Children of all types can be caustic and cruel to someone with an affliction, and Sebastian's peers were no different. It had started when he went to kindergarten, soon after he had come to the country, and the torment continued into junior school. They saw the remnants of his harelip, the tight scar running from nose to the top lip. More apparent were the tufts of black hair interspersed with bald patches where Sebastian had, over many months, tugged at his hair till it parted from his scalp, and then he ate the coarse threads. His compulsion had left him with a head full of scars and scabs. It got to the point where his hair would never grow back again in certain areas.
Sebastian was not one of those children who crumpled and ran to Mummy at the first sign of bullying. It was not in his nature to go to the school and seek help from people in authority, those who were supposed to stop this type of behaviour, but seldom did. Sebastian was a shadow child in the school, with neither friends nor confidants. He kept himself to himself. Sebastian was living in a dual world. There were the typical school relationships, and there were his, which were mainly fantasy. It was inevitable that the two worlds would collide someday.
One of the children who liked to belittle Sebastian was Geraldine Mills. She was a beautiful little girl with red hair, who also happened to be a bundle of trouble, a remnant of her Gaelic ancestry. Geraldine said what she thought, regardless of any fallout, be it a teacher or, more often, those classmates who were not in her little clique.
"Tufty, scabby, train-line lip," they would spit out at Sebastian, along with racial abuse.
Sebastian was not angered or perplexed by the taunts, which predominately emanated from Geraldine or one of her many friends. Sebastian was unemotional; he could detach himself and almost watch over the events as if he were an observer. The confused and angry boy did not blame the other children, as he disliked himself intensely, and often wished he had never been born. While immune to the insults, the bullies stuck out as people he notably did not like, and ones he wanted to hurt. Just the thought of it gave him pleasure.
A few short weeks after Sebastian began to give in to his fantasies, he wanted more realism. One day, he put a dead, dissected rat in the school satchel of Mike Mayer, a boy in one of Geraldine's cliques, and put it back in his locker. He waited excitedly to the side of the cabinets at the end of the school day and enjoyed the screams when the boy opened the bag and proceeded to wet himself.
It was time, Sebastian knew, to elevate the game to the next level. Mitzie was a black Labrador puppy that had been brought to school by Gwen Childs, a particular friend of Geraldine's, and one of Sebastian's chief tormentors. The puppy had extracted the oohs and ahs of the gathering schoolchildren. It brought out a universal outpouring of love that Sebastian found strange; in his country, it was a delicacy. He crept into Gwen's garden and had the puppy in his arms and away in a matter of seconds. He returned it that night and laid it out on their lawn. They never did find the puppy's head.
Hank had noticed that Sebastian had some strange oddities about him from an early age, but he also had talent. He could play Hank's small upright piano and pick up tunes just by listening. Hank insisted Sebastian go to music lessons every Saturday.
Hank enlisted Sebastian in a karate class held each Tuesday as well. He was wise enough to know a Eurasian boy with limited social skills may well need to defend himself as he progressed through the schools in the area.
Sebastian took to the piano and astonished his musical tutors with how quickly he could pick up tunes from listening, as well as his grasp of reading music. It was not long before he was singing in his local choir.
Sebastian's piano teacher, Miss Jenkins, would generally limit her lessons to the genre of Elton John or John Lennon, with Imagine being her favourite song. She made an exception for Sebastian. After hearing an advert on television, he gave a passable rendition of Bagatelle in A Minor, played at a moderate speed. The piece was not excessively challenging, but there are some slightly tricky runs in the last half. Sebastian played it note-perfect. From that day on, she introduced him to a variety of pieces from classical composers: Bach, Mozart, Schumann, Chopin and Beethoven.
Sebastian's all-time favourite was Wagner, who happened to have been Adolf Hitler's favourite composer as well. He could play the piano section of Das Rheingold, which is the first opera in the cycle of operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen. By the age of nine, he was starting on the second Siegfried.
Sebastian's talent enraptured Miss Jenkins, and very soon she was giving extra sessions, for which she did not charge her normal feet. She saw past his inept social skills and felt he expressed himself through his music.
Sebastian played in front of his school and won the school's talent show. Geraldine amended her taunts to, "Sissy, Chink, and scabby dog." She had no intention of relenting from her harassment.
Hank McKenzie decided to return to the United States. It was not an easy decision, but one he thought necessary, after a young girl from Sebastian's school went missing.
There was the intense activity of the police investigation; the questions and suspicion not only fell on the classmates of Geraldine Mills, but her parents, grandparents, and neighbours. This unfortunate episode changed the balance of the community,
