A Hillside is not a Comprehensive School

Mr. Reed and Joseph were the first to reach the summit, a small cairn under grey sky; exposed slate, coarse grass.

Hidden by a dull ridge, the rest of the school party struggled with scratchy waterproofs and ill-fitting boots.

The dormitories had been chaos last night, the charge of teenage excitement mixing with floor polish and distant smells of boiled food. Peering through the keyhole of the girls’ room, they’d shaken with freedom.

Mr. Reed sat like a pile of loosened knots, opening a can of Shandy Bass from his rucksack, rubbing misty glasses.

Smiling, he offered the can.

Joseph remembered Mr. Reed shrieking, raw-throated, face mottled, jeers bouncing between chipped walls; heard the tonk of a wastepaper basket kicked across a classroom in defeat.

Soft as shite.

“Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Joseph nodded. Sitting, they surveyed jagged hills, distant tarns, followed water paths in scree and soil.

Drinking, Joseph imagined Paula Simmons touching him, naked in moonlight on a bed of pine needles, sweet, hoppy shandy cold diamonds in his throat

“So far from the city, we could be the only people in the world up here.”

Lightened, Mr. Reed talked some more, hopeful.

Uncomfortable, Joseph stopped listening.