Dancing with Finn: Boy Stories by Frank Demelzi (book)
Dancing with Finn published by Arcadian Dreams in 2024 is a collection of six stories by the Dutch author Frank Demelzi.
Excerpt
(From the start of the story Boys on the Moon)
The back of your pencil taps on your tabletop somewhat loudly. Dreamily, you hum the tune you’ve been humming all day. You let me warn you as often as I want to, but even so more doodles end up on your table than do words on the paper. If I’m not mistaken, you still haven’t got rid of your chewing gum. Sometimes you drive me up the wall, Tobias. Why were you my favourite again?!
Why, for the past two years, hasn’t an hour gone by without me thinking of you? Why do I always go the extra mile for you that I don’t go for any of my other children? Why do I sift all glinting five-cent coins out of any change I receive and save them for you, Tobias?
Just like every bad teacher, I have my favourites in your year group. Take Robbert. Robbert, like you, is eleven and a half. He will later move in with a boyfriend. (When I share this with the gym teacher, she says you can’t tell those things this early.) Robbert is far too good for this ruthless world. He cheerfully endures all insults that hit him before I can intervene. I hope Robbert will make it.
Matthijs is another such favourite. On his birth announcement, Matthijs was called Elisa, but I don’t think any-one outside of our classroom still knows that. Long ago (for a child), Elisa confided to me that she’d rather be a boy. As far as I was concerned, she could pick a new name right away. By now, few people here at school will be aware that the likeable short-haired boy who turns up in a tracksuit every morning secretly sits down when peeing.
From behind my desk, I look around the classroom. My eyes roam from nose to nose, from crown to crown. It’s almost spooky to see how silently the children are bent over their work – except of course for you, Tobias. With defiance you look up at the spring afternoon light that greenly and wantonly penetrates the canalside trees to enter our classroom. You’re perfectly aware that I’m watching you and that I don’t care for your attitude. And you hum and you hum, and your pencil taps.
While in my heart I consider how fond I am of you, my brain tells me I’m a fool. What’s so nice about you, really? You’re disobedient, fickle, stubborn and, above all, lazy. In the final analysis, I count your braces and your dyslexia among your finer qualities. Granted, you’re a handsome little devil and I like putting an arm around your shoulders better than anyone else’s, but your teacher in the middle stage used to call you a scamp or, when she was exasperated, no Einstein – and as soon as I start thinking about you, I can find nothing that contradicts her opinion. For what murky reason, then, are you still my favourite among favourites? What have you ever achieved, what have you ever done for me to earn my love?
And you keep on tapping, and humming, and chewing.
That’s enough, dang it! I push my chair back and stride past the stunned tables to where you’re sitting. I grab you by the scruff of your neck and pull you out of your chair. Your fountain pen and your Yankees cap – which you aren’t allowed to wear in class to begin with – land on the floor. “Jesus!” you squeal as I drag you out into the corridor.
I put you down among the coat racks and snap at you: “Don’t you look so offended. I’ve warned you time and time again. You stay here until three. One more peep out of you and you’re off to the headmaster!”
You say nothing and look at me suspiciously. You don’t believe what I said about the headmaster; you understand all too well that one thing I’d never do is hand you over to someone else. You rub the nape of your neck and look hurt, but for once you’re too shocked to threaten me with the child protection service or the education inspectorate. “Jesus!” is the only thing you manage to exclaim before I slam the door shut behind me harder than needed.
I go through the last half hour of the afternoon mechanically and with great reluctance. It’s too bad for both of us that precisely this morning I resolved to be a lot stricter with you. You’re asking for it, Tobias, but it’s already proving harder than I’d hoped.[1]
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