NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

Neither here nor there - The sun is brilliant, the barometer high, and the temperature bitter. Brisk westerly winds are pushing a large ice sheet toward the shore of the cove below the window. What had only yesterday seen several separate pans of ice floating independently on the ocean's surface had overnight frozen together on the far shore to form a unified whole. At dawn the wind shifted. Now the wide sheet was being propelled across the harbour, striking the rocks and breaking up, the individual white pans driving along their separate paths, each one smaller now against the deep blue of the sea's expanse.

Inside the house, on the television screen, the professor, the newly appointed head of the department is explaining something. He is pointing out what he expects from the delinquent student. He outlines the steps the student must take in order to save his school year.

The professor is tall and slim, his graying hair trimmed short above full eyebrows wide and dense that cast his deep eye sockets into shadow, hiding eyes with the intensity of an eagle. He has overheard from other members of the faculty that his appearance is too focused, that his stare is too fixed, that he can be intimidating to his students. He is pleased by this, but keeps that satisfaction to himself lest his colleagues think him too self-centred. He takes their advice that he should smile more. However the gesture is only a partial success. Since his eyes are hidden in the shadow of his overhanging brow, the smile's warmth never reaches them and the flash of white teeth comes off less as a smile, more as a grimace. Despite this, his fellow faculty members, or at least the more influential among them, have succumbed to his skillful lobbying and chosen him head of the department.

The professor is not at all impressed with the delinquent student's recent behaviour. Something must be done. And he is just the man to do it.

The trouble began in the fall term. At the time the student was reporting to the previous head of the department. That professor too, was tall, in fact taller than the eagle-eyed professor who he had narrowly beaten in the surprise finish to a close contest for head of the department. Two tall men, but there the similarity ends.

The former head of the department was an idealist; he delighted in exploring possibilities and looked to the future. It's true he was a loner and not very good at sharing responsibilities with other members of the faculty, but he invariably looked to the bright side. He was always anxious to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Sadly this unfailing optimism was to be his undoing. It led others, in the faculty and the student body alike, to ridicule him behind his back. Ignoring his fresh ideas, they mocked his lack of cynicism as unworldly, his absence of physical co-ordination as comic and his pronunciation in his second language as incomprehensible. The eagle-eyed professor, humiliated by his loss in the race for head of the department to a man he regarded as his inferior, took pleasure in pointing out his faults.

When the student handed in a completely inadequate essay at the end of the fall term, the former head of the department tried to reason with him and suggest ways he could improve the paper. The assignment had called for an in-depth analysis of future developments in the field of study, with evidence to back up the student's conclusions, with footnotes, an appendix, an index, a full-blown body of work.

Before giving him a failing mark, the professor wanted to help. This in spite of the fact he knew this student was behind the ugly caricatures of the professor that had appeared on classroom walls throughout the school.

The student refused to change a thing in the essay. It was fine, he said. Take it or leave it. The student's language was not polite.

The professor conferred with two of his colleagues and together they concluded that the only way to deal with a student who'd gone this wrong was to expel him. They wrote to the headmistress requesting it.

But not fast enough.

The student was not just delinquent but a wily schemer to boot. He went to the headmistress with a forged note from his doctor asking for time off school until after the Christmas break. She granted his request.

The eagle-eyed professor, seeing the man who had defeated him for the top job was now vulnerable, pounced. The student had outmaneuvered him. He should no longer be head of the department. And within a matter of weeks he was gone, to be replaced by none other than the eagle-eyed professor himself.

When the students returned from the Christmas break, the new head of the department found on his desk an entirely new essay from the delinquent student, that in no way resembled the previous one. It was long and detailed, with many different topics. It had footnotes and an appendix and was very well typed.

The two colleagues who had previously been in favour of expelling the student had not changed their minds. This new essay is all plagiarized. There isn't an original idea in it.

He's stolen every idea in here from someone else.

The new head of the department smiled. The ideas may be stolen but they're mine. I think we should let this student stay. We will watch his work closely and at the end of each term we will pay special attention to his report card. Let's see how it goes.

pickersgill@mac.com