• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 252 0

felt that if he ever did have something to say, he’d say it to children; he had no use for adults. So he lost no time putting his plan into action. With the consent of his mother, who would be assisting him, he freed up a room of their small basement lodgings, furnished it with a few benches and a blackboard, and then—to add a touch of seriousness to the enterprise—had a local painter make a majestic sign, which he hung above the door of the building. A handful of neighborhood families, tempted by the proximity of this hallowed hall of science (and even more so by the modest fee), enrolled their children before the paint on the sign was dry. And then something extraordinary happened. Against all expectations, the children manifestly adored their schoolmaster; they would kill their own parents before relinquishing their seats in this unlikely school. The parents—good, simple people who’d never imagined their offspring would exhibit such hunger for learning—were stunned. What they didn’t understand was that at school their children inhabited an anarchic world that was perfectly to their liking, and that Urfy —despite his bald head and thick steel-rimmed glasses—was a dangerous practical joker. He spoke to his charges in a language that openly contradicted the language of adults. He inculcated them with a single principle: to know that everything grown-ups told them was false and that they should ignore it. So his classroom became a breeding ground for a generation of skeptics who honored no authority. Urfy was sometimes stunned by the unorthodox pronouncements that sprang to the children’s lips.

Young Zarta’s lousy manners were fully on display as he spat seed shells onto the classroom floor. This was too filthy for Urfy, who did the cleaning. It was time to intervene. In a quiet but firm voice, he said:

“Hey, kid! Go chew your seeds out on the street.”

Zarta swallowed the seed he’d just crushed in his teeth and pretended to study the route of a fly that was circulating near the ceiling. Urfy took the ruler that hung from his desk and pointed it at the child.

“Hey, Zarta! I’m talking to you.”

Seeing that he’d been found out, Zarta began to whimper—a pathetic sound that didn’t fit his body, which resembled a well-fed pig. Zarta ate rapturously; he ate everything he could get his hands on, and by now he’d acquired a robust corpulence unusual for his age. He rose to respond.

“On the street, sir! In this heat! Do you want me to die?”

“Couldn’t care less. Go on, scram!”

“But I was hungry, sir! I haven’t eaten in three days.”

“May Allah protect you,” said Urfy, bowing his head. “What would we do without you and your lies? But, sadly, you’ll be leaving us soon; you’re almost a man.”

This insinuation by his schoolmaster struck Zarta as the ultimate betrayal. Trembling, he clutched at his stomach as if to quell an all-consuming hunger. He appeared to speak through tears:

“Why do you humiliate me, sir? What have I done to deserve this?”

The few students who’d been copying words from the board into their notebooks abandoned their noble endeavor; the rest woke up, yawning, and observed their classmate, who—proud of being singled out by the schoolmaster—groaned for appearance’s sake and tried to look as hungry as possible.

“I’ll tell you why you’ll be leaving us,” Urfy explained calmly. “First, because you’re becoming fatter and fatter; second, because you lie like a rich man. It’s distracting to have someone like you among us. Your lies are worth nothing here—it’s time to go share them with the world. And now, stop gnawing those seeds. Go to sleep like your friends!”

“I’m not tired,” whimpered Zarta, deeply upset at the prospect of leaving school. “But I promise to stop eating seeds. You’ve spoiled my appetite, sir!”

“Let’s hope it’s for good,” said Urfy.

Some of the students began to reproach Zarta for having woken them for nothing; then they demanded fiercely that he share his seeds. It was turning into a bad scene. Urfy put a stop to this nascent offensive by pronouncing the magic formula he reserved for such cases: