As the sound of the bell died away Harris stood me up and began to dress himself. I followed suit and we stepped outside of the cubicle.
“Hold it,” he said, “let’s check you over,” and he stood me by the window and then muttered, “I thought so,” and pulled a comb from his pocket and ran it through part of my hair, I could clearly see the gooey white stuff clinging to the comb. Harris smiled with satisfaction, “That was some shooting,” he said and added, “OK your clear. Let’s go,” and we left the bog together.

As we joined the stream of boys entering the building, Harris asked me, “What lunch sitting are you on?”
“First.” I answered.

“Silly me,” he said, “First year’s are always on first sitting, Right then,” he smiled as he walked away, “I’ll see you then.”
I stared at his retreating back, why did he want to see me at lunch for and then Hedges one of the boys in my year me clumped on the back with his briefcase, “Come on Marsh,” he shouted, “It’s Beaky Bollocks for English.”

Not wishing to undergo the severe scrutiny that Mr Beak could make you suffer I hurried after him and with satisfaction passed him by.
Beaky Bollocks lesson proved to be just that and as he droned on about grammar and verbs and nouns I fell to thinking about what had happened. I knew because Harris had made sure we were not seen that it had to be kept quiet, although why I did not know, perhaps that’s why he wanted to see me at lunch, he would explain things. I began to daydream about what we had done. Again and again I visualised the sight of his knob spitting out his spunk. I began to feel hot when.

‘Crash’ the sound of Mr Beak’s cane slamming down on the desk in front of me brought me down to earth with a bigger thump than he had managed with his cane.

“Marsh,” he said in a flat monotone that for all the world sounded like the bell that was rung at a funeral, albeit a flat toned one,
“Me sir?” I answered fearfully trying to stand up and then, “Ow,” I cried from the pain that came from between my legs. In my daydreaming I had not noticed that my knob had again risen like it had when Harris had stroked it, not only that it was caught in the fly of my briefs and it bloody well hurt. I doubled over in pain.

“What’s the matter lad, have you hurt yourself?” Beaky barked.
‘What do you bloody well think’ I thought as I bent down to a comfortable position and gave the master a terrified red-faced look. “Sorry sir, I’m,” I paused, what on earth could I say. I stood there cramped stuttering wishing the earth would swallow me up.

“Oh for goodness sake boy,” Mr Beak said contemptuously, “sit down and this time listen. If you were not a First Year you would be in serious trouble,” and to my relief he moved on shaking his head and muttering about, “dratted First Year’s.” We were all to learn that his bark was worse than his bite but that morning I shook with terror everytime he passed by as he droned on about grammar and whilst I was as attentive as I could be, to this day I haven’t a clue about what he was talking about. The important thing for me was that by the time the lesson ended my knob had shrunk and was now tucked safely inside my briefs. For the next period I made sure I gave no thought to Harris and even more importantly his knob.

As First Year’s for the first two months were allowed to leave the last lesson five minutes early to get to the Dining Room for lunch, this was to enable us to learn to get there quickly as you would never know where you were sitting for lunch, Your lunch meal ticket was handed in at Morning Registration and it was placed on a table in the Dining Room and you had to find it to find where you were sitting. By the end of two month you had usually learned who sat with who and the Lunch Ticket Monitor was able to place you accordingly. As normal I joined the throng of my peers when Dempster our Monitor called to me.

“Marsh,” he shouted.
I looked in his direction,
“You’re on Table One,” he called.

The others thronging around me gave me odd looks. No First Year sat at Table one. Why was I being honoured in this way? I walked over to Table one and sure enough my green First Year ticket stood out amongst the Blue and Red’s of the Fourth and Fifth Years. I saw I was sat beside Harris as his name stood out on his Red ticket placed alongside mine. Dumbly I stood by my place watching the others scurrying around locating their own green tickets. Other boys now began to feed into the room, most went straight to their table, others stopped to talk to the Monitors. I saw one tall boy, grabbed by the biggest Monitor and as he was spoken to he turned to glare at me before striding off angrily to stand at another table. I knew I had taken his place at Table one and from the look he gave me I had earned an enemy in High Places.

Harris now entered the room and the big Monitor spoke to him. I saw him look at me and then at the other boy. Harris went towards the table the other boy was sitting at and spoke to me. The boy again looked at me and to my surprise both came towards me.

“Mason this Rob,” smiled Harris introducing me to the tall fair-haired lad. Up close he was quite nice looking, almost pretty. He stood there his hands in his pockets looking at me but not smiling. “Rob,” Harris spoke quietly, “ Mason, that is Terry is a very good friend of mine and for today he has very kindly given up his place to let you sit with me.”

“Pleased to meet you I,” said.
Mason scowled.
“Terry,” Harris spoke menacingly, “I asked you to be nice, if you want it Rob can take your place here permanently.”
Mason scowled a “Hello,”
“I see your not dressed properly,” said Harris.
“But if I’m not sitting wi,” he began to reply but the look Harris gave him silenced him and as I watched Mason unzipped his trousers. “There,” he said rebelliously.
“Proof,” said Harris and held out his hand.

With a hard look at both myself and Harris, Mason reached into his blazer pocket and handed a blue cloth to Harris, it uncurled slightly in Harris’s hand and I startled when I realised it was a pair of briefs. Mason now in response to Harris’s uplifted eyebrow slowly pulled open his flies to show he wore nothing underneath.

“Thank you Paul,” Harris said flatly and then added as an order, “my house tonight.”
Mason looked at him an then at me, “You mean,” he started and then almost smiling said, “yes, yes yes of course Harris. Thank you, thank you.” He turned to go away and another boy came up and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Not sitting with us today Mason?” the youth said. I recognised him from the changing room’s incident,
“I’ve invited Rob to join us today, Boyer,” smiled Harris, “you know to make up for the other week. Mason kindly gave up his place for him.”
“Oh yes,” Boyer smiled at me. “I remember know. Didn’t recognise him with his clothes on,”
I joined in the easy laughter and Mason left.

Lunch was odd. I was surrounded by boys whom I did not know and I remained very quiet throughout the meal, listening and absorbing their conversation which abounded with a lot of rude words. It was also odd not to have to go and get our lunch. The big monitor came, picked up the tickets and returned with our lunch tray. Boyer was asked by Harris to divide up and for the first time everything was divided equally. Usually the oldest pair of boys on my table would cut a big piece for each other and divide the rest between the other six, the same would go for the pudding, with perhaps the older pairing taking a greater portion of this part of the meal. I enjoyed the fairness of the division of spoils and the conversation of my elders and betters was enthralling, even if I did not at that time understand all the ‘in school’ jokes but as the year progressed snippets of that conversation and those of the other meals I was invited to proved to be very helpful, especially at times of personal danger.

Lunch over we were about to arise from the table when Mason approached us.
“Harris,” he said a little nervously, “Can I- could I walk home with you tonight?” His face reddened slightly as he spoke and he could not look me in the eye.
Harris gave him a sudden hard look. “If you want to,” he stated and added, “are you prepared?”
Mason went pale now and he nodded a breathless ‘yes’.
“Then go back to your table now,” Harris commanded.