There was nobody more stereotypically Welsh than our maths teacher. Just the name, Ifor Llewellyn (pronounced Iver Lewellin for those of you not quite au fait with Welsh spelling) brought a cascade of dodgy impersonations and clich,d sheep jokes both in and out of the classroom. The only problem was he was so dozy that half of them went straight over his head. Even the ones about his wife Maaaaaaartha..... He made his brief introductions and began to describe his plan of action for the coming term, involving such delights as advanced linear manipulations, quadratic equations and basic differentiation. Oh boy....

Once that was done, he decided to give us a "welcome back" in the form of an impromptu "Multiple Guess" test, much to our delight. As we began the test, I glanced over at Tay, his eyes scanning quickly but methodically down the page. Once he'd read the entire questionnaire through, he scribbled his name at the top and began checking the check-boxes at near lightening speed. Now I wouldn't describe myself as a slouch at maths, but my problem is it takes me a while to get there... I can do most problems, but somehow the shortcuts we were taught in class never seemed to be very short for me. I just sighed and began scribbling notes and quick calculations down on the side of my page. No such defacing of the paper for Tay - every sum he did was executed, seemingly perfectly, in his mind without even a pause. Some people...

The bell rang and I surveyed my answer script. I guessed I'd answered about two thirds of the paper, whereas Tay had been sitting idly, playing with his clutch pencil for the last few minutes. He looked at me and grinned as if to say "Easy, wasn't it?". I just raised my eyebrows in response, making him giggle slightly.

"OK, thankyou people - you'll get your results in tomorrow's session," announced Mr. Llewellyn and with that our maths group stormed for the door.

The fifteen-minute morning break was about long enough to grab a drink and a biscuit in the dining hall before dashing off to your next lesson. When we arrived, Zac, Gareth and Jon were already in the dining hall, munching away and chatting amongst themselves. As was the custom (from where I don't know) everyone was sitting on the tables with their feet on the chairs, facing each other. As Tay and I grabbed our provisions and began to meander over to them, we could see Zac violently gesticulating, obviously in the middle of explaining something really important.

Suddenly, Gareth and Jon burst out laughing at whatever Zac had been telling them, Jon projecting his mouth full of biscuit at quite an astonishing speed straight into Zac's face. This caused Gareth to exhale strongly into his cup of hot coffee, sending a shower of the scalding liquid straight into his lap. Jon stood up, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and climbed onto the table next to Zac so he could clean off his face. As he did so, I saw them both freeze for a moment. Tay nudged me and pointed at them, noticing the same kind of effect between Jon and his little brother as there was between us.

"ATTENTION, ATTENTION: Would all members of the Fourth Form please report to the Old Gym at the beginning of Period Four. Thank you." That tannoy was the bane of my life: before it's introduction members of staff relied on scribbled notices pinned to one of the many notice boards along the corridors of the school. When this was the case, if you wanted to skive a meeting or whatever you had a slightly valid argument that you simply hadn't seen the notice. The introduction of the tannoy had shot that one straight in the foot. Damn. And it was games next... BLOODY HELL!

"We're fourth form, right?" asked Tay seeing the rather peeved look on my face.

"Unfortunately... I wonder what the hell they want now?" We finished off our drink and biscuit, leaving the dining room with Jon straddling Zac's mid section, gently wiping the pink gunge off his face

"OK, is everyone here?" asked David Gill, our ninja-bastard Outdoor Education Head of Department. Gillie was a big bloke to say the least - not really the type you'd associate with orienteering, caving, potholing, abseiling, rap running and climbing. Never the less, he did it all, and the scary thing was he was very good at all he did...

Now for those who don't know, there are three prerequisites for being an OEd teacher. 1 - You have to outwardly show complete and utter disrespect for the kids in your care, and make them shit themselves whenever you tell them to do something, implying that there's no way they'll survive the experience. 2 - In reality, you have to love kids, be prepared to endanger your life to save one of them if something goes wrong, and be 110% capable in whatever activity you're doing, and 3 - when you're potholing, be able to yell down the cave that everyone's in "You're all going to DIE!" in a crazed, psychopathic manner. Of course, we all knew these specifications, but to us number two seemed to be distinctly lacking, which was the whole point, of course...

"Right - shut UP people, then we can get this over with and all go away and be happy. This meeting is due to some wonderful forward planning by 'Modom Frenchase' as regards the France field trip most of you are on in a month or so's time: She forgot to check when the silver DoE training weekend was and managed to book the flights and hostels right over that weekend... As it would cost too much to reschedule the trip, our Glorious Leader has decided to move the training days to tomorrow, Friday and Saturday morning. I know this is short notice, but I can't do anything about it. Blame her! There'll be a kit check this evening at half six for the lot of you - if you don't have everything together by then I'm afraid you'll have to skip this one and try and catch up somehow. Hanson - I want to see you down at the Bothy at half one to get you kitted out. Anyone needing to buy kit should see me at two - NO OTHER TIME!" And with that, he strode out of the room.

"Bothy? Sounds kinda kinky!"

"You wish! It's the equipment stores... They'll lend you all the camping kit you need. I'll come with you and show you where it is. You ready for a plastering?"

"Huh?"

"C'mon - we're missing our Rugby session!"

Tay and I headed towards the sports hall along with the rest of the fourth year, went to our lockers and hauled our games clothes out. Tay looked a little self-conscious as we entered the changing rooms, but as I looked around and then back at him, there was no reason at all why he should be, and I told him so. He just smiled that cute, innocent smile of his and began to pull off his sweater, me having to consciously think about not leaping on him there and then. I too began to strip off as his beautifully rounded arse became shielded only by his boxers, and almost gasped as he bent over, pulling them down and "winking" at me with his third eye.

For the umpteenth time I tried to sap myself out of it and continued undressing, then pulled my games shorts and rugby top on, followed by the maroon socks and studded boots. The shorts Tay had been given by the school seemed just a little too tight for him - not enough to be uncomfortable, but just so they showed off his worldly goods to a quite exquisite extent. Once we were both ready, I lead the way out of the hall and down to the games fields, us both looking at each other as we passed the spot where we'd had our earlier "experience". As we went onto the field at the end of footy lane, Mr. Knutt the Rugby master was ticking off each of the pupils to guard against skivers.

"Mr. Hanson, I presume," he said to Tay as we passed him.

"Yeah, I mean yes, sir..."

"Played rugby before?" he asked in a rather condescending "as if" tone that I wasn't quite at ease with.

"Uh no, sir..."

"That's OK - I'm sure Mr. Lidster here will show you the ropes. Dean - grab a ball and show Mr. Hanson how to play a proper game..." Knutt was an avid hater of America Football. "They're all fairies", he'd say whenever the subject was brought up. "Anyone who has to play Rugby wearing shoulder pads, arm pads and God knows what else pads shouldn't be playing in the first place! Pansies, the lot of 'em!" OK, sir - YOU go have an argument with 13 stone of pansy, I'll just sit here and laugh...

I nodded to him and picked a ball up from the pile behind him and ran off to a free part of the field, Tay in tow.

"OK, where to start... How about passing?"

"Sounds OK to me," said Tay, still slightly apprehensive.

"Right - in rugby, you can only pass backwards, OK? You pass forwards and it's a foul. If you need to get the ball forwards, you need to kick it, OK? If you wanna make ground up along the field by "dribbling" like in football - sorry, soccer - you have to run kinda side by side, overtaking each other as soon as you get the ball. Wanna try?"

"OK..."

I set off at a jog with Tay about ten feet to my left. Sure enough, he ran slightly behind be, and I chucked the ball at him. He caught it, albeit slightly awkwardly and then I dropped back so he was leading. He then chucked it back at me. We gradually increased the distance and speed and Tay soon proved to be a natural at this. He was damn quick, too!

"Can we try something else?" he asked, obviously encouraged that he was playing rugby and hadn't yet broken anything. We may have to change that...

"OK - you wanna try and tackle me?" He just grinned. "Knock it off! I mean try and get the ball of me!"

"I knew that - I can't imagine what you were thinking you thought I was thinking..."

"Just shuddup and tackle me, OK?" I grabbed the ball tightly under my arm and ran full pelt at Tay, head slightly ducked, shoulder ready to take the impact. As I came within about a yard of him, I dropped my head completely and braced myself for impact.

There was none, and this completely threw me off balance. I stumbled, tripped and somersaulted in the air, landing flat on my back, staring at the sky. Tay, who'd simply side-stepped my charge, walked over to me, picked the ball up from my side and walked off. Cheeky git! This situation had to be remedied! I picked myself up and ran after Tay who was nonchalantly walking towards the touchline. He heard be approaching and broke into a run, determined to ultimately prove his point. I gained on him then leapt, grabbing his legs to my chest, getting a thoroughly good whack from his right heel in the process. Tay yelled as we both crashed to the ground, sliding a good couple of yards in the mud. I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the ball and leapt over the touchline, slamming it home.

I picked the ball up and walked back over the collapsed pile of mud- coated Hanson (sound appealing? I think so!) and offered him my hand. He took it, but we were so covered in mud that there was no grip between us whatsoever and he fell straight back down again. Both laughing, we grabbed onto each other's tops and found a slightly better grip with the dirty fabric.

"That was, like, vicious, wasn't it?" said Tay, absentmindedly running his hand through his hair, then swearing as he felt a trickle of mud run down his neck.

"How else was I gonna stop you?"

"'Tay - I'm naked!' would've worked! C'mon - my turn to tackle!" He said, almost relishing his chance at 'revenge'.

"Sure - but remember to keep your head well away from my feet - I nearly got my jaw broken by doing that once..." and with that, I legged it.

Tay raced after me, and just as he was about to try and get me, I quickly changed direction, the studs in my boots somehow managing to find enough of a purchase in the quagmire-like games field to stop me doing a rather more painful version of the splits. Tay was, again, quick, and he stayed on my tail like glue. Seconds later, I felt a hand grab tightly onto my shirt as Tay attempted to slow me down slightly before going for my legs. This worked, but instead of shifting his grip lower like I expected him to, he kinda jumped and allowed his left foot to come into the path of my right, again causing me to hit the dirt in a rather acrobatic fashion. A moment later, I felt a much heavier weight than the rugby ball land on top of me. I opened my eyes (which for some reason I always screwed tightly shut whenever I was falling) to see that Tay had landed astride me, breathing heavily.

He stayed there for a moment, then suddenly flicked his hair over the top of his head and ringed the muddy water out onto my face. "Gotcha!" he laughed, picked the ball up and legged it down the field again. After we'd been arsing around on the field for a bit, tackling and getting even dirtier, Knutt managed to get us into some kind of order and we did some scrum practise in two groups of sixteen. It was times like these I always wondered why the hell I had my hair long - getting it continually trapped between other players' bodies and having it yanked on when someone was trying to find a purchase on me continually pissed me off, but there was absolutely no point in complaining: After all, I was the owner of my hair, and so I suppose I could only blame myself. Sod it - I liked my hair that way...

After a few less-than-successful attempts at a scrum that didn't turn into a huge pirouette that spiralled and zig-zagged uncontrollably down the playing field, the shorter-than-normal period was called to its close and we were told to go and "Wash all that crap off! If I spot any of you with even a spec of mud on you in the lunch queue I will NOT let you eat!"

Laughing and joking, we all began to head back up footy lane towards the sports hall, probably resembling the cast of that dodgy "Fanta" advert where they're mud-stacking... I tried to drag what I used to call hair out of my eyes with my hand, but my fingers only managed to penetrate about an inch. Time for slightly more drastic action. I jogged a little further infront of Tay who was happily chatting with Triv (each of them boasting about the most impressive scars they had on their bodies), stopped and violently shook my head from left to right. A rather impressive shower of muddy water radiated out from me, closely followed by my ponytail whiplashing back and forth, catching Tay squarely across the jaw.

"You ass-wipe!" Yelled Tay, trying to rub the mud off his face with the sleeve of his rugby top but simply smearing more on.

"Better run, Deano - he sounds kinda mad!" laughed Triv who'd managed to let Tay shield him from the brunt of the spray.

What the hell... I ran. Sure enough, Tay sprinted after me, shingle and pebbles being thrown up into the air by the muddy soles of our boots. As I rounded the corner into the sports hall car park, I remembered to ease off the running so as not to overstretch the limited amount of grip provided by the studs on the smooth tarmac surface. Tay didn't. Accompanied by that all to familiar 'plastic- being-dragged-over-concrete' sound, his feet slid from underneath him. I stopped running as safely as I could, ensuring I didn't meet the same fate, and walked back to him, offering my hand. He took it and pulled himself up, a muddy red blotch on his left knee.

"We'd better get you cleaned up," I commented as I stooped down infront of Tay, blissfully unaware of what he was doing until it was too late. In one fluid movement, he removed his rugby top and wrapped it round my head, my indications of displeasure muffled quite successfully by the sodden fabric. Half crawling, half walking, Tay dragged me into the changing rooms...


On to Chapter Ten

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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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