AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Pick an article and copy it out.” I tapped on the paper with my biro. “And when you’ve done that, pick another. Until Mr Cartwright says you can go.”
Suspicious blue eyes flicked from the newspaper and back up to me. “Is that it? Is that all I have to do?”
I nodded. “Yep. Welcome to detention, King George’s style.”
In a posh, pretentious voice, I parodied the school prospectus. “We’re a progressive establishment. The educational ethos of the King George’s community is one of creativity. Teaching young adults of the future the importance of thinking differently, flexibly, and imaginatively. Giving them breadth of ambition. Discovering and realising the passions of every individual wherever they may lie. And if they find the term Ordinary Seaman funny, then our pupils waste hours of their time writing out pointless newspaper articles until their wanking hands drop off.”
Blond kid blushed and busied himself with the newspaper to cover his discomfort. “This is absolutely ridiculous,” he chuntered as he selected one out of a selection of stylish pens from his pencil case. “Surely they could have found a more productive use of my time. I could be finishing an assignment or an exam practice paper. Not this.”
“Are you going to get Daddy to complain?”
He blushed again. The thought had probably crossed his mind—posh folk were excellent at complaining. Sharp elbows, that was what Phil’s mum called it. I leaned forwards. “The thing is, mate, someone like you would enjoy doing an assignment or an exam paper, wouldn’t you? Detention isn’t supposed to be enjoyable; it’s supposed to be shit.”
With a huff of displeasure, he pulled a page at random from the middle of the broadsheet then proceeded to put pen to paper. Popping my reserve wine gum into my mouth, I then folded my arms across the desk, rested my head down on them, and closed my eyes.
His fountain pen scratched across the paper and then stopped. “Aren’t you doing any?”
“Nope.” The stuffy warmth and peace of the office was having its usual soporific effect. More pen scratching. “Aren’t you going to get into trouble?”
“Nope.”
In principle, Mr. Cartwright didn’t give a shit what we wrote or not, as I’d found out a few detentions ago when I’d handed him two sides of A4 listing every swear word I could think of. He’d laughed, torn it up, and offered me a wine gum. I wouldn’t share that nugget of inside knowledge with posh boy though—he could sweat it out with the financial section ofThe Timesfor a couple of hours.
Drifting in a sleepy haze, I listened to the rasp of his pen.Alex Valentine.Short for Alexander maybe.Alexander Valentine. I tossed the fancy name around my head a while. Matt Leeson sounded like he should be the substitute goalkeeper for fourth division Halifax Town. Or a lad in the ‘appearing this week at the Magistrate’s Court’ list of theStourbridge Star, arrested for nicking razor blades in Superdrug and fined twenty quid. WhereasAlexander Valentinewould be a BBC special correspondent, uncovering a story linking childhood cancer rates in a third world country with dumping of radioactive crap. He would save countless lives, earn himself an OBE and be gifted his own telly programme. Or some such shite.
“Well,” the kid fumed after about a quarter hour had passed. “I don’t agree with this political journalist one jot! I can’t understand how she could possibly even attempt to justify Thatcher’s position on trade sanctions against a South African governmental regime that supported apartheid.”
Yep, the Alexander Valentines of the world would grow up and change it for the better. The Matt Leesons would abuse it and then die unnoticed.Plus ça change, as Mme Tripot would say. Just under a year from now, he’d be swanning off to whichever august university was lucky enough to have him, and I’d be signing on at the dole office then swanning off to the pub with Brenner. Those perfect blond curls and clear blue eyes, which fifteen minutes ago I’d thought as pretty as a picture, now pissed me off enormously.
“This isn’tThe Breakfast Club, mate.” Although if it were, then I wouldsobe the sweary bad boy with the cool boots and the switchblade. Not sure about Alexander Valentine’s role though. Not the jock, because we didn’t have those in England, and, truth be told, I wasn’t one hundred percent certain what a jock was. But not the brain either—Alexander Valentine was far too pretty.
“Let me tell you how this works.” Affecting a languid drawl, I swept my gaze over his fancy pen and his neat handwriting. “You and me—we don’t chat about politics. We don’t bond over a mutual dislike of Margaret Thatcher. We just sit here and wait until Cartwright gives us permission to go. And then we fucking go.”
He eyed me warily from his side of the table, surprised by my outburst, and I glared at him until he turned back to his newspaper.
“Keep your hair on, I was only making conversation.”
Resting my head back down on my arms, I ignored him.
Mr Cartwright had either forgotten about us or died of boredom during his staff meeting. Restless and hungry after my snooze, I appropriated the remainder of the wine gums then clambered onto the desk and set the wall clock back twenty minutes—just for the hell of it. After that, I took a dump in the staff toilet next door and didn’t flush. Aside from an occasional, thin-lipped tut of disapproval, Alex Valentine overlooked my antics and covered eight sides of A4 in curly, girlish handwriting. As his belly let out an alarming growl, he folded the newspaper and flexed the fingers of his writing hand.
“You can eat the lime ones; lime sweets are Satan’s spawn.” I pushed the mostly empty packet of wine gums across the table towards him.
He shook his head. “No thanks.”
“You worried you’ll get into trouble?”
“No,” he answered defiantly. He’d removed his jacket and sweater, and his arms were folded across his regulation, plain navy polo-shirt.
“Eat them, then.”
He pushed the sweets back across the table. “No. I said I don’t want one.”
I shrugged. “Your loss.”
Reclaiming the packet, I fished inside for the last red one and popped it into my mouth. “Mmm.” I made a loud sucking sound.
“You’ve eaten nearly the whole lot,” he accused. “Do you know how much sugar that is?”
