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LEAVES AND LUNATICS.


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I read the new chapter (11) a few days ago and would like to make an observation or two.

Nathan's father,after being told his son is gay, appears to be acting politically correct - even clinical - and I was wondering if this is intended. Or is this the lead-up to a scenario beyond the father/son bonding or the father/son parting; not to mention the one that Nathan is too young to know what he wants.

What did take me by surprise is the re-introduction of the ex-security guard. I went back and re-read chapter 1 and there is not much about the guard to be gleaned from it. Now I have a timing problem with the ex-guard. According to the student body the ex-guard (Hall) has a reputation as a hard teacher yet just prior to the summer holidays he was working as a car yard security guard. With all schools in the US closing down at the same time for summer, when or how did Hall get this reputation? Or have I read more into this than I should have?

Despite the above I enjoyed the chapter. It was worth the wait. Now to see how Cam and Nathan work out how to handle the distance hassle and their insecurities and their paranoia.

Cheers.

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Hi, Ross,

I had the same question about the security guard, and it was explained to me that he's a new teacher (remember his job as a security guard was while he was studying). Allowing for the normal rumour mill, a student overheard a comment about his previous occupation, which then extrapolated out to all the other occupations that was "assigned" to him.

So, while a touch confusing at first, it does make sense.

Graeme

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Graeme already nailed the question about Mr. H - word got out about the new teacher being an ex-guard, which the middle school rumor mill developed into ex-prison guard, which developed into ex-any number of "badass" professions.

Nathan's father,after being told his son is gay, appears to be acting politically correct - even clinical - and I was wondering if this is intended.

Yeah, that was intentional. He was rather blindsided by the issue, and didn't know how to handle it. He still feels like he has to make up for letting his son down in the past - he's trying his best to be a good father, which leads to him being nervous about saying anything less-than-PC that could get his son upset. He falls back on a stiffly delievered "don't subscribe to labels" speech - the kind of issue-skirting form-letter approach that, while still solid advice, never really gets to the point. Basically, I wanted it to sound as forced and awkward as possible.

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Thanks to EleCivil and Graeme for clearing up my queries about chapter 11.

Being politically correct is still a lot better than what some went through.

I should have worked out that it was only the student rumour mill gone overboard concerning Mr Hall. But I have no experience of students guessing over new staff. In my school days ( in New Zealand ) new teachers turned up and some stayed and some moved on. You got on with what was there - no choice, no say. Something Cam is going to have to do, I suspect.

Looking forward to the next chapter/s.

Again thanks,

Ross

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Credit should go where it is due:

I had the same question regarding the ex-security guard, and I emailed EleCivil aboutr it. All I did above was paraphrase his explanation.

Graeme

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