Out: A Schoolboy's Tale



  O♥T:

  A Schoolboy's Tale

  David Brining

  Copyright © David Brining, 2015.

  All rights reserved.

 

  Contents

  1. Feel This Moment

  2. Can't Get You Out of My Head

  3. Walking on Sunshine

  4. Laserlight

  5. We Can't Stop

  6. Every Time We Touch

  7. Live while we're Young

  8. War Baby

  9. Bad Romance

  10. I Will Survive

  11. Sexy Boy

  12. It's a Sin

  13. Raining Men

  14. Give Me Just a Little More Time

  15. Up All Night (To Get Lucky)

  16. We Found Love (in a hopeless place)

  17. On a Night Like This

  18. Edge of Glory

  19. Tears on My Pillow

  20. Red Letter Day

  21. Take Me to the Other Side

  22. I Don't Care

  23. Haven't You Heard?

  24. Who Wants To Live Forever?

  25. I Am What I Am

  26. Beautiful Ones

  27. Chain Reaction

  28. Everybody's Free

  29. Forever and Always

  "May you of a better future, love without a care and remember we loved too. As the shadows closed in, the stars came out.''

  Derek Jarman, At Your Own Risk, 1992.

  ''Reach for the stars; and when that rainbow's shining over you, that's when your dreams will all come true.''

  S Club 7, 2000.

  Out is a work of fiction and any resemblance of people, places or institutions to actual reality is entirely and unintentionally coincidental.

  About the author

  The author has lived and worked in several different countries and has been, variously, a camel jockey, a tennis coach, an underwater photographer, a motivational speaker, an opera singer, a pantomime dame, a cat-sitter and a ghost-buster. He is the author of Tombland Fair, A Teenage Odyssey, J, Yo-yo's Weekend, Dead Boy Walking and Out.

  For Kate in Bristol who suggested the need for this book and George in Sheffield who needed it most.

  1: Feel This Moment

  YOU would not believe what happened at the tennis club. When I say tennis club, please don't think this is some poshed-up, Pimms-drinking, Panama-wearing, toffee-arsed effort. No, it's like this bunch of scruffy courts tucked into some corner of this park my Dad used to work in? About ten minutes' walk from our house, you know? But the council calls it a club, so they can like charge you a quid for playing there, I guess.

  Anyway, so I was with Tim Wilson, right? My oldest friend and spit-brother. You know. Where you spit in your palm and then like shake hands? We went back years, you know? I mean, like years, man, like all the way to Primary Three, and we'd like moved together aged 11 to the local grammar school when we passed the scholarship exam. His dad was this dentist but his mum, who my mum called a social climber 'cos she came from some place in London called Saint Reatham wanted him to go one better and be like an actual proper doctor? He was really good at Science and Maths and that kind of stuff and had this caring, compassionate thing which went 'I can see you're unhappy. Why don't you tell me about it?' Unfortunately he would then refer you to Doctor Jesus but I'd known Tim for years and, as I said, he was my spit-brother, so what could I do, eh? Especially as I suspected that once he actually became a doctor it might go 'I can see you're unhappy. Take a pill from my latest pharmaceutical supplier.' And I'm not talking Es, right? He'd even got himself this girlfriend during the holiday, for God's sake, some woolly-hatted, tambourine-bashing nitwit with flaxen pigtails and massive round specs called Holly or Hilly, something beginning with H. They went to the same Bible Study, so obviously hadn't even begun to think about approaching Base Minus Gerzillion, right?

  A good-looking guy, he was taller than me, about 5' 9, thicker-set (though I was so thin I'd been nicknamed Belsen Boy), with battleship-grey eyes and barley-coloured hair cut short off a wide forehead. We'd done sleepovers when we were younger, kipping on camp-beds in the attic and taking turns to dress and undress so we wouldn't see each other's willies, like when we went swimming at the municipal baths and shared a cubicle then, sitting on a wall, vinegar-soaked chips-and-scraps from a paper bag, we'd changed under our towels for the same reason. Didn't want people to think we were, like, 'funny', you know?

  Anyway, there we were at the tennis club, halfway through a set, three-three and going with serve, a nice sunny Tuesday at the start of September, a couple of days before school started again. The pollen-count was low and my tennis was improving. I had good ground-strokes and could hold a baseline rally. My serve was also getting better. It was still not fast but it was, like, accurate, you know? I could generally place the ball where I wanted, and get some sidespin too. I couldn't lob so well, though my passing shots were pretty cool and I did this utterly awesome backhand slice which had so much spin the ball would like literally drop over the net then squirm away at some super-crazy angle. Tim, very much the serve-and-volley player, had these really hard like hammer-shots but no spin so it was just a question of being in the right place to hit the returns, you know?

  I had this really cool blue Dunlop racket that I got for my thirteenth birthday and proper Dunlop Green Flash tennis shoes, and I was wearing this like pale yellow T-shirt, white shorts and white sports socks, and this dark blue Adidas baseball cap. Tim, obviously, wore snow-white whites and Rayban mirror-specs. Anyway we were just on this like water-break when two Sixth Formers from our school appeared on the next court. One was Mark Sonning, a tall, friendly blond in blue trackies and this white Lacoste T-shirt who was like captain of cricket, captain of tennis, captain of swimming and head of my house. Dumping his bag of six rackets on the grass and doing some stretching routine, he called ''Hi, Jonny.''

  The second newcomer, in these baggy white shorts and this startling orange T-shirt, was Alistair Rose. Lazily unzipping this like super-awesome red graphite Slazenger, he squirted Lucozade from a squeezy bottle into his mouth then, ever so casually, nodded to me. Something jolted, like I'd been electric-shocked. Pumpkin seeds fell from my hand, scattering in a light patter on the court. Actor, writer, editor of the school magazine, winner of English prize after English prize, prefect, deputy head boy, Alistair Rose was literally a Legend with a capital L. About a head taller than me, his longish, bruise-dark hair tumbled thickly from an untidy parting towards his right eye. He wedged a shock-absorber between the strings and tapped the racket-head three times against the soles of his white Reeboks.

  I knew him from A Midsummer Night's Dream, last year's school play. He'd been Oberon and I'd been Puck. He'd like utterly over-awed me and I'd literally never managed a conversation without stammering like some village-idiot, especially since he'd played Oberon bare-chested and I hadn't been able to tear my eyes from his pecs. He'd also been Fagin to my Oliver in my first school play back in 3Y, utterly terrifying me with this toasting-fork which he'd jabbed in my ribs and a long wispy beard. Although I'd loved every second, I was so nervous I'd actually thrown up before 'Where is love?' and breathed these like sicky fumes over the poor girl who'd played Nancy. The review said I had sung sweetly but my dancing was shite, or words to that effect. I like literally trip over my own feet, you know?

  ''Oh boy,'' groaned Tim. ''Alistair Rose. That's all we need.''

  ''Why?'' I tried to inject some innocence into my voice.

  ''Rosie has an eye for the boys, if you know what I mean.''

  I didn't. Instinctively I touched the little gold cross I wore round my neck, a confirmation gift from my mother.

  ''Well, you should,'' said T
im darkly, ''After that play you were in.''

  ''He hardly talked to me,'' I said. ''Anyway, what do you mean?''

  ''Rosie's queer,'' Tim said impatiently, ''Like your bumchum Paulus. So I heard.''

  ''Bollocks,'' I said. ''Where did you hear that?''

  ''Graham Brudenall.'' Tim bounced a ball on the grass. ''And my sister.''

  Super-reliable sources, then. The bitchiest boy in our form and some gossipy girl.

  ''Anyway, Paulus isn't queer,'' I protested. People said nasty things about Andy Paulus because he sang in the Chapel Choir and had curly blond hair, like fresh wood-shavings.

  Watching Rosie, poised and alert on the other court, I like kind of wondered, but, to be honest, I didn't really know what it meant anyway, you know? No-one ever talked about it, 'cept in a hushed mumble about this like grubby old geezer who attended our church. Sitting alone in this discreet side-pew, he always wore the same dirty beige mac and had like this lank, greasy hair. Mum didn't know his name. No-one knew his name. He was just 'the queer fellow in the corner' and I was told to stay away from him. When I asked why, Mum said he'd feed me poisoned liquorice allsorts and I'd die, and then where would I be?

  In Heaven? I quipped, getting one of Mum's looks.

  Anyhow, 'queer', to me, was this like geriatric coffin-dodger with his bag of poisoned sweets? Not Alistair Rose, this exuberant, handsome, charismatic seventeen year old in the Day-Glo shirt, but I didn't want to admit that I wasn't sure what Tim meant. I mean, obviously I'd heard rumours at school that some men like hated football and dressed in their mum's knickers, right?, while others lurked around public toilets peeping at little boys' little willies, but that clearly wasn't Rosie, you know? Confused, I dismissed Tim's statement as bollocks.

  Brace up, I muttered, gripping the racket-handle in both hands. Focus. On the game. Not on him. On the game. Tapping the frame against the soles of my Green Flash, I wound myself up to serve. Then Rosie laughed, a silvery, joyful sound which jolted my heart again.

  ''Long!'' called Tim.

  The second serve worked but Tim shot a winner down the left-hand tramline that I couldn't reach. As I kind of staggered off the court, Rosie like smiled at me. I mean, smiled.

  ''Steady there, JP,'' he said, ''Or you'll do yourself an injury.''

  His eyes were utterly amazing, warm, kind, humorous, deep blue pools I just like literally wanted to lose myself in, you know?

  ''Thanks,'' I stammered idiotically, blushing pink as a, well, as a rose.

  Shit. What the fuck was this? I touched my cross again.

  ''Come on, Jonny!'' cried Tim impatiently.

  Shaking myself like a wet otter, I returned to the service-line, tapped the frame against my soles like Rosie and span the handle round. Now my concentration really was shot. Rosie the Legend had not only spoken to me, he'd like used my nickname? Man alive.

  I lost the game, the set and the match. Bollocks.

  As I slugged water from a plastic bottle, trying to ignore Tim's somewhat unchristian celebrations, I watched Rosie stretching to whip the racket-head through this arc, rolling his wrists for the topspin. My God, he was good. He was like really good? And the red graphite Slazenger was like sooo cool, you know? I had to get one.

  ''Hey!'' called Sonning, ''You wanna make up a doubles? You two and us two? Ali's winning, so I need some help.''

  ''Sure!'' I heard myself saying. ''I'll play with Rosie.''

  ''You can play with me any time, baby.'' He laughed that silvery laugh again.

  My heart seemed to like melt, you know? What the hell was wrong with me?

  ''Alistair!'' Sonning warned sternly. ''No innuendo in front of the children!''

  His serve literally blistered past my ear like some ballistic missile.

  ''Come on, Jonny,'' called Tim, ''Move about a bit.'' Not stand there like a rooted tree. ''It's like playing against a fruit-bowl, what with a yellow shirt and an orange shirt.''

  Rosie grinned. ''Well, we're a fruity pair, aren't we, Jonathan?''

  I blushed strawberry-red.

  The game like mixed ecstasy and agony in equal measure. I was so conscious of Him. Every time he high-fived me for a winner, my knees wobbled. Every time he patted my shoulder to console a missed shot, my legs trembled. Every time he smiled, my stomach lurched. And he smiled a lot. But the ecstasy was being with the Legend, being noticed by the Legend, being friends with the Legend. I wanted the afternoon to like last forever.

  We lost 6-4. Only Tim cared, dancing round the court crying ''Losers, losers.''

  Rosie and I shook hands. The contact sent this electric bolt searing through my body.

  ''We're having a couple of shandies,'' he said casually, ''If you'd care to join us.''

  ''No.'' Tim kind of glared antagonistically across his bicycle handlebars.

  ''Yes,'' I said, gazing at Rosie.

  ''Right-o,'' said Sonning. ''See you in school, er… Wilkins.''

  Rosie ignored Tim altogether.

  ''Yeah,'' I said. ''See you in school.''

  Tim's face kind of twitched like some out-of-control electric cable but I didn't care. I was rolling with the prefects. I wheeled my bike to the pub and sat outside at a wooden table with Sonning while Rosie went for drinks, Tetley's for them, Foster's for me.

  The 'Lake View' had once been the Big House on the estate before that'd become the sprawling suburban park it is now. The terrace, situated between solid, blackened Doric columns, had, surprise surprise, a view of the Boating Lake, not that anyone ever went boating. It's about two feet deep and full of prams and shopping trolleys. When I read that the Council was gonna start a rowing club there, I laughed my arse off. It's about fifty meters long. By the time Redgrave and co are breaking sweat, they'll be like crossing the finish-line.

  Anyway, the pub had this large, seedy, rundown bar whose staff were like really sketchy about checking your age, you know? and a posh restaurant we saved for special occasions, like Dad's fortieth birthday when the Grunters (aka my grandparents) had complained all evening – Gruntpa said my spaghetti looked like rubber-bands and the Parmesan smelt of sick whilst Gruntma sent all the vegetables back saying they hadn't been properly cooked and could they boil them a while longer otherwise they'd play Hamlet with her dentures. And why was the food served on roof-tiles? Didn't they have any plates? You'd've thought, with such shocking prices, they'd be able to afford like proper plates, right? God. I thought I was like gonna die of embarrassment?

  Sonning asked if I'd been away during the summer. Back in July, I'd spent a week literally crammed with the folks in this two-roomed thatched cottage on some wind-swept cliff-top in Arse-end, Norfolk, swimming in this bollock-freezing sea, collecting seaweed and razor-fish shells and reading Thunderball (I found the part where Bond sucks sea-spines out of Domino's foot so utterly sexy I'd like spurted in my PJs - twice) whilst Dad complained about these strange snuffling noises I apparently make in my sleep.

  Popping into Norwich for a day, we'd visited the cathedral and the castle then gone to Great Yarmouth's Pleasure Beach where, amazingly, I somehow persuaded Mum to let me have, like, a hot-dog? Like, with onions? And a go on the waltzers and this swinging pirate-ship. I know. Fucking miracle, eh? I even got the folks onto the dodgems for like twenty minutes. Six days, and like a bazillion hours in the back of our silver Sierra watching mile after mile of flat, featureless fields flow by whilst Mum chattered endlessly about knitting, baking and bird-watching ('No, Jonathan, you cannot have the radio on. We're engaging in conversation, for God's sake') and I buried my head in Kenneth Ulyatt's Custer's Gold. I sort of admired General Custer, standing heroically against the enemy and dying in the cause, but this book suggested he was some deranged, gold-greedy glory-hunter and an inept tactician. Maybe so. I'd never divide my forces like he did. The other book I had on the subject, Jeff Jefferies' Seventh Cavalry, presented an opposite view, that Major Reno and Captain Benteen had lost the battle by holing up on a ridge and failing to relieve their co
mmander. I liked that book because the central character was a bugler called Peters. I kind of fantasized it was me Custer was ordering to blow 'Reveille'. I was really into Westerns and had tons of little plastic figures, all 1:32 Airfix cowboys, Indians, horses, blue-jacketed 7th cavalrymen, even Mexican bandits with massive hats, droopy moustaches and crossbelts of bullets. I had covered wagons so I could do wagon-trains and some plastic buildings, like a two-storey saloon with swinging doors, a bunk house, a bank, a fort and some brown plastic bars for a corral. I constructed my very own Wild West in the back yard and re-enacted the Gunfight at the OK Corral and the Magnificent Seven and my own stuff, even photographing some for posterity.

  I'd spent the rest of the seven-week summer holiday at home. I'd played tennis with Tim, cycled to a local National Trust property in the country with Mark Gray, listened to the Proms on Radio 3, blasted like a bucketload of motorcycles and tanks out of the trees in Deathchase, my new favourite video game, enjoyed loads of British athletes winning like a bazillion gold medals at the Olympic Games and endured England v West Indies on TV. I'd even taken a train to Leeds for the first (rained off) day of the Headingley Test and sat under an umbrella nibbling paste sandwiches waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Also, the Grunters took me to see the Humber Bridge and, later, to Mother Shitbag's Cave in Knaresborough. Nothing happened there either. Sonning, by contrast, had spent a month in Provençe knocking down walls and plastering ceilings in his parents' holiday farmhouse.

  ''You ever been to Provençe, JP?'' I shook my head. ''You'd love it. Golden sunlight, olive groves, vineyards, cicadas singing in the dry grass… it's very romantic.''

  I'd never been abroad. The furthest I'd ever been was Pembrokeshire in Wales and, once, Edinburgh in Scotland. Anyway, for some reason I blushed, especially when Rosie, returning with the drinks, described his trip to Venice. He reckoned I'd love Venice even more, with its sweeping stone-bridges, soft strumming of guitars, canals and gondoliers serenading cuddling lovers with romantic ballads and tossed red roses. I mean, pass the sickbag, eh?

  ''I saw it in Moonraker,'' I said, ''When Bond drives that gondola into St Mark's Square and this pigeon does a double-take.''

  But it's nothing like the book. That's set in Kent. Now I've never been to Kent, so I kight be wrong, but I don't think it's much like Venice, is it Or the Moon. They only kept the title and Hugo Drax, the villain, and they changed him from some red-haired, buck-toothed, one-eyed freak who cheated M out of loads of loot at cards into some boring, bland guy with a slicked black hair, a trim goatee and no personality. Anyhow, it's a really good book which would make a brilliant film and I don't know why they had to change it.

  ''You'd look really cute in one of those straw boaters,'' Rosie remarked.

  Thanking God once more for Foster's, I hid my burning face in it whilst they chatted about school stuff then drew me in by asking if I would be in the play Rosie was writing.

  ''I've written a part especially for you,'' he said. ''You'll love it. You're a great actor. You were awesome in The Dream.'' The reviewer had said 'poised and coolly controlled'. ''The king doth keep his revels here tonight,'' he quoted, then summarised ''And Oberon is angry for his wife has stolen a lovely boy.'' His eyes seemed to penetrate my soul.

  ''JP's always been a star,'' said Sonning. ''Broke our hearts as Oliver and made us laugh as Puck. We're lucky to have him. You're going into what form, JP?''

  ''Upper Five H,'' I said. ''Mr Hutchinson's. 'S OK. I like him.''

  Rosie, swallowing his beer, stretched out his legs in the late-afternoon sun. Bathed in gold, they kind of hypnotized me then I realised Sonning had like noticed me staring, so downed half my drink in a massive gulp to cover my embarrassment, which made me cough then hic. Suddenly wishing I was wearing baggier shorts, I pulled my cap over my eyes.

  ''Easy, tiger,'' Rosie said amiably, ''There's no rush.''

  I hicced a few more times. Sonning suggested I hold my breath.

  God Almighty. I was sooo lame. I was rolling with the prefects, with Rosie, the Legend, and like matching them pint for pint, and I'd got hiccups. They'd think me such a loser. Then Rosie's eye caught mine and there was another of those sudden, invisible, electrical sparks that made my heart bounce like one of our tennis balls.

  The sunshine-stained trees, gold, red and pink, were reflected sharply in the cool, polished-steel mirror of the water's unruffled surface. Somewhere a bird erupted into a joyful melody. We sat in comfortable silence till we had to go. Rosie said he'd see me home.

  He lived about half a mile from me. Most afternoons he caught the school bus, sitting at the back with the other Sixth Formers whilst I sat at the front with Maxton and Gray doing our homework. Idly I wondered where his house was, what it was like, what his bedroom was like. After two pints of lager on a sunny afternoon, I felt a little light-headed as I wheeled my bike across the zebra crossing, stepping only on the white bars 'cos step on the black, you'll break your back, then up this leafy hill, Rosie strolling beside me.

  ''I like your bicycle,'' he said.

  It was this black and orange Raleigh ATB, 22-inch wheels, chunky tyres, 5-speed Sturmey-and-Archer gears.

  ''Thanks. I got it for my birthday. You got a bike?''

  ''Yeah, but not as cool as yours. It looks like a tiger.'' Despite myself, I laughed. ''I like your T-shirt,'' he continued. ''The colour really suits you.''

  ''Thanks,'' I said again. ''Yellow's my favourite colour. My toothbrush is yellow. But I also like orange. Your T-shirt's awesome. Tim's right. Together we make a total fruit-bowl.'' God Almighty, what was I babbling about? He'd think me a right twat.

  ''Yellow makes you open, energetic and cheerful,'' he said. ''My toothbrush is blue. Apparently I'm seeking a quiet life, I'm calm and placid. So I read.'' Red was passionate, green relaxed, white organised, purple ambitious. God, he was so clever. ''You're a Gemini, aren't you? May 30th? And you were born in the Year of the Dragon.''

  How did he know that? And my birthday…

  ''Super-cool,'' I confirmed.

  ''Super-flashy,'' he corrected. ''You're an air-sign, Mercury, quicksilver, light, breezy, endlessly curious, a little mischievous. You wanna be ahead of the crowd. You thirst for knowledge and new experiences, you could be a writer, and you probably talk non-stop...''

  ''Like a demented jackdaw.'' I quoted my Dad. He'd say the profile was spot-on.

  Rosie, born February 23rd, was a Pisces, two fish swimming in opposite directions. Ruled by Neptune, sensitive, often confused, and living most of his life in Fantasy-Land, his greatest desire was to turn his dreams into reality. I wondered what those dreams were, and then we just like started talking, about music and movies and stuff. I learned that he liked Mozart, Mahler and Tchaikovsky and we discussed Monday's prom (no 51), Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra doing Debussy's Nocturnes, Stravinsky's Violin Concerto and Tchaikovsky's fabulous, shattering, doom-laden 4th symphony then agreed that the climactic moment of the first movement, when the bloody trombones come in on this descending chord, and the mental third movement of his Sixth Symphony, where everything kind of goes mad for a minute, was the most exciting thing in all music, 'cos it like literally pulls your heart inside-out and is the best music written like EVER – I saw Witold Rowicki and the Polish Symphony Orchestra do it in my local town hall when I was like ten and it was so fast and amazing I burst from my seat cheering and clapping like everyone else in the hall 'cos it was so thrilling and like sealed my love of serious music forever (if you don't know it, man, you gotta hear it. It'll blow you away!) '– apart from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth, or his Fifth; that goes without saying. Each leaves me shaken and stirred, Mr Bond … Then he said he found Bach too dry.

  ''You must be joking!'' I cried. ''Have you heard the B minor Mass? The Gloria is probably the single most awesome piece of music ever written. Ever! I mean, like EVER!''

  ''You should sing it for me,'' he said. ''What d'you like that isn't classi
cal?''

  ''The Beatles, Wings, Genesis, Pink Floyd, good story-tellers.'' 'Wish You Were Here' was my favourite song and Dark Side of the Moon my favourite album ever, 'cos it tells a story with fantastic lyrics and great songs, then films.

  ''I love James Bond – Live and Let Die was like so awesome, especially when he runs across those alligators and drives that bus under this bridge – and I love Clint Eastwood, especially Josey Wales and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, you know where there're the three gunslingers facing each other in the cemetery and the eyes and the twitching gun-hands.'' Pointing my finger at him, I imitated Eastwood's soft drawl: '' 'there're two kinds of people in this world, those with loaded guns and those who dig'.'' Those amazing teal-coloured eyes were smiling at me. ''I love Laurel and Hardy - The Music Box is genius, that bit where they're getting the piano off the cart and Hardy goes 'this requires a little thought – now ease it down on my back' and it like absolutely fucking flattens him, ha ha, and Way Out West, where they do this, like, dance?'' I shuffled a couple of steps on the pavement to show him what I meant. Then he said his favourite film was like The Wizard of Oz? Oh. My. God.

  ''You gotta be kidding,'' I scoffed. ''Follow the yellow-brick road, we're off to see the Wizard, caught by the Munchkins, all that 'no place like home' shit? Ha ha. It's like sooo lame.''

  ''You're not a friend of Dorothy then,'' he said drily.

  I didn't understand.

  ''Why do you like it?'' I said.

  ''I like it because, because, because, because…''

  ''You're so lame.'' But I couldn't help laughing.

  ''All right,'' he said, ''How about The Sound of Music?''

  Yikes. Fingers on kittens and whiskers on ribbons and the hills may survive… I mean, what a loser! Someone just shoot me!

  Suddenly we were at the crossroads that cut through my street. I could see the white-washed side of my house peeping through its thick ivy shroud and the black wooden gate with the paint peeling off and my heart became this like lump of lead?

  ''So,'' I said, ''This is me.''

  ''OK,'' he said.

  But something seemed to have literally nailed my Green Flashes to the pavement.

  ''Better go,'' I said.

  Still I didn't move. The silence seemed to last forever. He glanced at his watch, this really cool, black Casio G-Shock. Man, it was like sooo cool, you know? Black rubber with gold writing with this digital display, three dials, depth-gauges, different time-zones and a stop-watch. I just had to get one. The only extra on my lamo Timex was this tiny date-counter you literally needed a fucking microscope to read.

  ''Listen,'' he said, ''Do you want to come back to mine? It's only a few streets away.''

  ''Better not,'' I said reluctantly. ''My Mum'll be expecting me.''

  Still we didn't move.

  ''Well,'' he said.

  ''Yes,'' I said.

  ''See you Wednesday.''

  We stood for a minute longer. Then he softened into a radiant, affectionate smile that made the whole world shine.

  ''Get off home then, Fruit-bowl.''

  He touched my right arm, just above the elbow, and this electric thrill ran through my entire body, like from my fingers to my toes, you know?

  When I reached my gate, I turned. He was still standing at the bottom of the street, that vibrant tangerine shirt pasted against the sky of my life like the newly risen sun. I waved enthusiastically then, like, vaulted over the gate and raced to my room, the Gloria from Bach's B Minor Mass bursting joyously from my lungs, from my lips, from my CD player, from the depths of my soul as I stripped off my sweaty T-shirt and, waving it round my head, danced in my bedroom in shorts and socks, ecstatic excitement bubbling through my blood and sending my heart like literally to Heaven.