"MOR-NING-GAR-ETH!" yelled Zac as he bounced up and down on Gareth's bed, making the rickety timber frame complain noisily.

"'Koff."

"Oooooooh, who's in a mood this mornin'?" giggled Zac as he tossed his head to get rid of the long strands of blonde hair his energetic bouncing had dislodged into his field of vision.

"I said 'FUCK OFF'!"

The grin on Zac's face litterally dropped from it, the shere implication of those two re-affirmed syllables hitting him straight between the eyes. Cautiously, he climbed off Gareth's bed and stood, almost shaking, at his bedside.

"What part of the sentence don't you fuckin' understand?" yelled Gareth, Zac still being within a hundred miles of him.

"W... Why?"

Gareth tore his douvet off and stood right infront of Zac, putting his slight height advantage to full effect. It had the desired effect on Zac: He was scared.

"How can you ask me 'Why' in that shitty southern accent of yours? Even you could work that one out!"

He couldn't. Zac truely couldn't comprehend why Gareth was so pissed at him. What had he done?

The look of complete bafflement on his face just fueled Gareth's anger, now seething because he could see that Zac thought what he had done wasn't wrong.

"I'll give you a hint: That Jon fucking Peitzmann... Or rather, FUCKING that Jon Peitzmann..."

"Ohhh..." The realisation of the source of Gareth's anger suddenly became abundantly clear to Zac. "Gareth I... I didn't mean... Shit! I didn't think th..."

"Ain't that a fact - you didn't fuckin' think!"

"XXXX! Hanson! - get out of this house immediately! I will NOT tolerate such behaviour under this roof. You will report to me in my classroom every moment of free time you have until the end of this week. Do I make myself clear?" Russell's sharp tone interjected the boys' dialogue.

Gareth looked angrily over at Zac, the negative emotion in his eyes tearing at Zac's heart. "Sir." he answered.

"Hanson?"

"Yessir..."

"Now get dressed and get out." Russell spun round on his heals and stalked back down the corridor, looking for some other poor unfortunate to inflict pain upon. The two boys dressed in silence, the only communication being the occasional death-stare from Gareth.

"I tell you, we're friggin' well lost!" exclaimed Triv, exhasperated by the fact that he lets Spider navigate for a mile and in that short distance, have absolutely no idea where we are. Tay, Jamie and myself took the opportunity to take a rest sitting on top of one of the many dry stone walls.

"We're not lost,"

Triv raised his eyebrows.

"We just took an alternative route."

"Tony, there's a difference between an 'alternative' and a 'completely wrong' route, ya know! We should be in a VALLEY now, not standing on a road half way up the side of one!"

"OK, OK, I'm sorry!"

"Give us the map,"

Spider surrendered his position of navigator reluctantly to Triv, who shook his head and tried to orientate the map according to our surroundings. I felt Tay shiver next to me as the sharp wind whistled down the sides of the valley. I heard my watch beep and looked at it. 12:00.

"Hey Triv, how about we stop for lunch here?"

"'Spose we could," he replied, still intently staring at the map. No- one had officially elected Triv as the group leader (in fact there shouldn't really have been one) but it made him happy, and he was actually damn good at it, so we just let it slide. "I'd sit down on the other side of this wall, though - it'll give us some shield from this wind."

I pulled my rucksak off, delighting in the feeling of near-zero gravity that moving without it provided and, judging by the look on Tay's face, he was experiencing the same.

I undid the snaps on the top cover, letting the flysheet drop to the ground with a muffled thud. Underneath was revealed a now highly compressed standard issue school packed lunch which usually comprised of a small carton of juice, a bread roll (usually cheese filled), a packet of crisps, an apple, orange or pear and a small slab of flap- jack. I looked over at Tay who was busily unpacking nearly the entire contents of his backpack. He saw me looking on and smiled sheepishly.

"I forgot we had to eat at lunck, OK?" he explained and with that, dived back into the canvas, re-emerging a moment later with his lunch bag.

I moved over to him and brushed the hair out of his eyes. "For a talented guy you can be really thick sometimes!"

"Thick? THI... Mmmmm..." I didn't give him chance to finish the sentence as I planted my lips on to his own. I felt all the stress start to fall from Tay's body, and took advantage of the fact. In one swift movement, I sent my hand diving into his lunch bag and grabbed whatever was closest.

I pulled away quickly, Taylor looking somewhat shocked.

"Got yer roll!" I laughed, running a few feet away.

"YOU FREAK! I can't believe I fell for that. I'm gonna have to teach you a lesson, Mr. Lidster!"

"That a threat or a promise?"

"Wossup, me duck?" asked Heather as Ike leaned heavily against the counter in the dining room, aimlessly looking at the choice of food infront of him.

"Huh? Oh, hi Heather... Nothing, really,"

"Now don't you give me non o' that crap, Mr. 'anson," she scolded. "You may be famous an' all, but you be human too! Nancy? Take over for a moment, will ya luv?"

Heather passed command of the Starship Crappyslop to one of the other kitchen staff and waddled to the bar-style opening counter, opening it for Ike and ushering him through. She led him into their staff room that looked like a textbook example of kitch fifties styling, complete with formica tabletop and greeny-beige upholstery, and sat him down in their "best" sofa-chair, the weakly sprung cushon almost trying to absorb him as he lowered himself into it.

"Now," said Heather, unwrapping the plastic from a new packet of Silk Cut and shoving a fag into her mouth. "Tell me: Wossup?"

"Uhh, Heather, I'm not sure if I can..."

"Course you bloody can!" she chuckled, the cigarette bobbing wildly up and down between her chubby lips. "I won't tell another living soul. Unless you want me to..."

Ike smiled weakly, smothered by Heather's exuberant character. Somehow, he simply knew he could tell Heather anything and, as she said, it would go no further.

"Have you ever loved someone - ya know: REALLY loved them - then you kinda like lost contact with them, and you're not quite sure why?"

Heather vigorously flicked the thumb wheel on her Bic lighter, the feeble little spark it produced not having a hope in hell's chance of lighting the few atoms of gas it contaned. She sighed, pulled the cigarette from her mouth and chucked them both in the bin.

"I were meanin' to quit anyhow... Yes, Isaac luv, I have - an' it were the biggest mistake I ever'd made. It were cos of me bein' so bloody stupid - I knew I loved him but I never actually felt like I told the lad - I thinh 'e felt the same so we's gradually growed apart. Never really loved another 'un since."

"How old were you, if you don't mind me asking?"

Heather chuckled, casting her mind back. "I were a young, buxom twenty-somethin' with me 'ole life ahead o' me. I met this lad when I were workin in the kitchens of a real posh 'otel in Birminum. 'E were a waiter and as soon as I set me minces on 'im, I were besotted!" She smiled her toothy smile as memory after memory replayed themselves infront of her mind's eye. "My, 'e were a looker! And what's best is that 'e came to talk to ME, never minds them other floozies that would strut about the place thinkin' that bein' a waitress were the be-all an' end-all of it... Anyway, enuf of me own borin' life. What's yer story?"

Ike looked slightly uncomfortable, but the look of affection in Heather's eyes created an unspoken affinity between the two. He told her all...

Zac looked over Russell's dingy classroom to Gareth, and was immediately met with an icy stare that cut straight to the bone, making him physically shiver.

'Man, how do I get myself into these things?' Zac asked himself. He looked back at the page of lines Russell had set him, then back at Gareth who was now concentrating his anger onto the page, his biro nib practically tearing the paper apart with each letter. Zac's eyes played over Gareth's body for the umpteenth time, taking in the blonde boy's lines and curves, wishing he hadn't upset him so. He shook his head and read down the page of near identical lines. "I will not behave like an animal in my boarding house."

As he began to write again, images of Jon flew through his mind. Man that guy was cute - and it'd felt soooo good too. He wanted them both, but judging by Gareth's reaction to him and Jon, that was not an option. Zac threw his pen down in desperation. "Fuck!" he exclaimed, shattering the totalitarian silence within the room with his expletive. Russell's head snapped up from his marking, an equally icy stare being produced.

"Sorry, sir," Zac whimpered, knowing that the already cavenous hole he'd dug for himself was now just about rivaling that of the Marianas Trench.

Russell's frighteningly well controlled voice rang clear in Zac's ears. "Mr. Hanson - I do believe that you need to learn to control your emotions somewhat better than you can at present. Continue writing."

All of this was pushing Zac just a little too far: it was taking all of his effort to hold back the tears of dispair he wanted to shed, but his pride would not let him give Russell that pleasure. He gritted his teeth, blinked a couple of times to get rid of some of the water from his eyes and carried on writing his eighth page of lines.

We turned into the gate of our home for the night (a sheep-turd littered field) at about half three in the afternoon, Triv having decided that although Spider had put us a fair way off course if we didn't mind about half a mile of hill climb, we should be able to make fairly good time. We had - we were at our camp site a full forty minutes before our route sheet time, thus allowing us to pitch our tents in proper daylight as opposed to dusk - another challenge Gill liked to set camping "newbies".

The owner of the field (a really nice old lady who sub-let it to one of the local farmers) greeted us with a warm smile and pointed out a section that had been fenced off to allow us to camp without the sheep getting too nosy. A pleasant surprise was that she suggested we light a camp fire - usually land owners get very tetchy about you building anything vaguely resembling a camp fire, in one instance to the extent that they wouldn't let a group use their primus stove in the field!

"There are some logs over there you can use as seats," she pointed out, "and plenty of drift wood down by the river. Have a good night, boys - if you have any problems, all you have to do is knock..." and with that, she retired back to her house.

"I think we've fallen on our feet here, lads," smiled Spider. "You lot get the tents set up, I'll go get some wood."

"Yeff FIR!" yelled Jamie, doing a retarded salute, slapping himself audibly on his forehead with the back of his hand.

"What kinda wood you getting, Spidey?" I asked slyly. Tay cottoned immediately.

"Yeah - you'd better not be, like, rubbin' it down while you're gone!" he grinned.

"You're perverts, the lot of ya!" he laughed.

We just all looked at each other and choroused: "Yes!"

I headed over towards our sheep-free zone, and was promptly rugby- tackled by Tay, the weight of the ruksack on my back not helping matters. He reached round and undid the snaps that supported the majority of its weight on your hips (hence avoiding back pains) and pulled it off me, then rolled me over so I was facing him.

"I'm gonna have to nick your lunch more often," I smiled, feeling him pressing his hips into me.

"What, and get totaled by me every night?"

"Oh yeah," I groaned as he now started thrusting against me playfully.

"Would you two settle down? We've got to get these tents up before it gets too dark," said Triv.

"I think they've already got their tents up!" laughed Jamie, ever the one for a cheap joke and / or thrill.

Triv seemed to pause and think for a moment, then shook his head and shrugged the rucksack from his shoulders. Tay rolled off the top of me and nonschoulantly re-arranged his stiffie into a slightly more comfortable position and began dragging assorted bits of tent pole out out of his rucksack.

A half-hour or so later, two orange monstrosities adorned the corner of the field and a large pile of brushwood and other combustibles marked the camp fire. As the rich glow of the sun set behind the trees, the temperature began to nose-dive quite impressively causing assorted embarassing sweaters, thread-bare gloves and ludicrously coloured wooly hats to be produced - this being one of the (very) few times it was acceptible to wear such things. I was now wearing a large, creme-coloured, grandma-knitted, five-sizes-too-big woolly with a picture of Garfield the Cat on the front with a what can only be described as an "Afro" coloured woolly hat. But I was warm, so that was good enough for me!

Triv salvaged a box of matches from the bottom of his rucksack and knelt down by the fire. To manoeuvre his arm into the optimum fire- lighting position, he ended up with one shoulder onthe ground and his arse sticking up in the air. Just aimlessly glancing round, I suddenly noticed Jamie: He was staring at Triv's tight backside, the slightly glazed look in his eyes allowing me to draw only one conclusion - he was well and truely in lust.

As Tay and I sat together on one of the logs that we'd dragged to form a circle round the fire, I suddenly realised something about our relationship that simply hadn't occured to me before. When we'd first met and spent that day-and-a-bit at Alton Towers, on retrospect I saw that our relationship had been initially based on the sex. Don't get me wrong - the sex was good (no - that's too mild - it was FUCKING EXCELLENT!) but now we shared something deeper, something more fundamental and less shallow than the physical alone. We well and truely loved each other, and it was a feeling like none other I'd ever experienced.

I looked at Tay, him looking back at me at almost the same instant. For the umpteenth time I became lost in his eyes - even now I can not quantify the mystical quality they have - as if I were looking directly upon his soul, and he on mine. I put my arm around him and kissed him gently on the lips, a shiver running through both of us - the final physical contact seemingly completing the circuit of love we were generating.

Then Spider quite successfully pulled the breaker.

"Oi! Dean! What we 'avin' for supper then?"

"You ain't havin' NONE of my food, Hendon! You aren't even in my tent group!"

Spider tried to look dejected, but he was a shit actor, so he just looked stupid.

Jamie snapped himself away from the oh-so-appealing sight of Triv's taught buttocks as the flames from the kindling under the wood licked round the more substantial material above it. Triv just kept steadily blowing on the flames, encouraging them to grow to a more respectible size.

It was quite depressing how easily Jamie could be read at times, this being no exception. He noisily dumped the billies and Primus infront of himself, and began Triv-watching again, the look on his face so obviously saying "Why don't you blow me instead..."

He sighed and turned his attention to the battered primus stove, prising open the top of the red steel box and screwing the burner onto the top of the paraffin tank.

"Hey, Triv - you got the paraffin?"

"Nope. Gave it to Spider."

"Spider?"

"Ummm..." Spider looked slightly panicked as he rummaged through the quintessential items he'd brought with him for camping: walkman, razor, THREE torches, gameboy, lightboy (we wouldn't want to waste the batteries in one of our many torches now, would we!) and a pair of amplified speakers for said walkman. But no paraffin bottle.

"I haven't got it."

"You forgot the paraffin?"

"Looks like it," he said, grinning a 'please don't kill me' grin.

"Well that's fucking great! OK Spider - go back to that little village we saw and see if the Kwik Save is still open and get us something that DOESN'T need cooking!"

"You're jokin', right?"

Triv and Jamie stared blankly back at him.

"Awww fuck..."

"Don't bother, Spider," chipped in Tay.

"Whaddya mean, 'Don't bother'? The fool forgot the paraffin for the stove! I'm bloody hungry!"

Tay didn't say another word: he simply unclipped his ever-present phone from his belt and punched a few keys.

"Er, hi, um... Do you deliver? You do? Cool! Listen, I'd like a large pepperoni pizza," Tay looked at me and raised his eyebrows. "Make that two pepperoni," he looked over at Triv and Jamie.

"Woah! Er, ham and mushroom, please!"

"Sausage, sweetcorn and chicken..."

"A large ham and mushroom, a large sausage, sweetcorn and chicken, and..."

"Ermmm, er.... What've they got?" stuttered Spider.

Tay shook his head. "And a pineapple and sweetcorn please. Yeah. Address? Ermmm - do you deliver to camp sites? Great! It's a... Well, it's a field! A grid reference? Yeah - just a moment..."

Triv leapt from his seat beside Jamie, diving head-first into the tent to retrieve the map. A moment later, he re-appeared, brandishing the map and his torch.

"Two-four-three, one-four-eight," declaired Triv as his fingers diverged from our present position to the figures on the side of the map. Tay relayed the all-important location to the pizza place.

"About twenty minutes? Cool. Thanks man," and with that, he hung up and switched the phone off again.

"OK, smartypants, where'd you get that number from? Not that I'm complaining!" asked Jamie.

"We passed it this morning! I thought it might come in useful, so I shoved it in my phone!" grinned Tay.

"I hope you realise I ain't got no money on me," said Triv, looking slightly worried.

"My treat! I guess I owe you guys for treating me as a person - a lot of people kinda forget to do that!"

"I spose, but you ain't no god either! You're not gonna catch me kissin' that arse of yours,"

"I'd hope not!" grinned Tay. "That's Dean's job!"


On to Chapter Thirteen

Back to Chapter Eleven

Chapter Index

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Email the Author - dean@meta4.org

The Exchange is © 1999 by Dean Lidster. This work may not be duplicated in any form (physical, electronic, audio, or otherwise) without the author's written permission. All applicable copyright laws apply. All individuals depicted are fictional with any resemblance to real persons being purely coincidental.

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