‘The net worth of those kids on the sofas is about forty billion quid,’ said Caro. ‘Family money, of course, but still.’
‘There’s the rabbit-coat girl,’ said April, recognising the mane of golden hair. As she watched, the tall blond boy moved over and sat next to her. ‘Wow. Is that her boyfriend? Lucky cow.’
‘Brother.’ Caro smiled. ‘Davina and Benjamin Osbourne. Their father Nicholas is one of those mega-rich Eastern Europeans, made a fortune in chemicals, all very shady. Funnily enough, though, Davina doesn’t tend to date other rich boys. She’s more into brains. See that guy to her left?’
April nodded. He was cute but not stunning and he was clearly ill at ease in such company.
‘That’s Jonathon, her latest geek-du-jour. I think she goes for the smart boys to make up for her own complete airheadedness.
April tried to absorb this information while she sized up her new companion. Caro didn’t fit into this picture, with her wry outlook, always watching, always searching faces. It made April feel a little better; she wasn’t the only outsider at Ravenwood.
‘So what’s your speciality, Caro?’
‘Oh, chemistry, biology, physics, all with a creative twist. The rather boring ambition is to write books about science, like Stephen Hawking but without the funny voice.’ She grinned.
‘Oh really? My dad is a writer,’ said April. ‘He used to work for the
Scotsman.’
Caro looked at her wide-eyed. ‘Your dad isn’t
William Dunne,
is he?’
April nodded.
‘Oh my God, I love him,’ said Caro enthusiastically. ‘I think I’ve read everything he’s ever written. That thing he did on Area Fifty-One was awesome. His books are so definitive, so well argued. He mixes pop culture with science like no one else I’ve ever read.’
April smiled politely, but inside she was cringing. Trust her to talk to the one girl in the school who had heard of her father. Caro put her hand on April’s arm.
‘Sorry,’ she said sheepishly. ‘I’m gushing, aren’t I? It’s just I wish I had any sort of role model in my own family. The best we’ve managed is Uncle David who owns a dry cleaners.’
Then the bell rang and everyone began to move. April and her new friend began to walk out of the refectory, joining the crush.
actually, I think I might have a story for your dad, if you want to meet me after school?’
‘Okay,’ said April warily. ‘What’s it about?’
‘This place,’ said Caro, just a hint of a smile on her face. ‘I think it’s a giant conspiracy to take over the world.’
Chapter Three
Mr Sheldon was a tall man, probably somewhere in his forties, although his white hair made him look much older. In fact, along with his grey three-piece suit and heavy silver-framed glasses, he looked exactly as April had always imagined a distinguished college professor would look. The fact that he was also the head teacher at Ravenwood only added to his air of importance. Headmasters didn’t normally take classes, of course, but April was quickly learning that Ravenwood was some way from the usual definition of ‘normal’. Mr Sheldon strode up and down in front of the philosophy class, telling stories of long-dead Greeks and Germans that should have been deadly dull, but he somehow made them fascinating; it was like watching a particularly good documentary on TV. But still ... something wasn’t quite right, April thought, as she sat at the back maintaining her ‘head down, stay off the radar’ policy. There was something about Mr Sheldon, something in the picture that didn’t quite fit. He put her on edge, for some reason. Maybe it was just that she wasn’t used to actually listening to a teacher. Not just hearing their words and picking a few relevant sound bites out of the drone, but really
listening
to what they were saying, then really thinking about it. It was certainly a new experience for April, especially as there were plenty of distractions. The gorgeous blond boy, Benjamin, was sitting three rows in front of her and kept turning to whisper to his friend. Every time he did, she could see his slightly wicked smile and his cheekbones and his ... Hmm, now what had she been saying about concentrating?
‘So how many of you have seen
Star Trek?’
said Mr Sheldon in his deep, honeyed voice. A few arms tentatively raised -
not as many as you’d think
,
given the geek factor in this school
, thought April. Mr Sheldon was obviously thinking the same thing as he smiled. ‘I suspect a few of are hiding your light under a bushel,’ he said, eliciting some guilty laughs.
‘All right, so how many of you have seen
Back to the Future?’
A lot more hands were raised, mostly by eager pupils in the front two rows.
‘So what’s the main idea behind it?’
A boy in the very front row put up a hand. April realised it was Jonathon, Davina’s boyfriend.
‘Time travel,’ said Jonathon confidently. ‘Marty McFly travels through time - past, present and future - in the mad professor’s car, which is a sort of time machine, fixing various problems in order to save his family.’
There was another round of giggles, and Mr Sheldon nodded.
‘Very good, Jonathon. That sort of story is generally described as science fiction, but in reality, there’s very little science involved. We don’t have the technology create a “flux capacitor”. Consequently, it’s more accurate to say that Back to the Future is actually philosophical fiction. When Marty changes the past, it changes events in the future.’
April was glad to see other people around her frowning too.
‘Which leads us to the central problem, when you’re writing about time travel,’ continued Mr Sheldon. ‘Can anyone tell me what it’s called? Benjamin?’
Benjamin didn’t even look up. ‘The Grandfather Paradox,’ he said in an offhand tone, as if it was obvious.
‘Excellent. The Grandfather Paradox: what if you built your own time machine, zipped back seventy or eighty years and killed your grandfather when he was a boy? If Granddad was dead and never met Grandma, that means one of your parents would never have existed and therefore you wouldn’t be around to build that time machine.’
Mr Sheldon looked at the furrowed brows of the class and laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not testing you on your movie knowledge, I’m simply using it as an example of philosophy in action for the benefit of our newer class members.’
Oh
God, thought April,
don’t point
me out, please.
‘Those of us who have been studying this for some time know that the beauty of philosophy is that for any given phenomenon - time travel, the existence of God, free will - you can come up with several hypotheses that will seem to explain it just as well as the accepted explanation. As we’ve discussed before, there are no right answers in philosophy. Although please note that doesn’t mean you will automatically get an A for turning up to your exam.’
Everyone laughed.
‘Okay, let’s consider another age-old conundrum: the chicken and the egg.’
He lifted one hand and pointed to the back of the class. April’s heart jumped as she thought she was going to be asked to speak, but the teacher was pointing to the plump girl with rosy cheeks sitting next to her.
‘Emily. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’
‘The egg,’ answered the girl confidently.
Mr Sheldon nodded. ‘Very well. Why?’
‘Well, in nature DNA can only be modified in the womb, or in this case the egg. So as evolution is a series of genetic mutations, it must have happened before the chicken was born, which means, in the egg.’
Mr Sheldon clapped his hands. ‘Splendid. A perfect scientific answer. But this is a philosophy class, so what’s the problem with this theorem?’
He paused and let his eyes sweep around the room. ‘How about you, Miss Dunne?’
With a lurch, April realised he was looking straight at her. How did he know she wasn’t paying attention?
April, can you tell us what’s wrong with Emily’s rather straightforward, by-the-book answer?’
She glanced to her side and saw that all of the rosiness had drained from Emily’s cheeks and she was now glaring at April.
‘Wrong?’ stuttered April.
‘It does seem to address all the possibilities, doesn’t it?’ said Mr Sheldon, stroking his chin. ‘Evolution, mutations - it all sounds very straightforward, I suppose.’ Mr Sheldon shook his head slightly and turned back to his eager students at the front. ‘Perhaps someone else can—’
‘Evolution,’ blurted April.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Well, uh, Emily’s explanation assumes that evolution is correct.’
Mr Sheldon chuckled. ‘It seems we have a true Christian in our midst, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, raising more laughter. ‘No, no,’ said Mr Sheldon, raising his hand to silence the jeers. ‘Enough. She is quite correct. Emily’s scientific explanation assumes far too much. And April is at least thinking for herself.’
April felt herself blush.
‘Of course, before we give her a round of applause, we should consider how
narrow
an answer hers is,’ continued Mr Sheldon. April felt the blush increase as she realised that Benjamin Osbourne had turned to look at her. He turned back to his friend and whispered something and they both laughed.
‘Miss Dunne may be thinking for herself,’ said Mr Sheldon, ‘but she’s still thinking along conventional lines. Just because you have seen one chicken emerge from an egg, can you assume that the same will be true for the millions of eggs produced every year? Is that logical? Does that make sense? If you see a chair with four legs, does that mean all chairs have four legs? No. The reality is that
in absolute terms
, we know almost nothing about eggs, where they come from, what they are or whether they are related to chickens. This is what philosophy is all about: turning lazy thinking on its head and questioning everything you see, everything you think you know.’
April was now glaring at Mr Sheldon, but the teacher had moved on.
‘Consider this: what do you really know about the people around you? What do you know about your mother, father, brothers and sisters? Does your brother take heroin? Is your sister a virgin?’
There were a few nervous titters, but Mr Sheldon wasn’t smiling.
‘What about the person beside you?’
April wasn’t inclined to look at the girl next to her; even without turning her head she could tell Emily was glowering at her. Instead she looked the other way - and her breath caught in her throat. Gabriel Swift was staring directly at her from the end of the row, his eyes narrowed. April looked away quickly, her blush now approaching pillar-box red.
‘What do you really know about your classmates?’ Mr Sheldon was saying. ‘Just because they come to your school, sit next to you every day, you assume they are benign. Perhaps they are. Perhaps they’re not. Perhaps they’re planning on blowing up this class. Perhaps they’re planning something worse.
There was more strained laughter. April glanced up at Gabriel again, but he had sat back in his chair and another pupil was blocking her view.
‘But that’s what I want you to consider in this class, in this school,’ continued Mr Sheldon. ‘This is Ravenwood, people. Here we expect you to look at things from a different angle. Probe, think, question, investigate. The world is much more interesting that way, I promise you.’
The bell rang and the students began to scrabble their books into bags. Mr Sheldon clapped his hands and opened up a cardboard box on his desk.
‘Okay, class, before you disappear, your homework is to read this book,’ he said, waving a thick volume in the air. He began to hand them out as the students shuffled past. There was some groaning as they looked at the heavy tome.
‘Don’t worry, this is the author’s complete works, not a single novel. Read as many as you wish, but I only require you to read the short story “Random Quest”. It’s easy to read and has everything you could want: war, romance and time travel. Imagine Brad and Angelina in the lead roles if it helps. We’ll discuss it next lesson.’