Disclaimer: RENT is the creation of the great Jonathan Larson and though I don't know who does own it, I don't. 'Joy to the World' belongs to Three Dog Night.
1971
1 September
Her first day with the class, Miss Andie mistook the boys for twins. Perhaps if they had not worn identical uniforms they would have looked different. Perhaps if she had gotten her prescription checked, she would have seen that one had a darker, golden-blond haircolor while the other was light as straw. Perhaps if she had waited she would have seen that they did not touch or speak to one another.
One of the five-year-olds promptly corrected her: "No. I'm Mark Cohen. I don't know who he is."
The other boy tugged awkwardly at his uniform tie and muttered, "Roger Davis."
Miss Andie apologized. "You look so alike. I'm sure you'll be friends in no time at all!"
Roger cast a quick glance at Mark. "I don't think so, Miss Andie," he told the floor.
8 September
A little girl strode proudly into the classroom, holding herself erect in a manner far too old and proud for her five-year-old body. She wore her dark hair in a tight braid and the boys' uniform of khaki trousers and a tie instead of a girl's skirt or jumper.
"Hello," Miss Andie said. "Who are you, dear?"
"I'm Maureen Johnson," the girl announced, as though this was common knowledge, "and I've been transferred from the afternoon kindergarten."
Miss Andie made a quick note in her notebook. "Okay," she said. "Well, why don't you join the other children in the circle?" She pointed to a group of five-year-olds sitting cross-legged on the floor. Maureen nodded and settled herself beside a boy who looked a little too big to be a kindergarten student.
"Were you held back?" Maureen asked loudly.
The boy shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm just big. Are you a boy?"
"No," Maureen replied, "I just like pants."
The boy offered his hand. "I'm Tommy," he said.
"Maureen. Don't call me Mo."
Miss Andie called gently, "Roger, please join the sit-down circle."
The blond boy stood on a chair at the back of the room. He had rolled his sleeve as high as he could and was groping in the fishtank with his stout little hand. "I'm Mark," he said. A little farther back than the other children, Roger raised his hand shyly.
9 September
One of the students had taken off his shoes and socks and poured his juice into the small dirt patch near the tree. He giggled as his toes pushed into the mud, making sun sparkle off the mess. "Oh, Mark!" Miss Andie said.
Mark looked up from his place in the monkey bars queue. "What?" he asked as Miss Andie lifted Roger out of his mudpit.
In the bathroom, Miss Andie set Roger in the sink basin. "What am I going to do with you, Roger Davis?" she asked. He hung his head and said nothing as Miss Andie ran a jet of cold water over his toes. The sinks had no heated water. "What were you thinking in there?" Roger shrugged. "From now on, I want you to keep away from messy things like mud, okay, sweetie?" Roger nodded.
When he returned to the classroom, his trousers now liberally splashed with water from the sink, Maureen rolled her big brown eyes over him and demanded, "Are you like special or something?"
"I don't think so," Roger mumbled as tears gathered in his eyes.
Noticing this with a keenness and sympathy uncommon for his age, Tommy said, "Leave him alone, Maureen."
"You can't tell me what to do."
Tommy shrugged. "I can," he said. "You don't have to do it."
Maureen glared at him, flipped her hair and stalked off.
15 September
Playtime should have been fairly peaceful. The fourteen-student student class was sprawled out across the blue carpet. Sam, Bryan and Deborah watched in fascination as Freddy, who was the animal monitor that week, tapped a thin coat of food flakes into the fishtank; Montana had taken the toy stethoscope from the 'doctor kit' and was using it to play Indian to Aiden's cowboy; An-mei, Jessica, Lena and Kylie had discovered glitter and finger-paints. Tommy sat in the corner with the abacus, moving brightly colored rings back and forth. Maureen sat with the finger-paint girls, finger-painting color onto her shirt as she had every day for the past week, and Roger was carefully reconstructing Happyland with building blocks. Mark was in time-out for chasing Maureen around the yard on a tricycle.
There was a knock at the door. Miss Andie looked up as another teacher stepped into the room and motioned her out. She stood, cleared her throat and said, "I'll be just outside, class. Please behave just as well as you are now."
"I want to play blockth."
Roger looked up. He liked blocks. He had used them every day since starting kindergarten: he always waited until the other children had chosen their toys, and none of them wanted blocks. Only once Tommy had taken the blocks, and he had offered to play with Roger, though Roger refused. Now he bit his lip. Mark was by far scarier than the big dog Roger walked past on his way home. Mark was scarier than a lot of things, and Roger doubted he could outrun a tricycle.
"We could play together," Roger said, offering a curved block of wood. "Wanna help me build?"
Mark took the block.
When Miss Andie returned to the room, Mark and Tommy were on the ground, grappling; the abacus had broken. Roger was hiding under one of the round tables as Maureen kicked between the chairs, occasionally landing a blow to his arm or leg. "Ow! Quit it!" Roger sobbed, clutching his head with one hand and pushing Maureen away with the other. This was quite a spectacle to the remaining ten students, who watched in mute fascination.
"What… Maureen, Mark, Thomas! Stop it!" Miss Andie clapped her hands sharply, an ineffective move. Mark sank his teeth into Tommy's arm; Tommy punched him over the head. "Boys!" Miss Andie forcibly hauled the two apart, holding them by their collars. Mark's glasses had been crushed in the fight. "Maureen Johnson, stop that right now!"
Maureen stopped, mostly because Roger scrambled out from beneath the table and hid in the coat closet. Miss Andie, frustrated, shouted, "Roger Davis!" Roger's head emerged from the closet. "Roger--Maureen--both of you follow me. Come on." She maintained a restraining grip on Mark and Tommy as she led them down the hall.
"Sarah," she said to the desk secretary, "I've had an… an issue with these four. I think the nurse should look at them, and their parents should be called. There was a… a fight." A fight, in her kindergarten class. A blush patterned Miss Andie's cheeks.
In the nurse's office, while Nurse Stevens was busy affirming that Maureen was unhurt, Mark faced Tommy and stuck out his tongue.
"Blind boy," Tommy retorted.
Mark began to cry. He cared little for the insult, but he had long learned that crying meant being given his way. He was right. In a few moments, the nurse was kneeling beside him, asking, "What's wrong, buddy?"
Mark pointed at Tommy. "He hit me!" he wailed.
"He hit Roger with a building block!" Tommy cried, complete justification for his actions.
"Okay, okay, that's enough," said Nurse Stevens. "Mark, come with me. I'll get you cleaned up. And you three--" this was to Tommy, Roger and Maureen, who had been pronounced fit, "--had better not get into any more trouble!"
When they were returned to the principal's office to await the arrival of their respective parents, Mark had a lollipop in his mouth. Maureen swung her feet idly; she had been unhurt. Tommy's arm had been bandaged; Roger held a frozen paper towel to his head where Mark had hit him with the green block, occasionally rubbing the bruises on his arm where Maureen had kicked him.
"Why did you do that?" Roger asked Mark. He had finally stopped crying.
Mark shrugged. "'Cause he's mean," Tommy said.
Roger glanced at the other boy and reminded him, "You broke the abacus."
Tommy sat the longest in the office. He watched the others leave: first Roger, crying again as he was yanked out by the arm, smacked on the face and called words he didn't understand--"Stop that! Stop crying, you pathetic little dissident!" Maureen left next, with a father who rolled his eyes and asked what he would do with her. Mark's mother remarked that Cindy had never done anything like this. After the others had gone, Lucy Meyers arrived in the office. She looked at her son and sighed. "Thomas Collins," she said sternly, "fighting?"
Tommy blushed. "Sorry, Mom."
20 September
Her first day off suspension, Maureen Johnson strode into the classroom with her chin a little higher, thrilled at the knowledge that she had been bad, been suspended even! She settled in a chair near Roger, who was singing softly to the fish. "You're okay, you know," she told him.
"Thanks," Roger said thickly. He hummed the next few bars.
Maureen rolled her eyes. This kid wasn't much of a friend, was he? He had been humming 'Frere Jacques'; Maureen leaned nearer and sang at the top of her voice, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog! Was a good friend of mine! I never understood a single word he said, but I help him drink his wine… and he always had some mighty fine wine! Singin'…"
She grinned when Roger's high, tiny voice joined hers, singing in the safety of her shadow, "Joy to the world! All the boys and girls…"
Tommy found Maureen and Roger building a city out of blocks. Without a word he sat and began building. "What're you making?" Roger asked.
"It's a school."
"Okay. Every place needs a school."
Maureen frowned. "You already built one," she said. "That's the school."
"This can be a hospital," Tommy decreed.
Roger shook his head. "We need lots of schools," he said. "Everyone in Happyland goes to school where they want so they can learn everything that they want to."
Shortly before the bell summoned them all to the official opening of class, Mark joined them. He stood awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, kicking at the carpet. Maureen watched him openly; the boys tried to ignore him, but Roger had, consciously or not, inched closer to Tommy. "I wanna play," Mark announced.
Maureen and Tommy looked to Roger, the unofficial leader of construction. He looked up at Mark and nodded. "Okay," he said.
Mark dropped to the ground and picked up a red block. "What ith it?" he asked.
"A city," Roger explained, "called Happyland. Where there's rainbows. And people are happy, and they eat spaghetti."
As Mark built a small firehouse, although there were no bad fires in Happyland ("There's no bad anything in Happyland!"), Miss Andie began conducting a lecture for her ten-student class on shapes and colors. Her four exempted pupils designed what, twenty years later, they would decree a "contemptible, boring hellhole realized as our beloved Bohemia.
"To the fact that we remain, powerfully--"
"--perfectly--"
"--happily!--"
"---pathetic outcasts."
Fin!