Status: Fresh out of the oven

One of the Boys

Chapter One

Truth be told I wasn't in any shape or form ready for this year, I was throwing myself head first into it anyhow. I had been driving for a many long hours down from Glasgow in my little Clio. If the radio was any thing reliable, than apparently it was current 31 degrees celsius in London at the moment; a scorcher by any British standard. Driving to Holderns by myself instead of hitching a flight with my parents a week before school was delaying the inevitable. An attempt to keep a distance transforming into reality for as long as time will allow. I had stayed the week at my grandparents who have retired in Scotland, as far from urban London as it gets. But like gravity, resistance was futile: I had finally submitted.

The sun caused a glare in my rear view mirror, blinding me momentarily as I stared at the mirror trying to reverse back in to a parking spot. It wasn't a real parking sport, lodged between two obscenely yellow skip bins and a large dumpster, it was less than ideal. Then again, in the middle of the broken beer bottles and cigarette stubs there was a large wilting weeping willow, whose branches caressed my overheated car as I parked beneath it and provided a merciful release from the unrelenting heat. My air conditioning had broken down long back in Yorkshire and I had been driving with windows wide open, letting hot air blow around me. The parking space suited me fine, the rest were all occupied anyway, with BMWs and Mercedes blinking and sparkling in the sunshine. From where I was I had a good view of the lot, but was quite subtle myself with the willow curtaining me from the rest of the school.

Satisfied, I switched off the motor, whose hoarse humming turned off instantaneously and left my Snoopy air freshener wagging back and forth. I wet my lips nervously, feeling the dried and cracked skin against my teeth, and the saltiness that coated my upper lip. I looked at my flushed face in the car mirror, grimacing slightly before applying vaseline and straighting out the rich brown wig the was pinned tight to my sweaty head. My eyebrows were a shade lighter than the wig, but I doubted anyone would notice. I straightened my tie and loosened my belt feeling my trousers become too loose around my hips. The tie was neatly strapped around my neck, sporting the school purple and navy colours.

Momentarily I flashed back to myself an hour go standing in a rest stop toilet with the blinking light overhead casting momentary shadows over my tear stained face. I held the dress I had worn during my road trip until that moment, navy like the tie, with lace. It rested well above my knees and dropped low at the front. As far as I could remember it had been my third time putting on a dress. I guess I felt the need to assert any sort of femininity I had onto the world; I didn't really want it forgetting who I was, even though I stood in the flickering room with short boyish hair, my breast bounded flat against my chest and my legs and arms unshaven I could barely recognize myself. From there I had driven here. To my new college, though it was nothing new.

I guess if I was being totally honest with myself , I admit I had seen it coming. I have a bad history with school, it's all down in my student file. My life story, all black and white in a worn out brown folder pasted on from school to school. I have been expelled more times that I care to say, thought in the most recent school, I had just been called into the headmasters office and 'advised to leave', their way of giving me a small favor to my already unrepairable string of misconduct. I don't even think my parents were surprise this time round. Neither was I. It had been an all girl's school, that is always bad news for me. I don't tend to get along with most girl, which is enough for all girls to not get on with me... if you see what I mean.

The schools I had been going to have all been boarding schools, as my parents live here in Holderns School for Boys; my father the deputy head, and my mother the on call school nurse and PE teacher. They have grown fond of the system's esteem and reputation. That dollop of prestige that is a attached to each student graduate. But even they this time round tried to get me taken, anywhere, be it a public school. But they were out of connections, and strings to pull, and I was out of chances. Schools just heard the name Lucy Jones and steered clear away. This left only one option, Dad's own school. I could see that it would have it's perks, my parents would be close by for once, not just during the summer. They would support me with my studies, thought I tended to not have much problems with academics. I wouldn't have a headmaster that had a strong prejudice against me from the start. But... It was an all boy's school, from staff to students, boys, men, males everywhere. And therefore I had to pretend I was one as well.

I just wanted to graduate and get into some university or straight into employment. No big plans, just one without schools,expectation, good conducts, homework and especially hormonal teenage girls. True, being a girl myself, my father would remind me over Skype that I had a tendency to lear towards hysterical at certain points, but I wasn't like them.

I breathed in the hot, particle ridden air; cigarette ashes, and decaying yellow grass, as I pushed open my car door and looked across the parking lot. Everywhere in front of me, families were struggling out of their cars, after a long stifling journey from all over the country. Slouchy sons, and forgetful fathers, had the moaning mothers on their backs, chasing them up with supply list, and forgotten items. The cacophony it created was astounding, and I was happy to stay put, and detain my entrance in to my new life for a few moments longer. Boys from 12 upwards, most in the obligatory school uniform, let their mothers kiss them and fathers pay them a few words of wisdom. My teenage eyes caught their exasperation, and I smiled to myself, enjoy this spectacle.

I caught sight of a late arrival. A chauffeur driven car stationed itself a few meters away, parallel to my hiding spot. A woman, petite, though not by nature, got out of the car after her son who had jumped out as soon as the car had come to a halt. She called after him, and I saw his muscles tense though his shirt, as he stalled and turned around. His father also got out, and marched towards him and placed with destructive force, his hands on the boys shoulders pivoting the boy towards him. I was too far away to hear any of the father's attacking whispers but I could see the fists of the statuesque boy clenching and unclenching in quick electric pulses.

His mother, caressed his cheek softly, her trembling lips kissed his chest and she beckoned him to bend low so that she could whisper low and quiet in his ear. His father looked on impatiently from the sideline, jerking from foot to foot, but they paid him no heed. Tears that I could see twinkling down her cheek, were inter winding with her dark hair, the same shade as her sons. But his was longer, more misshapen, and untidy. He severed the connection suddenly, and turned away, where for the first time I had a clear view of his face. And on it I saw painted the most wretched and distraught expression man can imagine. Every line of his face carried a deeply ingrained weight, and as he raised his head, heaving his neck against the strain of the earth, he caught sight of me. That acute vulnerability I had seen instantaneously disappeared, replaced by distrust and apprehension. A terrible feeling of embarrassment and awkwardness, grew inside me, and I turn away, and caught whiplash. Knowing that I had witnessed something I had no right to, sent me in a guilty panic.

When I ventured to peak another look, he had already turned back kissed his mother's hollow cheek and embarrassed her before both parted separate ways. The father stood in place for an extra moment, a though he was expecting a something from the boy as well, before he hurried off, out of countenance. The ashen boy paid me no heed as he passed me to rejoin the rest of the world that had been a stand still during the scene, except a single piercing hateful look.

I crossed the parking lot, trying to shake off the awkwardness that was churning my stomach and making me grimace every time every time I thought back to when I had been caught staring. Nearing the school, a rowdy laughter surprised me coming form a group of thirty people all closely intertwined, arms round shoulders, and heads under arms. The were all focusing and jeering intensely at what ever they had encircled.

'Grow a dick and show us Jesus's Sake!' came an impatient and irritated yell, from who I could not tell, someone in the group of boys who had a dirty mouth and a husky voice to go with it.

'Why don't you can it Miller?' I was unable to stop myself from checking it out. The whole set up was to much for my curiosity to hold. I could barely see from above the boy's shoulders and opted to sit on a railing instead and look in. Two boys were in the center lounging on the clean cut grass. There was one who had his head thrown back in absolute laughter, plucking grass every which way out of uncontrollable anticipation. He had dark hair and tanned skin which meshed well with the black of his uniform. Next to him his friend had a composed and calm dominore. It was him had told Miller to 'can it'. And Miller had along with the rest of the throng.

He was leaning back on one hand the other was fiddling with a piece of wheat grass that was dangling out of his mouth. It was strange that he was also wearing a black blazer like his friend when the uniform specified that a blue gray blazer was mandatory. But my focus wasn't so much the blazer but what the blazer encomposed. His crisp white shirt was hanging open, framing his toned abdomen. Each muscle perfectly distinctive. His grey and black tie was hanging freely on his shoulders forgotten.

'You've got to show them at some point,' the laughing boy told him. 'They basically have been waiting all summer to see your tatt.'

In one smooth motion he was standing up, in another he shrugged off his shirt, and in the next he soaked in the gasp, one being my own. Now I am not much of a tattoo person, but on the right person, anything can look good. And he made it look good. A dragon in pure black adorned his torso. Rising from the base of his hip and up his side till the head reached off his chest blowing out a monstrous flame to the awe struck audience. It looked real and defined though the detail was minimalistic. In the flames some oriental symbols were written, and I found myself wishing I knew what they said.

'Now, does anyone else have some doubts about what I can and cannot do?'

'Yeah! Did you make sure you know what symbols they were tattooing on you, and not 'Prissy Private school Prat?' Jeeried Miller once more.

'What will Mommy and Daddy say when they find out?' Someone else called out?

'What will happen to the schools 'most prestigious pupil?'

'Biggest investment is more like it!' Another jeered, each voice faceless. A part of the group of boys became rowdy with unconstrained laughter, while the rest looked at them disapprovingly.

Then the dragon boy struck. The dragon came alive with the upper movement of his arm as he threw a direct punch at one of the boys in his line of fire. The circle that had disintegrated and dispersed from his first movement, now stood rock still, breaths lost in shock. His hand was trembling, millimeters way from the boys nose, and he held on his face a perfect sneer. He leaned his face in closer, lowering his fist, till his forehead was touching the other boy's. I couldn't help but mimic the dreadfully obvious gobsmacked faces of the students. His laugh was so sharp and dry.

He turned to us all, as he threw his shirt and blazer over his shoulder, smiled ambiguously , then beckoned to his hooting friend, and walked towards the school building, leaving us with a few words.

'Watch yourself. It bites.'