Classified

Day Three

Morning



After a particularly thrilling documentary on animals eating other animals the night before, I woke up refreshed and ready for anything, except maybe aliens, which was unfortunate because that was what I was facing.
It was raining outside, so I put on my coat and pulled it close around me. If there was one thing I absolutely abhorred, it was getting a little bit of rain down my collar.
I stepped out of my house, bid goodbye to my mother and father and began the labourious task of stepping in every puddle I came across on my walk to school. There wasn't even a sense of fun in it any more, it was all about duty now.
The upshot of all this puddle jumping made me feel a little bit more Icelandic than usual and a lot later to school than I usually was. I shuffled into the assembly hall where everyone was almost done sitting down. I moved to where my class was and sat down quickly.
“I will cover your head in jam.”
I stood up and moved away from Craig and down the row, where I sat down again.
“Good morning,” said Natalie.
I couldn't be bothered to stand up and move again, so I said, “Hello.”
Then I paid a lot of attention to the assembly at hand. The headteacher linked behaving in wet playtimes with going to heaven and sent us off to class. The usual murmuring occurred, we stood up and off we went.
A very cool, calm and heavily made up Mrs Benson greeted us.
“Hello. Be quiet. Sit down. Stop that.”
So I was quiet and I sat down. Natalie did the same. I stood up and went to talk to Louis.
“Hello, what's that?” I said, gesturing towards the curious new device which sat in front of him.
“It's a metal detector,” Louis replied.
“Really?!”
“No. It's a pencil case.”
“It's not, it's a pencil tin.”
Louis rolled his eyes. “Same thing.”
“Not at all! Pencil tins may appear to be a superior method of protecting your pencils but the fact is that the closing mechanism is notoriously unreliable in the high stress environment of the classroom and basically, all your pencils will fall out when it's in your bag.”
Louis grinned at me and instantly I knew that somehow, I was wrong. I get this a lot, so I can recognise the grin quite easily.
With a flourish, Louis opened his new pencil tin and from inside withdrew an elastic band. He then proceeded to put it around the pencil tin and shake it all about in my face.
“See?” he said.
“You just broke all your pencils.”
“Go away, we have science first,” Louis said coldly. He loved science almost as much as he loved being right.
To be right about scientific affairs was like Nirvana to him. I went and sat down, giving Mrs Benson the false impression that I was listening to her.
We were registered in the usual fashion, without a single slip up. This, I sensed, put Mrs Benson on edge, which was a good start to the day, I suppose.
You can always tell when a teacher is nervous. It's like I said in the previous paragraph, a sense. If you just look at someone, it won't work. You have to narrow your eyes so you can barely see, then tilt your head to one side and rotate slowly on your chair. Then you will see the nervousness of the teacher. Sometimes you have to wave your arm a bit for it to work. Then the teacher knows you have The Sense and tells you to stop sensing and get back to whatever work you should be doing.
I didn't use The Sense today.
When the lesson finally began, I discerned that the subject was to be about hot and cold. I switched off, because I already knew what hot and cold were. I didn't need to be taught about that. Smiling a little, I scanned the classroom, seeking visual entertainment. Louis was looking very attentive.
This worried me. If Louis was paying attention to such a lesson, perhaps I should be, too. Perhaps I was missing something, which could be important. Brian always told me that if something was important, it would be bought to my attention whether I like it or not, which was very wise of him and something I incorporated into my dharma. It was also a very laid back approach to pretty much everything, which I liked.
I decided I had done enough procrastination and that I should do something useful and productive. I opened my science book to the back and began working on the two page spread military base I was drawing. It was a large coastal building being attacked by sharks. The sharks were winning.
After a brief period of destruction, I grew tired of the battle I had created. I finished everybody off with a nuclear bomb and shut my book. I looked around briefly and noticed nobody else had their books open, so it was a good job I did. I probably looked pretty suspicious. Not that something like that mattered any more, if nobody noticed two aliens in a classroom. After all, two kids just turning up one day is very odd.
That is, unless they have parents.
The thought staggered me. Why hadn't I thought of it before? There could be more aliens than we knew about. I tried not to panic. Acting naturally, I looked up. Natalie was looking at me.
I panicked.
"I have to go to the toilet!" I screamed.
Louis immediately turned and looked at me, concerned. He knew I wasn't usually one for such rapid bowel movements, so he knew something was up. And what was up was my anxiety meter, which I think is measured in Fahrenheit.
"Well," Mrs Benson said, which I hoped was not a suggestion.
I got up from my seat and ran through the door frame where the cloakroom door had once stood. I skidded left, bolted through the toilet door and ran into a cubicle.
The thing about doing such rash things is that when you're sitting down and thinking a bit calmer, you begin to feel a bit silly, which is what I was doing now. I had to think fast. To avoid all potential embarrassment of being accused to having soiled myself, I came up with the idea that I was upset about my mother's marriage.
This was a good story because it was quite close to the truth, which makes it easier to tell convincing lies. Some older kid at school told me that. The education system at work. The reason it was close to the truth is because a different older kid told me about sex, which is disgusting and nothing two responsible parents should do.
With my story all set, I did a little work on the hole every boy was digging through to the girls toilets. Composed and calm, I went back into the classroom and sat down. Nobody said anything. Natalie smiled shyly at me as I sat down. About that point, I genuinely did need to go to the toilet.
I had decided to explain myself during break time, so until then, I knuckled down and got on with the rest of the lesson. To do this, I carefully examined the grain of wood on some cupboards, picking out gruesomely contorted faces in the knots. It was quite a time consuming hobby of mine, although I tried not to do it at home because I once saw a really horrible face in the wood grain on my bedroom door and I had to get a sticker and cover it up before I could sleep. Stickers are not easy to come by, either. I'm not made of stickers, to paraphrase my dad.
"Did you just shit yourself?" someone on my table said.
"No, actually," I said loudly, "I was just upset because-"
"Be quiet, Matthew," Mrs Benson said.
And I was quiet.
Which was embarrassing. I spent the rest of the lesson in silence, not daring to move lest it attract attention. This was quite good in a way because it meant I was worried about the mockery I would have to endure for the rest of my life and not the aliens, who, incidentally, seemed entirely unphased by the entire incident.
The science lesson finally reached an end, after what seemed like an eternity of not listening to what Mrs Benson was saying. I was not in a hurry to race outside. At least, not by my usual standards. I still ran out there, only slightly slower than usual.
"Excuse me, brownpants," someone said, pushing past me. I recoiled in horror from them. My pants were indeed brown, but for all the right reasons. This was character assassination!
Outside, I met up with Brian and Louis, who gave me a wide berth. Brian's reason was that he was skipping uncontrollably. Louis merely thought I'd pooed myself.
"I don't think you've pooed yourself," he said.
"You do."
"I don't."
"Then why are you standing over there?"
"Because it's better to be safe than sorry," he said. Which was fair enough.
A girl ran past me, narrowing missing Brian's manic circling. "Hi, brownpants!" she cried.
Well, what can I say, except that I lost it.
"You what?!" I cried, running after her.
"Aiiiii!" she screamed, "Don't wipe your poo on me!"
"I'll show you I didn't do it!" I shouted, "I'll show you!"
She circled the playground and ran across the grass to the second concrete area, with me in hot pursuit, like some kind of indecent exposure police chase in perverse reverse.
"Nooooooo!" she wailed.
"Come onnnnn!" I shouted back, my thumbs in the waistband of my trousers. Never before in my life have two hidden thumbs been so menacing, but it all depends on where you hide them.
The girl circled back onto the other playground, dodging through people playing football and round behind the bins. The bins are a place where no kid should enter, although I wasn't quite sure why. It just felt like a forbidden area. I chased her through it anyway. I rounded a corner, past a wooden enclosure and stopped dead.
Well, alive. But I stopped anyway. The aliens were there, walking quite casually towards me, almost like they weren't aliens at all.
"Where are you going?" I asked, being as they were walking through the area all the bins were kept, which was forbidden. Anyone would know that except perhaps an alien.
"Home," Chris said.
"What, now?"
They gave this some thought. "No, not right now. But eventually."
"You know you're not allowed around the bins, don't you?" I said.
"Yes."
I began to lose my nerve a bit. "So why are you doing it?"
"Why are you?"
"Hey," I said, "I have a... good reason!"
"Your good reason appears to be that you wished to expose your bottom to that girl."
I awaited the punchline.
"We have no reason," said Chris. With that, the aliens turned around and began walking away. As they did so, the door to the wooden boiler enclosure behind us fell and slammed against the floor. I jumped, because I was feeling jumpy. The aliens turned and looked curiously, presumably because they were feeling curious.
"Was that you?" I asked.
"It was a door. Or perhaps a gate. The definition is unclear."
"But... did you do it?"
"No. We were stood here."
I patted my forehead with my palm and said, "Did your actions result in that happening?"
"Not really," Chris said, "we were walking towards the door after all."
Presently, a teacher came storming around the corner behind us and was both aghast with horror and absolutely delighted to find children at the scene of a crime.
"You!" he said.
We all turned to face the teacher, who advanced towards us. I checked behind me, just to be sure I wasn't being flanked.
"Did you do this?" the teacher said, pointing at the door lying on the ground.
"No," I said.
"Did he?" asked the teacher of the aliens.
"Not really."
Inside, I groaned. I was in for it now. I was a hanged man.
"Did you?" the hangman asked, with no intention of getting an answer that would change his mind.
"No!" I protested, "It just fell off!"
"Oh did it! Doors just fall off their hinges of their own accords, do they?"
I wasn't quite sure you could pluralise the word 'accord' like that, but I let it slide. I had bigger fish to fry, or rather, not to fry and by that I mean I had to stop fish being fried because in this situation, I was the fish. And I was about to be fried.
"It wasn't me!"
"I don't see anyone else around here who could have done it," the teacher said.
"What about them?" I said, jerking my thumb to indicate the aliens behind me.
"It's rude to point," the teacher said, "and besides, why would they knock a door down?"
"Why would I!?" I argued hotly, caught a little off guard by the revelation that you can point with a thumb.
The teacher straightened. "I'm not sure, but a lot of... odd things have been happening around you lately."
I freaked, which is to say, waved my hands about a lot. "But it's them! Them! They're doing it!"
"Who?"
I nodded at the aliens who I immediately noticed, had disappeared. "They've gone!"
"They went to pick up some litter."
"Those crap monsters!" I exclaimed, bunching a fist.
"Now Matthew," the teacher said, "you've been acting very strange recently and, well... I'll talk to your mother about it. I believe she's attending a councilling session with you today."
I opened my mouth and froze. With my mouth open, this was particularly dangerous, Buddha only knows what could fly in there. As you may realise, I completely forgot to tell my mother and now I realised I was completely trapped. I could only get in more trouble by speaking, so I didn't.
"Matthew?" the teacher said, growing ever more concerned about this gaping idiot standing in front of him, "Are you having a seizure?"
I moved my eyes from rolling up in my skull to staring down at the floor, to indicate that I was not having a seizure but also indicating that I was about to resume verbal communications any time soon.
"Have you... soiled yourself?"
I was trying to fight back the panic.
"Again?"
Oh, that did it. "No, I have not! Nor have I ever! And how did you even know?!"
The teacher replied coolly, "Oh, as I was walking over, someone girl said, 'That's Brownpants over there! He did it! He's the killer!' and I made the logical assumption that you did indeed have brown pants."
"I do I have brown pants," I cried, "but for all the right reasons!"
The teacher frowned at me, almost as if I was repeating an internal monologue for comic reasons but he was sadly missing the first half of the joke. "I think you should come with me to calm down, Matthew. Perhaps we can sort you out with a change of underwear."
"I've not bloody pooed myself!" I screamed.
My arch nemesis, the girl I had been chasing, heard this.
"Matthew bleeds when he poooooooooos!" she crooned, receding into the distance. I thought I saw the teacher smirk, but I quickly put that thought out of my mind. Teachers don't understand our jokes. They only disapprove, without mercy.
"Inside, now. And don't swear."
I went inside because I thought calming down was probably a very good idea. My life was probably ruined anyway.

Inside, the teacher led me towards the staff room. He might as well have led me into the jaws of Cerberus, who has three giant heads a hopefully a body to match. I was terrified.
"Don't soil yourself," the teacher warned.
Sound advice, I thought, although a little tactless.
The door swung open, which I was thankful for. Inside, I was led to quite a comfortable chair with only a few suspicious and probably delicious stains.
"Just have a nice sit down, Matthew, until break time is over."
All around the tables, teachers were nursing cups of tea, chatting quietly and laughing with all the tones of ones expected to laugh. I would have called these crumb-bums phonies, but I wouldn't want to put across the impression I had any pre-teenage angst towards authority figures.
I tried my hardest to calm down and look relaxed in such a strange environment. I must have been trying too hard. The teacher from the classroom next to me looked across the room and said, "Are you alright, Matthew? You look constipated."
With excessive jolliness, like Santa to a terrorist, I replied, "Oh, no, quite the opposite, thank you!"
"Have you soiled yourself?"
"No, actually, why does everyone keep saying that?!" I replied loudly. Perhaps a little louder than I had intended, although certainly below the threshold of what I would have called an alarming miscommunication between the brain and the vocal gubbins.
Such an outburst, as unexpected as it was, provoked a universally agreed upon reaction from teachers everywhere. As one, eyebrows were raised and sips of tea were taken. There was quite a loud noise as twelve cups all returned to the table as one.
"Perhaps you give off the air of someone who has soiled themselves," said another teacher. This was met with a ripple of laughter. I didn't understand why they were laughing. This made me nervous, so I decided to say nothing. I was loosely applying a principle my mother had drummed into me after I had called her a smelly piss bag for a dare. 'If I cannot say something nice, I should say nothing at all', is what she drummed into me, with the help of a rolling pin.
That sounded like a load of old rot to me and something she'd stolen from Ronan Keating.
From the corner, a voice directly itself at me.
"You have an appointment with me last period, don't you, Matthew?"
"I do?" I said, quite unaware of such a terrifying arrangement. The only meaning of the word 'period' I knew was quite disgusting and the mention of the last one added ominous overtones and alarming undercurrents. I hoped I had sufficiently expressed the question mark in my reply, I didn't want to end up marrying him.
I made a mental note to make a joke of that later.
"Yes, it will get you out of maths," he said. "Quite a good deal, eh?"
I wasn't so sure about that. I looked blankly at him. It wasn't hard, I'd had a lot of practise. In maths lessons, coincidentally.
"I'm the psychologist," he said.
"Ohhhhh!" I said, "I thought you were some kind of menstrual overlord, what with all this talk of the last period."
A pregnant silence filled the room and I felt I had made a mistake with my half-jest.
"I think it's... good you're coming to see me," he said.
The bell signalling the end of break rang and I rose to leave. Before I left, however, I had a question that had often kept me awake at night.
"Excuse me," I said, "but does the bell ring automatically at specific times or does it have to be manually operated every time. I ask because sometimes the duration of the ring varies. We kept notes. Then we lost them."
The few teachers who had heard my rather lengthy question over the scraping of chairs and the draining of teas looked at me and said, "Back to your classroom."
The secret remained guarded. But I had come close, I know it. I felt it in my water.


I returned to the classroom and steeled myself to face the braying of the vile cretins that unfortunately composed my peers. You may consider this a harsh judgement of those I will apparently spend the best years of my life is, but you don't know what it's like.
"Don't get poo on me," someone casually remarked as I brushed past them to reach my seat.
As I passed another table, someone reached out and grabbed my sleeve. I felt a little put out because, yes, it's a nice shirt, but please, just ask.
A boy who I honestly don't know the name of said, "Did you get poo on that girl?"
"No."
The boy sat back, "Aaah, right, so you kept your poo on your bum this time."
I sighed and found my seat, taking some solace in that fact that my shirt was still flawless. You get what you pay for, is what my dad always tells me. This excuse doesn't work on my mum, though, and he once had to drive the sit-on lawnmower right back to B&Q that very night. I cried a tear for him and his rabbit immolator.
I had to grin and bear it though, or I'll turn to alcoholism. The next lesson, that is, the lesson I was now in, was art. Art was good, because I got walk about a lot. And I had to relay my news to Lewis. I also had to see Brian because he was looking a little pale and I couldn't find my Tipp Ex.
"Sit down, shut up, come on, shut up and sit down," said Mrs Benson, raising and lowering her hands energetically.
While I waited for the rest of the class to be quiet, the guy who sat next to me leaned over and whispered. "You've got an admirer."
My stomach twisted into a knot. I knew that string would come back to haunt me. I shyly turned and looked over at Natalie, who wasn't there.
"Over there, idiot," the guy next to me said, nodding towards the aliens.
I wouldn't have gone so far as to say they were admiring. It was more like being examined. Both of them, Sam and Chris, were just staring at me. I turned my head away slowly from them and back to the guy next to me. His eyes locked with mine and he said, "Are you a nemesis?"
I turned away from him quickly. You might think it odd I sit next to a person who irritates me so much, but it was not my choice. I was moved away from Brian for being too disruptive, even though I was only telling him to shut up. There is no place for vigilantes in modern society, is what Mrs Benson rebuked my excuse with. I wasn't quite sure if we lived in modern society or not, so I decided not to risk looking stupid and I left it at that.
The lesson was declared to be about shading and if we followed the instructions on the work sheet we could paint an entire picture with just one colour. I nodded solemnly at the information and then promptly rose, picked up a paint brush and went and sat on Louis's table.
"You're sat on my pencils."
"They're broken anyway," I remarked off handedly. "Something weird happened at play time."
"A door fell off," said Louis. He was acting sulky because he had broken his pencils and he took it out on me by not restraining how smart he was.
"Oh, so you know."
"Yes. It was quite a hoo haa."
I'll admit, I'm a little behind on the slang in the world of doors, so I decided to press on.
"Do you know what happened?"
"I'd hazard a guess and say it was the aliens," Louis said, continuing his sulk.
"Well I'd hazard the truth and tell you that yes, it was."
I sat there and basked. "Well, go on," I said, "ask me how I know."
"You were there."
"You're just insufferable sometimes!" I cried and stomped off.


Quite little stomping was to be had before I reached my pre-decided stopping stomping point.
"Hewwo Maffyou," Brian said.
"My Tipp Ex," I said flatly, folding my arms and putting my hand out. Just so you know, it doesn't look cool doing both those things, a lesson most cruelly learned.
"You look ridiculous," he said, handing me my Tipp Ex and pulling some tissue paper out of his mouth.
"Oh, thank the merciful lord in heaven," I sighed, "I thought you'd eaten my Tipp Ex."
"Eaten?" said Brian.
"Yes," I replied.
Brian's face fell. "You thought I'd eaten your Tipp Ex?"
I was taken aback. Had I offended him? "Er, yes. Sorry."
"You thought that I... that me... that... myself..."
I was certain Brian had backed himself into a corner with that sentence so I bailed him out. "Yes! Look, I'm sorry, okay, it's just, you looked kind of..."
"Kind of like I'd just eaten someone else's Tipp Ex?!"
"Well, yes!"
"How does that look, Matthew? How does it look?!" Brian wailed, perhaps even clutching at my sleeves a little. It's not a memory I enjoy recalling.
"It's hard to describe!"
"Well!" Brian said, perhaps letting go of my sleeve and slumping down in his chair. "I can't believe you'd think that of me!"
I frowned at something that was probably at least half alive in Brian's hair and said, "Look, I'm sorry."
Brian turned and fixed me with a cold stare.
"First of all, I think I'd DRINK the Tipp Ex, not eat it," he said.
I nodded timidly. Brian's eyebrows almost never left the surprised shape.
"Secondly, I would never drink someone ELSE'S Tipp Ex! Who do you think I am, some kind of petty thief?"
"You steal cats and dogs?" I quipped.
"Go get on with your shading," he said darkly, turning back to his desk.


I walked slowly back to my table, but please don't let that mistake you for thinking my intentions were to continue with the lesson. I merely had nowhere else to go.


Sitting, weak and weary from all the stomping, I thought for almost thirty seconds about my friends and how when things were so tense between us, we would argue. This was all the alien's fault, I thought.
From a distinct lack of anything better to do, I picked a pencil up and sharpened it. I like to cut the paper when I used a pencil. To flippantly use a phrase my dad was rather fond of, 'If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing properly.'
After I coloured in a whole ream of A4 paper with a pack of probably now illegal permanent markers and almost passed out from the fumes quoting this axiom, my mum made my dad vow never to use it again. They sealed the contract by hitting themselves on the head with a rolled up newspaper.
That is, my mum made my dad hit himself on the head after she got tired.
“Are you alright?” a voice said, jolting me from possibly the longest time I've gone thinking without speaking.
“Yes,” I said, luckily getting the correct answer, as I hadn't really been listening.
And then I looked up. It was Natalie. I looked down again.
“You've been sharpening that pencil for almost a minute,” she said.
“I want to cut the air with it,” I mumbled.
Natalie didn't say anything else, so I unclenched.
When I thought about it, Natalie was the only person left who'd shown something resembling kindness to me that now didn't hate me. And I couldn't even be sure of that.
After all, what had the air done to me? I was being needlessly cruel.
“I'm sorry,” I said, “I'm not really going to cut the air. After all, it has done nothing to me.”
Natalie sensed I had been thinking ahead of the conversation and realised she'd been left behind. “It's okay,” she said.
That was something of an axiom of hers, I noticed. It was quite a good one to have, as well. My dad has one that goes, “If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing.” I suspect he stole it off a poster as well.
But Natalie had good axioms, ones that could be applied to almost any situation.
And so, I began to apply it to almost any situation.
Aliens have invaded my school, motive unknown? It'll be okay.
My friends have sort of fallen out with me until lunch time? It'll be okay.
I have an appointment with a psychologist which I am to attend with my mother who knows nothing about it and won't be there? I struggled with this one.
“Erm, Natalie?”
“Yes?”
“Could you just say, 'It'll all be okay', but make it sound really genuine, like you mean it.”
Natalie frowned and I must admit, I wanted to pull her hair a little. She frowned and said, “But... it really will all be okay.”
“Oh that's brilliant,” I said. My spirits were so lifted, I drew a picture of some spirits lifting a man out of a bath.


The lesson dragged on, my picture having taken a mere 20 minutes to draw. I did shade it in, though, using the instructions on our work sheets. I considered this the first practical skill I'd learned in a school classroom (the playground is whole different matter) and I thanked the British government for finally getting their act together.
Perhaps my dad might stop complaining when I bring home things I made from pasta, as well.
Still, nothing could crush my spirit.
“Hello,” said the aliens, who were rather oddly close to me.


Now, I know what you're thinking, that was a gag, but you're wrong. Nothing could crush my spirit.
“Hello,” I said, giving them a knowing look. They gave me a probing look in reply.
I wasn't too keen on being probed but nothing could crush my spirit.
“May we borrow a pencil?”
“What, both of you?”
“Yes.”
I realised my question was quite ridiculously pointless and answered nothing that I wanted to know.
“So, do you two want two pencils or just one between you?”
“Two would be... nice,” they said.
“Ideal,” added Chris.
“Perfect!” chimed Sam.
I got the feeling the aliens really loved shading in. They must not have it on their home planet or something and then, despite all I'd been through, I kind of felt sorry for them.
“What happened to your pencils?” Natalie asked, voicing the question that was on nobody's lips but my own.
“We used them up,” Sam said. “We really like shading.”
I was in such high spirits, I ventured, “Do you not have shading on your home planet?”
They fixed me with an icy stair and then I regretted it. I regretted everything, especially Natalie's stupid axiom.
“Blasted axiom,” I muttered to myself, fishing two pencils out my pencil case, which was rather garishly adorned with the word 'GAY' which had then been scribbled out several times, inside and out.
“Not those ones,” Chris said. He pointed to the more premium pencils, with attached rubbers, for those who are always making mistakes or, in my case, those who really like how rubber feels when you bite it.
I handed them over wordlessly, not wishing to meet their eyes or much else of them.
When they'd gone, I buried my head in my hands. Thank god I'd put my extremely sharp pencil down.
“Are you okay?” said Natalie, full of pathetic concern. “It'll all be okay.”
My head jerked up, but I was so angry I didn't mention how much I'd just hurt myself.
“No it won't, Natalie. It won't all be okay. It's never okay. Everything is anything but okay!”
Natalie looked shocked, but then I suppose she's not used to being shouted at.
“Everything is... rubbish! And poo! And...”
Dare I say it? To a girl? Right to her face?
“And...”
Am I really that angry at this poor girl, who was just trying to be nice? I decided that life is full of missed opportunities and I went for it.
“And shit! It's shit, too!”
Natalie cried.
I was a little stuck as to where to go from here, but I was most fortunately granted a boon from the Lords Of Time, which were a set of action figures accompanies by a cartoon.
The lunch time break bell went. This meant that I was free to escape from any consequences of my actions and also, I would take great pleasure in telling people (that is, Brian and Louis, basically my only friends) that I had been, quite literally, Saved By The Bell. We sure would get a laugh out of that one. Then we might even sing the theme song.
I ran outside and met up with Brian and Louis.
“How are you?” they asked me, separately, but I condensed both their lines into one, to save space, although now I suppose I have wasted all that space by explaining it.
“I'm alright,” I said, a little concerned by all their concern. It was most unbecoming of them.
“We saw the aliens by your desk,” Louis said.
“They asked to borrow some pencils,” I replied glumly, not really wishing to relay this tale at all, but instead wishing to skip to the end and tell them how I was, quite literally, Saved By The Bell.
“How many?” Brian asked, full of quizzical curiosity.
While I frowned at this sudden interest in meaningless details, Louis produced a notebook from his pocket and, fixing my eye, handed it silently to Brian.
“I've been keeping notes,” Brian revealed unto me.
Louis nodded solemnly. I didn't like where this was going, it was clear Louis had a hand in it. And where Louis had his hands, you did not want to go.
“Three pencils, you say?” Brian asked.
“Two,” I said.
“Attention to detail,” he said, tapping his nose with what I presumed was the wrong end of his pencil. He scraped the end of it against the paper for a while, was mildly confused for a spell then turned it round and wrote a big fat “THREE PENCILS” on the page. His spelling was impeccable.
He handed the notebook back and we discussed various matters. We discussed current affairs, like the aliens. We discussed politics, like where all the pencil crayons were going. We discussed sport, like how Sport's Day was coming soon and we all needed some horrible illness in order to avoid it.
We also discussed other important issues.
I said, “When is it afternoon?”
Louis said, “I think technically, it's the second you finish eating your lunch, but really, most people go from the time they start eating lunch.”
“I disagree,” I said, “To me, the afternoon is the moment you start queuing for your lunch.”
“Hmm,” said Brian.
“Why does it matter?” Louis asked.
“No reason,” I said, eyeing the end of the chapter. “I think we should go queue for lunch now.”
And we did.