Back to School

Dark clouds hung over our little house, nasty, grey clouds that seemed to erase the summer from my memory. Rain threatened but would stay away, not wanting to ruin my brand new uniform. The Radio 1 breakfast show filled my ears, it had been weeks since I’d last listened to Mike Smith and the team.

I slowly got dressed like one might for a funeral, my own funeral. Crisp white shirt, black tie, black blazer. My shoes were so well polished I could count my spots in them. My mum smiled as she had done every year for the last 12; I’d gone from being her little boy going to school to her little man going to sixth form, taller than her now; she had to tiptoe to give me my traditional 'off to school kiss'. I could see the pride leaking out of her eyes. For her this was a big day, a landmark occasion, she’d fuss around me and take the traditional phot photo. As for me, well not once in those twelve years had I looked forward to this day, not once. And somehow today it felt even worse.

It’d been a long hot summer; 10 weeks since the last exam, 10 weeks of part time jobs and full time tomfoolery. 70 days of buying cider at the off-license and drinking it in the park. Over 2 months of swimming in the sea or down the Knap. Nearly 1 fifth of a whole year hanging out at the fairground. I’d done a lot that summer, done a lot of growing up, first job, first hangover, first kiss, first cigarette and of course, I’d lost something I’d never get back. But now the shackles were back on, it was penance for our summer crimes and the punishment was 2 more years hard labour. Maybe it felt worse this year because now it was voluntary, now I was going to school out of choice not because of the law. Who would choose such punishment.

But no, the real reason for my heavy heart was the fact that Molly Jones had gone. Her parents had decided a boarding school was the best place for her A-Levels, away from the distraction of boys, namely me. So off she’d gone taking her burgeoning body with her.

Tears ran down her face as we kissed for the last time.

‘I’ll wait for you,’ I said.

‘Tommy don’t,’ she replied, ‘it’s over.’

The words stung, it had been a summer of wasps but this was the deadliest sting.

So I traipsed to school, had I been moving any slower I might have gone backwards. I was a sixth-former now, a grown up, but walking like the moody 14 year olds around me.

I slumped behind my desk waiting for our form teacher to take the register when she walked in the room.

I’d never seen a room sit up so quickly and even the sun poked its head from behind the dark clouds to take a look. Lucy Beckland, had never looked so delicious in all her 16 years. She’d been in France all summer with her family and it showed. Her once pale skin was beautifully tanned, her nose just seemed a little more upturned and her breasts were enough to make a grown man cry. But it was her legs that had caught my attention. Her uniform was on the short side of regulation and her legs seemed to go the moon and back. I could feel my mouth drop open as I stared at the wonderfully tanned calves and seductive thighs. She smelt of bitter oranges, an intoxicating smell that I would never forget.

‘Can I sit here?’ She said giving me a smile that broke my heart already, was there a trace of a French accent in her voice? 

‘Oui, um yes,’ I said, thinking that maybe I wouldn’t miss Molly so much after all.
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