The autobiographic vignette below was originally titled “Fat Mallett”.  I wrote this passage in the early months of my (attempted) PhD in 1998. My doctoral research , focused on educational inequality and the lessons taught by the “informal curriculum” at schools in hard places. This story talks to the life long lessons I learned based on simple, but cruel, human interactions in 1987. I have changed the names of my peers in this story.

Class 7J mingle at the rear of the gym before PE. Waiting for the PE teacher to open the gym doors, the class divisions are all so obvious. After a term and a half of high school, friendship clichés have developed and the class hierarchy has been established. The boys have their groups, the girls have theirs. And of course, there are the kids who don’t fit in at all.

“Fat Mallett, Fat Mallett, Fat Mallett”, Murray taunts as he wanders back and forth along the retaining wall. “Fatty-fatty, boom-boom”, he continues.

I bow my head and scratch at the loose pebbles on the ground. I’m sick and tired of the bullying, and the taunts of Murray and others are scaring my psyche. I want to smash his head in – I want to bash them all up-  but I’m afraid to fight.

“Don’t listen to him”, Warren says in support. “He’s just an idiot”.

“Yeah”, I reply meekly as I look at my bulging waist line and my stocky legs.

“F-A-T spells fat”, Murray continues, “P-A-U-L spells fat”.

Some of the girls giggle at Murray’s antics.

I remain quiet. Fuming inside, and desperately wanting to be some where else, I turn my back on Murray.

“Porky, porky, porky”.

“Shut up”, Warren shouts in my defence.

“Oh, Miss Piggy’s got a girl friend. Can’t speak, I mean, oink for yourself Fat Mallett?”, Murray rallies.

“Don’t worry about it, Warren”, I say trying to dissuade my only friend from getting involved.

“Fat Mallett, Fat Mallett, Fat Mallett”, Murray continues to sing as he jumps down off the retaining wall. He has spotted one of the girls spraying deodorant under her shirt, and he approaches smelling his own arm pits.

“Pooh, what’s that smell?”, Murray asks as he exaggerates the act of smelling. “Thanks”, he says as he snatches the aerosol can from its owner. “I smell beautiful, but something around here stinks”.

“Watch out!”, Warren warns.

I close my eyes briefly as I summon up the courage to face thy enemy. As I turn, I confront of a full stream of deodorant spray.

“Porky’s been rolling in shit – he smells real bad – gunna have to fix that”, Murray says as he empties the can into my face.

“Aghhhh, my eyes”, I splutter as I try to cover my face and turn away.

The spray enters my nose, and mouth and makes me cough violently. My eyes burn and that spray turns to liquid as it rolls down face.

I try to run but my vision is affected and I trip and fall.

“Run pig run”, Murray screams with joy in pursuit. “Squeal pig squeal”, he cries as he enters the remainder of the can in my hair.

For a moment I am just left on the ground. When Warren finally approaches me, he helps me up, guides me to the toilets, and instructs me to splash cold water in my eyes and rub my face clean.

“Look, I’ve gotta get to class”, Warren says as he retreats.

I wave him off and hang over the sink crying.

I enter class several minutes late.

“Nice of you to join us”, Mr Smith, my teacher, remarks.

I take my position on the benches with the rest of the class. I watch as Warren is called to the horizontal bar and performs 15 faultless chin ups.

“Excellent. That places Warren in the top 5% of his age group”, Mr Smith adds.

I cringe at the thought of having to perform a test like that in front of my peers, and hope like hell that that was just a demonstration. Unfortunately, I’m wrong. And I watch as several other class members churn out respectable chin up scores. Five. Seven. Four. Nine.

“Paul, your up next”.

I slowly stand and approach the bar.

“This will be a laugh”, Murray shares with the class.

I step up on the chair and reach for the bar. Hanging helplessly I close my eyes and wish for the strength to lift my obese frame upward.

“Off you go, any time now”, Mr Smith offers.

My face goes bright red as I wiggle half a head closer to the bar, then I drop to the ground with a thud.

“I’ll score that as a half. No, what the hell, it’s a one. Well done. Something to work on. Um, Charlie, you’re next”.

I quickly return to my space, I’m ashamed, embarrassed and now officially the weakest boy in the class.

Toward the end of class Murray approaches me and whispers, “You fuckin’ cry baby, it was only deodorant. Don’t bother telling any teachers, or I’ll smash ya!”.

To my horror, I am asked to explain my late arrival to class moments later, and I protect Murray. “Sorry Mr Smith, I got some dirt or dust in my eye and I had to rinse it out”.

I am dismissed with the rest of the class and we move on mass toward the main double door. Murray positions himself next to me and in the rush to exit punches me in the side of the face. I stumble and trip down the steps. The class group laughs collectively and rushes off.

Stunned and defeated again, I edge myself back to the steps and sit in silence.  

Drawing deep on my reserves I immersed myself in study for the remainder of my high school career. I believed if I could not defeat my antagonists physically, I would annihilate them academically. I had earned myself a reputation as a ‘square’; a ‘spock’; and a ‘brain’.

Whether it was due to maturation of my peers, or my slimmer body (a result of brash and unhealthy dieting-starvation practices), I received less and less taunting as I progressed through the grades. As I grew in confidence I maintained my ferocious approach to study, yet actively sought space within the school to do good things. I led a junior student council of a dozen volunteers in Year 8, and presided over a sixty-strong student representative council again in Year 9. I contributed to the design of an outdoor eating area for the school (a major development that was finally built four years after I graduated); designed mobile computer trolleys for the maths and science blocks; organised a gift and farewell assembly for our departing Principal; represented the student body in presenting flowers to the widow of the school gardener who died in a plane crash; and was elected School Prefect in Year 10. My commitment to the service of others was grounded in my high school experience.