"Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too."
It was one of those days. Like the other thirty, only completely different. It was new, and soon it would flicker and die, like Blockbuster video. Or a high street book shop. Reaction was the only way forward, the sole path to bending the hand of the universe.
Home school was beginning to feel like the last day of school. Skipping. Skipping. Skipping.
Replace the needle, polish the disk, increase your bandwidth or buy a car radio.
Who was the valedictorian, the head prefect? The headmaster was at large after fallout from the Panama Papers and his addiction to offshore tax havens had resulted in a relocation lockdown package to the Caribbean. Turned out he’d only been the head teacher for fun, a sick hobby, a sideline to keep him in touch with the community and carve a sense of being. Since the whole of society had ceased working on the ill-conceived social links he’d so craved, he’d upped and left. Like some kind of forlorn Mexican beach turtle with an eye for beaches in Miami.
The Apocalypse School for Advanced Learning™ needed another shot of curriculum, mainlined into the aorta. The teacher review board were high-tailing it across the world to close down the advancements in home education and we needed to make a stand.
Blaze of glory.
Oh good. For a moment there I thought we were in trouble.
I am Alice’s complete lack of surprise.
I dusted off the rules book from the early days.
Rule 1 – We’ll Use The Internet, But The Encyclopedia Is King Rule 2 – Home School Does Not Follow “School School” Time Rule 3 – Every Day Starts With A Gratitude Diary. Rule 4 – Do Something Creative EVERY DAY. Rule 5 – Put The Important Things First
This was insanity through the eyes of Horace Mann. This will not stand. The World has moved on, the lockdown has transformed the way things used to be done to the way they need to be done. HAVE to be done. These rules were chump change from 2019, ideas with no vision, no clarity, no backbone.
I watched Fight Club Eight rules.
1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB. 2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB. 3rd RULE: If someone says “stop” or goes limp, taps out the fight is over. 4th RULE: Only two guys to a fight. 5th RULE: One fight at a time. 6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes. 7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to. 8th RULE: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight.
It seemed like as good a blueprint as any for a school for four-year-olds.
Apocalypse Mommy and Luca were sitting under the shade of the pine tree as I put Alice through her training drill for the morning. After thirty days of non-stop physical conditioning, when real school opened, she was going to be picked first for every activity there was going.
“Alice,” I screamed. “Get down and give me twenty.”
She ran over to where Apocalypse Mommy was sitting, picked twenty daisies from the uncut grass, and came running over.
“Daddy,” she said, dropping the daisies at my feet like she was a cat and they were dead robins, Latin name Erithacus rubecula. “I not get twenty, fourteen, sixteen eighteen twenty.”
“Apocalypse Mommy,” I said, picking up the Erithacus rubeculas, “it’s imperative, we must cast out the old curriculum and build a tower of rules for the New World.”
“Hell Yeah,” she said. “But it’s day thirty-one. We should have instilled the rules at the beginning, before it descended into Lord of the Flies.”
“Hey,” I said, “Lord of the Flies. That’s a great idea for day thirty nine, don’t let me forget that.”
“Remind me what happened in Lord of the Flies?”
“All the kids killed each other.”
“That’ll be a funny story then.”
There was a glitch in the Matrix. Alice was wired up to too many sources of distraction, it was like Morpheus himself had plugged her into the dark heart of the media.
She couldn’t sit still. She couldn’t think still. Her mind was a firework, interest and intrigue firing off into 360 degrees at once.
“Look,” she said. “What’s that?” “It’s a bee. Bees are good. Wasps are naughty.”
Who is the judge of that? Even insects have a hard press.
1st RULE: Ask as MANY QUESTIONS as you can. 2nd RULE: ASK as MANY QUESTIONS as you can 3rd. RULE: If someone says “I’m tired” or needs a nap, the lesson is only just beginning; tiredness in the student is the TEACHER’S fault. 4th RULE: Only ONE teacher per class. 5th RULE: Multiple SUBJECTS MUST be taught at any one time. 6th RULE: No PHONES, no tablets. 7th RULE: Do NOT read LESS THAN 5 books a DAY. 8th RULE: Regardless of what day it is at APOCALYPSE DADDY SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED LEARNING, you HAVE to be creative.
I am Alice’s Apocalypse Teacher.
The first rule of Project Apocalypse is to ask as many questions as you
can.
I am Alice’s complete shock.