Chapter 11: Anger Growing Up
Time passed and little Alex kept growing up, learning to walk and talk properly under his parent’s careful guidance. The time finally came for Alex to go to school, which was in the city. As expected Alex was nervous about going to school, especially so far away from home, and he stood at the bus stop with his grandparents, nervously holding their hands.
“I don’t want to go,” he said, as he saw the bus rounding the corner near their house.
“I know,” Marian said, “I felt the same way when I first went to school.”
“You did?” Alex was surprised, he’d never seen his grandparents scared of anything.
Alfred nodded, “We both were, everyone is nervous on their first day at school. A strange place with adults and children you’ve never seen before. But you’ll be fine,” Alfred ruffled the fox’s headfur, “just try to make some friends.”
“OK,” Alex said half-heartedly as the bus pulled up. The door opened to reveal the bus driver and some voices from inside the bus. Alex looked to his grandparents, who ushered him onto the bus.
The driver, a man in his mid 30s, gave the fox an odd look and said, “Well you’re certainly an odd one. Take a seat.” Alex nodded and went to sit near the middle of the bus.
A boy sitting in the row on the other side of the bus looked at Alex curiously and asked, “Hi, why are you wearing that costume, aren’t you hot?”
“It’s not a costume,” Alex replied.
“Are you some kind of robot?” the boy got up and moved to sit next to Alex.
“No, I’m not a robot,” Alex replied.
The boy poked him and Alex glared at him as he asked, “What are you?”
“I’m a fox OK?” Alex said, his voice carrying a sharper tone and he gritted his teeth.
“But foxes can’t talk, or walk and-”
“Stop asking I don’t know!” Alex shouted, causing the boy to recoil. Not wanting to put up with any more questions Alex got up and stormed to the front of the moving bus, only to fall flat on his face when the bus suddenly stopped. Alex pushed himself up as a girl got on the bus and stopped to stare at him.
“A fox?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m a fox,” Alex said, not wanting to have to put up with another questionnaire, he glared at the girl who was more timid that the boy from earlier and went to sit at the back of the bus. Alex sat down right in front of the door stairs and crossed his arms, brooding. If these questions continued he was not going to have a happy time at school.
As the bus continued on its route more children got on and each of them stopped to stare at Alex or to ask him some variation on what he was, if he was in costume, a robot, or something else the fox considered to be stupid question, each one making him angrier until he just growled at the students to force them to move on without any questions.
When they finally stopped at the school, Alex was the first off the bus, wanting to be in the building as fast as possible. He checked the room assignment sheet he had been given and headed for the morning kindergarten room, moving faster than he probably should have.
Alex was first to the kindergarten room, startling the teacher when he entered, panting a bit from his forced march. “Oh my,” the teacher, a young woman, said, “you are.”
“Alex Kitun,” Alex replied, waiting on the inevitable question barrage.
“Alex, well,” the teacher checked her log book, “I’m Ms. Anderson. I was told you were an unusual child but I wasn’t expecting a fox.” Ms. Anderson smiled, “well as long as you’re here to learn, just take a seat,” she indicated the floor in front of the chalkboard. Alex sat down as the other morning kindergarten students entered. Some of them stopped to stare at the red fox, but Ms. Anderson ushered them to sit down, not wanting anything to make anyone feel uncomfortable.
When everyone was seated, Ms. Anderson went to the chalkboard and wrote her name in big letter, “Good morning, children, my name is Ms. Anderson and I will be your teacher. She looked at the children in her kindergarten room and made sure she had their undivided attention before continuing, “Welcome to Kindergarten, there is another class this afternoon but until lunch time you’re with me.” She picked up a small binder, “Now when I call your name please tell me if you’re here.” Ms. Anderson read the list, getting a long list of “heres” and “presents” from the children. About midway through she said, “Alex Kitun?” despite knowing he was there, as she had to follow procedure for now at least.
There was a brief pause, then the red fox raised his hand, “I’m here,” he said, anticipating the worst.
Everyone turned to stare at Alex, some just sat there, slack jawed and one asked, “Why is there a fox in here?”
“Class, class!” Ms. Anderson had to shout to get their attention back to her, “Yes, Alex is a fox, but everyone here is unique, some more than others, and he is here to learn and make friends like the rest of you. Now then,” She returned to her list and continued until everyone was here. Smiling, Ms. Anderson set the book down and went over the classroom rules with everyone, no hitting, name calling, sharing, the usual things that Kindergarten teachers expected their students to follow.
“Now then, feel free to explore the class and find something fun to do,” Ms. Anderson said, encouraging them to stand up and explore. Alex looked around and went for an area full of building toys, interlinking blocks and the like. Most of the toys he had at home were just baby toys he’d had since he was an infant so these toys were new to him. He picked up a handful or little cubes, each with a nub on one side and holes on the other five, and began to experiment with putting them together. As he played a couple more kids joined him and one of them looked at what Alex was making then asked the first question that day that didn’t enrage the fox.
“What are you making?”
“I don’t know yet,” Alex responded truthfully as he continued to stick the blocks together, “I’m just seeing what I can make.”
“OK,” the other kid replied, taking another kind of stick together building toy and starting to craft something of his own.
Eventually lunch time came and it was time for Alex and the rest of the morning kindergarten class to head home for the day. Alex found his bus which was marked with a big 5, the same number as the bus that had picked him up, and went to sit in the front seat, the same seat he’d been in on the way home. The bus driver recognized Alex and greeted him.
“Hi, fox, good first day at school?” he asked.
“My name is Alex,” Alex said, a bit huffily.
“Well as long as you had a good day,” the driver said, “I’ll be picking you up every day for quite a while now.”
Alex just nodded and sat there, avoiding the odd looks of the few class-mates of his that took the same bus as they boarded. So far no one had paid him any real mind beyond a first glance, no bullies yet as kindergarteners were off limits for that both due to teacher supervision and some unspoken code the older kids followed.
Alex arrived at the bus stop near his house to see his grandmother waiting for him. Alex rushed to meet her and hugged her as she crouched down. “Hi Grandma!” he said, happily.
“Welcome home, Alex, now let’s go get some lunch,” Marian said, smiling as she took her adopted grandson’s hand and led him to a restaurant she knew he liked.
Once they had sat down and ordered, Marian began speaking, “So, how was your first day at school?” she asked curiously.
“It was fine,” Alex said, “the kids all looked at me funny.”
“I expected they would,” Marian admitted, “but you’ll get used to it. Just be friendly to them and they will come around.”
“OK, grandma,” Alex said as the food arrived. He dug in not sure of what his Grandma had said, but he’d have to give it a chance for now.
Kindergarten was a mostly uneventful stage in Alex’s life, he did his best to make friends and while the other kids accepted him, they also irritated Alex with questions that he didn’t want to put up with, mostly about if his parents were foxes too, or if he ever got hot with all the fur he had, or if he could stand to walk without shoes. Alex kept bottling it up inside, knowing he shouldn’t take out his anger on his students but it got harder each day; it was a good thing he only was at school until lunch time five days a week.
Eventually Alex finished his year in Kindergarten and it was time to move on to the first grade. Late in summer, Alfred and Marian took Alex shopping for school supplies. As they walked down the aisle Alex noticed that they were looking for a lot more than he had needed for Kindergarten and asked, “Grandma, Grandpa, why do I need so much stuff to go back to school.”
“Because, dear,” Marian explained, “Kindergarten was to help you get used to spending your days with others your own age, in the first grade you start having to learn a lot more and spend most of your time on school work.”
“Aww,” Alex sounded dejected.
“Don’t worry, my boy,” Alfred reassured his grandson, stopping to grab a package of loose-leaf paper, “It won’t be so bad, but you will have to be at school all day from now on and not just in the morning.”
“OK,” Alex didn’t sound too happy but he had nothing else to say as they headed for the check out to pay for his supplies.
The time for Alex to enter first grade eventually came and once again he got on the bus that came by to pick him up. The ride to school was as it usually was, Alex got some odd looks from new morning kindergarteners but they said nothing, especially if Alex growled slightly.
After getting his room assignment, Alex took note of the various differences between first grade and kindergarten. First and foremost the classroom was much more organized, there were rows and columns of desks, 30 in a 5x6 configuration, the chalkboard was larger, and there were only a small number of toys.
“Guess grandpa was right when he said this would be all about work,” he said as he found a desk to sit in. The rest of his classmates entered the classroom, leaving only three desks unfilled; Alex recognized about half of them from his kindergarten class and the others he assumed were from the afternoon class he had never met until now. One boy with black hair and eyes of two different colors, his left one was green and his right one blue, got his attention, and stared at Alex for a moment.
“What’s a fox doing in school?” he asked.
“My name is Alex, and I’m a kid just like you!” Alex snapped at him, “I’m here for the same reason you are.”
“Alright take your seats,” the voice came from a male teacher who had just entered the room, “My name is Mr. Darrent and I will be your first grade teacher.” As the teacher sat at his desk and everyone else sat down, the boy who had called out Alex sitting in the seat next to him. “Now,” Mr. Darrent continued, “first I need to make clear that first grade is much different than kindergarten. You are here to learn, not to play, and you’re going to have to follow a schedule that I will set forth tomorrow,” the class seemed rigid but then Mr. Darrent smiled and sat back, “but for today we’re not going to do too much, you need to get to know each other. Also you should remember where you’re sitting now, that will be your seat for the rest of the year. Now before anything else, let’s take role call,” Mr. Darrent produced an attendance binder and began reading off names. Just like in Kindergarten on the first day, when Alex’s name was called half the class looked at him funny, those who hadn’t seen him every day in kindergarten last year. The black haired boy just smiled at Alex somewhat smugly.
Mr. Darrent kept reading the role call, which informed Alex of the boy’s name, Daniel. Alex decided he’d have to remember his name, for some reason he seemed like trouble. The rest of the day was uneventful as the class got their supplies and put them away in their desks, and did some basic but not serious work. Recess was short and mostly uneventful, Alex explored the play structures he hadn’t had access to in Kindergarten and avoided the older kids, not wanting trouble at the moment.
Lunch time came and for the first time he could remember, Alex was eating a bag lunch alone in the school lunchroom. A salami and cheese sandwich, a small bag of carrot sticks, and a juice box. He sat there eating when Daniel came to sit across form him.
“So how’s school for you foxie?” the boy asked.
“It’s fine, Daniel, and my name is Alex,” the fox replied, his eye twitching slightly.
“So why are you here, they kick you out of the zoo?” Daniel asked mockingly.
“I was never in a zoo!” Alex said, his voice raising.
“Really are you sure about that?” Daniel asked. Alex got up and stormed out of the lunch room, powering down his lunch as he headed for the outdoors, as he had been instructed to do when he was done eating. Daniel just shrugged and went to finish his lunch.
When Alex got home that day he was a bit quiet. His grandmother Marian was home and noticed his silence.
“How was school?” she asked, concerned.
“It was fine,” Alex said, “I met a kid in class called Daniel, I don’t like him.”
“Well maybe you should give him a chance, Alex,” Marian said, trying to encourage him.
“OK, grandma,” Alex said. He didn’t want to voice his real opinion on Daniel, mostly because he was still trying to figure out how to put it into words.
For the next two weeks things got harder for Alex, as actual school work began and he learned about homework, schoolwork he had to take home at the end of the school day and that he had to turn in to his teacher, usually by the next day. Marian and Alfred explained that Alex would have to get used to doing homework; Alex didn’t like it but he knew they were right.
Things between Alex and Daniel finally came to a head on the third Friday of their school year. During afternoon recess, Alex was trying to decide what to do when he heard a familiar voice coming nearby.
“Hey, foxie!” it was Daniel. Alex gritted his teeth, he was getting really sick of that taunt.
“What do you want!” Alex said loudly as he rounded n Daniel, who was right in his face by this point.
“Oh just to see how the school freak is do-“ a moment later, Daniel was flat on his back with a bloody nose.
Alex had punched him square in the nose, “Shut up!” Alex shouted, having finally had enough of him.
Daniel wiped his nose and stood up, “You’re gonna get it freak boy!” Daniel threw a punch at Alex, hitting him in the stomach. Alex staggered back, clutching his gut, then glared angrily at Daniel and tackled him.
Nearby students stopped to watch the fight, as the fox and the odd eyed boy punched, kicked, wrestled and scratched at each other; Alex even tried to bit him a couple times, but didn’t connect. Two playground supervisors were alerted to this fight and made their way to the two fighting boys, each grabbing one and pulling them apart.
“Stop it you two,” the female of the two said, holding Alex.
“You’ll have to some with us,” the male supervisor said, holding onto Daniel. Both boys were still struggling to get at each other until the supervisors dragged them inside as the recess bell rang.
Alex and Daniel were taken to the Principal’s office, the principal was a fairly old man named Mr. Dennison and he looked at the boys and shook his head in dismay.
“I expected better of the students at my school, fighting like that is unacceptable. Do you two have anything to say for yourselves?” He waited for a moment, the two boys looks at each other than back forwards. Mr. Dennison sighed, “Alright I guess I’ll have to call your parents, you two will wait here until they get here, and you need to have some time to think about what you’ve done.” Alex suddenly felt livid, his mouth was dry and he found a lump of emotion in his throat, however Daniel didn’t seem phased by the announcement. Mr. Dennison stood up and led the two boys to a pair of small rooms on either side of the office. These had been planned to be closets but hadn’t been completed and now the principal used them to discipline students. Each room had a single bare bulb light fixture and a lunchroom chair and Mr. Dennison put Alex in one room and Daniel in the other across the room and locked them in. The purpose of this was for when two students who had been fighting had to be held until parents arrived and would keep them from trading blows, physical or verbal, thus giving them time to consider their actions.
Alex sat shuddering, dreading what his grandparents would say when they found out. Daniel on the other hand wasn’t scared, he figured his parents wouldn’t even show up and if they did they would just do so for the sake of seeing this through, say something to him and leave without any long term consequences, but at least they would say something to him at all.
It was an hour before Marian, Alfred, and Daniel’s parents arrived at the school. Alfred and Marian were there about 10 minutes before Daniel’s parents. When Daniel’s parents arrived, Marian and Alfred noted that they seemed to be rather wealthy, dressed for financial success as it were; they didn’t seem phased by the fact that they were called into school, a comment his father made seemed to indicate that he was more concerned about missing any business changes than he was about his son’s actions in school.
Alex and Daniel were left to stew while Mr. Dennison met with their parents and explained what was going on. Alex could hear them talking and he was nervous; he didn’t want to disappoint his grandparents and he wasn’t sure what would follow.
A few minutes passed and the voices stopped and a moment later the door in front of Alex opened. Mr. Dennison stood there with his grandparents. “You can go with your grandparents now, they will decide your punishment this time but if you’re caught fighting again you’ll be disciplined by the school instead, do you understand.”
Alex nodded, unable to speak, and got up. Marian and Alfred took their grandson’s hand, but Alex couldn’t bring himself to look into their faces as they led him away. He caught a look at Daniel, who surprisingly seemed pleased with himself, his parents giving him some harsh words but oddly nothing else.
Alex sat in the middle of the backseat on the ride home, but couldn’t say anything. Upon arriving at home Alfred told Alex to go to sit at the kitchen table. A moment later they joined him.
“Alex, I’m disappointed in you,” Alfred said, “I know you have a temper but you should have stayed in control.”
“I’m sorry…” was all Alex could say.
“We discussed it and we decided that you should pick what your punishment should be,” Marian said, “Either you can be grounded for a month, no TV or anything other than homework and books, but not comics,” Alex’s look sank even lower, “Or you can spend some time with your grandfather and myself for the next week and learn ways to put your energy elsewhere.”
“I want to spend time with you,” Alex said, it was the only real choice he had.
“Good,” Alfred stood up, “Then I have some things to teach you in the garage today.” Alfred led his grandson to the garage and flipped on the lights, there were piles of wood, a table saw, and a bunch of other woodworking tools. Alex’s shame evaporated as Alfred spoke up, “I’ll teach you woodworking and carpentry, now let’s get started.”
Alex spent the rest of the day until supper learning the basics of woodworking, he found he had a knack for it, once he learned the safety processes for using the power tools he began to enjoy himself. At supper he ate fast, his spirits heightened but not sure what he would be doing with his grandmother. After supper when the dishwasher was running, Marian took him to the kitchen.
“I bet you’d like some dessert,” she said to her fox grandson.
“Yes,” Alex replied.
“Good, because I’m going to teach you how to make some,” Marian said, “Saskatoon berry pie, and if we’re fast it will be ready before bedtime.”
“OK,” Alex was enthralled. He listened to what his grandmother said and helped her make the pie in question. Alex was happy indeed; instead of punishment he was being taught new skills by his grandparents. The week that followed saw Alex learning a lot, he spent his after school time either with Alfred learning more carpentry skills, or Marian learning how to cook.
Curiously, Daniel was absent the entire week from school, perhaps his parents had punished him and kept him at home as no one could remember seeing him in or out of school. However Alex didn’t really care, he didn’t want to speak with Daniel at all, but he could live with him or without him. Even after the week ended, Alex had grown to love carpentry and cooking so much that even though he was no longer being “punished” he continued to learn from his grandparents and decided that he would continue to do so as long as he could.
The next Monday Alex got a very odd surprise. As he stepped off the bus and made his way to the door he heard someone shouting his name quite angrily.
“ALEX!” the fox turned just in time to see a black and white striped blurr charge at and tackle him to the ground, “YOU DID THIS TO ME!” the male voice from the creature, as it punched him in the face. Thankfully whatever it was didn’t go any farther as a playground supervisor had come over and pulled the thing that tackled Alex off, holding it up. Alex got a good look at it and saw it was a young male badger that looked like him, with a heart shaped nose but having the normal colors for a badger.
The supervisor had seen the whole thing, and also saw that Alex hadn’t done anything to provoke the attack nor had he had a chance to throw a punch so he said, “Alright, you badger boy, who are you and what are you doing?”
“It’s me, Daniel!” the badger raged, “and that fox did this to me, he turned me into this thing!” he pointed at Alex accusingly from where he was hanging.”
“Well if that’s true then you have a lot to tell us about, you’ve been absent for a week and the first thing you do on your return is to attack a fellow student. Don’t worry Alex, I saw that you didn’t do anything, go to your home room. As for you, you’re coming to see the principal!” The supervisor walked away, dragging the still struggling badger with him.
Things had gone so fast that Alex hadn’t had a chance to say anything, as he stood up and dusted himself off, checking for a bloody nose he said, “What was that all about,” before running inside as the last bell rang. He made it to home room just in time, thankfully Mr. Darrent had heard what happened on the playground and didn’t say anything to Alex as he took his seat.
The badger wasn’t seen for the rest of the day and everyone was talking about the event when they weren’t busy with lessons. At lunch Alex suddenly found himself the centre of attention as word had gotten around about the badger who claimed to be Daniel. Everyone was asking if Alex had done something or if he knew the odd badger. Alex told them all the truth, he had no idea why the badger had attacked him or even if he was Daniel like he claimed.
It was during the afternoon that the principal, Mr. Dennison, came to Alex’s class, excusing himself to Mr. Darrent before he addressed the class.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your lessons today but I have something to tell all of you,” Mr. Dennison said, “Because of his assault on Alex this morning and some rather choice words he gave to me when he was brought into my office this morning Daniel has been expelled from this school. To put things simply he won’t be in your class anymore and you won’t see him around the school again. He will be attending another school in the city. Thank you for your time,” as he said the last phrase, Mr. Dennison left without taking any questions.
For a moment everyone in the room stared at Alex, but then Mr. Darrent clapped his hands. “Well, Daniel will be no longer in this class, but let’s get back to work. Now…”
The stares on him for the rest of the period were making Alex quite uncomfortable and he was dreading recess since now everyone knew that the badger had been Daniel. Sure enough when recess came he was swarmed by students not only from his class but others who had known Daniel and witnessed the scene earlier that morning who kept asking him the same questions.
“What did you do to him?”
“How did you do it?”
“Will you do it again?”
“Why did that happen?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” Alex shouted angrily over the questions, “HE WAS JUST LIKE THAT TODAY I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING! LEAVE ME ALONE!” with the last outburst Alex took off to get away from them running until he got near the door back into the school and sat down against the wall until the bell rang and recess ended.
The last hour of class time passed uneventfully for Alex and as usual he got on the bus at the front near the driver, which he had learned that students tended to avoid because they weren’t able to get away with much. Alex growled harshly at each student who walked past him dissuading them from asking any questions; this approach seemed to work as no one asked him about Daniel on the ride home.
During supper that night, Alex’s grandparents noticed that he was being oddly quiet and they asked him about it. Alex sighed and told them about the badger that had attacked him, that the badger was apparently Daniel, how Daniel had been expelled, and how he’d been bombarded with questions by every student who had seen him at recess.
“So what do you think happened?” Alfred asked, curious.
“I don’t know,” Alex said, “I’m tired, can I go to bed now?”
“Of course,” Marian said, deciding that it was best not to pry as the fox got up and headed for his room.
“What do you think happened?” Alfred asked his wife as he got up to help her do the dishes.
“I honestly don’t know,” Marian admitted as she ran the hot water in the sink, “But I don’t think he’s lying about the badger. I think we should leave it be unless something happens again.”
“Alright,” Alfred agreed, “I guess there’s not much else to do anyway.”
For Alex things gradually returned to normal, a few weeks after the incident people stopped asking about Daniel. Despite that, Alex remained irritable whenever someone asked him a question other than teachers, though everyone noticed how he was easily irritated. However other than that, Alex’s life was normal, he got good grades but didn’t really make any friends as everyone in his core class remained apprehensive about the incident involving Daniel, which only served to infuriate Alex more.
It wasn’t until Alex was in the seventh grade and on a field trip involving several elementary schools of the city at the start of spring that year that Alex ran into Daniel again.
It was a nature field trip, observing the way that nature changed in spring, and Alex couldn’t have been more bored as he filled out the forms they had to fill out on the field trip with the stuff he’d been taught by his grandparents a long time ago. It was while he was doing this that he heard someone calling to him.
“Hey, Alex, long time no see!” The fox looked up and saw the speaker, groaning aloud as he approached.
“Oh no, not you,” Alex groaned. The speaker was the badger who had claimed to be Daniel and this was the first time he’d seen him in six years. Honestly, it could never be long enough for Alex, “So what are you going to do, tackle me and try to kill me again!” he asked, a bit harshly.”
“If I wanted to do that I wouldn’t have bothered saying hey first,” the badger said.
“Right, so what do you want?” Alex asked, still none too convinced.
“Just to talk for a while, since we haven’t seen each other since…”
“Since you attacked me back in the first grade and blamed me for you being a badger,” Alex finished the badger’s sentence cynically.
“Yeah,” the badger didn’t seem to be either sorry or regretful, not that it would have mattered to Alex.
“So who are you really?” Alex asked, still skeptical.
“I am Daniel,” he said.
“Oh really, last I checked, Daniel was human not a badger,” Alex said.
“Yeah well the night after we got into that fight while I was still human I had a strange dream,” the badger explained, “he said to me that my desperate pleas for attention had gone too far when I provoked the fight with you and that I had to learn a lesson and hopefully adapt to a new situation.” The badger sighed, “When I woke up the next day, I looked like this,” he held up his hands.
“So what did your parents say?” Alex asked, intrigued.
“HA!” Daniel’s laugh of contempt was audible and a few people turned to stare, “My parents didn’t even notice I’d changed overnight so I ran away for a week.”
“Huh, so that’s why I didn’t see you for a week,” Alex said to himself.
Daniel continued as though Alex had not spoken, “That week was a pain. I spent most of it hiding from people because they all thought I was either cute or a freak. And here’s the cherry on top, when I finally returned home my workaholic parents just greeted me as though I’d gone out for a short walk, they didn’t even notice I was gone!” Daniel laughed sarcastically then turned to Alex.
“And your point is?” Alex asked, quite ticked at having to listen to Daniel’s bellyaching, “You know what, I don’t give a shit about your problems, Daniels. You’ve always treated me like garbage, teasing and annoying me until we got into a fight then attacking me when you came back from being missing for a week. So your parents ignore you, big whoop, and now you look like another animal like me so suck it up and leave me alone!” Alex turned and stormed away.
Daniel stood there, a bit stunned by his reaction but then sighed. Honestly he had expected that and he’d managed to survive five years as a badger, at least now people noticed him more often even if his parents still didn’t care one way or the other. He might as well finish the field trip assignment.
