Out: A Schoolboy's Tale

  5: We Can't Stop

  I'D been in the choir like forever, passing the audition in 2W with a piped rendition of 'The head that once was crowned with thorns', and I'd sung in Messiah, St Matthew Passion and The Creation. Now my voice having just about broken but not yet settled, I was like this slightly reedy baritone who couldn't get either the bottom register of the basses or the higher notes of the tenors, but singing was fun and helped my asthma 'cos of the breathing.

  Pushing through the massed ranks of gimpy trebles to the back of Perry's massive, marble-floored rehearsal room in the Britten Centre where Zippy Arnold and Bungle Gray were warming up with the Rainbow theme: 'Up above the streets and houses rainbow climbing high' and Paulus was trying to decide if he was a tenor or a baritone, I noticed Ali, on the same row, deep in conversation with a couple of other Sixth Formers, music editor of the school mag, Mike Holt from Rowntree, who had this like massive bush of curly black hair, and Jason Middleton, a tall, bland guy from our House.

  ''Hey, Rosie,'' I called, gulping a little, ''Didn't know you were a singer.''

  ''Sure,'' he drawled, ''Regular Pavarotti, me.''

  ''Pavarotti was a tenor,'' I began pedantically then blushed as Rosie laughed, Fred bawled at me to tuck my shirt in and sit down and Stewpot Stewart licked his finger and touched it to his cheek with a loud 'Tssss' to mock my redness. As I collapsed between Zippy and Bungle, who were now reviewing England's 4-0 win over Norway like Terry Venables and Chinny Hill, Paulus handed me the red Novello paperback score of Bach's St John Passion. I hadn't known Ali was in the Choral Society. I'd resolved during Sunday that I was just gonna treat him like anyone else, like Max or Gray or Collins. He was just a mate. Also Claire's father, sitting on the row behind with Hellfire, Wingnut and Don Donovan, smiled approvingly so I gulped and blushed again. Yikes. The head was, like, marrying me off to his daughter! In front of the whole damn choir, my mates and my teachers. Stewart was like pissing himself.

  As we began the opening chorus, 'Hail, Lord and Master,' and Arnold and I hit the forte crotchet B flat 'Hail' exactly on Perry's downbeat into Bar 19 then up a third to D then straining to a note none of us could comfortably reach at a double-ledger-lined E flat we grinned. Being a bass was fabulous. I counted a steady four-four beat through 'Show by thy Cross and Passion' and kept together, though Fred said we sounded 'agricultural.'

  ''I thought I'd wandered into the National Farmers' Union instead of this school's premier choir,'' he declared, singing 'boi thoi crorss and paaaashun' in a thick Zummerzet brogue. We laughed. Fred, for all his boringness as a teacher, was a brilliant musician who had persuaded Benjamin Britten to open this music centre. There was even a plaque.

  When we moved to chorale number 7 on page 26, 'O mighty love, O love beyond all measure,' I couldn't help it, I swear. I glanced at Alistair and my ears turned red as a fire-truck. Again. Now everyone went 'Tssss.' He just laughed, the twat.

  St John Passion was dramatic and exciting, with the chorus playing a range of characters, the mob baying for Jesus's blood, the crowd at the fireside confronting Peter, the disciples broken and confused at the foot of the Cross, and us, reflecting on the events from hundreds of years into a future. These restless, surging notes churning around in G minor in the lower strings on page 1, running for eighteen bars of introduction, serve like some prelude to an opera. There's this kind of tension like bubbling under the surface, you know?

  Sitting in front of us were three altos from 4D, super-singers with super-rich voices, two off the bus. Leo Trent was in Murray, like me, Ali and Paulus. A rather girly-looking kid, he had this floaty candy-floss butter-coloured hair, startling lilac eyes, a silver-wire brace on his upper teeth and a really cute, lightly freckled, slightly Labrador-shaped face. Very light, with fewer muscle-bumps even than me, he oozed self-confidence. Nick Shelton, the smouldering hottie, had a broad nose, freckles like a Jackson Pollock painting, coal-dark eyes and hair. Philip Brudenall was Graham's spectacularly cute wheat-haired, cornflower-eyed kid-brother, and given that Graham was a spoon-faced wobble-bottom, it was hard to believe they were related. None of them older than 14, they were gloating because they would be joined for the concert, which was in Lent term on March 31st, by the girls' school's contraltos.

  ''We'll get to know them really well,'' said Brudenall Minor, ''Then you losers'll be begging us to be friends with you.''

  He and Shelton got into a belching competition with Holt and Rosie which made us all laugh again, and drove Fred mental. Rosie, leaning forward, flicked Shelton's ears. Shelton responded by sliding his chair backwards into Rosie's knees.

  ''I was aiming for your balls,'' he grinned over his shoulder, ''But forgot you don't have any, being a woman and all that.''

  Holt collapsed into uncontrollable laughter. Rosie ruffled Shelton's hair merrily.

  ''For God's sake,'' roared Perry, ''You missed your entrance, altos.''

  ''Be thankful Rosie missed your entrance,'' Trent told Shelton brightly.

  ''All deliveries round the rear,'' cackled Brudenall.

  '' 'O mighty love' indeed,'' finished Shelton, and the altos howled again, especially when Brudenall gave us his latest poem while noisily playing slaps with Trent:

  There was a young man from Nantucket,

  Took a pig in a garage to fuck it.

  Said the pig with a sneer,

  'Get away from my rear,

  Come around to the front and I'll suck it.'

  Rosie reckoned they would be a load of fun to sit behind for the next six months. ''They're all mentalists,'' he said. ''You know Trent is playing the maid in the house-play? Guess what he says? 'At last I get to wear a frock!' Man, he's such a poof.''

  ''Yeah,'' I scoffed uncomfortably, ''Such a poof.''

  ''Really enjoyed Saturday, by the way. Thanks.'' He touched my arm.

  ''Me too.'' I felt myself redden like some fucking traffic light, and suddenly melt.

  Ash-tray, smiling warmly, said how much Claire had enjoyed herself. He even told Hellfire about my mushroom omelette and wicked impression of Kermit the Frog. Blushing so you could like fry an egg on my face, I just like stared totally tongue-tied at my toe-caps while Gray and Arnold, lurking behind the headmaster, grinned like idiots who'd lost their village.

  ''Maybe you'd like to come over for dinner again,'' Ash-tray concluded.

  ''Sure, sir,'' I mumbled. ''Thanks.''

  ''But next time, Jonathan, comb your hair, eh? Girls like that kind of thing, you know?''

  Dating tips from the headmaster. Someone just shoot me.

  Wingnut and Hellfire chuckled smugly. Gray slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand and mouthed 'loser' at me. Zippy Arnold mimed flicking spit at my face and going 'ssssizzle.' Those twatty little gaybies Trent and Shelton blew silent kisses and smirked. Rosie had gone. Feeling suddenly desolate, I scoured the crowd. He had definitely gone.

  ''Come on, Casanova,'' said Gray. ''Time for French, the langue de l'amour.''

  ''Claire knows all about his lover's tongue,'' Arnold cackled.

  ''Oh Claire, the moment I met you, I swear…'' sang Stewart.

  I told them all to sod off but secretly I was like really happy. This affectionate teasing was a sign of acceptance, of being one of the gang. I had a girlfriend and my classmates were happy, like I was happy when Arnold got off with Olivia and Gray with Becky. Although Claire being Ash-tray's daughter would bring extra ribbing, as it were, at least I wasn't a Billy No-Date saddo like Ferrety Fosbrook or a poofter like Poorly Paulus.

  ''So many careless errors,'' bawled Benjy. ''You're supposed to be the best brains in this poor bloody city, God help us, and yet, during a seven-week break, you appear to have forgotten every word of French you ever crammed into your tiny bird-brains. I am far from satisfied with your performance.''

  ''Bet he hasn't had a satisfying performance for years,'' whispered Gray.

  I stifled a grin.

  ''Peters! What's so funny?''

  ''Nothing,
sir.''

  ''Hundred lines. 'I must not laugh in class.' Have it tomorrow on my desk. And do your bloody collar up. You look like a tramp.''

  ''What's he gonna have with you on his desk?'' whispered Gray.

  ''That's two hundred lines,'' Benjy bellowed. ''You, at least, did tolerably well, pathetic, simpering idiot that you are. You scraped nineteen out of twenty.''

  Fuck. What did I get wrong? It was so easy. Wrestling with the grey shirt's top button, I fixed my eyes on the posters of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame that dominated Room 40's walls. As Ben lobbed the blue exercise book at me, he enumerated my classmates' scores bellowing ''Pathetic!'' each time, Walton 7/20, Fosbrook 9/20, Bainbridge 6/20.

  Bollocks. Duck. Double-bollocks. How could I forget 'canard'? Especially after Shelton's fabulous impression on the bus had made me laugh so hard I nearly puked. Even though I had the best mark in the class by miles, even better than Super-Swot Paulus's 15 (ha ha), I was annoyed I'd 'canaille' instead of 'canard'. You bloody fuckwit, I muttered.

  While I sat on the bus writing 'I must not laugh in class', I reckoned I'd have to write all the lines. Benjy was the kind of pedant who'd count every bloody one. At line 61, the bus braked sharply for some numpty on a zebra-crossing and a blue-black line juddered across the page. I swore bitterly, especially when Maxton jeered 'is it a bird, is it a plane, no, it's Super-Swot,' curled his fingers and thumbs round his eyes like glasses and went 'rrrrrrrrrrr' like a fucking aeroplane. Bollocks. I slammed the red rough-book roughly (ha ha) into my backpack. I'd do it in Blue Peter's report on their Malaysian expedition and Paddington Bear.

  I saw Ali Rose twice on Tuesday. First was in house assembly. He and the other prefects, Turner, Warburton and Sonning, lurked at the front with Mr Jackson and Rev Knight while I lurked at the back with Paulus and some other Upper Fifth Murray-ites, Kevin Lees, the violist from U5D and my Music set, North and Kemble from U5S, Rhodes, Eltham and Jeremy Whiting from U5B who were arguing about why the bowl of petunias created by the Infinite Improbability Drive had thought 'oh no, not again' as it fell through space (if you don't know, it's in Hitch-hiker's Guide). Sonning cut us off by clapping his hands so he could read us seven things the Lord detests, from Proverbs 6, verses 16 to 19, these being, for your information, ''a proud eye, a false tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that forges thoughts of mischief, and feet that run swiftly to do evil, a false witness telling a pack of lies, and one who stirs up quarrels between brothers.'' Then we stood up while he does this prayer of St Anselm, who I remembered from 3rd form RS had been Archbishop of Canterbury before falling out with King William Rufus, this being way back in 1093 when Wheezy Wally was a boy.

  ''O Lord my God,'' goes Sonning while I peered under half-closed eyelids at sallow, lanky North's rumpled grey socks and flat-headed Kemble's scuffed black shoes, ''Teach my heart this day where and how to find you. You have made and re-made me and have bestowed on me all the good things I possess, and still I have not yet done that for which I was made…''

  ''Rugby!'' I called when Warburton was recording the Games options. The usual jeering of Poorly Paulus and Lazy Lees opting for swimming was drowned by a chorus of catcalls as Whiting presented Sonning with yet another excused note.

  ''Got an allergy,'' he goes.

  ''Yeah, to fucking exercise,'' says North.

  Anyway, after Warburton blasted me for having my top button undone and ink-stains on my fingers (man, when I was in 2W I seemed to have ink-stains everywhere all the time), and I won two chunks of Yorkie by getting all 10 spellings in German right, even remembering the double t in enttäuschen, to disappoint, so swivel on that, Brudenall, though it made me sneeze like a mad monkey so everyone laughed and Stewart went 'It's his allergies' in this really wet voice, the melon-faced twat, I saw Ali again in the period before lunch when David Fosbrook and I were climbing the rickety wooden staircase up to the haunted bell-tower in the Eagles' Nest. He was telling me about Villeneuve's spectacular sixth-lap crash at the Italian Grand Prix. The whole back of the Ferrari was ripped off, and wheels went flying all round Imola. Apparently the Canadian Grand Prix on the 28th might decide the title for Williams and their Aussie driver. I wasn't really into motor racing, but thought I might watch that race, if only for Murray Walker's commentary and the possibility of another smash.

  ''I'd love to be a commentator,'' said Fosbrook. ''Especially on Test Match Special. All those cakes. Yum. I love cakes, especially fat choccy ones with coffee cream.''

  ''You could stand to eat a few,'' I remarked. He was even shorter and weedier than me, with tar-coloured hair, a furtive, ratty, acne-pitted little face, striking blue eyes and occasional eczema. ''But you gotta talk about pigeons, and trains, and cricket. All right, you know about trains, being a sad little anorak who like lurks around in the dark on station platforms like some pervy old flasher and writes the numbers down in a spazzy little book, but you know fuck all about cricket. I mean, you're like 'which end of the bat do I hold again?' Remember?''

  He'd actually asked that once, Fozzie. Hellfire, head of cricket and Fozzie's Brearley House tutor had just made this kind of choked noise, like he was being strangled, you know? Anyhow, we turned to Saturday's climactic episode of Doctor Who. For a programme that had started promisingly on Brighton beach with K-9's head blown off by seawater, it had wound up with scaly, green bug-eyed monsters disguised in human skin-suits and some madman attempting to clone an army of selves but getting thousands of identical Doctors instead.

  ''Imagine having thousands of identical twins,'' mused Fosbrook. ''It'd get so confusing. Mind you, it'd be really handy if no-one could actually tell who the real you was.''

  ''I don't suppose it'd be called a twin,'' I said, ''Not if there's more than two.''

  ''Clones?''

  I thought for a second. ''Twones! They'd be twones.''

  ''What the hell do we have to come up here for anyway?'' puffed Fosbrook.

  ''Get fit,'' I said censoriously. Fozzie was a notorious skiver, using his eczema and allergies to avoid most sports, except wanking, to which he was utterly addicted. ''Visit the ghosts. You heard about the skeleton they found under the stairs a few years' back? Some ferrety little Fifth Former, his blood sucked dry till his body collapsed like an empty balloon, blood drunk by the evil creatures who live in this old belfry, creatures of darkness that come out at night to spread misery and distress among the gimps…''

  ''Ha!'' Battering me with his backpack, he cried ''Herbidacious!'' and chased me up the wooden staircase trying to grab the tail of my blazer. Suddenly Rosie clattered towards us, taking the steps two at a time, his golden tie whipping over the black backpack on his shoulder, the bruise-black lock of hair flopping.

  ''Hey, Alistair!'' I cried.

  ''Hey, Jonny!''

  If I hurried, his seat by the radiator at the end of the second row under the massive poster of 'Your country needs you' (you know, the one where the guy with this massive fuck-off moustache points right at your heart) might still be warm but Fosbrook could not, apparently, simultaneously climb stairs and do his best Davros line - 'you, Doc-Torrr, the Grrrreat Exterrr-minatorrr, the man who keeps running 'cos he dare not look back' - and we ended up late. Worse, Phil 'Gutbucket' Gardiner had parked his lardy 20-zillion stone arse on Ali's chair and I had to sit at the front next to Poofter Paulus who smugly told me off for stopping to 'chat up' Rosie. This shocked me. Chat up? What did he mean, 'chat up'?

  ''I just said hi,'' I muttered.

  ''It's the way you said it,'' Paulus explained. ''There's 'hi', matter-of-fact, manly and butch, and there's 'hiiiiii', all breathy, girly and just a little bit, like, gay, you know?''

  Angrily spitting ''You mean you know, you great poof,'' I punched his arm so hard he yelped and focussed on filling in gaps in the Stalin Worksheet.

  'He was exiled,' I read, 'To Siberia for revolutionary activities and had gained fame writing for _______.' 'Pravda,' I wrote, meaning 'Truth'. 'He was a member of the Sovn
arkom and in 1922 became Secretary of the Communist Party. After Lenin's death there was rivalry between ___________ and Stalin for leadership of the Communist Party.'

  ''JP,'' hissed Fosbrook, ''JP, what's question 2?''

  I tutted. It was sooo easy. ''Trotsky,'' I mouthed. ''Got an ice-axe through the skull in Mexico City,'' I added for Paulus' benefit. ''KGB killed him.'' In the next section, 'Stalin introduced a series of ______________ in each of which the people were set certain targets in order to improve and extend the economy.'

  Yesss! 'Five Year Plans.' I knew that too. I grinned at Kitchener's fuck-off moustache.

  Paulus, smirking, drew a massive D on the back of my hand with a blue biro and put a little heart in the centre. I smacked him again, on the exact spot I'd bruised earlier, and made him cry, the stupid gay twat. Turned out to be a massive mistake. At lunchtime he produced this like massive plastic box of pasta in tomato sauce. Like bollocks. Gray tucked into this succulent tuna and cucumber baguette, a bag of pickled onion Monster Munch and orange juice. Maxton, the pizza-faced fucker, dug out this bloody great all-day-breakfast butty, Yorkie, bag of Doritos and can of Coke. These lunches made me drool like a starving dog as I nibbled one wholemeal Ryvita, two carrots, celery stick, one apple and some pumpkin seeds and necked a cup of water from the cloakroom tap. As Maxton mumbled through a massive mouthful of sliced egg and crispy bacon, that rabbit diet wouldn't keep anyone together.

  ''You'd be better off with a school lunch,'' Gray observed sagely. ''At least the custard would be like lagging for your ribs.''

  I pleaded with Paulus for a forkful. Grinning maliciously, he like made me shuffle on my knees across the dirty floor and bark like a bloody sealion before he forked like this microbe into my open mouth. I told him I hated him very much, and please, Master, could I have some more? What a cunt. Just 'cos he fancied Rosie, the poof. Grumpily, I chucked my sports bag over my shoulder and set off after Crooks and Collins for the Sports Fields a mile up the road. They'd taken their blazers off. I could see through Collins' white shirt the waist-band of these checky tartan boxers, NEXT in bold red letters on the black of the cotton, and through Crooks' a purple TOP MAN. Bollocks. Mine came from M & S. So uncool, right? Thanks, Mum.

  ''Yeah,'' Collins was saying, ''But his heart had stopped.''

  ''But if his heart had stopped, how was he alive?'' said Crooks, not unreasonably.

  ''He was Undead, you know? Alive but not alive?''

  ''Who's this?'' I said, dancing over a crack in the pavement 'cos step on a crack, you'll break your back, yeah?

  ''Some German spy they caught at the Cornmarket.''

  ''What?'' An answer I didn't expect.

  ''Yeah, he was like this zombie, right? Dressed in SS uniform and waving a Luger.''

  ''An' he was dead?''

  ''Yeah, yeah. They found his grave, like this empty coffin, the bloody lot.''

  ''So if he's like dead, right,'' goes Crooks, ''How's he walking about waving a Luger? If he's dead?''

  Collins clicked his tongue impatiently. ''Cos this virgin swore to marry him and save him from an eternity of being Undead, yeah? That sparked his brain into life.''

  ''But not his heart?'' I said.

  ''Fuck's sake, Jonny, he's a German spy, you know?''

  ''What's he doing in the Cornmarket?'' goes Crooks.

  ''Having a coffee,'' says Collins.

  ''A coffee? He's a dead man, his heart's stopped, he's gonna marry this virgin, he's all dressed up in his SS uniform, and he's having a coffee?'' I'm trying to clarify the narrative. ''In the Cornmarket? Downtown?''

  ''Sure. He's German. God Almighty, Jonny, don't you know anything?''

  ''What's this film again?''

  ''Bloody hell, Jonny, it's not a film, it was on the news. They killed him by prodding him in the spine with a stick. He just crumbled to dust.''

  ''What you just said,'' Crooks mused, ''Made absolutely no sense at all.''

  Collins just shook his head like we were scarecrows in search of a brain.

  The sports grounds were this vast patchwork of twenty green pitches with this massive two-storey, concrete long barn-like changing room which could easily hold a few hundred kids. Upstairs were these rows and rows of wooden benches and pegs on metal frames and some low-pressure showers of the lukewarm dribble variety, down these iron steps on the ground floor, the masters' changing room, all comfy chairs, kettle, telly, electric fire, steamy powershowers, the bloody lot. Sitting on a bench under my uniform, I was screwing a replacement-stud I'd scrounged off Arnold into a red and black Colt Patrick football boot - I'd already changed, navy shorts, green socks and green jersey, but had forgotten about the missing stud - I hadn't used the boots since March, after all – when a noisy burst of obscenities and a chorus of 'I'm having a bit tonight, tonight' by Jock Strap and his Swinging Ensemble preceded Stewart and Maxton into the changing room. Bob Stewart, a chubby guy with a melon-shaped head, permanently dry, chapped lips and shaggy dark-blond hair hanging to his eyebrows, battered some Lower Fifth kid aside with his holdall as he picked through bags, legs and blazers yelling how much he loved the smell of wintergreen in the afternoon.

  ''All right, JP?'' Maxton, pulling at his black and purple tie, collapsed beside me.

  Grunting, I tightened the stud with Arnold's spanner.

  ''My favourite game, rugby,'' he said, grumpily unbuttoning his grey shirt.

  ''Do something else then,'' I suggested.

  ''Like what?'' The Games options were fairly limited. ''Like swimming?'' Maxton hated swimming. He hated getting wet, but swimming was a good choice. You could stay at school for the full lunch-hour rather than walk the mile in the drizzle to the playing-fields, often as wind-swept, blasted and muddy as a First World War landscape.

  ''Swimming's for wimps and woofters,'' Stewart declared, ''Like Paulus and Huxley. Don't drop the soap in the shower, you know?''

  ''I've got a verruca,'' said Maxton. ''It'll keep me off swimming for weeks.''

  ''You could do cross-country,'' I said.

  ''That's a bloody stupid idea, JP.'' He levered his massive shoes off with his toes. ''Pounding through muddy woods in pouring rain is not my idea of fun.''

  ''Well,'' I pulled on my boot. ''You're stuck with rugby then.''

  ''Wish we could play footie,'' he said for like the gazillionth time.

  I'd been friends with Maxton for three years, although, apart from football, the Boomtown Rats and first-desk clarinet in the chamber orchestra, we seemed to have few common interests, though we'd been obsessive Top Trumpers in Lower School. He wanted to be an accountant or an actuary, something involving money and beginning with A. Despite living within a mile of each other, I'd never been to his house, or even to his birthday parties (March 21st) though he'd been to mine. His father worked at the uni, in admin or ICT or something. I'd only met him once, after a concert. Stewart's dad was a Chemistry professor at the uni. I'd never met him. Obviously.

  ''I'd rather play footie too,'' I said, ''But we can't, and anyway I quite like rugby.''

  ''When the fuck did you become a hearty?'' Max was struggling into his purple jersey.

  ''I like the game.''

  ''You mean you like sticking your head between boys' sweaty thighs,'' he grunted.

  Snarling at him to shut his face, I yanked on my boot-lace, which snapped.

  ''Fuck it!'' I swore, chucking it away. ''Bloody bastard laces have rotted.'' Now I knew, when it was too late, why Mum said I shouldn't keep damp boots in an airless plastic-bag for several months. ''I haven't got a bloody spare either.'' The remaining lace broke again so I was left struggling to tie these ragged, rotten, inch-long strands together. ''Fucking hell!''

  ''No need to snap.'' Stewart pulled his blue shorts over his chunky thighs.

  Maxton hooted again. ''I think your patience is a little bit frayed.''

  ''Stringing together so many oaths…'' Stewart reached for his yellow rugby shirt.

  I told them to sod off an
d stalked down to the pitch, metal studs clattering on the metal staircase, whilst my friends continued stringing together their rotten puns.

  Jim Wade, the Head of PE, divided us into teams according to our shirts, colours or whites. Our house colours were a rainbow assortment of Murray greens like me, Brearley yellows like Stewart, Goodricke purples like Maxton and Crooks, Rowntree pale blues like Gray and Tim Wilson, Leeman reds, Smeaton dark blues, Tetley orange and Firth browns. The white was just a boring training shirt and I'd left mine at home.

  ''Peters,'' he called. ''Whites.''

  ''I forgot it, sir,'' I said.

  ''God above,'' he said. ''Then you'll have to play topless.'' He had this totally bald, egg-like head, this like really scratchy-looking, chin-hugging black beard and legs that bulged like tree-trunks below his black shorts. Few people answered him back.

  ''Come on, sir,'' I said through the sniggers, ''Give us a break.''

  ''Like your lace,'' muttered Stewart.

  Elbowing him roughly, I pleaded with Wadey. I was weedy enough in the shirt.

  ''Come on, sir,'' cried Gray. ''It'll be like watching a plucked chicken running about.''

  ''Put you right off your tea, sir,'' added Maxton merrily.

  ''Remind you of your tea, sir,'' chortled Wilson.

  ''You'll confuse him with a post, sir,'' called Stewart.

  Why was I so fucking weedy? Won't someone just shoot me? Heaving this pained sigh, Wade told me to go scrum-half for the colours. Yes! Result! My favourite position! I could control the game from there. If I'd been topless on the Whites' team, I'd have probably shivered to death as full-back. So mega-result!

  Stewart's face lit up when he saw Matthew Robbins' portly shape on the other team.

  ''Oi, Robbins!'' he called. ''Why are you so fat?''

  ''Same reason you're so ugly,'' Robbins returned. ''Inherited genes.''

  This time I laughed.

  ''I think you need to lose some weight,'' said Stewart.

  ''I think you need a punch in the face,'' said Robbins.

  They were facing each other as opposing tight-head props.

  ''Cheeky sod,'' said Stewart. ''Did you hear that, JP?'' He was actually hopping with fury. ''Did you hear what he said? He threatened me. Threatened me! Go over and belt him one.'' Shaking him off irritably, I told him to go over and belt him himself.

  ''Stewart!'' shouted Wade. ''Stop acting like an idiot.''

  ''What makes you think he's acting, sir?'' said Robbins cheekily. Stewart's eyes bulged in their sockets.

  As the match unfolded and we went three-nil ahead from a penalty-kick, Stewart and Robbins traded insults and, when the first scrum came, seemed to be clawing each other.

  ''Pack it in,'' I said, slapping Stewart's back. ''Ball coming in… now.''

  Chucking the ball under the front-row's boots, I scurried round the back as the scrum heaved forward to collect the pick-up. The number eight held it momentarily with his studs then I had it and, twisting sideways, hurled it out to Wilson who raced away up the line.

  ''Good scrum, Jonny!'' cried Wadey, jogging after the backs.

  I chased upfield too as Wilson touched down for a try. Yesss! I flung my arms in the air, yelled my congratulations and high-fived him. Unfortunately, Stewart, nominated to kick the conversion, missed. Badly. We watched the ball sail high and wide of the post.

  ''I could kick myself for that,'' he snarled furiously.

  ''Better let me do it,'' Robbins remarked. ''You might miss again.''

  But for Maxton holding his arm, Stewart would have gone for him there and then.

  ''You should keep an eye on those two, sir,'' I advised Wadey. ''Could be trouble.''

  ''It's all right, Jonny.'' Wadey rubbed his scalp. ''They're not going to kill each other.''

  Lining up for the re-start, I shook my head doubtfully whilst Wilson was telling Stewart to leave Robbins alone.

  ''I can't stand him,'' Stewart spat viciously, ''With his stupid curly hair and his stupid fat face and his stupid bloody glasses. Stupid fat twat.''

  ''It isn't his fault,'' Wilson explained, ''He's got a medical condition.''

  ''Yeah,'' shouted Stewart, ''It's called Being Fat.''

  ''Should stop eating,'' advised Maxton, ''Then he'd get better.''

  ''Scoop his insides out and solve the housing crisis,'' I suggested through the laughter.

  ''You're not exactly a heavyweight yourself, are you, Jonathan?'' said Wilson.

  ''More like featherweight,'' said Stewart. ''What's lighter than a feather, Tim? Molecule or something?''

  ''Supermite,'' grinned Maxton, ''The Bionic Midget. Watch out or he'll bite your knee.''

  Ha bloody ha.

  The ball came to me from a ruck and I kicked it upfield as a forward crashed into me, knocking me flying. Winded, I watched Crooks catch the ball on the bounce, swerve round the full-back and touch down for another try. He was awesome. Grinning, he waved at me and called something about the Ginger Ninja striking back. I laughed.

  ''Concentrate!'' bellowed Wade at the opposition. ''You're playing like a load of pansies. Who'll take the kick?''

  I volunteered. Maxton muttered I'd turned into a keeno. Bollocks to him.

  It was about sixty degrees and twenty yards. Digging a hole in the pitch with my heel, I placed the ball and took six strides back and, because I was left-footed, to the right. My team was lined behind me, the white-shirted opposition lined between the posts. I looked up at the target, took a deep breath and, running in, chipped the ball at its base. Rising smoothly and steadily, it sailed dead-centre through the posts, clearing the bar by several yards for my first-ever conversion.

  ''Good job, Jonathan,'' said Wade approvingly as Gray and Wilson patted my back.

  ''Bloody keeno,'' muttered Maxton.

  I was having a great afternoon so I decided to ignore the simmering Stewart-Robbins tension and throw everything into the game. Chucking myself at Coleman's massive thighs, I got my shoulder behind his knee to haul him to the ground.

  ''Great tackle, Peters!'' cried Wadey, blowing his whistle for a scrum.

  ''Come on, pack!'' I smacked Maxton's shoulder. ''Down!''

  ''Touch!'' shouted Wadey. ''Engage!''

  The front rows locked. I slapped Stewart's back.

  ''Ready? Ready? Ball in … now!'' Hurling it into the middle again, I bawled ''Push!'' at the top of my lungs. Back-heeled out, I seized the ball and charged forward, head down. Someone blocked me. I twisted as another player shouldered me in the ribs. I was trying to set up a rolling maul.

  ''Bind! Bind!'' I cried as Gray arrived to help me out. Another player jumped in and, as I went down, I somehow squirreled the ball to Stewart who set off towards Robbins. He ran right over him. Then Robbins caught him round the neck and jabbed an uppercut into his face.

  ''Sir! Sir!'' Wilson was calling for a foul.

  Coleman, kicking for touch, won a line-out.

  Crooks chucked the ball, Gray jumped and palmed the ball to Wilson who passed it to me, yelling ''Go, Jonny, go!''

  I froze for moment, racked with indecision. Should I pass or should I kick it? Or run?

  ''Don't dither like a fairy, boy!'' yelled Wadey. ''Run!''

  I was off like a hare from a trap, sidestepping one, two, three tackles. Someone crashed into me but I fended them off with my forearm and flung myself across the line. The team went berserk as I got shakily to my feet. My first-ever try.

  ''Fantastic!'' Gray hugged me wildly. ''Absolutely fantastic. Jonny, fucking awesome.''

  Mr Wade smacked my back, saying ''Game of your life, Jonny, game of your life.''

  Then, at the next scrum, the focus shifted back to this stupid Robbins-Stewart feud.

  ''Crouch!'' cried Wadey. ''Touch! Engage!''

  The punches flew when Stewart collapsed the scrum. As Wadey blew for a penalty, Robbins was up and kicking Stewart in the chest, his face twisted in a rictus of anger. Jumping in, I pushed him away but his swinging arm
landed a haymaker under my left eye. Wadey was there now, seizing Robbins and Stewart roughly by the collars, one in each massive ham-shank hand, shaking them angrily like a dog with a chew-toy.

  ''Bloody kids,'' he shouted. ''Get off the field and don't come back.'' Gingerly I touched my face. Swelling up, it was stinging like fury. Wadey pulled my hand away. ''You'll have a shiner in the morning, Jonny,'' he said. ''Better get some ice on it. Go to the teachers' room.''

  ''Sir…'' I started jigging about, really agitated. ''I'm all right. I want to play.''

  ''There's some ice-packs wrapped in cloths in the fridge.''

  ''Aw, siiir…''

  ''Don't argue, Jonathan,'' he snapped. ''Just go.''

  Tears of fury swelled in my eyes. I'd been playing so well and enjoying it so much and my stupid friends had spoiled it. As I turned to trudge dejectedly back to the changing-room, Wadey dropped a heavy hand on my shoulder.

  ''That's the best game of rugby I've ever seen you play. Truly outstanding.''

  ''Will I make the Colts, sir?''

  ''We'll see.'' Rubbing his beard, he scanned me quickly. ''You'd need to bulk up a bit.''

  Decoded, you're like too skinny to play for the school, yeah? So stop eating Ryvita and carrots and get some carbs inside you.

  Tim took my arm. ''Jonny, you were like awesome, man, absolutely awesome!''

  The grin hurt my swelling face. ''So were you, mate,'' I said, touching his shoulder.

  Pressing the ice-pack to my cheek and slumping on a bench, I tugged off my boots and socks and knocked dried mud off the studs by bashing the soles on the concrete floor. Stewart and Robbins were being bawled out by Hellfire. Served 'em right, the childish bastards. Then I heard the hearties, Lewis, Arnold, Brudenall and Seymour:

  'Twas on the good ship Venus, you really should have seen us,

  The figurehead was a whore in bed, and the mast was a massive penis

  Hurriedly I dressed so they wouldn't laugh at my body.

  Tim having gone off with Charlie Rix and his mum who'd come to collect him, Maxton and I shared a cigarette on our way to the bus-stop. I didn't really like it. The smell clung to my hair and the smoke curled into my eyes and made them sting. Maxton had started smoking in the summer. When he and Stewart sloped off to Sweaty Betty's to play Space Invaders, they also stopped in the park for a smoke. They thought they were adults 'cos they could do smoke-rings. I thought they were twats, but that didn't stop me like taking a couple of drags off his Marlboro Light as we discussed Stewart's spazmoid antics.

  ''He'lI be on running for the rest of term, or swimming,'' I said.

  ''With the wimps and the woofters.'' Maxton passed me the tab-end. He was already a lanky six foot four. I wondered what we looked like standing together on the kerb.

  ''Do you really think Paulus is a woofter?'' I wasn't really sure what one was.

  ''No doubt about it. Just look at him. Camp as tits. Look at those shoes. He's got buckles, for fuck's sake. Golden fucking buckles. Fucking hell. And he plays the 'cello.''

  ''Huh?'' I drew on the half-smoked ciggie. God, I really hated it.

  ''Hard woody instrument pinned between his moist, quivering thighs.''

  ''What does that say about us?'' I said. ''With hard woody instruments in our mouths.''

  ''Unlike you,'' he said, ''I don't imagine I'm giving mine a blowjob. 'Oh, Andy, Andy, I just love your hard woody between my lips.' '' He snorted with laughter as I smacked him on the arm and told him to shut up. ''Come on, Jonny, lighten up. I'm only teasing. If I really thought you were gay, I wouldn't be sitting anywhere near you.'' Flicking the tab-end into the gutter, he flagged down the number 9. ''Course,'' he added as I fished my bus-pass from my inside pocket, ''You'll never get a bird, not with your greasy hair and orange teeth. Not even my sister likes orange teeth.'' His sister, Jane, didn't like me anyway. She was in the Sixth Form at the girls' school and apparently thought me 'too cocky by half.' I thought her boring.

  Coughing irritably, I hoisted my backpack and followed him through these crumbling grunters to the back where he could put his clown-size 12s on the seats without being seen.

  ''Let's have a look at this history prep then,'' he said.

  Which meant 'lend me your history book, JP, and I'll do your Maths for you.'

  'How did Stalin rule Russia?

  1. Dictatorship – head of the Communist Party – only party in Russia.

  2. Secret Police – liquidation of enemies and dissenters.

  3. Censorship – newspapers, speech, religion

  4. Nationalisation – industries and agriculture

  5. Military strength – army increased and improved.'

  ''Christ,'' yawned Maxton, ''This is sooo boring. And you wanna do this for A Level?''

  At least it makes sense, I grunted. And if I was Stalin, guess what I'd do? Yep, same as you, but to different people! I pulled The Chrysalids from my backpack.