"Yes. Feel free. I am very fond of God, and I do not think he minds, and if the English do, it is too bad for them."

"She and I have our differences." The main one being that She doesn't exist. ...well. Doesn't exist back home. Now that he thinks about it there might well be a God here. Well, if She wants to make Herself known to him She will do so and otherwise Pete will not concern himself with Her. "Though I'm pretty sure I would have objected to this even before that, I used to resolutely refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance back home."

"Ah, yes... you know, in Europe we point to your Pledge and say at least we do not have children stand there worshiping our flag, we cannot be so bad! We mostly say this to console ourselves about our own fascists. But it does make us feel better."

"It's the dumbest thing and I refuse to say things, and especially pledge things, when I don't mean them."

Anyway, now they're done with this and Pete gets to find out how classes work in England. Or, he guesses, in This Here English School.

Tintin shares his first class, so he can help with navigation!

"Interesting - you object to the, the falsehood of it, rather than to the simple fact that it is a brainwashing tactic? That is not an aspect I'd thought about, but it makes a kind of sense."

"Not rather than, more like in addition to, but since I am literally immune to brainwashing tactics the part that ranks the most to me, personally, is having to say false things."

Tintin looks disapproving. "Everyone thinks they are immune to brainwashing tactics, until it turns out that they have been brainwashed. But, yes. Being made to lie is also very bad."

"—sorry, I was just being flippant. I don't think 'everyone Pledges their Allegiance to the flag at the same time' worked on me, and I don't think praying here is gonna work on me for that same reason, is all I meant."

But also, like, he is in fact literally immune to brainwashing tactics. That was a power he picked. What he had been referring to was the fact that he was too much of a contrarian to want to pledge his allegiance to any flags but he very much is in fact immune to brainwashing.

"Well, I can agree with that. ...I am sorry if I said it too strongly. I do, sometimes."

He grins. "Don't worry about it, you can't scare me."

"I see - perhaps you are literally immune to being scared as well?"

"Would you take it as a challenge if I said that it's just that I think most people can't scare me?"

"Not a challenge. Perhaps a reassurance. I have... not always made friends, by caring so much about the things I do."

"Oh I'm all for people caring about stuff very much and very loudly, you're in good company. I'm..." Pause.

"...I'm a pink femboy in a skirt," he says, softly, because it might be the best way to communicate what he means. Or, at least, it's the most accessible, because he's having trouble finding another one.

"I will trade blows with any jackass who takes issue with my sex, and that applies to yours just as well. But it is not about breaking someone's teeth when they say something horrid. It is about meeting someone and thinking they are lovely, and thinking I might get on with them well, and then - shouting about their national traditions being protofascist, maybe - and seeing that I might not get on with them so well. Where it is not even, really, their fault. Maybe it is not even really mine. But... I say things too strongly, because I feel them too strongly."

"No, I know, what I mean is... I am going to be myself. Loudly. And do whatever I want to do. And you're going to be yourself, loudly, and... that might end up pushing some people away, sure, but then those are not people who would have otherwise stayed. Someone who will object to your—way of expressing yourself—how you feel—well, probably you wouldn't have actually been able to get on with them well, you know?

"But you can call my country traditions protofascist and have very loud, disagreeable opinions around me and I'll probably just think you're awesome actually."

"Well. Thank you. I could - there is some silly English word for just this but - I could argue with the little parts of what you say. But I think you are saying the important part right."

Why is he being given so many cute boys he wants to kiss and cannot. This is homophobia against him specifically.

"Nitpick is probably the word you want," he suggests.

"Nitpick! I suppose like the monkeys do? I like that, I think. It frames philosophy as a sort of monkey-to-monkey comfort ritual, which is not nearly so wrong as it could be."

They arrive, at this point, at their class.

Class is basically the same as it was at Pete's old school, except that the teachers are better-paid and the students wear uniforms.

And some of the students are a little bit more liberal with their uniform than others, n'est-ce pas ?

Yes, most students don't have their entire torso exposed. The teacher doesn't actually comment, though, just raises her eyebrows and teaches the class.

Unfortunately for Pete's budding image as a delinquent he is in fact pretty smart, and though he mostly picked classes that looked interesting that still probably won't make him fall behind in any way.

Very intelligent delinquents do exist.