Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2015 13:14:44 +0000
From: James <niftyaccount27@yahoo.com>
Subject: Counselling Jack- submission 2

Counselling Jack: submission 2

Dear readers, please don't forget to donate to nifty and please continue to
send feedback on my work and I will reply as soon as I can. Enjoy.


*A quick note about registration which I have received a few emails
about. Essentially registration classes are 15 minute classes at the start
of the day where students go in order to check attendance and to ensure
they are given relevant notices and information regarding the school
day. Any more questions about terminology used, don't hesitate to ask and
I'll clear it up for you and also include the explanations in the next
chapter for the benefit of others. Thanks.


The weekend finally arrived and I spent my Friday night watching Breaking
Bad on Netflix. One episode carried on from the next and after about three
hours I decided I'd better stop so went on my phone to check Facebook and
Instagram. I never really received a lot of messages, mainly because I hate
texting and talking to people online, and partly because I only had a few
people that I'd actually want to talk to, and I certainly wasn't in the
habit of talking to girls.

To keep up the appearance of my heterosexuality, I liked a few girls'
photos on Instagram and then put my phone down as my eyes began to sting
from looking at a screen for so long. It was only about 7:00 so I couldn't
exactly go to sleep, so I picked my book up again. I'd barely had a chance
to remove my bookmark before my phone began to vibrate again, so I picked
it up and answered the call; it was Ben.

The voice I was hearing was unusually quiet for Ben, and as the
conversation developed I could understand why; Georgia had cheated on him
with someone else in year 12 and he'd found out by his older sister in year
13. I told him that there was a tendency for rumours to be spread about in
our school, and that it could turn out to be wrong. He dismissed this as he
told me he'd asked her about it and she admitted it, much to the annoyance
of the person she cheated with. Now, although I complain about Ben and how
annoying it is when he talks about his girlfriend, I wasn't much happier
having him upset about it. After all, I am still his friend. I talked to
him for about ten more minutes and told him we'd go out or do something
together, just me him and the other lads so he could get over Georgia. This
would entail a significant amount of alcohol, I insisted, as this was
always fun.

He then told me he was going to "smash Darren's face in." (Darren being the
now-third party in his relationship,) but I told him to leave it, partly to
spare getting himself into trouble, and partly because Ben had absolutely
no capability to hurt anyone, let alone Darren, who is closer to my build
than to Ben's. He subsequently asked if I would speak to Darren and find
out more about what happened, as he didn't want to talk to Georgia but
still wanted to know everything.  I agreed even though I didn't have the
slightest idea what to say.

I ended up sending a text to Darren; I had his number from a few years ago
from when I actually used to talk to him, so I simply asked the relevant
questions like how long has it been going on etc. It turned out Darren
still had the view that I was violent and part of the group with a
reputation for fighting, like my year 8 self, and subsequently acted like a
bitch and said how sorry he was and that he'd apologise to Ben. I didn't
bother to explain that I wasn't like I used to be, I found it quite funny,
especially since he'd hurt Ben.  I called Ben again and told him what
happened and how Darren reacted. This put him in a better mood, so I hung
up again and carried on with my book, until I decided it was time to go to
bed.

Saturday morning I headed to the Athletics track a few miles away from my
house, and set out a few cones roughly 20 metres apart. I did various
sprints and rested in between, making sure to drink plenty of water since
it was such a hot day.  There were other groups of runners there, one group
of old women who were using the track to power walk, a group of lads in
their twenties with slicked back hair and ridiculous ponytails that I
assumed were semi-professional footballers because they looked like
pretentious idiots.  The final group I actually recognised a few of them,
about ten or so lads with three of them that were in the year 8 class that
I took for PE on Friday. And of course, Jack was there. He was laughing
with his friends as they waited for their coach to arrive, and he clearly
wasn't as shy and quiet as Robert had mentioned to me. I couldn't see them
very well though, they were on the other side of the track and I only
noticed them as I took a break in between my sprints.

Once their coach arrived they lined up beside each other and then began to
run at a fairly decent pace as he blew his whistle.  They were heading
towards me and a few of them raised their eyebrows in surprise as they
noticed me on the inside of the track, with Jack seeming to stare for the
longest before they whizzed past me. They only did one lap of the track,
and judging by the size of the track I'd say they were running the 800m. I
couldn't see who finished first but it was fairly close between Jack and
two others that I didn't know. They rested for about ten minutes while
doing stretches and cool downs, by which time I headed over next to them to
the gate where I left. This time I received smiles from some of them, but
Jack wasn't looking for some reason.

I went home, showered and changed into some shorts and a shirt, and headed
off to a nearby field where I was meeting Ben, James and Conor to play
football. We talked about Ben's situation, which Conor was interested in,
and gave some decent advice, despite complaining about him the previous
day.  We did a few trick shots and tried some over-head kicks and
outside-foot shots, before Conor attempted a Ribana and scored, shouting
"RIBONER!!" Before we burst out laughing and told him the proper name. He
passed it off as if he was joking; he wasn't.

We then went back to James' house where he'd pretty much asked his dad to
get lost for the night as we all drank away Ben's troubles. I think he and
James' mum went to visit friends for the weekend so we had the house to
ourselves.  It was a good laugh and Ben soon found himself in a better
mood, especially after an adapted game of beer pong involving James' pool
table, and the use of Jäger instead of beer...  We slept there too,
myself and Conor downstairs on the sofas, James in his bed and Ben sprawled
across the pool table with a few dribbles of vomit down the front of his
top. (Remember we're 16 and not all of us can handle alcohol too well...)
Admittedly it was a funny sight to see.

Sunday morning certainly wasn't as joyous. Myself and Chris woke up with
weird tasting mouths and a burning sensation in the pit of our
stomachs. The sight of left over pizza from the night before was off
putting but nevertheless, we ate a slice each, after all we had to eat.  We
headed to the garage where the pool table was and we laughed at the sight
of Ben lying face down on its surface with a pool queue shoved down the
back of his shorts. Conor pulled it out and executed a perfect chip shot
over Ben's leg and into one of the pockets. We found this entertaining so
carried on playing pool around Ben's sedentary body, before James came down
to join us. Ben woke up once the number 4 ball accidentally struck his
genitals and rolled off the table and into the bathroom to empty the
content of his stomach.

We helped tidy up the best we could and all headed home to die in our own
beds for a few hours before catching up on work that needed to be done over
the weekend.


Sunday was especially long and it took a while for the sickly feeling of a
hangover to fully disappear. My brother caught on to why I wasn't feeling
good and laughed at me when he saw me come down at lunchtime to make myself
a sandwich.

"Have a good night?" He shouted deliberately loud, a smug look on his face.

"You've got no idea." I groaned back, assuming he hadn't been drunk before.

I spent the rest of the day reluctantly completing various work due for the
next day, only stopping to eat dinner with my family. My parents were aware
of my condition too, and found it hilarious. I guess that's better than
having strict parents who would have killed me for drinking alcohol at 16
years old. Seriously though, if there are any parents of children older
than 14 reading, then I guarantee your child has drank before.

I went to bed early, which I felt was a good idea since I'd have a year 7
class to teach the following morning period 1.


I woke up later than usual after some much needed rest and had little time
to sort myself out adequately. I usually find that whenever I don't have
enough time to prepare on a morning, I tend to be in a shitty mood
throughout the rest of the day. I quickly grabbed a banana to eat on the
way to school which I knew wouldn't be enough to fill me until lunchtime. I
headed to registration where Ben was waiting for me. We talked about the
weekend and laughed about some of the things that happened. He said that
when he got home his Dad made him vacuum the entire house as punishment for
drinking, which clearly didn't help his headache.

I asked to leave 5 minutes early so that I could get changed before the
year 7s turned up to their PE lesson. This meant Ben had to be alone so I
lied to my registration teacher and said he was helping too.

By the time the year 7s arrived I'd already spoken to Mr Hutchins to find
out what I was going to be doing. He told me I could decide as he was in a
hurry to get to a meeting with the other PE staff, so he left me with his
entire class. I told them to go to the indoor sports hall once they'd
changed so I waited there for them whilst figuring out what to do.

I sat them all down and counted how many there were; there were 26
altogether.  I waited until they settled down and then began to speak.

"Hi everyone. My name is Daniel and I'll be taking some of your PE lessons
for the next few months. Me Hutchins isn't here today but he will be next
week, and I presume he'll split you so you can either choose football or
rugby. But for today, I'll let you decide what to do, and we'll take a
vote. Any questions?"

"Yeah. How old are you?" One kid asked, who was sitting right in front of
me.

"I'm 16." I replied, before he shot back another question.

"What's sixth form like?"

"Uhm, It's pretty good, just a lot of homework to do." This received a few
moans from the group. "Don't worry, you've got a few years to go yet!"

Instead of responding another kid shouted out, "can we do dodgeball?" Which
nicely switched the focus onto what we'd be doing that lesson, instead of
talking about me.

After he said this, the rest of them then jumped into life as they got
behind the idea of playing dodgeball. After getting them to be quiet, I
told them to raise their hands if they wanted to play, which everyone did
so I assumed most of them wanted to while the others agreed as a result of
peer pressure.

I then told them to partner up with someone their size and ability, and
then disappointed them as I split them from each other to go on opposite
teams. This worked well since there was an even number, and there was an
even distribution of the sporty kids on each side, so the teams were equal
and fair. I sent a group of them to get the dodge balls from the storage
room in the PE block, and told another group to split the sports hall in
half with cones. When the boys arrived back with the balls, I told them to
set a ball on each cone and then had them line up against the walls. A few
of them tried to get a head start at the beginning before I could blow my
whistle, so I had to pull it back a few times, but eventually I blew and
the game was underway.  I remember when I played dodgeball a few years ago,
and I recall it being quite aggressive and intense, but the kids I now
watched looked scared to hit each other with the balls and all of them
decided to throw underarm. I stopped the game to speak with them about 5
minutes in, because no one was getting knocked out of the game.

"When you throw the ball, it's better if you throw over arm, like this." I
said as I demonstrated with a ball. "This way it travels faster and it's
easier to get your opponent out."

Then, a small, ginger lad with sunken in eyes and freckles plastered across
his face spoke up, "we were told we had to throw underarm, 'cos of health
and safety."

Ahh health and safety. Those two implemented words that destroyed the last
few years of my childhood by removing anything remotely fun because of a
small potential harm.

"Ahh Jesus, look." I sighed as I folded my arms and addressed the whole
group again. "Let's forget about health and safety for this lesson. If a
teacher asks, tell them you threw underarm. But as long as they don't know,
I'll let you throw over arm. It's so much more fun, and I can trust you
lads to be sensible."

They all looked up with a mixture of disbelief and ecstasy as they all let
out gasps of "get in." And "yesss."

"I take it you're ok with it then! Right, get the balls back in the middle
and line up against the wall again. We'll start over."

They did as I asked and we started again, this time it was much more
exciting to watch and they seemed to enjoy themselves a lot more than they
did before. I was concerned at one point when one of the kids had a ball
smash against their stomach, but he just laughed and went to the area
designated for those that had been knocked out. I didn't know what I was
worrying about, I'm sure they've felt worse than having a plastic ball
thrown off them. Even a football would hurt more than this. Fucking health
and safety.

One team eventually won after an intense 5 on 1 encounter; the 5 worked
together well as they threw their balls all at once, forcing a mistake from
the 1. We had plenty of time left, so I suggested that they have another
game which they were certainly up for. One of them then shouted, "You can
join in! Come on our team!" And exactly the same as before, the whole group
joined in and began to spur me on to join in with them. After a brief
hesitation I agreed, and joined the side that had previously
lost. Admittedly it took little convincing to get me to play. I was envious
as I watched beforehand and wanted to join in. (I am still a kid after
all.)  Of course when I played, I didn't try my hardest, and definitely
didn't launch any ball with force at the other team since they're only 11
or 12! Instead I strategically aimed for their feet and caught a few of
them out when they were off guard. I had about seven of them out until one
of the kids I'd hit shouted to his teammates, "Get Dan out!! Everyone aim
for him!" And, yet again, the sheep followed. I was out within seconds as
the remaining 6 all launched their balls simultaneously at me. I mockingly
dropped to the floor as they all laughed and continued to hurl ball after
ball at me. I probably enjoyed this lesson more than I should have and
stopped it with about 10 minutes to go so they could get changed.

I waited outside the changing rooms and sat at a table in the foyer where
they have to gather before being dismissed for the lesson.  They poured out
of the changing room one by one and occasionally a few of them came and
talked to me to say thank you for the lesson since they'd enjoyed it. I let
them go a few minutes early since they were all ready and the fact that I
had to get changed for my second lesson too.

I had an annoying few lessons to go to that day but I took consolation in
the fact I finished at 2:00. I thought I'd go to the gym for a while after
school since I hadn't been on a run that morning. I asked Ben at lunchtime
if he wanted to come and he agreed, before boasting about how much he could
now bicep curl. I pretended to be impressed and decided I'd have to lift
more than him later to beat him; I'm rather competitive, I'll admit, and
beating him wouldn't be difficult.

End of part 2.