Simon Green

“I can’t, I’m stuck!” Noah lied, readjusting the stupidly small shorts that his mum had bought him in Year Eight and had point-blank refused to upgrade ever since. If this debacle could just end swiftly and quietly, he would totally reconsider his atheism.

“If the Year Sevens can climb to the top, then so can you!”

“They’re smaller. More nimble!” He shifted about, hoping a combination of distance and angles meant she couldn’t see what he was hiding.

Aww,” Noah whimpered, as the frame rattled and his best mate started climbing up towards him. This was all he needed.

“I’ve been told to get you down,” Harry explained, clambering up opposite him so their noses were almost touching.

Noah glanced down to see Jordan Scott, a brute of a boy who was six feet tall and nearly three feet wide, looking back up at him and saying “Dickhead!” whilst pretending to cough, much to the merriment of his assorted lackeys.

This had been an error of judgement. Noah’d created a spectacle, and he would never live down the now-inevitable finale. He would have to move schools. After this, it wouldn’t be worth going on. “Just leave me here to die, Harry. Save yourself.”

“Noah! Man up and stop being a wuss. You put one foot below the other. And repeat. I’ll do it with you, take your mind off the height.”

“That’s not the problem!” he snapped, feeling his cheeks starting to glow bright red.

“Right, well, what is, then?”

Noah looked away, desperately willing himself to spontaneously combust.

“This is ridiculous. I’ll have to perform a fireman’s lift!” Harry said.

“Haz, no!”

“No choice,” he said, trying to swing round, the frame lurching dangerously as he did so.

“A boy-type issue has come up!” Noah bleated, deftly avoiding Harry’s grasp.

Harry looked at him blankly. “What?”

“A boy-type issue has come up,” Noah repeated, “which makes it hard for me to come back down. Right? Very hard.”

A grin spread across Harry’s face, and he looked down at Noah’s shorts. “Oh yeah.”

“There was no need to look.”

“Wowzer.”

“Stop looking!”

“Well, what caused it?”

He felt his stomach flutter. “What?”

“Is it ’cause I’m looking fine in my new polo shirt?”

Noah rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

Shut up! It’s not!” Noah scowled at him. One comment. He’d made one stupid, ill-conceived comment in Year Nine. Loads of the boys had been talking at lunch about girls and boobs and sex and stuff. It had been awful because everyone else seemed to have watched loads of porn and knew all about different types of sex. And he’d never really … he didn’t think about that. He didn’t know why, he just didn’t. Probably it was because he was nice and respectable and not a sex maniac like everyone else. But, in any case, he’d confided in Harry, as they walked home that afternoon, that he’d thought Sophie had “a pleasant manner” and “good bone structure”. That was all. And then it went:

But Noah did have a number of points in his favour: good teeth, feet that didn’t smell, and a relatively new pair of black-rimmed spectacles that definitely made him look like he worked in advertising in London. Yes, there was work to do. Other boys had more muscle tone and looked bigger, whereas he was skinny and a bit awkward. Other boys were more hairy in unexpected (and sometimes alarming) places, whereas he was quite … well, smooth. And he was still shorter than most of the girls – with the exception of Maisie Andrews, who was currently in a wheelchair

“A tat? A ‘tat’?” What had Harry become? Why was he speaking in slang like some drug-dealing street urchin? “You can’t become cool. If you become cool, I’ll be the only uncool person left!”

Harry grinned. “There’s no danger of me becoming cool, innit?”

“Don’t push it. Knob.”

“Speaking of which, how’s yours?”

“It’s worse than ever. If you have a … boy-type issue for more than an hour you have to go to hospital. I read it on the internet. I can’t be hospitalized with a boy-type issue! My mum would have a field day.” He closed his eyes and pictured the scene: the doctors consoling his sobbing mother. We’re sorry, Mrs Grimes, there was nothing we could do… It just exploded. The operating theatre is carnage.

This is Year Eleven physical education! I don’t see anything physical happening!”

“You would if I came down,” Noah muttered, making Harry snigger.

“Naomi Grimes – get your bony little arse down here – NOW!” Ms O’Malley bellowed.

“My name’s Noah!” he shouted down indignantly. “She knows damn well my name’s Noah!” he hissed at Harry.