As Ike got up, the rest of our table decided we didn't have a lot to hang around for, and so followed his lead, shoving our trays into the racks at the end of the dining room. As we noisily filtered out into the corridor, the bell rang signifying the start of Morning Cleaning. I grabbed Ike and Tay as they walked past one of the notice boards, pointing out the list of morning cleaning areas to them, my eyes scanning down the two-hundred-and-fifty strong list.

GORING, B (=) 24 HANSON, CI (+) 11 HANSON, JT (+) 18 HANSON, ZW (+) 05 HAWKESWORTH, CD (*) 12 .... LIDSTER, DJ (+) 18

I'd obviously done something right - Tay and I were assigned to the same area. My eyes then jumped to the list of areas beside the names list.

"Eighteen, eighteen," I mumbled to myself as I ran my finger down the list, Tay and Ike looking slightly overwhelmed by the sheer number of notices and snippets of information scattered round the assorted notice boards.

"18 - Sports Hall Changing Rooms"

Tay grimaced slightly.

"Nah - that's a good one," I explained. "The Sports Hall has its own cleaners anyway - I did it last term and I only had to touch a broom once!" A look of relief spread across Tay's face. Ike'd got the idea and was looking up his number.

"Science Labs?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

"That's another good one - you get to help some of the teachers prepare their practicals for that day - just be careful with the biology department - last term they had Triv part dissecting frogs ready for the fifth form..."

"Where's Zac going to be?"

"Er... Back Drive. Its outside, but it's not too difficult... Oh. There may be a small problem, though..."

"What?"

"Nick Drage is his supervisor! Judging by this morning if he's even a second late he'll be put on PD..."

"PD?" Asked Tay, the ins-and-outs of the school "law" not quite familiar to him.

"Prefect's Detention. Basically, you piss a sixth former off enough and as long as he can concoct a "valid" reason, you end up shovelling shit for an hour on the school farm."

"Do they do, like, season tickets? 'Cause I think we'd better get Zac one!" laughed Ike.

"Hey - it ain't funny! You can be put on three or four times in a row if you're not careful: Four hours standing knee-high in crap doesn't do too much for your social life - no-one'll come near you for a start!"

"Oh - I guess that could be kinda rough..."

"You're all right, Ike - I've only ever seen one sixth former on PD, but that was because he was on duty and wouldn't turn up on time. His team leader got so pissed off he put him on to try and teach him a lesson. Didn't work, though..."

"Hey guys! Whatcha doin'?" said Zac, walking round the corner with an ear-to-ear grin on his face.

"Finding out what's gonna make your life hell for the next fortnight," smiled Tay.

"Huh?"

"You know that guy that tried to kill you?"

"Yyyyeahhh..."

"He's gonna be your super for morning cleaning!"

"Yeah, right..."

"See for yourself..."

Zac looked down the lists, the smirk quickly dropping from his face.

"You'd better run - Nick doesn't give much leeway when it comes to sprogs..."

"SPROGS? I'm not a sprog!" protested Zac.

"You are now," grinned Tay, tussling Zac's hair.

"Gerroff!" yelled Zac, ducking away from his hand. He flicked his hair back with a toss of his head and pegged it down the corridor towards the back drive.

"C'mon Tay - we'd better get going too. Ike - take a left in the quad - the science labs are the newish looking buildings straight infront of you, 'K? The lab technician'll sort you out..."

I took Tay by the hand and pulled him off towards the sports hall.

Tay and I spent the next quarter of an hour lounging around in the sports hall drinking a couple of (extortionately priced) cans of cola, and trading stories and jokes, Tay coming out with by far the best:

"Hey Dean, you heard the one about the three guys in a bar?"

"Ermm - which one?"

"I'll tell you anyway...

"There were three guys sitting in a bar..."

"Yeah, you just said..."

"You wanna hear the joke?"

"I'm sorry..."

"'k. There were three guys sitting in a bar and they were drinkin' more and more. After a couple of hours they were, like, totally gone and so they decided they'd better get home. "They stood up and headed out to the parking lot. The first guy got into his car and just managed to get home, but he was sooo drunk that the moment he got through the door he started blowing chunks big time... "The second guy only managed to get into his car before he threw up, and then was so stoned he didn't even make it out of the parking lot - getting stopped by an inconveniently placed mailbox. "The third guy was even more drunk, threw up on the hood of his car and then passed out. "The next day, all three met up to talk about the previous night, the first guy telling his story, then the second, then the third, the third guy obviously figuring that he was the most drunk of the lot. "'Guys, I don't think you're with me here,' interrupted the first guy. 'Chunks is my dog...'"

"Woargh!! Tay, that's gross!"

"Good, huh?"

Just then the bell rang, signalling the mass immigration of pupils to chapel.

Entrance to chapel was the same every morning: two hundred and fifty kids being herded like a flock of sheep up two flights of stairs under the watchful eyes of the duty team, ensuring that no-one was queue barging or causing unnecessary hassle.

The queue gradually progressed up the well-worn stairs to the double doors, the sound of a couple of hundred kids chatting noisily to each other getting steadily louder.

As we entered the high-ceilinged room, complete with criss-crossed oak beams, I glanced round to see where there was a spare seat.

One of the many "unwritten rules" was where year groups sat in the morning. Chapel was arranged in a "U" shape, the centre of the "U" being the floor space where the unfortunate sod that had been forced to take chapel stood. It could be quite disturbing having an audience on three of the four compass-points, but gave rise to far more audience participation... The seats were tiered in semi-circular rows, getting higher the further back you went. First and second years sat on the front two rows of the semi-circle. Third years sat in a block directly North of the speaker. Fourth form sat in a block directly East near the back, Fifth form symmetrically opposite them (West of the speaker), the lower sixth at the back directly north of the speaker, the Upper sixth in a wedge shape north west, and the staff in another wedge shape to the north east.

Tay gazed around at the assorted stone carvings on the walls, and commenting on how private the block of seats "over there" looked, motioning to the fourth form area. In order to provide a more focusing atmosphere (according to the bloke who designed the Chapel's lighting system) the floor space was very brightly lit with four arc lamps. From there outwards, the lights became of a lower power and lower in density, making the light fade as you reached the perimeter. Just right for falling to sleep in...

"Dean! Tay! Up here..." Yelled Triv, waving madly from a secluded corner. Tay and I headed up towards him. Somehow Triv, for the last couple of terms or so, had had the soul responsibility of keeping Chapel clean and tidy for his morning cleaning job. This task rivalled mine and Tay's on the sports hall in the "Top Ten morning cleaning jobs" as the chapel too was cleaned by the cleaning staff, just leaving him to push a couple of hymn numbers into the hymn display board, conveniently located directly above his present position.

This also meant he could bagsie a few seats before the fight began to get "decent" seats - i.e. the ones furthest to the back...

We chatted idly for a few moments as the stragglers who had been kept back by their morning cleaning supervisors filtered in in dribs and drabs, showing the wear and tear that the less desirable outside jobs (e.g. Bins, sweeping etc.) imposed on them: Hair messed up and shirt tales hanging out - a finable offence...

"Could you be quiet now, please" rang out the PoD's voice from the doorway, indicating that the staff were on their way in. The chatter died down to a low mumble, and then ceased just as the first member of staff stepped into the room. This was something else I couldn't explain either: Why the hell did everyone shut up when they were asked to by the PoD? (S)He couldn't possibly put everyone on PD for not doing as they were told , yet everyone would always shut up... Guess it's just another of life's little mysteries...

The members of staff walked casually over to their seats, themselves going through their own little "Ha! _I_ got the best seat today!" routine - there were certain combinations of members of staff that just didn't work well together, and both they and the old hands at the school knew exactly what these combinations were. As such, it was always amusing to see the lengths some of them would go to in order not to sit next to one another - some pretending to forget something and legging it back to the staff room, some dropping their specs or hymnbook and allowing another member of staff to "nick" their seat... It was sooo petty, but was a source of amusement none the less...

Once all the staff were as settled as they were going to be, the Headmaster strode in, closely followed by the PoD who closed the double doors behind him and went and sat next to the other members of his duty team. The head then proceeded to do his "Welcome back..." bit, which always started in a very off-handed way in my opinion: "Hello everyone! Nice to see you all back: I trust you had a good holiday. This term..."

This sentence rarely took more than three seconds to deliver and somehow seemed to immediately tone down the importance of anything interesting that happened over the last holiday: It was so brisk and matter-of-fact that it brought the whole school thing rushing back to the forefront of your mind, making you think that you'd hardly been away. From his point of view this was a good thing - but it usually sent my mind to daydream mode, and consequently anything he said from that point onwards was completely skipped by my brain.

From the sounds he was making, the headmaster was doing his usual spiel about how the new term should be treated with a new approach with study. In his opinion, the present term was always the most important academically, regardless of which form you were in or what subjects you were taking. True, the first couple of times you heard this it did seem rather appropriate, however the lack of innovation in this speech made it so that the point was soon lost amongst the pupils' thoughts of "Not AGAIN..."

In fact, some parts of it were so repetitive that certain members of the fifth form (a "bad year" according to the staff) could mouth along to the headmaster's words, much to the amusement of their peers.

I glanced over at the staff block to see the majority of them in the same semi-comatose state as the pupils with one notable exception: Russell. There he was, sat perfectly upright, almost getting off on listening to the headmaster's pearls of wisdom. Weird bloke. Then he spotted the group of comedians in the fifth form taking the piss out of "our glorious leader". His icy stare shot across chapel like a laser beam, knocking all fun clean out of them in the knowledge that they hadn't cleared their first day without being put on Hard Labour.

According to the school's "Staff Handbook" (of which someone had managed to swipe a copy) "all members of staff should clearly explain to a pupil the reason why they are being punished (even if it is obvious), the nature of their punishment and the time and location it is to be executed."

The use of the word "execute" in this context wasn't far off for Russell - he always managed to find a way to create the most inconvenient and "painful" punishments possible and, without exception, managed to get full co-operation from his colleagues: Usually, if there was a games fixture or similar, this would take priority over any punishments the other (i.e. non games staff) could doll out - after all said pupil would be representing his school, and him not turning up would be disgraceful, wouldn't it?

Russell had other plans. If a pupil had misbehaved, he deserved to be disgraced, belittled and humiliated in as many ways as he could think of. Being forced to miss a school Games Fixture was one of his favourites as not only did he get first stab at finding a suitably disagreeable task for the poor unfortunate to carry out, but also could sit back and watch with that shiver-inducing sadistic half- smile on his face as the poor boy's / girl's games master / mistress had another go at them, making them feel even more shot up than before.

I suppose that these punishments Russell dished out like bumper stickers at a political rally could be justified if the crime fitted the punishment, but that was rarely the case with "him". In all likelyhood, the lads mouthing along to the Head Master's speech would miss their next two Rugby matches, not wear casuals in their free time for a month and be forced to sit in Russell's classroom whenever they didn't have a lesson. Other staff would consider this an inconvenience - them having to supervise a group of fifth formers. But not Russell - he'd relish every minute of it knowing that as each second passed, so did one of theirs and the more depressing and downright inconvenient he could make it for them, the better - even going to the lengths of making them write lines, a punishment normally reserved for the very junior members of the school ("If you're going to act like children then you'll be PUNISHED like children!")

A loud kind of snorting snore suddenly punctuated the Headmaster's drone causing everyone to leap from their semi-unconscious states, heads whipping round to the staff block from where the noise had originated. Mr. Curruthers' head was tilted all the way back, mouth gaping, fast asleep. The deputy headmaster scooted over next to him and gave him a sharp poke in the ribs. Curruthers woke with a start (accompanied by a desperately loud yell) and looked round dazed. The entire school burst into waves of laughter at the sight of one of the staff doing exactly what each of us wanted to do, but daren't because of the ever vigilant Russell. In fact, judging by the look on his face, he wanted to punish the whole lot of us right now...

The head, unflustered, cleared his throat and decided to change tack to get the school's attention as far back to him as he could. He started welcoming all the new pupils and saying a little about each of them - there were twin girls from Iceland, a lad from outer London, two exchange students from South Africa and three brothers from Oklahoma...

As he said this, Zac stood up from his seat, waved to the crowd in general and said "Hi..." I felt Tay physically cringe next to me as if all of Zac's embarrassment had been telepathically transferred to him, and I couldn't help but smile...

The headmaster smiled weakly and motioned for him to sit back down again. Zac returned to his seat as quickly as he'd stood up from it with a "what'd I do?" look...

The rest of Chapel was unremarkable and blended into my mind as "just another chapel" - bar, of course, Zac's extrovert self- introduction... The first couple of periods that morning were a tutorial session between you and your Tutor. Each pupil had a member of staff assigned to him / her who was PERSONALLY responsible for your wellbeing - physical, social and academic - and was answerable to anyone as such. Your tutor was always associated with your house in some way, usually as a master who'd take house duty at least once a week, although there were a few who looked specifically after day pupils who were tied to a house, even if they didn't stay there. The whole house system provided a ground for friendly rivalry between houses and provided a common goal for each member of the school. On our way out of chapel, I stopped by yet another notice board, this time indicating tutor assignments. As the phrase went - "A tutor is for life, not just for Christmas" - your tutor stayed assigned to you from the moment you joined the school until either you or he (whichever came first!) left. I was lucky in that I had Curruthers as my tutor - not that I needed a great deal of looking after, but it was nice to have a friendly, open minded person to talk to...

As I'd expected, Tay had been assigned to Curruthers also - usually a "guidee" was assigned the same tutor as their "guide" to make the initial start at the school easier by having two easily accessible people to stay in contact with, this being especially important to the eleven-year-old First Year boarders: a school of two-hundred-and- fifty can seem very big indeed at that age... I dragged Tay off in the direction of Curruthers' classroom.


On to Chapter Eight

Back to Chapter Six

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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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