The St. Pyres Boarding School

I meet the famous 'Jay'

We had to sign in at the headmasters office. I hated the headmaster straight off the bat. He very closely resembled a hawk, with his hooked nose and tight lipped scowl.

'Welcome to St. Pyres I am headmaster Jack Kabrick.' He said in a slow raspy kind of way, 'You'd best not cause trouble or you'll be seeing more of me and neither of us want that.'

'Wow Mum I love this place already,' I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster as we walked away from the office and down the paths towards the dorms. I will admit that the grounds were definitely beautiful, with large shaded trees to sit under and the smell of flowers were everywhere.

'Wow this place is amazing, look at all the flowers!' she looked like she was the one that wanted to go here instead of me.

We decided to go past the classrooms on the way and have a look through the windows. Every class had air-conditioning, a huge white board and interactive board. Those boards that you could connect to your computers. Much different to my old shitty blackboards in my old crappy school. Wow was I starting to like it? Nah I'm still going to stay mad that I had to move all this way I thought to myself.

I sighed as I held the dorm door open for her. It wasn't really anything special, just a hallway with doors and a couple of boys sitting against the wall laughing loudly.

'Number 34,' Mum muttered to herself repeatedly as she walked past the boys. Suddenly a door burst open and caught her square in the face, knocking her to the ground.

I rushed to help her up and turned to look at who did it. He was I'd say about five foot five with dark brown hair and tanned skin. An unlit cigarette hung loosely from his lips.

'Woah ma'am I'm very sorry about that,' He apologised quickly pocketing the cigarette.

'Oh that's quite alright would you happen to know where room 34 is?' Mum smiled as she fixed her clothes and hair.

'Yeah right here,' he said as he pointed to the door he just slammed my mother with.

'Oh then you must be my sons roommate!' Mum exclaimed, 'here this is Tobias, Tobias sweetie say hello.'

'Uh hey,' I smiled awkwardly. Somehow I couldn't hate this guy despite him being a smoker and not to mention just slammed my mum.

'Hey dude my names Junior but just call me Jay, and don't you worry ma'am your son is in good hands.' he winked at me. Jay picked up one of my bags and took it into my new room, motioning me to follow. 

I stepped into the room and it shocked me how clean it was. I looked around and there wasn't a single spot of dust. 'As you can see I don't really like mess so I'm gonna be up your arse about cleaning your bed and cupboard... just a tip,' he smiled. 'Also I have a huge thing about no porn so if you have to watch it take your laptop to the bathrooms.'

'For such a clean boy you have a very rude way of talking,' exclaimed my mother in a voice of innocence only mothers could use. 'but you seem to be a very nice young man so I am entrusting my baby to you... please look after him.'

'MUM! We just met him don't entrust my life to him. Also don't call me baby I'm sixteen not five!' I yelled embarrassed.

'Don't worry about it Tobias we'll have heaps of fun.' he smiled with a hint of mischief. 

"What did my mum sign me up for there is no way this guy doesn't get in trouble all the time"  I thought to myself.

'Well darling I have to leave, got a long trip ahead of me,' her eyes started to well, 'I'm going to miss you so much... you have to call every week Friday afternoon okay and if you miss it i'm going to call the headmaster and see why you didn't call. Also make sure you wear clean underwear everyday and you should find out where the laundry is in this place and...'

'Woah mum I know I know you've told me this everyday since you told me I'm coming here.' 

'I know I'll just miss you.' Her welling eyes suddenly broke and she was crying like a baby. She fell on me enveloping me in an embrace of tears and a bit of snot. Not a great impression to my new roommate. The goodbyes were eventually over and I was left in the room alone with Jay.

'You'd be surprised at how often that happens,' Jay said. He witnessed it all.

'I'm really sorry about that, bit of a mess my mother.'

'It's cool bro, anyways I need to take a shit, so I'll be back in like ten so unpack and then I'll show you around,' he said causually

'uh sure' I said kind of surprised how causally he spoke to me.

Sure enough ten minutes later he came back and he took me outside waving occasionally to a number of different people we walked past. The students seemed to be super diverse and there wasn't really anyone who looked remotely like anyone else there.

'You want one?' Jay asked as he took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.

I declined after a slight hesitation. Naturally he noticed it and insisted. 

'Fuck alright thanks,' I accepted realising that this guy might end up being my only friend here.

'Good man,' he smiled handing me one and lighting it for me. I inhaled... a bit too hard... I threw up... Nice Tobias Nice I thought to myself. 

Naturally Jay thought it was the funniest thing ever. 'AHAHAHAHA. You full threw up, I've never seen something like that before, wait until Skye hears about this. Dude this is life changing for you. You definitely need a nickname for this... Hmm... Smoke to be ironic? Gag, no. Oh I know Retch. Nah maybe not. I'll let Skye name you.'

'Who's Skye,' I said trying to change the subject as I wiped the vomit off my chin.

'The baddest girl around, let's go meet her.' he smiled, 'you're in for a treat.'