink right back down once he stood to return.
"It'll be fine. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," Kathleen said, taking the opportunity to whisper while the supervisor was busy, "but you're our friend, Todd. We want you there with us."
The shy boy gave her a small smile, his eyes flicking after his absent roommate. "I guess I'll see you tonight."
Kathleen smiled brightly, "I guess you will."
* 'A Tale of Two Cities,' Charles Dickens (1859)
* 'Oh Me! Oh Life!,' Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman (1865)