The glint in Ike's eye gave the game away, so we decided just to head off to school and leave the explanations until we could find somewhere a little more private. In a boarding school, that always presents a problem as there's someone somewhere all of the time but with a little persistence, the odd quiet spot could be found.

We skated the mile or so to school at a fair pace, the school drive turning into a racetrack as we all decided to try and out-blade each other. Tay was winning until a pebble jammed one of his blades, causing him to pull up fairly sharpish. I was skating right behind him - admiring the view - and was so preoccupied I didn't notice his speed had dropped to zero. My impact dislodged the stone and we coasted as one down the rest of the slight grade on the drive to the "back door" - Ike zooming past us to a convincing victory.

One of the main entrances for the pupils to the main school building was through "The Caves" - the school's basement. We rolled down the treacherously slippy slope and burst through the door, the handle embedding itself in the inch-deep hole made by many such entrances. Down here could be found the cloakroom, Rec. Room, assorted store rooms and the boiler room. Seeing as no-one important ever came down here, decoration was not a top priority: the hall was lit by bare electric light bulbs which picked out all of the imperfections on the untidily plastered ceiling - that is in the places the plaster was still clinging on. Telephone cables, power lines and pipes criss- crossed the ceiling, a couple of which were low enough to do yourself quite an injury with if you hadn't been warned.

We chucked our coats onto the deformed pegs in the cloakroom and headed up the concrete steps to the ground floor. I opened the door at the top of the stairs and the sound of a hundred or so teenagers busily shifting food into their faces and filling each other in on the latest greeted our ears. The d,cor up here was far more "civilised" (the walls had been painted within the last decade) as it was on general display to any parents who happened to come ambling through in search of a "lost" son or daughter.

"Mmm, smells real nice," said Tay sarcastically as he got a whiff of the slightly acrid smell of the dodgy school sausages. We continued down the corridor and turned into the dining hall. Breakfast here was, to be honest, fairly good. Every meal you had you generally got a choice. In the mornings, it was usually a choice of beans.

Beans and sausages, beans and scrambled egg, beans and bacon, beans on toast and, if any were available together, a combination thereof. You could usually grab a bowl of cereal and a glass of "real" fruit juice, real being used in its loosest possible sense. I have the feeling that the "juice" had been shown an orange or apple at some stage in its life, but didn't actually contain any.

I shuffled through the pile of trays at the end of the counter and selected three that didn't have chewing gum, dried jam or were encrusted with leftovers, and handed one to Ike and Tay.

"Morning, Heather!" I said to the plump lady stood behind the counter.

"'ey up, Dean!" she grinned. "Wot you 'avin this mornin'?" Heather wasn't the prettiest sight on earth, but she truly had a heart of gold. She knew every pupil and member of staff on a first name basis, never had a bad word to say about anyone (even the awkward bastards who constantly complained about the food - there's only so much you can do with a quid a day) and always managed to coax a smile from me, no matter how knackered or depressed I felt. You couldn't ask for a better start to the day.

"Erm, I'll have sausages and beans. and a couple of rounds of toast, please."

"There yer go, me luv," she said, handing me a plate loaded with the school's finest. "Yes, me duck?" she said, grinning her toothy grin at Tay.

"Are they, like, normal sausages?" he asked, eyeing my plate suspiciously. I cast my eyes heavenwards.

"Well, luv, roomer has it that they did come from a pig."

"They're dead, Tay, honest" I reassured him.

"Uh, I'll have the same again please," he said gingerly.

"You just remember, luv," grinned Heather, "I may be a big girl, but I'm a friendly one. What's yer name, luv?"

"Uh, Taylor."

"Taylor. That's a nice name. So if you're Taylor, this must be..." she screwed he face up in deep thought. "Isaac. Int it?"

"Yes, ma'am" said Ike, returning her smile.

"I'm Heather. Not ma'am, not miss, just Heather. OK?"

"Sure," answered Tay.

"Good! Now we've got that settled, yer can ave yer food!"

Ike was ultra-adventurous and had exactly the same as me and Tay. We balanced the plates precariously on the slippy surface of the tray and ambled into the dining room proper, and found a space on the table that Ash, Jamie and Triv were occupying. Bikes did have one distinct advantage - they were a whole lot quicker than blades. Conversation was made easily despite this morning's little silence, and soon everyone was avidly discussing the pros and cons of the school. We soon noticed Zac being his normal exuberant self a couple of tables infront of us, showing off to his peers like there was no tomorrow, much to the amusement of his older brothers. However, the happy scene soon degenerated into turmoil as Zac was doing his visually impressive "I'm being strangled" routine. He was leaning back on his chair, feet locked under the crossbar of the heavy wooden table as support, when Gareth decided it'd be fun to remove said counterbalance.

With a sharp tug, the table moved that crucial six inches away from Zac, leaving him with arms and legs flailing in mid air, desperately trying to fling himself forward again. No such luck. With a very loud "Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!" Zac fell backwards against the lad behind him. Big mistake.

The room fell silent as Nick Drage slowly lifted his head out of his breakfast, bits of beans and soggy toast landing with quiet splats on his tray.

Nick was, well, Nick. That's the only way of describing him. Six foot two and built like a brick shithouse, he was the school's best Prop in the first fifteen Rugby side - but what he had in stature, he lost in brains. "I'm not very clever, but I can lift heavy weights" was the standard Drage catchphrase whenever he was out of earshot. He lifted his hands to his face and scooped the sticky tomato sauce from his eyes, his face changing colour to match it. Slowly he stood up, his chair making an agonising screeching sound as he pushed it back with his highly muscled calves and turned to face the hysterical Zac on the floor, completely oblivious to the person he'd just dunked.

He only noticed when the sliding chair made contact with his little finger, trapping a small amount of his flesh between the chair leg and the polished wooden floor.

"Hey man, watch it." giggled Zac as his reflexes pulled his hand up. He looked up into the face of one extremely pissed off sixth former. "Oh, sorry man - I. I didn't mean to."

"Shut the fuck up you little pussyboy!"

"Hey! I said I was sorry."

"Is sorry gonna get this shit off me? Like fuck it is!" And with that, Nick dived for Zac. Zac scrabbled out of the way just in time, Nick landing on the back of the chair Zac'd just fallen off.

Nick yelled in pain as the old but sturdy piece of furniture dug into him. "Come 'ere, you little fuckwit!" he yelled, dragging himself to his feet just in time to see Zac legging it out the door, sending a couple of girls flying.

"Sorryyyyyyyyyy..." exclaimed Zac, his voice fading away down the corridor.

Everyone at our table looked in utter disbelief at what had just happened: never had I seen such an outburst in school, especially not one with such a real threat of someone getting seriously hurt.

Dave Pantall leapt out of his seat and managed to calm Drage down from his ultra-psycho state, but was obviously still pretty miffed, the remnants of his breakfast clinging to his unshaven cheeks.

"I think I'd better go find Zac," mumbled Ike, standing up from the table.

"Hanson, you'd better keep that brother o' yours as far away from me as ya can," postured Drage.

"Hey, ease up, will ya?" said Dave. "He's only a kid - it was a mistake..."

"Fuckwit," retorted Nick, the fires of anger gradually ebbing to a controllable size.

Zac pelted down the corridor that lead out to the quad, not particularly bothered where he ended up as long he was "out of range" of the psycho-ninja-bastard that wanted to remove some of his more popular body parts. As he rounded a corner of the corridor he turned his head to check his assailant wasn't too far behind. Thankfully, he wasn't their at all, Zac giving a silent sigh of relief. Then he found himself on the floor. At first, he thought he'd run into a wall (he'd done that twice before now) but as he pulled himself together, found himself staring into the eyes of a seriously cute lad, probably just a little older than himself.

"Hey, sorry man - you alright?"

"Yeah - I'll live..." said the dazed boy, also regaining the use of his lower limbs. He pulled his green school jersey round so that the arms were actually around his arms, having managed to migrate to a rather uncomfortable position during the collision. Once he'd straightened himself out, Jonathan Peitz looked for the first time at the guy who'd managed to total him.

Before him stood an out-of-breath, blonde-haired twelve year old with an apologetic smile on his face - a smile that went straight to his heart and melted it like butter. Jon went weak at the knees. He'd just been creamed by Zac Hanson - WOW! That meant that Zac had actually TOUCHED him! Jon's head was swimming: Ever since MMMBop had projected them into the media spotlight, Jon had been obsessed with Zac - the sound of his voice, his looks, his smile...

Before he really knew what he was doing, Jon quickly moved towards Zac and kissed him on the cheek. Realising what he'd done, he swore and legged it off down the corridor towards the quad. Zac just stood there. This was going to be a very good two weeks indeed...


On to Chapter Seven

Back to Chapter Five

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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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