Chapter 3 - The Elementary Years

At five years of age Michael stood outside the doors to The Candy Mountain Doris Day Elementary School. That morning he had cried after having had He-Man: Defender of America turned off by his mother and being led out to the bus stop. He had kicked and screamed as Minerva pushed him up the steps of the big yellow vehicle. To the shock of all on board and the other mothers in the street he threw his brown paper bag to the floor, from which rolled his apple. He stared through the window as the bus pulled away in a cloud of black smoke, tears in his eyes. As Minerva watched her son trundle down the road she gave a sigh of relief that America had not signed the Kyoto Treaty, otherwise she would have had to walk him the 100 metres to school.

Michael, thirty seconds after having taken his seat, was pushed to his feet and out onto the sidewalk [pavement] where he stood before the doors. Mrs. Applebank describes his first day:

"I watched from the bars of the class window as all the children ran into the building, but one little boy, Michael, was stood staring up at the stairs crying. I went outside and led him inside and once he'd been through the metal detector and the security guards had frisked him we found out which class he was in and it turned out he was in mine. So I showed him to the classroom and he just stopped in doorway. Now, I thought he was crying again, but he wasn't, he just stared and stared and I couldn't for the life in me think what he was staring at and the kids were all at their desks nervously quiet and they looked at him. And then he walked to the corner of the room where the flag was and he just stood staring up at it. I walked over to him and asked him if he'd like to take a seat and he looked at me and then back at the flag and then back at me. Then he pushed back his little shoulders, nodded once and took his seat. He sat up very straight and watched for the rest of the class."

Minerva explains what happened when Michael arrived home:

"The change was incredible. He got off the bus very happy and I asked him how he'd gotten on and he said 'I pledged alligance to the flag.' And that was that. The next morning he took his lunch and an extra apple for Mrs. Applebank and got on the bus with a light in his eyes."

Michael worked hard at school so that America would be pleased, studying his times tables every night and practising for spelling Bs (despite the fact it being only one letter). On one occasion Michael was working so hard that he wet himself.

"Bless him, it was so funny," says Mrs. Applebank. "He was writing about the White House and he was writing so hard and being very careful with his handwriting and he wanted so much to finish it that he just sat there and let it flow."

It was during his time at Candy Mountain Doris Day Elementary School that Michael met Karen, his first love.

"It all began when we were sat in class," tells Karen. "I sat on the second row, behind Michael, and one day he turned around and asked if he could borrow my red Crayola for the stripes on his picture of the flag, because it had to be the perfect shade. He didn't want to offend the flag. So I gave it him and he began coloring [colouring] it in and I remember after a few seconds he turned around and starting yelling at me, like it was so stupid, he said it was too dark and that his picture was ruined. I'd never seen him like that, he was usually so quite, but it was like his eyes had almost gone red, as though he were demon possessed or something. I remember the whole class went silent as he shouted at me and threw the Crayola at me. I couldn't believe it. Mrs. Applebank sent Michael to the principal [headmaster] and that was that. But later in the yard [playground] he came up to me and apologised and told me that he'd done it because he liked me. So after that we started holding hands and sharing our sandwiches at lunch, but the other kids mocked us and sang about us sitting in trees and laughed and I was fine with that, but Michael wasn't. Could have been First Lady by now."

Michael indeed disliked the mockery and quickly ended his brief relationship with Karen.

The future President's weekly visits to Church with his parents did little to help him develop his knowledge of Christ as the preacher continued his single word sermons, but he did enjoy the hymns and squeaked away with the choir women as they sang Amazing Grace and Oh Happy Day every week. His television tastes also changed and when he was not reading books about politics and The Candy Mountain Gazette he watched The West Wing and could often be heard shouting criticisms at its inaccuracies. Minerva explains:

"We tried to tell him it was just a TV show, you know, fiction, but he said that fiction should represent reality and we could always hear him shouting 'No, that's so wrong', or 'The President wears Armani suits, not Prada'. He knew a lot about politics, but we never thought he'd make it to the White House, oh no."

"I remember Michael very fondly," says Mrs. Applebank. "He was a nice boy, quiet, worked very hard."