Dance With Me In the Pouring Rain

I felt a lot better the next day as I walked into registration. My friends were already there so I sat down by them. Ms. Webber, our form tutor, hadn't arrived yet so the class was pretty noisy.

"You feeling better?" Kyle asked.

I shrugged. "Kind of."

"You still look really pale," Jordan observed.

"What are you doing here?" Kyle exclaimed. "You could've milked it easily and got the rest of the week off."

"Yeah, because I so want to spend the rest of the week lying in bed, bored to tears," I retorted.

"Beats school any day," Hassan muttered.

"Besides, I was starting to miss you, you miserable lot," I added half-seriously.

Kyle looked at me in horror. "You’re going soft. I bet it's that girl Tory's influence."

I rolled my eyes. "I haven't gone soft. I was joking."

Ms. Webber walked in then, calling for quiet so she could take the register. When she got to me, she stopped and looked up at me.

"Feeling better, Fletch?" she asked suspiciously.

I nodded. "Yes, Miss."

"Have you got a note?" she enquired, equally as suspiciously. I couldn't blame her; people bunked off all the time.

Fishing the note out of the depths of my school bag, I got up and handed it to her before returning to my seat. Once she finished taking the register, the silence dissolved and people started talking loudly again. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned round.

"Hi Fletch," Kara greeted me. "How are you?"

"I'm just marvellous."

She grinned and handed me a sheaf of papers. "I know just the thing to make you feel better. This is all the class work and homework you missed yesterday and on Friday."

"You were serious about that?" I grumbled, reluctantly taking the pile of paper.

Kara rolled her eyes. "You'll thank me later. The teachers haven't let up, even though the end of term is only a few weeks away."

"Actually, we've only got the rest of this week, next week, and the first few days of the week after that," Jordan corrected. "So only about two weeks, then."

"Whatever," Kyle muttered. "It's still two weeks too many. Hey, can I copy the chemistry homework?"

Jordan rolled his eyes. "One of these days, Kyle, I'm going to say no, and then what will you do?"

Kyle pretended to consider. "Copy off Fletch. He's nearly as smart as you."

We laughed. Jordan was really smart and good at virtually every subject. He didn't even have to work hard to do well, so mostly we all copied off him. Out of our group, I was the next smartest, but that wasn't saying much.

"What about me?" Hassan piped up.

"No offence, Hassan, but you're nearly as thick as Kyle," I teased.

"Don't be mean," Kara scolded me. "No one's as thick as Kyle."

Kyle bowed his head, pretending to be really hurt. "That cut deep, guys. The only thing that could possibly heal my wounds is a kiss from a beautiful lady." He looked hopefully up at Kara at that point.

She rolled her eyes. "You're shameless, you know that? You're lucky David isn't in our form or he'd kick you into next week."

Kyle smiled impishly. "Well, he isn't, so what do you say?"

Shaking her head at him, she got to her feet. The bell had just gone for first lesson.

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The lesson I had before lunch was English. I wasn't mad for it, but we had a pretty cool teacher, Mr. Dawson. He was in his mid-twenties, wasn’t horrible-looking - so lots of the girls fancied him - and he was an engaging and interesting teacher. To his credit, no one in his class got less than a C on all their essays. So I liked him, and he liked me too. He said I had a lot of 'creative potential'. Whatever that meant. One of his classes had taken to calling him ‘The Awesome Dawson’ and the nickname had stuck. No one said it to his face, though.

As I took my seat near-ish the back by Kyle, the only one of the guys I had English with, Mr. Dawson was writing the lesson objectives on the board. I got out my copy of the Merchant of Venice and plonked my bag on the floor.

"I hate Shakespeare," Kyle muttered, flicking through his own. "All this thy, thou and wherefore crap. I don't understand any of it."

"Me neither," I agreed.

Just then, Mr. Dawson swooped down on us. "Got a problem with the Bard, lads?"

"No," we chorused. "We just think he's bored."

Any other teacher would've flipped and given us detention for being cheeky. Mr. Dawson just looked amused. "I think everyone's a bit fed up with Shakespeare. We've all but finished the play, and you know what your essay is, so I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do something a little different this lesson."

Kyle perked up. "Like what, Sir?"

"Don't get too excited," Mr. Dawson laughed. "It'll still be English-related."

Kyle drooped. “Shame.”

Mr. Dawson returned to the whiteboard and rubbed out what he had previously written. Our classmates started to murmur, wondering what was going on.

“So, Year 10,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “it has to come to my attention that the vast majority of you are a bit, well, bored of Shakespeare. Can’t say I blame you, to be honest.” The class tittered. “So, for one lesson only, we’re going to do something different. I don’t think you lot get enough opportunities to display your creative potential” – there it was again – “so I’m giving you the chance to do just that. I want you to spend this lesson writing about…” he thought for a second. “Something that happened to you that changed your life. It can be anything at all. I’d prefer it to be something happy, since I don’t want to start blubbering in front of all of you, but it can be whatever you want. And yes, you can talk to the person next to you. But if you start yelling across the classroom about your latest crush or whatever it is you teenagers talk about these days, then you’ll be working in silence. Got it? Right. Get to it!”

“Great,” Kyle grumbled. “What are you going to write about?”

I shrugged. The only thing that sprung to mind was my brother’s death, and I didn't want to write about that. That was personal, something I didn't even want to share with my friends.

“No idea,” I replied. “What about you?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I might write about Steve.”

“Steve?”

“You know, Mum’s latest boyfriend,” he informed me. “He’s pretty decent, better than the other twats she’s brought home.”

I’d known Kyle since the start of primary school and I’ll say one thing about him: he loved his mum. His dad died when he was a baby, so he’d had assorted stepfathers all his life. Most of them were two-bit scumbags, or so he told me. Some were alcoholic, some were violent, and some were just lazy slobs. Kyle got fiercely protective of his mother and tried his best to look after her, like his stepfathers should’ve. But Steve was different, apparently.

“Yeah, that’d be good,” I agreed. “Still don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Got ideas, lad?” Mr. Dawson asked us, suddenly appearing. We nodded. “Good, good. Get writing, then.”

He walked off to someone else’s table and we started talking about our respective parents, or lack of them. Well, Kyle talked and I thought about what to write.

But while Kyle was recounting something Steve had done, it hit me. Suddenly, I knew exactly what to write about.

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Five minutes before lunch, Mr. Dawson stopped us. “Well done, everyone,” he congratulated. “You’ve all worked really hard, from what I’ve seen. Could I have a few volunteers to read theirs out?”

Not surprisingly, not a single hand rose into the air. No one wanted the humiliation that was sure to follow.

Mr. Dawson sighed. “Honestly, Year 10, what am I going to do with you? You’re a bunch of wimps. I’ll have to pick someone.” His eyes travelled round the classroom. Squeezing my eyes shut, I prayed to whoever might be listening that he wouldn’t pick me. “Fletch! How about you?”

My eyes flew open and I saw that every single person in the class was staring at me. So much for praying.

“Um,” I croaked, my throat dry, “I haven’t finished it yet, and it’s not really that good-”

“Fletch, I’m not asking for a masterpiece,” Mr. Dawson chuckled. “Just read what you’ve got. I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

Realising there was no way out of it, I cleared my throat and began. "My life is pretty average, I'd say. Nothing really springs to mind when I think of a life-changing moment. But there is one thing. One very special moment that I would say qualifies as life-changing.

"I was at the park near where I live, going for a run. It was raining, thick sheets of thundering, persistent rain that soaked me through to the core. But it was then, shivering a little from the cold, that I had my life changing moment.

"I saw her. The girl who would later go on to become my girlfriend, though I didn't know it at the time. Despite the fact that her hair was plastered to her skin, she was wearing sodden clothes and she was wearing hardly any makeup, she was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Her hair spun around her face as she danced in the rain, oblivious to me watching. Her eyes were like vats of molten chocolate, set in the creamy white porcelain of her face. She was wearing all red, a loud, vibrant red that grabbed me, shook me hard and wouldn't let me go. I never believed in love at first sight until then."

My face flushed with embarrassment, I glanced up nervously from the piece of paper, awaiting the reaction of the class. “That’s all I wrote.”

“That’s just the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” one girl sighed. Practically all the girls in the class nodded in agreement.

“I was right,” Kyle muttered. “You are going soft. And it is Tory’s fault.”

I ignored him; I was too busy feeling completely and utterly mortified. I hated being the centre of attention, having everyone stare at you. It didn't help that I had written the single soppiest thing ever in the history of our school. I was never going to live it down.

“That was rather good, Fletch,” Mr. Dawson commented. “I liked the use of personification at the end. Can anyone tell me what personification is?”

I silently thanked him for taking the spotlight off me. I’ve said it before, but Mr. Dawson was a great teacher.

“Well, you know what the homework is,” he informed us. “To write your first draft of the Merchant essay. And remember, it’s in for next Thursday, so I can mark it and get it back to you before the end of term, so you can have the real thing finished for when we come back after the summer holidays. Got it? Right, you can all go to lunch now.”

Everyone rushed out of the classroom, heading for the canteen, but me and Kyle walked outside since it was one of those rare sunny days. It would probably be raining tomorrow, though. That’s the British weather for you. He was still ribbing me about being a pathetic softie when we joined the others. Apart from Jordan and Hassan, there was David, Jake, Aaron and Harry. Kara was a given, since she generally went wherever David went.

“I mean, seriously,” Kyle sniggered as we sat down, “‘the porcelain of her face’?”

“Shut up,” I muttered.

“The porcelain of whose face?” Hassan asked curiously.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, but Kyle grinned, quickly recounting what had happened in English. I shrunk as low as I could, burying my head in my hands. “I hate you,” I muttered when he’d finished.

“Oh Fletch,” David smirked. “That’s pathetic.”

Harry stifled a guffaw. “I didn't know you were so…” he gestured around for a word. “Spiritual?”

“I think the word you’re looking for is, ‘soppy’,” Jake grinned.

“Is there something you’d like to tell us?” Aaron teased.

“Oh shut up all of you,” Kara scolded them. “God’s sake, it’s really sweet that Fletch cares so much about Tory. I wish I had a boyfriend that cared about me that much, David,” she said pointedly. “So leave him alone, okay? At least he’s not afraid to show his emotions, which is more than I can say for you Neanderthals.”

“Thank you, Kara,” I mumbled, my face steadily returning to it’s normal colour. At least I wasn’t deathly pale anymore.

“So, can we read it?” Hassan asked mischievously.

“No,” I said firmly. “I never wanted anyone to read it. It’s shit.”

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad,” Kyle chuckled. “Even Mr. Dawson said. Let them read it.”

“What, and have you all quoting it, making jokes at my expense?” I retorted. “No thanks. So just drop it, okay?”

“Lighten up, Fletch,” David said, shaking his head. “You have to admit, it is quite funny.”

“I suppose,” I muttered. “But I swear, if any of you bring it up again, I won’t be held responsible for what I do.”

All eight of them zipped their mouths simultaneously.

“Not a word,” Kara said mischievously.

“But just out of curiosity, how soppy is it exactly?” Jordan asked impishly.

I groaned loudly, burying my head in my knees.