JAMIE, Naked In School, Chapter One

Introduction by Prof. J.D. Reynolds, B.A.(Hons), M.Sc., Ph.D.

It started with a knock on my door. Since the program started I have
deliberately made myself much more available to my students, not just
the "proggies" as they have come to be known, so this wasn't unusual.
When I opened the door, it was even less unusual as the face that
greeted me was Shelley. Shelley was one of the first students in the
program and since her rather traumatic week in the program she had
made it her mission to make me laugh as often as she could. She had
decided that I was far too serious.
I had a lot to thank her for. It was her more than anyone that made
me decide to stay after the inquiry back last summer. It was also her
that, more than she will ever know, helped me recover from the tragic
death of Elaine. No matter how sad you were, and others have said
this too, Shelley had a way of cheering you up, even if you didn't
actually want to be cheered up at the time.
She also seemed to have a way of making things happen, even if she
wasn't directly involved. A catalyst, one of her many friends had
called her, a title which she made her own with her usual enthusiasm.
So it was unusual to see her with a very serious look on her face.
"Shelley? Is something wrong?"
"Can I sit down?"
"Is it Heather?" I asked, referring to her older sister. "Is she okay?"
"It's not Heather. She's okay, I think. She's so busy now I don't
really get to see much of her." For a moment a sad and wistful look
crossed her face. I felt a slight pang of guilt. Heather was a
rising star in the field of hard-hitting television documentaries, a
career which I had helped to open up for her. Knowing that Heather
still had her own issues to deal with, I sometimes wondered if I had
done the right thing.
So it wasn't Heather. But seeing the worried look on her face, I
asked urgently "Is it Sam? Susie? Laura? One of the boys? What's her
name? Tara?"
A brief smile at the last name. "Tara's okay. I miss her though."
Tara was, although it is difficult to put a label on their
relationship, Shelley's girlfriend. She also lived hundreds of miles
away and worked as a prostitute.
"The others are okay too, well I don't know about Sam. We don't hear
from her now. Even Laura doesn't." Again, the sadness in her voice,
this time with a touch of anger. Sam Townley, or Samantha Downing to
give her her correct name, had also been one of my first program
students. She was now a huge singing star, and sadly, it seems to
have gone to her head as she had left her friends far behind and, it
appears, forgotten.
"So what's with the worried face?"
A slight teasing look, "If you'll shut up and let me tell you, you'll
find out."
Shelley or not, I would normally have reprimanded her for her
rudeness, but the worried look had returned. I shut up.
"It's Jamie Forester."
Jamie Forester. Such a tragedy and one nobody seemed to know how to
help. It was typical Shelley that she'd be concerned. Jamie's
parents had been separated. She'd lived with her mother in the
outskirts of London, I forget exactly where. Her mother, from what I
had been told about her, was a very driven personality, and had
encouraged and even pushed Jamie to be a success. And a success she
had been.
She had the UK schools record for high jump and long jump, an almost
unique achievement. She lived for her athletics, and so did her
mother. Virtually certain to go on to greater heights, her dreams had
come crashing down, literally.
They had been returning, late, from a running meet, when her mother's
car went off the road. Nobody knows why as there were no other
vehicles involved. It plunged into a wood, coming to a stop when it
hit a tree head on.
The forest it had plunged into had hidden the accident from sight.
It wasn't until daylight the following morning that the car was
discovered. Jamie's mother was dead and Jamie seriously hurt.
The inevitable newspaper stories had told the world how Jamie's
mother had lived for several hours after the crash and how Jamie's
career had come to such a tragic and sudden end. Jamie was crippled,
her dreams of glory over. Nearly six months in rehabilitation had
made her able to move herself around in a wheelchair, but she would
never walk again.
She found herself living with her father, who she had only seen for
occasional weekends for the previous five years. He was as supportive
as he could be, and finally accepted the doctors' advice that she
should return to a "normal" school. When he came to see me, I had
been impressed with the man, but Jamie apparently wasn't.
"I had opposed the way her mother concentrated on her athletics
career," he had explained to me. "And now she seems convinced I'm
glad this has happened as I've got what a wanted."
"I'm sure she doesn't think that," I had responded.
"That's what she says."
"People say a lot of things when they are hurt or angry," I reminded
him. "Just hang in there. She needs you."
"She doesn't seem to need anyone," he had responded bitterly.
"Everything is my fault. So the doctors' suggested that she need
reintegrating into normal life. Hence this visit."
I had been glad to take Jamie, but I'm not so sure about the
reintegrating. She got herself to lessons, where she did okay if not
brilliantly, then waited to be picked up afterwards, and nothing more.
From all that I had heard, she didn't socialise at all.
"Dr. Reynolds?" My train of thought was interrupted by Shelley's voice.
"Sorry. Yes. Jamie Forrester. What about her?"
"I think you should put her in the program."
"The program?" I looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe she was.
This was Shelley after all.
"It's all about participation," she explained. "And since she's
come, she doesn't."
"Doesn't what?"
"Participate. In anything."
"She manages okay in her lessons," I pointed out.
Shelley looked at me as though I was the student, and a rather dim
one at that, and she was the head teacher. "She has no friends. She
doesn't seem to want any. She makes out everything is fine, but it
isn't."
I didn't dispute that. Some of my staff thought the same. And even
if they didn't, after Shelley had been the only one to spot that there
was something badly wrong with Theresa a couple of months ago, I was
inclined to trust her sensitivity.
"So why do you think the program will help?" I asked.
"It's all about participation," she explained. "It doesn't let you
avoid people."
An understatement if there ever was one.
"I'll be I the program for another week if you like."
That was the Shelley that everybody knew. She'd loved the program
and took every opportunity to try to get me to put her back in it.
Most students in the school, even after reading about her week in the
program, still tended to think of Shelley as being a sex-crazed
teenager who thought of not much else.
While she is a sex-crazed teenager, there's no denying that, she let
just a few of us see the serious and sensitive girl inside. I count
myself as one of those privileged few.
But she had presented me with a decision. Could the program really
help Jamie Forester? Or would it drive her deeper into herself?
"I'll think about it," I answered Shelley.
"Putting Jamie in the program, or me?" she teased.
"Yes," I answered as I showed her out. Shelley isn't the only one
that can tease.
When she had gone, I went to my computer, still trying to decide what
to do. Jamie was socially isolated by her own choice. While the
program would force changes in that isolation, I honestly couldn't see
the program helping with the rest of the obvious turmoil below the
surface of my newest transfer student.
But Shelley had been right with Theresa, when nobody else was, and
even I hadn't believed there was anything wrong.
With more than a little trepidation, I clicked the mouse and added
Jamie Forester's name to the program list for the following week.