School's Out - by Adam Farrer

School's Out Part 2

Her name escaped me but I recognised her immediately as someone who had once looked on and laughed when I was being beaten up in a school corridor. I recalled the thrill on her face as the punches landed and her smirk as I cautiously got to my feet and headed to the toilets to see if my lip was as big as it felt.

Effie looked at me, waiting for an answer. "I don't remember," I told her, because that was all she needed to know. "It was a long time ago."

I'd been telling myself for years that the drama of high school was behind me. When discussing that time I would talk rationally, explaining that I understood the insecurities that led children to behave like vicious monsters and that, with this knowledge, I had moved on. It disgusted me to discover that I hadn't. How much of it still hurt.

Effie selected another face but the doorbell rang and she suddenly lost interest, rattling down the loft ladder to answer the door. It was her friend from across the road. She yelled a goodbye and the door slammed, leaving me alone to pick out the faces that still haunted me.

I looked for David first. Who had claimed that I'd touched his leg under the table during History class, igniting the homosexual rumour that would dismantle my life for the next two years. Leaving me friendless, shunned and scared. Skipping classes and faking sickness. Leaking awful poetry.

Prior to this David and I had got along. We sat at neighbouring desks and often ate lunch together. But at some point it seemed that he needed a target and I, bespectacled, comic-bookish, bad at sport, seemed ideal. The reaction he got from starting this rumour was so immediately big and satisfying that he couldn't give it up. And so, for months, he stirred the pot.

He'd stalk me through the corridors between classes, bracketed by his snickering friends. Issuing reminders that resonated through the building.

"Queer," he'd snarl, "Fucking queer."