Jack: Book One in the Trilogy, the Battle Begins

Brooksy & Other Bad Apples Part 4

Ten minutes earlier, master had berated Brooksy for being an "imbecile" while grilling him in his math lesson-something about 500 marbles that Jack had something to do with. "Mr. Brooks. Mr. Brooks! Sit up straight Mr. Brooks," master had said just before Jack's lesson intrusion. "And sir, don't make me tell you again or anyone else for that matter!" Master snapped, casting an icy glance at the other students.

"You think the purpose of education is to slouch in your chair all day?" said Master Whittemore, whose thirteen students were mostly about twelve years old but some were ten. and others were 14-15. And some of the young ones were getting better marks than the older kids for the same material. This was an eternal aggravation to the master.

The youngsters paid a lot of attention but some of the older children didn't and were in fact setting bad examples. At least that was what Master Whittemore told us almost every day. And that the reason why he continually had 'bad kids' each year was that the older kids set bad examples. They were 'rotting the rest of the apples' in the barrel, he said. So his mission this year was that he was going to stamp it out and get the bad apples out of the barrel. And Mike was a bad apple. And of course Jack, when he attended, was a bad apple. And me, I was in the middle. Master wasn't ready to chuck me out yet.

And Jeremiah Brooks was a bad apple but one that master wanted to keep because Jeremiah really didn't know why he was a bad apple except that he was dumb, which master told him that he was at least once a week. I think master needed to have someone around who he could call dumb whenever he wanted and make cry if he wanted to so that he could intimidate the rest of the class. At least that's what Jack said. Jeremiah tried to do the work but he just couldn't get it through his head. So he wasn't a bad apple who misbehaved and snickered at the master behind his back and such, he was a bad apple just because he was dumb. That's what Jack said anyway and I guess I had seen it that way too, even without Jack's assistance.

Jack disliked having Brooksy around except when he needed someone to pick on and tease in front of the other boys to make himself look bigger and smarter than he was. So he made sure Brooksy was around a lot. But everyone knew that Brooksy just went along. He didn't seem to mind the teasing much. Jack called him a "horse's ass" but Brooksy didn't care-at least he never acted like he did. Brooksy wanted to be accepted, to be liked. Getting approval was what was most important to him. I thought that Brooksy just acted dumb because that's how everyone wanted him to act so that he was just filling the role of the dumb kid. "Hey jackass, give me some cookies," Jack would say, and Brooksy would give Jack all he wanted because, even though he was insulted in the process, he got a kind of approval in a way because he felt he was needed, and if he was needed, Brooksy must have felt that was approval enough. Some was better than none, I guess.

I told Jack that he shouldn't talk to Brooksy that way but he said he was so dumb he couldn't be talked to any other way and that, if it weren't pointed out to him constantly, he'd never learn anything. I didn't think his way with Brooksy was all that helpful.