Do You Remember the First Time?

what would be the best moment to pull out a big machine gun and kill us all. If someone answered correctly, they got the piss taken out of them. If someone answered wrongly, they got the piss taken out of them. Shouting was unexpected, detentions arbitrary and shockingly swift. I have a vague recollection of someone once getting three thousand two hundred lines. This was a man who regretted the loss of corporal punishment and told us so, repeatedly. He often lamented the lostlegal right to bang children’s heads against walls until they saw sense.
    One’s body’s ability to hold sense memories is extraordinary. I straightened up and flashed a nervous smile.
    ‘Good morning, Mr Rolf!’
    Even as I said this, I couldn’t help looking at him. The last decade and a half hadn’t been kind to him. Always scruffy, he was now unkempt and grubby-looking, and the ever-present teacher’s dandruff still covered his shoulders. I recalled that he wasn’t married. At the time we’d scoffed that we weren’t surprised. Now I was looking at a sad man, lonely and broken by years of butting up against people who simply would never be able to care about geography. It came out before I could help myself.
    ‘Are you OK? You look tired.’
    He stared at me for half a second.
    ‘Fuck,’ I said. Then I regretted that even more.
    ‘INSOLENCE!’ he shouted, in the off-key bark I suddenly remembered so well. ‘DETENTION!’
    What? I had my own secretary! I didn’t get detention.
    ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said, blushing. I’d never got detention when I was at school. Jeez, and how long had it taken me this time round? Four seconds.
    ‘I ask you again – why are you stalking the corridors looking for people to insult when you should be in class? Or have you been taken on as our new counsellor, hurr hurr?’
    Ooh, teacher’s sarcasm. There’s something else I’d missed.
    ‘I’m sorry.’ I tried to look penitent and stared hard at the floor. I suddenly felt as if I was going to cry. Must be all those teenage hormones whooshing about my body.
    ‘Honestly! And you’re usually one of the better ones! Get out of my sight.’
    I scuttled off down the hall.
    ‘That’s the wrong direction, Miss Scurrison.’
    I scuttled back past him.
    ‘Additives in orange juice,’ he muttered obliquely, his sour breath hitting me square on as I passed.
    The entire class looked up as I took a deep breath and stepped inside. Everyone seemed to glance at each other. Or was I just assuming this in my new hell dimension?
    Miss Syzlack was recognisable, but, like Mr Rolf, looked tired. She was in the pits of fashion hell as usual. Her dingy cardigan and high-waisted floral skirt made her look like somebody’s grandma, and it was with a shock I worked out she couldn’t be more than thirty-seven or thirty-eight. I mean, God, Madonna had barely got started by that age.
    ‘Sorry,’ I said.
    There were two empty seats in the room, and I followed her gaze to one of them. Next to it was a cheeky-looking dark-haired girl gesticulating under her desk. I rushed over and sat down.
    ‘Where you been?’ whispered the girl. She was very short, and had a long nose, black eyes and sharp, seesawing eyebrows. ‘Are you OK? Last night – it was OK?’
    I went to reply.
    ‘No talking,’ said Miss Syzlack, and started to read out the register.
    ‘It happens, OK?’ said this very familiar small person, sympathetically.
    ‘Constanzia Di Ruggerio, are you chatting?’
    The imp beside me tried to look contrite. ‘No, miss.’
    Constanzia Di Ruggerio? Cool. My friend had a really nice name. I shot her a smile, and she wiggled her eyebrows. From the back of the class someone did that thing where they pretend to cough but they’re actually saying something.
    ‘Lesbonerds.’
    I was a lesbonerd?
    The list of names through the register went on. Who were these people? And, more importantly, what the hell were they called? First time around, I had the most unusual name in the class, and nearly all of the girls were called Tracy, with or without an ‘e’, Claire, with or without an ‘i’, or Anne-Marie, in about one hundred different spelling combinations. All boys were called Mark, David, Kevin, Peter or Andrew, and quite right too.
    But who were all these Courtneys and Hayleys, Jessicas and Ashleys? We appear to have been taken over by an American sitcom. Fallon? That rang a distant bell. Surely not. Yes, someone had been named after a Dynasty character