Magnus, aka Madz,
A very Special Student 

By: Ruwen Rouhs
(© 2022 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

RRouhs@tickiestories.us

Chapter 3
Castor and Pollux remember

On the day Madz found the letter and the bag of raspberry candy, Paul's phone rang early in the morning. Paul, which actually was Teacher Beck's first name, had overslept.  Since the phone did not stop ringing, he jumped out of bed, stumbled sleepily to the writing desk. Feverishly he looked for it and finally discovered it under a mountain of exercise books. "Pollux, Pollux did I finally shoo you out of your comfy bed? Did I disturb you?  Did you have a great night with your Ganymede or was it just a dream?" the chipper voice from the phone receiver teased him. "Woe, woe to you!" boomed the voice, like that of an avenging angel, "The Erinyes are already on their way! The raven-black-robed ones will tear the flesh from your bones alive! Woe, woe!" Paul nearly burst out laughing! "Castor, Castor! What have I sworn? I take an oath, I do faithfully and dutifully fulfill my duties as a teacher and protect my little rascals from harm, just as the law commands!"

"Pollux, Pollux! I remember exactly what you did to me when we met first!" Castor’s the voice chuckled, "Do you remember what you did to your bench neighbor on the third day in middle school! You raped him! You beast!" "No, no Castor, your memory perverts the events again! When I threw you on the wrestling mat in PE, you just pushed me up, threw me on my back and pinned me to the mat. I could only help myself by ramming a knee into your balls! That's when you yelped and immediately let go!" "I took revenge for that, too! In the next class, I took a nasty revenge!" Castor’s voice became devilish! "When you stuttered out the last line of Goethe's Easter Walk: Here I am Man, here I may be! I pinched you in your balls and you squealed like a pig!" Pollux chuckled, "And did I tell on you? Was I angry with you? No! Remember! Wasn't that the beginning of a wonderful friendship?" "Yes! Sure! And thanks again, especially for the joint extra work! After all it was the origin of our eternal friendship!" "And our nickname,” Pollux chuckled again, “the nickname, Castor and Pollux, the lovebirds!"

During the conversation Paul tried to put on his pants with one hand, while he stuffed a dry roll into his mouth with his other, as it was high time to go to class. Castor, however, did not stop teasing for a moment, "But now back to your Ganymede! Does he already know that you are the son of Zeus and therefore the deity’s legitimate successor? Did you explain him the story with the eagle? Does he know, you are head over heels into him?” "Shut up! You're just jealous! Your altar boys are certainly not as sexy as my Ganymede in his way too tight gym shorts! He's had grown out of those for at least a year! And! You know what, he doesn't wear briefs either!" "How do you know that? Have you undressed him? I can tell Eros has caught in his web!" when Pollux, aka Paul, didn't answer, "A few weeks ago you were sorry for yourself! I can still hear it! The village! Only countryside and farmers! And now???" Castor laughed into the phone, "When are you going to show me your little star, your Ganymede? I envy you! Here, in Hallberg, I'm surrounded only by altar boys in long choir shirts! I can only guess what they're wearing underneath."  "Bye! Carlo, aka Castor! Tomorrow you will get the latest information.  I have to hurry, classes start in a minute!"

******* 

Immediately after classes ended, Pollux wrote the letter for his Ganymede. Then he hopped on his Maxi, his beloved motorbike NSU Max (Neckarsulm Motor-company), and rode north to the town of Hallberg, where Carlo had recently become vicar to a parish. Forty minutes later, Pollux and Castor high-fived in front of the old castle building, hugged each other a long time, and disappeared arm in arm behind the cool walls in Carlo’s new home in the former castle. Another twenty minutes later, they both emerged from Carlo's bedroom, showered, and then raided the supplies in the refrigerator like hungry locusts.

"You owe me the inform….mat....ion about my compe…  titor!" squeezed out Carlo with his mouth full between two bites.  "Con? Competitor?" Paul almost choked with laughter and a chunk of roast nearly caught in his throat. "Did you choke?" snorted Carlo between two deep gulps from his wine glass, "Is your conscience bothering you or are you choking on the roast? I can't even leave you alone for six weeks without you are getting a crush on someone else." When Paul's head turned red, he teased further, "Did you hide something from me in your last confession, Pollux? You never confessed you are into little boys!" "Into little boys?" Paul flipped Carlo the bird, "You're still my favorite, Carlo, my Castor! Didn't I prove it to you time after time!" Paul leaned across the table and tried to kiss his friend. As he did not succeed because of the width of the table, he raised his right hand to swear, "Liking Magnus and seducing him is something else. I admit it, I like the little guy and when you get to know him, you will understand why!" Carlo could only shake his head in amazement, he had never seen Paul so enthusiastic. Therefore, he replied "But now I want to know why your Ganymede has enchanted you. Is he as cute as the statue of the young shepherd?" Paul shook his head, "Beautiful not, but…,” he hesitated, "alive! No better, he is full of life."

Later, as they waited for dinner at the Inn to the Red Oxen, and looked down into the valley from the castle hill, Paul returned to their conversation of the afternoon. "Magnus was the surprise at school. I haven't told you on the phone yet because I'm still ashamed of the impression I made on the class in my first lesson." As Carlo looked at him in amazement, Paul continued, "Believe it or not, the first time I stood in front of the class I had heart flutters. Have you ever been in a village school where you have to teach almost every subject? I was super nervous and curious at the same time. You can’t imagine how!” Looking up to the slowly darkening sky, “I was in front of the fifth-graders. In the back benches the bigger ones, in the front the smaller ones, on the left the boys, on the right the girls." Carlo toasted to Paul and chuckled with amusement, "I felt the same way here. My first chaplaincy! A supervisor I couldn't judge! Young girls and old women who curiously followed every of my steps critically. At the beginning of my first Mass, their whispering could be heard all the way to the altar." He sighed, "Fortunately, the men treated me like one of their own, that is, they just accept me. The altar boys are male, so I didn't need to be shy dressing up in the vestry. The only time I have to deal with girls is in the group lesson on Fridays." Carlo rubbed his nose, "Lucky for me, because when I run into one of the older girls on the street, they made moon eyes on me! I don't think she'd mind having a chaplain for boyfriend."

"Let's not deviate, Castor. Back to my first day of school!" Paul puffed out a breath, "The girls, yes, yes, the girls! They sat there stiff like puppets, rising obediently as I stepped into class, smiling sweetly at me. Of course, one or the other winked at me. The twelve-year-old there are sexually precocious and definitely more experienced in some things than the boys." Paul scratched his nose, "The boys, on the other hand, took forever to get up. Crooked and lopsided they stood there, both hands in their pockets, probably fiddling with their dicks. All seemed to be playing pocket piano out of embarrassment. The younger students mostly gazed anxiously at the holy cross on the wall behind me, as if expecting the Savior to climb down and help them. The older ones, at least some of them, stared challengingly into my face with an expression that was probably was meant to show, well, we can handle you! Don't even try to intimidate us!"

Paul looked through the window into the valley "I had to react quickly!" He smirked in amusement, "You know what they advised us to do at the university? First ask everyone their name, then let them tell you about their interests. From that you'll get the first impression of the students, of their ability and willingness to perform." He sighed, "I thought that would work everywhere, even in a village school in in the backcountry." Paul laughed dryly, "I landed on my butt, badly.”

“As soon as the first student told me her name, Hannele, I knew the plan had gone to shit. s'Hannele stuttered with excitement! She spoke the broad Lower Franconian dialect of the area and I understood only every second or third word. She had to help her "Moma", she had to cook, take care of the "Smoall-ones", but also "milk the cows" and "feed the chickens" and so on. “Don’t you have time to play or read a book?” Nooo! Reading? I don't do that at home. In school only. But I like to go to church and I like to sing!

"This went on, girl by girl, boy by boy. None of the girls, none of the boys spoke Standard German, all of them the Lower Franconian dialect! Only now and then did they add in bits of Standard German. If I didn't understand an expression and asked, the girls giggled and the boys quietly glared at me dolt. I continued, asking one by one, until all but the last three had told me their little life story. Then the bell rang for recess. But sill I had to ask the last three boys in the first row. Fortunately, all the students stayed seated."  Carlo was getting impatient. "When are you going to introduce me to your Ganymede?"  "In a second, in a second, just wait! The next two were named Stanislaus and Nikolaus, called Stani and Nikl. Both bore the family name, Petrovich. Brothers I thought, but not twins, because Stani was half a head taller than Nikl! Petrovich sounded Russian, so they were Russian-Germans. That was confirmed when they started talking, German-Russian pronunciation with a Lower Franconian accent."

Paul sighed deeply, but then his face brightened. "Magnus, aka Ganymede, was the last one. His family name was simple and plain Felden. I knew right away that he wasn’t native from Gondersdorf. The farmers here were called either Retzbach or Breitenbach, Keilbach or Klohe, Ziegler or Zürn. I was already bracing myself for the worst. Then the salvation! In dialect-free High German, Magnus began to list his interests, "Books!". Finally, someone who reads books, I thought. "Collecting fossils and feathers and whatever else interesting can be found outside." he gasped, "Photography!" Yes, he had a small camera. "Roaming around!" When I looked at him and asked surprise, "Roaming?" he stuck with the word, "Roaming, yes, out by the river, in the woods, especially where springs gush out of the ground, in the meadows in the valley, and in the fields when the shepherd leads his flock across the harvested fields in winter." Suddenly it burst out of Carlo, "Now I know why you have taken a shine to Ganymede, Pollux. With exception for the stuff with the sheep, it's you, exactly you as a student!" Then he poked Paul in the ribs, "So you discovered a kindred spirit on day one! That's right? And fell for him!" "Crush would be far too overstated. Better, I had discovered a glimmer of light in the darkness! Believe me, after that first hour I was exhausted and could have used a coffee. But I had run out of time and the bell was already ringing for the next class, PE. The teaching had to go on without interruption."

*******

If Paul's face had brightened when he began to talk about Magnus, it now seemed to glow, "The gym still in renovation, the soccer field was at the other end of the village, so only the big schoolyard was available for PE. What can you do in a schoolyard with gravel soil? Old teacher rule, if you don't know it yourself, ask the students. So out in the schoolyard I lined up the students and asked, "What do you like to play best? Suggestions!" "I bet the girls didn't make any suggestions! They were probably too scared." "No, you don't know girls well! From them came the first suggestions, "Tag, hide and seek, blind man’s bluff!" But the boys they immediately booed. Then one of the bigger ones shouted "Great Wall of China," another "The Emperor sends out soldiers," and a third "British Bulldog." Before I could make another decision, Magnus positioned himself in front of me, "Do you know the game British Bulldog? No? I'll explain it to you. You must act as the catcher. We are the enemies and we run around you. Then you have to catch one of us, lift him up and swing him in a circle. As soon as the caught touches the ground with his feet he becomes your helper and has to catch more enemies together with you. These become helpers, also. At the end of the hour, the party with more members has won, either the catchers or the enemies."

"And who did you grab first, I bet Magnus!" "Sure, he was right in front of me. I grabbed him up and twirled him in a circle. As I did so, I stuck my nose in his hair. There it was, I can't forget the smell. It smelled like yours the first time we tussled!"

*******

To be continued...

Posted 08/05/2022