Chapter 5: The Crane’s Playground
During my first few weeks of school I was able to make friends with several of the "popular" girls. On the second day of school while I was hanging around with Hannah and Darren, a beautiful blue eyes, girl with platinum blonde hair approached us with the intention to get close to Hannah and I. Not to boast or anything although I looked quite plain, I could still be considered pretty. And I could definitely see why at the time Bella had approached Hannah. Hannah was absolutely gorgeous.
"Hey, do you want to be my friend?" I cringe every time I recall this memory.
She had gone up to us purely because of our faces. It was a shallow relationship, like glass, which is why it was so fragile and broke just as easily as it started. I realise that I am no better, because had Bella not been so pretty, I wouldn't have abandoned Darren as fast as I did. About Darren when we ditched him, he joined up with Finn and attempted to play soccer. The key word in that sentence was "attempted".
"Hmmm, I guess so, only if you let me be the Horse." I replied, secretly grinning, proud that I had attracted the attention of the most popular girl.
By the way "the Horse" to which we were referring to is an animal from the childrens' book, "The Loving Animals of Farmer Smith" by the author Anna Mariana. The story goes something along the lines of:
Once upon a time there was a kind farmer, who was good to all of his animals. So much so that they all fought over their duties. He always fed them well, made sure they were well rested, gave them day offs, and told them stories before bed. He treated them as if they were his own children.
Because of that they loved him dearly and vowed to repay him for all his kindness by working harder than ever. In no time at all the farm was the most profitable in the area.
One day the hardworking horse noticed that his brother, the cow had gone missing. "Neigh! Neigh! Has anyone seen my brother the cow?"
The pig frowned. "No? I haven't seen him, dear brother."
"Sister sheep, have you seen our sibling, Cow?
The horse asked the sheep next. "Baaaa, no, baaaa, maybe try asking the german shepherd next". She responded casually.
"German shepherd brother, do you know where our comrade, Cow has gone?
"Unfortunately not, but Farmer Smith might know."
The horse, having already reached the retirement age, galloped as fast as his spindly legs could take him, to his owner, Farmer Smith.
"Farmer Smith, Farmer Smith, do you know where our honourable comrade Cow, has gone to?"
The old man, nearing his late 50's turned around at the voice of his horse, revealing a full face of graying whiskers, wrinkled and gnarly from a lifetime of work under the sun. He had raised the horse in front of him since birth, and watched as the foal developed into a fine, strong workhorse, plowing the fields numerous times daily, and finally maturing into one of the best animal leaders, managing all internal affairs. He was interrupted halfway through cutting his steak, with his silver knife.
"What do you want?". He beckoned for the horse to come closer. The horse, approaching the owner nuzzled him softly before he replied.
"Farmer Smith, do you know anything about our dear brother, Cow? I can't seem to get in contact with him, and I can't find him anywhere."
The old farmer let out a sigh. "Bruce, gather up all of the animals in the barn tonight. I will answer your question then." Bruce, the horse found it peculiar that the farmer did not want to reply at the scene, but he did what he was told to anyways and Farmer Smith returned to eating his steak peacefully in his big farmhouse.
Bruce felt uneasiness stir within him, as the night approached.
The night finally came. All the animals were comfortably seated, when Farmer Smith finally arrived.
"Dear animals of my farm. I have an announcement to make. Our comrade, Cow, has officially left us."
A few confused murmurs escaped from the animal's mouths.
"Baaaa, why didn't he tell us? Baaaaa." The sheep whined tearfully.
"To where, where? The german shepherd barked inquisitively.
"Maybe to a place better than this, after all he and Horse worked the hardest?" The bluebird chirped in cheerfully.
"No way there's a place better than this. Farmer Smith is the best." The pig snorted angrily.
"Quiet, animals. That's what I'm here to address." Spoke Farmer Smith. "Cow has been accepted into a better place, and I am here to relay his final words. Ahem." He picked up the letter, in poorly scribbled handwriting that was unmistakable as the cow's. "Dear my fellow comrades at the farm. I am writing to you today because I have received an offer to the Regal Association of Animals. Our kind owner, Farmer Smith has written me a recommendation there, and as unfortunate as this sounds, I must leave tonight, so I cannot say my farewells to you all. I have asked Farmer Smith to read this to you guys as a final request. I wish all of you guys well. Yours truly, Cow."
In the moments that followed, the farm exploded with applause.
"Good for Cow, I was worried he would never catch a break even in his old age." The sheep bleated.
Farmer Smith interrupted again. "Let us all pray for Cow, now that he's no longer with us. Pray that our long time comrade, Cow, lives a splendid life in the Regal Association of Animals."
Tears filled each and every one of the animals eyes, touched by their owner's kindness.
"Let us work even harder for Cow's sake. Let us slave away for him as well." Farmer Smith yelled in triumph.
"Let us slave away! Let us slave away! Let us slave away!" All the animals chanted.
Soon afterwards the old horse was also accepted into the Regal Association of Animals. As he was led outside the farm by Farmer Smith, all the animals tearfully bid him farewell. Soon followed the sheep, the pig and lastly the german shepherd.
Farmer Smith was sitting on his oak table, silver cutlery in each hand, a glass of finely aged wine next to him, as he dug into his pork cutlet, when a young foal approached him.
"Farmer Smith, Farmer Smith, where did my friend german shepherd go?"
Farmer Smith grinned between his golden teeth, during a bite, and lifting up one heavily ornate finger, pointed towards the horizon. "He's off to a better place, Bruce. One day you will go there too, if you work hard enough, so don't worry about it."
"Really?"
"Yes."
The moral of this story was straightforward. Work hard and you will achieve great things.
But that is not how I interpret this story at all. No. It is about a greedy man who extorted the goodwill of the animals for his own sake. How he manipulated them into becoming his slaves, how he sold them once they were of no more use to him, and how he was also a slave to something: money. Every man and woman alive is a slave to something. For us it was our society. And for our society it was war.
Why am I so certain that my interpretation of the story is correct? Because my interpretation was how the original author herself intended. Years after first reading the story, while I was sitting in the Principal's office for tea this topic was brought up. Apparently 80 years ago Anna Mariana, the famous author was a student at our school. Even as a child I always felt something off about the book, and when I reread it for the first time in years the story that I was reading had completely transformed.
No longer was it an innocent children's book about cute animals.
My heart sank when I was handed a copy of Anna's student records. She had never graduated. They mercilessly tore up her heart and soul, until not a shred of her sanity was left. In that violated, hollow shell of a body, she had no choice but to take her own life. On her records it stated that she took her life 2 years after leaving Cransfield. The place that she was sent to was no place for someone like her, it was her death sentence.
The irony of it all was that they took her recount of the truth and twisted it into a children's book, exploiting as much as they could from her. Her story was emotionally scarring, and when I reread it, I lay in bed crying myself to sleep.
What is the moral of this story: People are heartless.
In case you were wondering why Bella was so popular, despite being equally as new as the rest of us, it was because of her older sister, Ada, who happened to be 8 years our senior. All the teachers including Ms Williams were quite fond of her sister. From what I heard she was a prom princess and an honour student simultaneously and everyone seemed to be expecting the same level of genius from Bella.
She frowned for a brief second before reluctantly agreeing because Georgie also took a liking to the character of "the Horse."
At that time in her head I was of more importance to impress than Georgie. I only liked the Horse better than the other animals because I knew that with Bella around, I could not be Farmer Smith, or Farmer Samantha as she called herself. Horses were also my favourite animals.
She puffed out her little pink skirt a bit. "So today we are going to the meadow." She signaled to Mina, her german shepherd. "Come here, let's walk together." Mina who was visibly excited for being chosen by Bella almost tripped over herself as she rushed over.
As the game of pretend play continued Bella got crosser and crosser at all of us.
"No, no, not like that. You're doing it wrong!" She always yelled at us every time we made a slight blunder in our acting.
She also seemed to get crosser at Hannah for stealing the spotlight from her. Honestly back then I was also mad at Hannah being the blind follower of Bella I was. I remembered thinking: You're a lowly sheep, you can't stand out more than the farmer. But I didn't get in a fight with her. Hannah apologised right away although I realised that this was none of her fault. She simply wanted to avoid conflict, which only baffled me further about the actions she would take much later on.
At Cransfield the place where we always played these games of pretend was the famous fields of the school, so big that they stretched out for at least 5 kilometres into the horizon. It was the ideal prop set for a farm. In addition you could find any spot of shade under any tree and be given the privacy that you wanted, so we wouldn't be observed by any teachers, allowing us to avoid embarrassment, which was why in my senior years the Field was such a popular spot for sex.
On one side of the fields was the actual field, where you could have sex privately, or play pretend with your friends or play football with the rest of the boys. And on the other side, were where the actual fields were located. Over there were the rice paddies, yes rice was a staple to our diet and pastures where our school raised the occasional cow. That was where the namesake of our school lived. The cranes. During the day time you could see these large birds resting in our irrigated croplands. Contrary to what it appears, it was quite a pleasant view, those elegant birds. According to the school rules they were sacred creatures and anyone who harmed them would be cursed by the gods.
It was truly ironic that such a school in such a society was named after such a bird.
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