Secondary School

 The trouble was his Uncle and IG had gone to the same school before him so there were expectations on M! He arrived, was allocated to the lowest stream and began his fight for academic recognition, a fight that would not be won at school!

Soon after he arrived he, like so many others, was picked on as the younger brother but, and for the only time in his life, IG was there to the rescue and belted the Bully! What a great feeling to have your brother looking out for you but as I mentioned it was to be short lived; now don’t get me wrong IG was always there for him, if he was asked, and maybe that was the problem, asking.

Anyway, M soon made friends amongst his own age and continued where he’d left off at his previous school, getting into occasional scrapes, enjoying sporting activities and getting by, just, with school work. The advantages of having an elder brother at the same school have already been demonstrated, the disadvantages were there too, especially as IG was clever and M was not, at least in the eyes of the Teachers. You can go one of two ways if you’re told you’re not as clever as your brother, you can fight it or accept it; throughout his school years M accepted it. What was the point, it was true wasn’t it, IG was in the clever group, M was in the thicky’s set; IG passed exams, M struggled and IG was a good pupil and M wasn’t!

Despite this handicap he was happy at school most of the time, he made good friends, especially AC who was a little older and taller, he enjoyed rugby for the first time and he began to smoke and steal; what more could any young boy need?! His two best mates at this time were, as already mentioned AC, and the other was CM and whilst AC was tall and shaved before anyone else, CM was small, cheeky and streetwise making these two the ideal friends for M as he sought to breakaway from his brother’s influence and reputation and establish himself is his own niche.

His days were spent in short periods of great happiness playing with his friends, revelling in sports activities and free time contrasting with long periods of boredom and frustration as he was penned in lessons that he didn’t enjoy, was not good at and with Teachers who, by and large, he did not connect with.

He enjoyed the playground, bouncing a golf ball at head height from one end of the yard to the other, until it was stopped, following complaints from those in the middle; he enjoyed paying rugby and found some success for the first time in a team; he enjoyed hiding and smoking and bragging about things he hadn’t done! Most of all he just enjoyed being one of the boys and was in a small and exclusive band of brothers that were respected or avoided depending on your viewpoint. His only unhappiness was the constant detentions that he accumulated for petty misdemeanours such as talking, not doing work or not doing work of the required standard, when he would have to sit still at a desk with all the other miscreants after school for forty-five minutes of absolute silent hell. Something that did not please his father either, as he was forced to wait outside, to take him home.

 However, as might have been anticipated, he was soon to fall foul of authority and ciggies would be his downfall. He was walking up to lunch with his mates and flashed a cigarette case, this was his Uncle’s case originally, how ironic. The reason why he did it escapes him, maybe to share a ciggie with his friends or maybe just to show off, the reason doesn’t matter, the fact is that one of the pupils was the son of a teacher and as M clocked him he thought that he might tell, but then dismissed the thought and went to lunch and thought little of it.     Sure enough, last lesson he was called to go and see the Head, so ever mindful, on the way up he slipped the cigarette case under a set of lockers and knocked on the door.

“Come” was the command, so in he went and, after some preliminaries L asked:

“Where are they?”

Now, give M his due, he stayed cool.

“Where’s what?”

“Don’t play with me, the cigarettes?”
“What cigarettes?”
“The ones you had in a case at lunchtime”

“I didn’t”
“Yes, you did”
This continued back & forth, both certain of their ground until L said:

“I’m going to search you if you don’t tell me the truth, so I’ll ask you again, have you got a cigarette case?”
Certain, for once he was telling the truth M Replied:
“No Sir”, a nice touch.

So, L searched him and naturally found nothing but his frustration was palpable as he knew his informant was trustworthy and sure of his facts and yet he could prove nothing so, reluctantly, he let M go with the final statement:
“I know you had them, but as I have your word that there must be a mistake, I will have to leave it at that”.

With a combination of smugness, contriteness and relief M left his room and headed downstairs to retrieve the evidence and meet his father who, as it was now well past the end of the school day, would be waiting for an explanation of his lateness!