In an age when the youth are in rebellion, the British government has sanctioned the creation of St. Lycurgus’ School to rehabilitate ‘criminal’ youths using unorthodox methods.
Will the children find a way to escape or will they be stripped of their individuality and taught the true meaning of obedience?
The Scottish countryside zoomed past the couch window; also zooming past the car window was a variety of cars, tractors and trucks, which meant that Hector Arbarte couldn’t really even look at the zooming countryside anyway. He sighed, and fidgeted where he sat, attempting to get himself into a more conformable position. If there was one thing Hector didn’t like, it was staying still. To call it a couch was slightly inaccurate, because most couches didn’t have bars on the window. Around him, other people his own age sat listlessly in their seats too tried after three hours of driving to make trouble.
On the radio, the Minister of Education was been interviewed on the one last remaining BBC Radio Channel, idiotically called the “Beebio” as there wasn’t any point in numbers when there was only one. He didn’t know if it was the long car journey or the Minister of Education that was making him feel sick. “Minister, your governments support for the St. Lycurgus’ National Service School has been somewhat controversial despite the academic success of students there. The Shadow Minister for Education has compared St. Lycurgus’ to a Hitler Youth Camp, and attacked the idea of National Service Schools as ‘modern Workhouses for the modern lower classes’. How do you react to this criticism?”
Oh I’m sure he’ll change his mind, Hector thought darkly, just like all the politicians do when they realise there’s promoting bullshit. Oozing with the confidence of the Privately educated career politician, the Minster answered.
“Absolutely ridiculous Kris. Look, we all know that St. Lycurgus’ is strict, and we all know National Service Schools are a last resort. Under past governments, Labor and Coalition alike, we have let our young people get out of control. Every year we’ve had students rioting, occupations, teacher strikes, mass walk outs, class rooms in chaos and anarchy on the streets. We’ve even seen students bombing there own classrooms. Ever since 2011, we’ve been seeing street violence occurring again and again whenever the Police are overextended. Young people were learning nothing from their time in Higher Education and ended up unemployed almost immediately after leaving. We’ve gone from being one of the world’s best-
educated countries to the worst. Why is this? Is it just to do with Cuts? (Which are necessary). No, it’s because we in this country have lost the ability to discipline the younger generations. Frankly, it tells us everything we need to know about the Green Party had they should do nothing but complain when finally we have a school that’s working.”
“But you surely you recognize that the decision to send student demonstrators to what is essentially a mandatory reeducation center alone with common criminals would attract criticism? You know the National Union of Students are calling them political prisoners?”
Hector groaned. The last thing he’d been expecting when he’d agreed to go on a March Against the NATO Bombing of Greece was to be sent off to some Fascistic government project with a bunch of muggers and truants. He’d expected arrest and Police Brutality, of course, but not this! He looked over sadly at his fellow martyrs. He only knew a few of them well anyway. Most of the other Brighton students had got away and were probably offering petitions to have him freed outside the college gate, or more likely smoking pot and completely forgetting him. Most of the students here were from London, or not students are all. Holly was here, but they’d put here at the other end. She was sleeping, and he was sure no one would be forgetting her back home.
“Utter nonsense! You call them demonstrators, but they were all arrested and charged for crimes they committed during the riots, not for demonstrating. To call them political prisoners is just rubbish. They need to be rehabilitated just as much as anyone else who breaks the law does. And judging from the results so far, it’s working. St. Lycurgus’ is an experiment, of course. We wouldn’t have dreamed of introducing something as radical as National Service Education unless we knew it worked. However, I believe I can say with confidence that it’s now a very real possibility that in future we will see more National Service Schools all over the country.”
“Can we turn it off now?” Hector shouted at the top of his lungs, unnecessarily. It was the least he could do to make a fuss. He was bored and a victim of state oppression to boot. “Shut your mouth!” replied the driver “I already told you. You don’t say nuthin' to me!”
“WHY?” bellowed Hector, hoping his heroics would inspire his lethargic fellows. He looked around to see if Holly was looking, and saw her rub her eyes and yawn. “You don’t know nuthin' mate” said the driver “You lot don’t scare me. I’ve had real criminals in the back threatening to do all sorts of stuff you posh students don’t nuthin' ‘bout, and even they act good as gold once them at St. Lycurgies get to ‘em. ‘Oh thank you driver’ they say to me when I see ‘em again ‘we don’t want to bother you driver. Please accept our apologies, driver.’ So, why don’t you just shut it!”
“-and that’s why Labor Parties and the Conservative Parties partnership in government is as strong as ever and any rumors of the Coalition splitting up over Income Tax is utter nonsense” continued the Minister for Education, oblivious to the one-boy unrest Hector had been stirring up. If only I was more like Che Guevara, thought Hector glumly, he never have any any trouble stirring up unrest.
“Forget it Hector” said Holly from the other end of the couch, weariness in her voice “He isn’t worth the effort.” Oh Holly, always so bloody nice. She could make anything into a compliment, even if she was telling you to shut up. He would be sitting next to her, but he was strapped down in his seat and until the Privately employed Guards sitting in the front with the driver unlocked him he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Yeah” said a London biology student who’d stolen a TV during the riot as if it were possible to hide that kind of thing from the police “Trying to get some sleep.".
“Hump!” said Hector, scowling. He stopped he harassment of the driver, and turned back to the countryside/mass of moving metal outside. This was all unbelievable. He was actually been sent to some freakish super-strict school where everybody had to wear uniforms and march around in line just for protesting. It was unfair, because his brother and sister had never been sent anywhere when they rioted back in the 00’s. It was scary, because no one really knew what St. Lycurgus was really like. Sure, there were promotional videos of it on the schools website and Politicians would visit it on the News. But all that showed was students beaming at the camera and looking like clones in their uniforms and identical haircuts. Apart from that, and that was freaky enough for any teenager who loved their witty T-
Shirts and odd hair styles, nobody really knew anything about it. It had a policy of all-year round and compulsory boarding, and the Press were refused access to students without supervision from teachers or too film classes. No one knew anything much about the ‘methods’ employed to subdue the unruly students imprisoned there, apart from the occasional Pro-government article in the paper waffling on about ‘cutting edge methods informed by the latest developments in behavioral psychology’ and ‘a ethic of fairness and discipline.’ As it was for ‘criminals’ (only for the moment, mind, ‘National Service’ implied that the model was designed to be universally instituted) no one was allowed to leave until they finished their “term”. Even though it was called a ‘School’, all students inside around the age of Six-Form College and University Students, and someone had told Hector that you weren’t allowed out of National Service Education until you were twenty two. Hector was eighteen, and that meant he would be in there for four years. The thought was utterly terrifying. It wasn’t for nothing distraught parents were calling it a prison.
There was something weird about the uniforms, he thought as a thousand high-speed faces glanced up with unreadable expressions at him. They weren’t like the silly things that most schools in England had made kids in Primary School; there was something very stylized and even suggestive about them. The female ones looked as if they were from a Japanese Fan-Service Manga, and the male ones just looked fascist. They clung to the body tightly, and seemed to somehow define the person wearing them. The students moved oddly in them, and there expressions seemed to have a kind of semi-aroused glaze to them. The female ones seemed oddly revealing for a supposedly strict school, and the male ones seemed to project aggression. That and the matching hairstyles he’d seen on the videos made the students of St. Lycurgus’ look as if they were half-citizens of a dystopian dictatorship, half-fashion models preening themselves on the catwalk.
Soon, the couch turned away from the busy motorway into a seemingly empty road leading up into the hills. Somewhere around the top of the second hill, the Couch entered a thick forest. The sky partially vanished behind the dark green roof of countless tree branches, and Hector felt as if this would be the last time he would ever see the sun as free individual. He didn’t know why he felt like that, but in his gut he was afraid of what four years of National Service Education would do to him. Four years was a long time. He’d changed from a child into who he was now in four years. What would he be like after four years of uniforms, identical haircuts and ‘cutting edge behavioral psychology’ change him into? Four years without seeing his family, sleeping in his own room and reading his own books? What would happen to Holly? Bright, clever Holly who planned all the meetings and organised the Marches. Holly who’d never been scared of any authority. What would happen to her after four years?
If anything, that boy drastically underestimated what was about to happen to him when he looked out and saw the sun disappear behind the leaves.