had something to say in return. I offer her an apricot bar (the sugariest treat you can get at our school’s ‘health food’ canteen), which she accepts and we sit in silence for a moment.
The First XV rugby team from the boys’ school is strutting out to the scrum machine in the middle of the field. Wednesday. Scrum training day. Once assured that all eyes are upon them, they begin their warm-up exercise display. Bulging hamstrings are stretched languorously. Large shoulders are carefully rotated in their sockets, displaying to best advantage the pecs and biceps attached. The coach circulates, grunting encouragement and consulting on quadricep stretches and groin strains.
‘Frickin’ alpha males,’ mutters Penny mutinously.
Chris’s lament that girls like Kathy eat boys like him for breakfast was still fresh in my mind. These boys didn’t eat anyone for breakfast – they didn’t have to. They were secure in their position. Only some girls from Year Eleven and Twelve are allowed to approach them, and only after being given certain cues. They have parties where there are burly boys on the door to prevent any gatecrashers from entering. No one from our group of friends has ever been to one. Girls who are invited to these parties are handpicked. In my imagination, the parties involve smoke-filled rooms, kegs of beer, swimming pools, perfume and testosterone hanging heavy in the air, and pair after pair of folded strong male arms straining against their ‘fashion T-shirts’.
Who is at practice today? I can see Ed Kennedy, Steven Harris and Jeremy Richardson. Luke Silburn, Monty Donachy and James Roberts. To name a few. The funny thing is – how is it possible that I know so many of their names? I have nothing to do with them. I’ve never even spoken to one. Yet somehow their names have seeped into the collective consciousness of the whole school. You hear whispers of their names along the corridors and across the school grounds at lunch. Information about which of them are dating what girls, who had a party last weekend, who was invited and who is casually mentioning that they went and did what to whom. I even know that Monty Donachy’s first name is short for ‘Montague’. Go figure.
After warming up, the boys begin the somewhat comical routine of scrum practice on the scrum simulator thingy – a large hunk of metal that substitutes for the opposing team of hulking heads and shoulders. I wonder if there is a proper name for this contraption. They line up in formation and bend down to assume the position, arms around each other’s arses and heads hovering close to the two in front. Then with a terribly masculine Hunh! they thrust forward, all heads, thighs, arms and arses interlocked. The boys at the front have slammed their heads between the padded struts of the scrum simulator and, straining and grunting, they all push push push to move it back a few inches. Coach roars encouragement for a few seconds, then they all break away. Repeat the process.You lose track of how many times.
Every pair of eyes in the large school grounds, male and female, is unable to look away from this spectacle. Sometimes I think I can feel a silent alliance among certain groups who resent the privileged position that these meatheads occupy. For mine, the whole exercise is just so visually ridiculous that I can’t believe the whole school doesn’t just burst out laughing. But no one does. No one is brave enough to openly challenge the status quo. And maybe deep down we all hope to be invited to one of their parties one day.
The bell for sixth period sounds.
‘What have you got now?’ I ask Penny.
‘Double art.You?’
‘Study period. I’m going to write that letter to Chris.’
‘Ah. Well, if you need a break, come and wave at me through the artroom window. I’ll strike myself down with gastro and need to be excused.’
‘Will do.’
D AD
Dear Chris,
In the cold light of day, I’m not really sure what to write
The First XV rugby team from the boys’ school is strutting out to the scrum machine in the middle of the field. Wednesday. Scrum training day. Once assured that all eyes are upon them, they begin their warm-up exercise display. Bulging hamstrings are stretched languorously. Large shoulders are carefully rotated in their sockets, displaying to best advantage the pecs and biceps attached. The coach circulates, grunting encouragement and consulting on quadricep stretches and groin strains.
‘Frickin’ alpha males,’ mutters Penny mutinously.
Chris’s lament that girls like Kathy eat boys like him for breakfast was still fresh in my mind. These boys didn’t eat anyone for breakfast – they didn’t have to. They were secure in their position. Only some girls from Year Eleven and Twelve are allowed to approach them, and only after being given certain cues. They have parties where there are burly boys on the door to prevent any gatecrashers from entering. No one from our group of friends has ever been to one. Girls who are invited to these parties are handpicked. In my imagination, the parties involve smoke-filled rooms, kegs of beer, swimming pools, perfume and testosterone hanging heavy in the air, and pair after pair of folded strong male arms straining against their ‘fashion T-shirts’.
Who is at practice today? I can see Ed Kennedy, Steven Harris and Jeremy Richardson. Luke Silburn, Monty Donachy and James Roberts. To name a few. The funny thing is – how is it possible that I know so many of their names? I have nothing to do with them. I’ve never even spoken to one. Yet somehow their names have seeped into the collective consciousness of the whole school. You hear whispers of their names along the corridors and across the school grounds at lunch. Information about which of them are dating what girls, who had a party last weekend, who was invited and who is casually mentioning that they went and did what to whom. I even know that Monty Donachy’s first name is short for ‘Montague’. Go figure.
After warming up, the boys begin the somewhat comical routine of scrum practice on the scrum simulator thingy – a large hunk of metal that substitutes for the opposing team of hulking heads and shoulders. I wonder if there is a proper name for this contraption. They line up in formation and bend down to assume the position, arms around each other’s arses and heads hovering close to the two in front. Then with a terribly masculine Hunh! they thrust forward, all heads, thighs, arms and arses interlocked. The boys at the front have slammed their heads between the padded struts of the scrum simulator and, straining and grunting, they all push push push to move it back a few inches. Coach roars encouragement for a few seconds, then they all break away. Repeat the process.You lose track of how many times.
Every pair of eyes in the large school grounds, male and female, is unable to look away from this spectacle. Sometimes I think I can feel a silent alliance among certain groups who resent the privileged position that these meatheads occupy. For mine, the whole exercise is just so visually ridiculous that I can’t believe the whole school doesn’t just burst out laughing. But no one does. No one is brave enough to openly challenge the status quo. And maybe deep down we all hope to be invited to one of their parties one day.
The bell for sixth period sounds.
‘What have you got now?’ I ask Penny.
‘Double art.You?’
‘Study period. I’m going to write that letter to Chris.’
‘Ah. Well, if you need a break, come and wave at me through the artroom window. I’ll strike myself down with gastro and need to be excused.’
‘Will do.’
D AD
Dear Chris,
In the cold light of day, I’m not really sure what to write
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