David Clarke

Scarface and the Alien

Chapters 11-15

Chapter Eleven

In this chapter Miles tries to persuade the gang to do the right thing, but he meets with resistance. And we'll also hear some more about why Luke hates school so much.

Tuesday June 3rd

Last night Miles asked me to share his bed again, but this time it turned out to be because he was having some problems at school and wanted my advice. He was a little surprised when I got into bed without any pyjamas on, but I told him I'd found out that I like sleeping naked and have decided not to wear pyjamas in future unless it's really cold at night.

I'm not sure why he thought I would be able to give him much advice because of course I haven't been to school for three years now and so don't know much about how relationships with other pupils really work. But then I realised he just needed someone to talk to, even if it was just someone who would listen without offering suggestions afterwards.

I don't think Miles has done anything wrong – he says he had to choose between Noel and Graham, who were arguing about bullying, and he decided to support Noel, who didn't want to join in. But Graham was obviously upset about this, because he hasn't wanted to talk to Miles since, and he posted a picture of Miles and Noel kissing on the school notice-board. It seems this was a forfeit in a game Miles and his friends have been playing recently, and that Graham used his mobile phone to take a picture of them while they were doing it.

(I hadn't realised that you could take proper photos with mobile phones now – I'd sort of thought they weren't very good, just sort of basic and fuzzy, but apparently modern phones can take photos almost as well as proper cameras. And Graham took lots of photos with his phone while Miles and his friends were doing forfeits, and Miles has seen them and apparently they're really good – and really embarrassing, too. Maybe I'll have to get a mobile phone after all: it would be useful to have a camera in my pocket all the time, just in case I see something interesting while I'm out walking or something).

But the real problem is that the boy who had been bullied tried to commit suicide, and now Miles has to persuade Graham to own up, because the boy won't be able to go home unless he does. And Miles has no idea how to make him do that. I had to explain that I wasn't sure how to go about it, either – although when I met Graham he didn't seem a bad kid at all, and in fact I liked him. I told Miles that I thought Graham was a decent kid at heart and that he just had to appeal to his better nature, though I suppose it's a lot harder to work out how to do that in practice.

I also said that it sounded to me as if this wasn't really Miles's problem at all – after all, he and Noel had done the right thing by not taking part in the bullying, and so it wasn't their fault that the boy had ended up in hospital. But he said he wants to help if he can, because he says that if Noel hadn't been there he probably would have joined in, and so he feels bad about it.

There wasn't much more I could say to help him, but just being with him seemed to help him a bit, and he was able to relax and go to sleep. And in the morning he was obviously feeling a bit better, because he cuddled up to me and stroked my personal places until my penis went hard again. Of course by now I've realised that I like him doing that, so I just put my arm round him and hugged him while he was doing it… and it made me wonder if I should do it for Luke next time we sleep together: if he likes it as much as I do, obviously I should. And of course once his penis is hard we'll be able to mate again, and I enjoy that a lot…

Miles thought that maybe talking to Martin had helped a bit, even though his brother hadn't had any brilliant answers for him. He hadn't expected him to, because after all interpersonal relationships were something Martin knew very little about. But it had helped him to get his own thinking straightened out.

Of course Martin was right to say that it wasn't his problem, but nonetheless he and Twitch had promised Toby that they would try to sort things out and he felt that he had to at least try to keep his word. And, besides, he wanted to sort things out with Graham – he hated the gulf that had opened up between them.

So when he got to school he went round everyone in the gang and told them that he'd been to see Toby the previous evening and that they needed to discuss what he had found out. He asked them all to meet him in the playground during morning break. Graham wasn't keen to do so until Miles told him that Social Services were already involved and that probably the police would be too before much longer, and then he grudgingly agreed to come along.

At break Miles and Twitch told them that Toby was in hospital because he'd taken an overdose and that the only reason he wasn't dead was because his parents had come home unexpectedly.

"But… God, Miles, we didn't do that much to him!" protested Jack. "And it's the only time it's ever happened, and we weren't going to do it again – so how can he have thought things were so bad he'd have to kill himself?"

"It wasn't just what you did. For one thing, it was the fact that you hated him badly enough to do all that stuff – not that he actually said exactly what it was that did happen, except that he got whipped a lot. And for another, he was sure that when he came back to school he'd find loads of photos of him naked being passed around or on the notice-boards – and we know how easily that can happen, right, Graham?"

Graham didn't say anything, but he did look uncomfortable.

"And since he isn't all that happy at home either I think he just decided he'd had enough all round. But now he's got another problem: Social Services think it was his parents who beat him, and now they won't let him go back home. And that means he's have to go into care, or something. He's told the social workers that it wasn't his parents who beat him, but because he won't say who actually did do it they don't believe him. And he's too scared to tell them because he thinks Graham's going to knife him if he does. So I need to be able to tell him that isn't going to happen."

"But you've already said that the police are likely to get involved," argued Graham. "And that means that we'll all get into serious trouble if we own up. We might all get put into care, or something. And I'll probably go to prison for threatening him with a knife – it's supposed to be five years in prison if you get caught with a knife, and I'm not going to prison for Toby, no matter what you say."

"I don't think they put boys of our age in prison, especially if you're not actually caught with a knife. We'd probably just get told off."

"That's easy for you to say – you're not the one in trouble! So I'm not owning up, and Toby's not dropping me in it, either: if he grasses me up I will stab him, and you can tell him I said so!"

And Graham ran off. The rest of the gang looked worried, but one by one they walked away until only Jamie was left.

"It's my fault," he said, quietly. "I should never have agreed to play him using Graham's special pack of cards. I mean, if Toby had lost fair and square I think doing the forfeits to him would have been okay, but he didn't: we cheated."

"What do you mean?" asked Twitch.

"That pack of cards is marked. If you look closely, there's something on the back of each card to show you what it is. It meant I knew what to throw in the box every time, because I could see what he'd put there, and it made it easy to score points when playing out, too. Graham said we should do it so that Toby ended up getting all the forfeits on his own, and I went along with it because I didn't want to get beaten and stuff as well. I tried to talk Toby out of playing the singles game against me, but I didn't try very hard, and when he said he wanted to play I deliberately cheated and made sure I won. I mean, obviously I didn't know it would make him want to kill himself, but I still shouldn't have done it. So I'm ready to own up about it, if it'll help Toby. And I'll talk to Tom and Kevin about it tonight. I think Kevin will be a bit worried about owning up because he's older than us and they'll probably say he should have stopped us, but I'll try to talk him round. I mean, I don't like Toby much, but it isn't fair if he ends up in care because of what we did."

"Thanks, Jamie," said Twitch. "I'll make sure Toby knows you said you'd help. I don't know if it'll do any good until Graham changes his mind, because Toby said he won't say what happened while there's any chance of Graham hurting him, but at least it's a start. Maybe if the rest of the gang agree to own up Graham will, too."

***

Miles had to go straight home from school that evening, so Twitch went to the hospital without him. But next day he told Miles that Toby had been discharged from the hospital but that nobody would tell him where he was now.

"We'll have to wait until he comes back to school," he said. "If they don't actually move him to a different school, of course."

Jamie managed to get them on their own at one point. He told them that Tom and Kevin were sorry about what had happened to Toby and that both of them were prepared to own up if it would help Toby to get back home. Kevin was scared of the consequences but had agreed to do it all the same.

But Graham's attitude didn't seem to have changed at all: he was now avoiding them, disappearing at the start of every break and not coming back to class until the bell went

On the Wednesday Robyn came to tell them she'd spoken to Jamie and was prepared to own up, and Jack, who came to see them with her, said the same thing.

"And I think I can talk Robert into owning up, too," added Robyn. "It's hard, because Graham's trying to make Rob stick with him, but I'll work on him tonight."

And if she was able to do that it would leave Graham isolated, and Miles was sure that if that happened his former friend would come around. And then maybe they'd be able to rescue Toby from wherever he'd ended up.

Wednesday June 4th

I got a phone call from Luke this evening: he wanted to know if I could go over to his house for a while. Normally Miles isn't allowed to go out on school nights, and I thought maybe I wouldn't be allowed to, either, because I have to study tomorrow even if I don't have to travel to school. But when I said that Luke sounded really upset my mother said I could go provided I was home before it got dark. Sunset today is at 2043, which would give me plenty of time, so I said thank you to Mother and set off on my bike.

Luke took me straight up to his room and closed the door, and it was obvious that he was extremely unhappy, so I asked what was wrong. He said that the two boys who had been bullying him had got straight back onto him as soon as school started on Monday. He'd tried to ignore them, and it had seemed to work a bit at first, but today things had got a lot more serious.

He'd managed to ignore them again all the way through school, but they had got on the same bus as him to go home, and when they were a couple of stops before where the bullies usually get off they had grabbed him and the bigger one held him while the smaller one took the hearing aid from his right ear. Then they told him that if he wanted it back he would have to get off the bus with them now, and if he refused they'd drop it down the nearest drain. So of course he had to get off the bus with them, because his hearing aids are quite expensive and he can't hear properly with just one.

The stop they got off at was in the country, about halfway between the town where Luke goes to school and the village where the two bullies live. It's an area of rough scrubland and woods, and there aren't any houses nearby, so once the bus had gone they were on their own. They marched him into the trees and pushed him over. The big one – his name's Hamilton, Luke told me – said that he'd been rudely ignoring them all day and they didn't like being disrespected like that, so they had decided to teach him a lesson. The smaller one, whose name is Young, suggested that they should check to see exactly how many scars Luke had (though he called him 'the freak', not Luke), and Hamilton thought that was a good idea, so they pinned Luke down and stripped all his clothes off. They also took his other hearing aid off, so after that he couldn't hear what they were saying to each other, but they poked and prodded at his scars, and Young squeezed his testicles really painfully. Then they kicked him a few times, threw his clothes into some gorse bushes close to the side of the road, dropped his hearing aids into one of the thickest bushes and left him there – they only had to walk about half a mile [800 m] to get home, so they didn't need to wait for a bus.

So Luke was naked and his clothes were in an area of spiky bushes right next to the main road. It took ages to get them back – he found a long stick in the woods and used it to fish his clothes out, but he had to duck down out of sight every time a car came past. Eventually he got everything back and got dressed again, but he still got scratched rescuing his hearing aids from the bush. And then he had to wait for the next bus, and the one that runs past his house only comes once an hour, so he had to wait quite a long time. And that's why he was so upset when he finally got home.

I couldn't say a lot to try to cheer him up because, as I'd already realised, there is nothing I can really do to help. So I sat next to him, put my arm round his shoulders and hugged him, and it seemed to help a bit because he managed to smile at me, and after a few seconds he put some music on, and after that things were more like they had been when I visited him during the holidays. I just wish there was something I could do to give him some practical help…

On Thursday Toby returned to school, and as soon as he set foot into the classroom – and he wasn't as early as he usually was – Miles and Twitch grabbed him, propelled him out into the cloakroom and asked if he was okay.

"Well, yes – except that things are still in a mess about my parents. Apparently the social workers spoke to Miss Steadman and the other teachers and found out that my parents keep pushing me to do better all the time, and are never happy if I get less than one hundred percent. And that makes them think it's more likely my parents would have hit me for not doing well enough at school. So I'm with foster parents at the moment – it's an 'emergency placement', or something like that. And I won't be able to go home until I tell them who really beat me."

"And are they okay, the foster parents?" asked Miles.

"I suppose so. There are a couple of other kids living there, and they're a bit quiet – like me, I suppose – but the food isn't too bad and they just let me lie on the bed reading most of the time. But I still want to go home really. So, did you manage to talk to Graham?"

"Well, yes… all the others are ready to own up to hitting you, but Graham's afraid they'll send him to prison for having a knife, and for being the ringleader, and he's refusing to talk to us. Maybe he'll talk to you, though."

"I'm not going near him on my own! What if he's got the knife with him?"

"He's got no reason to hurt you – after all, you haven't grassed him up, have you? But we'll come with you when you talk to him if you like."

"Okay. But I don't know what I'm going to say."

"Just tell him he has to own up. If you tell him the social workers are about to get the police involved it might help – after all, he can't expect you to just stand by and say nothing when your parents are about to be arrested for something they didn't do, can he?"

"Well… okay, but unless he swears he won't hurt me I don't think I can tell anyone it was him who threatened me."

"You don't have to tell him that, though, do you? Come on, let's go and talk to him – Miss Steadman won't be here for another five minutes or so."

Graham was already at his desk, and the three of them crowded round him in such a way that he couldn't just walk off unless he wanted to climb over them.

"Look, Graham," said Miles, "Toby's going to have to tell the social workers what happened, because otherwise the police are going to be called in and his parents will be nicked for something they didn't do. But it'll look far better if you and the others go and see the headmistress and own up to it instead. And I'll come and own up, too, because if Twitch hadn't taken me away I'd have stayed and joined in. And if we all take the blame there's no reason you should get in any more trouble than anyone else."

"Yes, I will: I'm the one who had the knife and threatened to use it, and they're bound to find out, because nobody else is going to take the blame for that. And I'm not prepared to go to prison – it's not as if I actually used the knife, is it?"

"No," agreed Miles. "And if you say you never had any intention of using it, that you were just trying to scare him, I'm sure there'll be no question of prison."

"Yes, there is: I looked it up on the Internet, and just having a knife can get you five years in prison. You don't have to use it."

"We'll all speak up for you," said Rob, who was sitting beside Graham as usual. "We'll tell them you'd never have actually hurt him."

"That won't make any difference. As soon as I admit to having threatened him with a knife I'll be arrested. And there's no way I can let that happen."

"But they already know someone threatened me, because otherwise I'd have been able to say who hit me," Toby pointed out. "So sooner or later they're bound to find out it was one of you lot, even if I don't say anything."

"And you can't expect anyone else to take the blame," Miles added.

They argued until Miss Steadman arrived to take the register, and they carried on at break, and by the end it was obvious that Graham was close to accepting that his threats were going to come out sooner or later.

"Look," he said, finally, "let me talk to my parents tonight. Then I'll come with you all to the head tomorrow and we'll tell her what happened. But Toby has to promise not to say anything until then – okay?"

"I suppose so," agreed Toby. "I don't think one more day will make any difference."

Thursday June 5th

I've been thinking about Luke's problem, and I think I might have got a solution. I don't know if it'll work, but logically it ought to, if Luke is able to do a little acting, and if I'm strong enough to play my part. I called Luke and told him about it and he says it might work – he even thinks Hamilton might be prepared to play it straight, though he thinks it's far more likely he'll get Young to help him as usual. So we're going to spend as much time as possible this weekend training and then try to put the plan into action the weekend after. If it works it should get them both off Luke's back for good.

Miles had originally intended for the whole gang to go to see the headmistress at break on the Friday morning. Toby was going to come with them, and they were all going to own up to beating him up in a game that had gone too far. Jamie had spoken to Tom and Kevin the previous evening and warned them what was going to happen, and both had agreed to their names being given to the headmistress and so, if she decided to follow that course of action, to the police. But the plan hit a snag as soon as the school day started: Graham didn't arrive.

He still hadn't arrived at break, and at that point Miles decided that they simply couldn't leave it over the weekend. So he gathered up the rest of the gang and went with them, and Toby, to see the headmistress. He'd been prepared to do the talking, but when they got there Jack said that strictly speaking he and Twitch shouldn't be there at all, since they hadn't taken part in the forfeits inflicted on Toby, and that it would be better if one of the guilty parties did the talking. So Miles stepped back and let Jack get on with it.

"It's about what happened to Toby," Jack began, once they were all in the headmistress's office. "We're the ones who did it. See…"

And he explained how they had all been playing forfeit games, and how when Toby lost (and Jamie interrupted at that point to clear his own conscience by admitting that the final game had been rigged, which came as a nasty surprise to Toby) they had all gone overboard and beaten him really badly.

"Except Miles and Twi… Noel," Jack added. "Noel tried to talk us out of it, and when Gra… when he failed he went home. And Miles went with him, because he didn't want Noel to be off on his own in case he had a fit… a seizure, I mean. So neither of them had anything to do with what we did to Toby."

"Well, I'm glad to see that you've all decided to make a clean breast of it," said the headmistress. "It doesn't excuse what you did: that's called bullying, and I'd hoped it didn't happen in this school. But recognising that what you did was wrong is a step in the right direction."

"We didn't realise how badly it had affected Toby," said Jack. "We thought he'd just get over it."

"Obviously he didn't. And I understand from Social Services that there was something more: somebody scared him so badly that he wouldn't even admit what had happened when his own parents were under suspicion. So was that all of you, or one in particular?"

The gang looked at each other uncomfortably, but nobody said anything.

"I think you'll have to tell me which one of them it was that threatened you, Toby," she said.

"It wasn't any of them," said Toby.

"Well, who was it, then? Because it's obvious that someone threatened you – or was it really your parents after all?"

"No, of course not… it's just… well…"

"Speak up, boy. We'll make sure nobody hurts you now."

"Well… "

"If you won't tell me I'll have to assume it was everyone here, and that will mean you'll all get punished for something you didn't do. Do you think that's fair? If not I need a name."

"It was Graham," said Twitch. "I don't owe him anything, especially after what he did to me and Miles on Monday. He was the one who did the threatening."

"Is that true, Toby?"

Toby nodded.

"And why isn't he here with the rest of you?"

"He's not in school today, Miss," said Miles. "We all agreed yesterday that we'd come and see you this morning, and we didn't think it would be fair to Toby or his parents to keep it quiet for another three days, so we decided to come even though Graham isn't here."

"I see. Wait there."

The headmistress walked through to the secretary's office and asked her to call Graham's home to see if he was sick. Graham's mother said that he wasn't, and that he'd left for school as usual. She was amazed to discover that he wasn't there.

"All right, I'll have to deal with Graham separately," the headmistress told them. "Now, you know how strongly we dislike bullying, so I'm going to write to your parents – not yours, Miles and Noel – and then you'll be suspended for a week. After that the school will consider the matter closed, but of course if Toby and his parents decide to make a formal complaint to the police you may find that there are more serious consequences."

"I won't," said Toby. "And I'll make sure my parents don't, either."

"Are you sure? You could easily have died."

"I know, but that would have been my fault, not theirs."

"Well, that's very generous of you, and I hope the rest of you appreciate it."

The gang clearly did, and a chorus of variations on 'thank you very much' followed.

"Then you can go. I'll get the letters out to your parents today and we'll be calling to confirm that the four of you – Jack, James, Robert and Robyn – are suspended for a week starting on Monday. Toby, I'd like you to stay: we need to speak to Social Services about getting you back home."

The rest of them walked back towards their classroom.

"I suppose a week isn't too bad, considering Toby could have died," said Jamie.

"Maybe not, but we're still going to be in deep trouble at home," said Rob. "I bet we end up getting grounded for a lot more than a week."

"It's still better than getting arrested," said Jack. "If Toby had wanted to complain to the police we might have been in real trouble. I suppose we all ought to lighten up on him a bit after this."

"He was telling us about how hard his parents push him," Miles told them. "It's not that he wants to show off all the time, it's more that if he doesn't get glowing reports from the teachers he gets into bad trouble at home. Maybe this might persuade his parents to ease off a bit, and then he won't have to do his Hermione impression all the time."

"What do you think has happened to Graham?" asked Rob. "It sounded like his mother thought he was at school." (They'd heard the headmistress's half of the conversation with Graham's mother because she'd left the door to the secretary's office half open). "I hope he's okay."

"He was really worried about owning up," said Miles. "He seemed sure the police would be after him for threatening to use his knife. I hope he hasn't tried to do what Toby tried."

"I don't think he'd do that," said Rob. "But he might have run away, and that might be dangerous, too. If I don't get grounded straight away I think I'll go looking for him at the weekend."

"I'll come and help," said Miles. "If you don't mind, of course."

"Of course I don't mind. Except after what Graham did to you and Twitch on Monday I'm surprised you'd want to."

"He's my friend. Friends argue sometimes – I found that out when I used to live in London – but it doesn't mean we won't be friends again. Okay, I was pretty angry about the photo, except… well, I can sort of understand why he was upset enough to do it. He thought I'd let him down, and maybe I had, sort of. So if I can help to find him I will."

"Me, too," said Twitch. "After all, maybe the photo did me a favour: it proved to all the girls in the class that it is possible for someone to kiss me and live."

"I don't think they'll be queuing up to try it out, though," Miles pointed out.

"I suppose not. Still, maybe one day…"

Toby came back shortly before the bell went for the start of the next lesson, and Jamie was the first one to go and apologise properly.

"I'm really, really sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have cheated like that. It's just because I was scared of getting hurt… and because I'd sort of convinced myself you deserved it, somehow. I swear I didn't realise how bad it would make you feel… well, you know, bad enough to want to… you know, take those pills, and that. And now Miles has explained a bit about why you… well, do the teacher's pet thing, I suppose I can understand better. So I really am sorry, and I won't ever do stuff like that again, okay?"

"Okay. But… you weren't trying to lose in the other games we played, were you?"

"God, no. That was just because I'm rubbish at cards, that's all. It was only in the last game I was cheating, because that's the only one we played using the marked cards."

"Okay. Then I'll just make sure I don't ask you to partner me in future."

The other three came and apologised, too, so that by the time Miss Steadman arrived for the next class Toby was feeling almost popular: normally nobody ever talked to him at all.

He was called into the headmistress's office during afternoon school and returned to tell them that, after speaking to the headmistress, Social Services were satisfied now that it was simply a game between children that had got out of hand, and that now that the culprits had come forward, owned up and been punished by the school there was no need for them to be involved. They were finishing off the paperwork and signing off on his emergency placement with foster parents, and as far as they were concerned Toby was free to return to his own home. They would be calling Toby's parents straight away to arrange for them to collect him from school that afternoon.

So it looked as if Toby's main problem had been resolved. But at the end of the school day Graham still hadn't turned up and they were beginning to worry about him, especially as it was starting to rain. Some of them thought the rain might drive him back home, but Miles had seen how nervous he was about the possibility of being arrested, and he thought Graham wouldn't want to risk it. They decided that Miles would phone Graham's house in the morning, and if he hadn't come home he would call the others and try to start a search.

***

It rained all night. In the morning Miles made his call, but Graham's mother told him that Graham hadn't come home at all the previous evening, and that they'd already notified the police that he was missing. Even though it was still raining Graham's father was out searching at the moment.

But when Miles asked his own parents if he could go and help search he wasn't entirely surprised to be told that he couldn't: they wouldn't let him out in the rain, no matter how good a cause it might be. Nor would they let Martin go out: he'd arranged to meet Luke to do some training, but when he phoned Luke to apologise he found that Luke was stuck at home, too. They rescheduled the training for the following afternoon.

It went on raining, on and off, all day, but it had stopped by the time Miles got out of bed on the Sunday morning. So an hour or so after breakfast he got on his bike and rode over to Rob's house, hoping that they could continue the search for Graham, who (a further phone call to his house had revealed) was still missing. Rob opened the door to him and asked him to come in.

"So he still hasn't turned up?" he asked. "That's bad. I don't know where he could have gone, but it was pretty wet yesterday. I hope he's okay."

"Can you come and help me look? I know the police are looking, and probably there won't be much we can do, but I'd like to try, anyway."

"Okay. We're both grounded, but not until tomorrow. It could have been a lot worse: all we got was one week's grounding and no allowance for two weeks, and considering that Toby might have died I suppose we can't complain. Anyway, we're free today, so we can check out some of the places round his house, just in case the police didn't look."

"Can I ask Robyn if she wants to come? I mean, the more of us there are, the more places we'll be able to look."

"You can ask," said Rob, trying not to laugh. "She's a bit busy at the moment, but there's no harm in asking. Her room is second on the left at the top of the stairs. You'd better knock."

Miles wondered what was so funny, but he didn't ask: instead he went up the stairs and knocked on the indicated door.

"Who is it?" came Robyn's voice from inside.

"It's Miles. Can I come in?"

"No!! No, I'll… I'll be out in a minute."

So Miles waited for a minute or so and then Robyn emerged, looking flustered. She pulled the door closed behind her but the latch seemed to be stuck as the door just hit the frame and rebounded open again, revealing an equally flustered-looking Jack. Ah, thought Miles: that explains Rob's suppressed laughter.

"Hello, Jack," he said, trying to keep a straight face. "I'm glad you're here: I came to ask Robyn if she wants to come and help us look for Graham; so maybe you'd like to come, too. Oh – and your flies are undone, by the way."

Jack blushed bright red and rapidly did up his zip. "It's loose," he mumbled. "It comes undone all the time."

"That must be a nuisance. Perhaps Robyn could try to fix it for you – girls are good at that sort of thing."

Robyn glared at him, but then grinned and pulled him into her room with her and Jack, closing the door. "Look," she said, "we weren't doing anything bad, but I don't want the rest of the class finding out about it or we'll get teased to death. You're not going to say anything, are you?"

"Probably not. However, there is one condition."

"What's that?"

"Well, I seem to remember you two laughing about the photo Graham took of me and Twitch. So I want one of you two. It won't go on the notice-board, or anything, but I think you'd look good together."

"Well… okay, but we're not getting undressed, or anything."

"Pity – you'd look even nicer naked. But I won't make you do that – just a head and shoulders shot will do nicely, like the one of me and Twitch."

They didn't mind that too much, so Miles got his phone out and took a couple of photos of them as they were kissing – and he was right: they did look good together.

"So, what were you really doing when I knocked?" he asked. "I'm not going to tell anyone, not even your brother, Robyn. I'd just like to know."

"Well… I was sort of investigating Jack's… you know," she said. "I thought it looked interesting when we were playing cards, and so I asked him round so that I could have a proper look in private."

"I'm sorry I interrupted, then. You don't have to come with us, obviously: if you'd prefer to go on… investigating each other I'm sure Rob and I can manage without you."

"No, we'll come. After all, we can do this any time, and Graham is our mate. So where were you thinking of looking?"

"I don't really know. I suppose the woods around where he lives, though he might be anywhere: we know he's got his bike with him, because his mum said he left for school as usual, so he could have gone into town, or even just kept going all day. He could be miles away. But I want to do something, so I'm going to start looking near his house."

So all four of them rode to Graham's house and spent the rest of the morning checking through the woodland that lay north of the house. But, as Miles had more or less expected, they found no trace of Graham. And none of them had any idea where else he might be…

So now Miles has something new to worry about, and in the next chapter we'll see him and the rest of the gang trying to find Graham. And Martin will be giving a lot of thought to Luke's situation, too.

Chapter Twelve

Martin and Luke are getting ready to put Martin's anti-bully plan into action, and Martin is starting to come to some conclusions about the way he thinks about Luke, too. Meanwhile Miles is still trying to find out where Graham went…

Sunday June 8th

We weren't able to train yesterday because it rained all day, but it had stopped by the time I got up this morning, and so after lunch I called Luke and arranged to meet him at the dip. I was a bit surprised when he arrived with a big bag on his back, and even more surprised when I saw that he'd brought the tent with him. But he said it would be nice to rest in the tent for a while after we'd finished training – and of course it meant we would have somewhere to shelter if it started raining again.

The ground was a bit damp from the rain yesterday (so obviously the trees don't completely protect the dip from rain), and it was a bit colder, too, so we decided to keep our clothes on while we were training. We didn't bother with the rope – Luke hadn't brought the support rope, anyway, and we thought it would be more important to concentrate on exercises to increase my strength. So we ran and worked with the spear for a while, but mostly we wrestled. And of course Luke won every time, but he made sure I worked hard and did my best to beat him.

He also made me do some weight-lifting exercises with a dead branch, because he said I should try to build up my arm muscles a bit. And by the time I'd done that, and the running, and the wrestling, I was really glad he'd brought the tent. We'd set it up before we started training, so I was able to just go and lie down as soon as we finished.

Because of the overnight rain the ground was a bit muddy, so we took off our shoes, shirts and trousers before we went into the tent so as not to get the sleeping bags dirty (he'd brought both of them and zipped them together as before, but hadn't bothered with the blankets). And once we were inside I took the rest of my clothes off and got into the sleeping bag, and he got in with me. For several minutes I just relaxed – most of my muscles were hurting and I just wanted to rest. But then I rolled over to face Luke and we talked about my plan. He said he'd issue his challenge to Hamilton during the week and we'd aim to put it into action next weekend.

Of course there is a risk: if Hamilton plays it straight and wins Luke will be in trouble, but Luke is sure he can beat him in a fair fight – it's just having to deal with Young as well that means he always loses. So the idea is that I stop Young from getting involved. I don't have to be able to beat him in a fight, just hang on to him so that he can't interfere, and Luke thinks I'll be able to do that, especially if we use the idea I thought of to frighten him.

Luke was lying on his back next to me, and so I thought I'd see if he liked having his personal places touched the way I do when Miles does it to me. And it turned out he did, because he went hard very quickly, and he didn't do anything to stop me. I stroked it gently until it was really stiff, and then he asked if I wanted us to have sex, so of course I said I thought that would be nice. And he said he'd hoped I was going to say that, because he'd come prepared – this time he'd brought a little jar of Vaseline instead of the cooking oil, because he said it would be a lot less messy.

We didn't have the blankets this time, so we only had one sleeping bag to fold up underneath me, but it was enough. And this time I played safe: Luke had brought the roll of kitchen towel again, so I folded up a couple of squares and put them between my penis and the sleeping bag, just in case I got that weird feeling again.

I really enjoyed the mating this time, because he took things really slowly and it went on for ages. It feels so good lying there with him on top of me and inside me like that, especially when he holds me gently at the same time like he did this time. It's the best feeling in the world, I think. And that strange feeling did happen to me again. It was wonderful, even though after it had happened to me I felt a bit strange for a couple of minutes afterwards. But I didn't want to spoil things for Luke, so I didn't say anything, and after a little while I started to feel fine again.

He stopped not long after that. He wiped himself down and even wiped my bottom for me, which felt good, somehow, even though normally I get really embarrassed about anyone seeing that part of me. And then he went outside to pee, which gave me a chance to kneel up – and I saw that the sheets of kitchen towel I had put under my penis were a little bit wet, so apparently I'd lost control of myself again. I'll definitely have to remember to make sure there's a towel or something underneath me whenever we mate in future.

And the really brilliant thing about this afternoon was that this time when Luke came back from having his pee he just zipped the sleeping bags together again and got back in, and when I got in next to him he pulled me against him and hugged me – and we lay like that with our arms round each other for ages. I felt so good: with him holding me like that I felt safe, as if nothing could ever hurt me or upset me again. Of course, I know that isn't really true, but right then I didn't care. I think I've moved from thinking he's a really good friend to something more than that: now I think I love him. Obviously I've never loved anyone before except for my parents and Miles, but I feel the same way about Luke: I'd do anything to make him happy. And I think that sort of feeling has to be 'love', doesn't it?

Miles might not have been ready to use that word to describe the way he felt about Twitch yet, though he did like him a lot, and so when Twitch called shortly after lunch on Sunday and asked if he would like to come over for tea, Miles said 'yes' straight away.

"And," Twitch went on, "I was thinking of inviting Toby as well. I thought perhaps if one or two of us start talking to him a bit, maybe he'll feel a bit better and won't want to… you know, take pills and things in future."

"Well… okay, that's probably a good idea. I was going to say it would stop us from doing anything bad together, but since we can't do anything bad at your house anyway in case your parents come to check up on you, it doesn't really matter. We'll save the bad stuff for when you come to my house, and at your house we'll be good and well-behaved and invite Toby round for tea."

"Okay. I'll call him in a minute, then. I didn't want to until I was sure you wouldn't mind."

And Miles liked that, too, because it meant Twitch cared about what he thought. In fact he thought inviting Toby round was a really nice thing to do – Toby would certainly feel less alone if he had a couple of friends in the class. Of course, he'd be less enthusiastic about having a third party about when Twitch came to his house, because he didn't want anything to get in the way of their sex games…

He rode round to Twitch's house and they waited together in Twitch's bedroom for Toby to arrive. They weren't quite sure what they would talk about with him, but Twitch said he didn't think it would matter much: just inviting him round would be a sign that he wasn't as alone as he had thought.

In fact when Toby arrived they found that they had an immediate topic of conversation, because Toby arrived dressed as if he was going to church, in smartly-pressed trousers, shiny black shoes and even a blue tie. They took him up to Twitch's bedroom and shut the door.

"Sorry about the clothes," Toby said, before either of them could comment. "My parents said that you have to look smart when you meet someone for the first time. I said I see you two at school every day, but they said they were talking about Twitch's… sorry, Noel's parents, and I suppose I haven't met them before."

"You can call me 'Twitch' if you like," said Twitch. "I don't mind my friends calling me that – in fact I think I prefer it to Noel."

"Yes, but… well, we're not really friends, are we?"

"Aren't we? I reckon that if I invite someone round it at least means I'd like to be friends, even if we aren't already."

"Really? Why?"

"Because I think we were all wrong about you, and I'd like to know what you're really like, and I'm only going to find out if we spend some time doing stuff together."

"Okay, so what sort of stuff are we going to do, then?"

"Well, I think we should start by getting rid of that tie and those shiny shoes – you're making me and Miles look like a couple of tramps."

"You just don't like being shown up!"

"True. Grab him, Miles!"

So they pinned Toby down on the bed and forcibly removed his tie and his shoes.

"You're just lucky we didn't decide your trousers were showing us up, too," said Miles, releasing him.

"Aren't they?"

So of course they shoved him back onto the bed and, after a prolonged struggle, removed his smart trousers, too.

"Want to comment on how much better your pants are than ours?" asked Miles, releasing him again.

"Well, they are, but I'm not going to say so…"

Miles hadn't been sure that Toby would want to play this sort of game, especially so soon after what he had been through at the hands of the gang, but clearly he was ready to do so. Miles paused long enough to wedge Twitch's chair under the door-handle in the approved manner (he'd never have done it if it had just been himself and Twitch in the room, but he thought it highly unlikely that Twitch's mum would feel the need to check on him with two friends there to sound an alarm if necessary) and then knocked Toby back onto the bed, pinning him down so that Twitch could pull his remaining clothes off. Then they tickled him into submission.

Once he had surrendered they let him get back up, but before he could pull his pants back on they got a look at the state of his buttocks: there were bruises all over them, in a variety of colours from blue to black to yellow.

"Bloody hell, Toby," said Miles, "they really worked you over, didn't they? How many times did they hit you?"

"I'm not sure. I lost count. All I know is that it really hurt."

"Is it still sore now?"

Toby shook his head. "Not unless I sit down too quickly," he said. "And I try hard not to do that." He pulled his pants back on, followed by the rest of his clothes except for his tie and his shoes.

"What would you like to do now?" Twitch asked him.

"Well… I wouldn't mind playing a strip game – but a proper one, where you play poker or pontoon or something and take one thing off every time you lose. I think that would be exciting, having to keep taking things off and wondering if someone else was going to lose before you did."

"But I thought you didn't like having to strip," said Miles. "You seemed sort of embarrassed when you had to strip last week. That's why I was a bit surprised about you letting us strip you just now, to be honest."

"That's because Robyn was there last week. I don't like girls much, and having one looking at me when I was naked was really embarrassing. If it had just been boys I wouldn't have minded half so much. It's strange, really – six months ago I wouldn't have been interested in playing that sort of game with boys, either, but now I really like the idea of playing a proper, one thing at a time, strip game. It was one of the really interesting things about last week, seeing what the other boys looked like without their clothes on. I've never had a friend to play that sort of game with – my parents think playing any games with friends is a waste of good studying time. Except now maybe I'll be able to talk them into letting me do that more easily – if I have a friend to play with, of course."

"Well, I like that sort of game, too," said Miles. "But we can't really play here, because Twitch's mum is likely to come and make sure he's okay from time to time – so I'd better move the chair again, just in case." And he went and put it back where it belonged.

"Oh," said Toby, looking disappointed.

"But we can play that at my house," promised Miles. "Or we could play outdoors – but it's safer inside, just in case anyone comes past. But if we do play, I don't think we should play for forfeits."

"Me neither," said Toby. "I think the loser should just have to let the winner, or winners, sort of examine him for a bit, and then he can get dressed again."

"That sounds okay," said Twitch. "But we can't do it here, so what else would you like to do? Do you like model railways?"

"Well, yes – I've got a little one myself, but I don't get it out too often because it takes too long to set everything up."

"Twitch doesn't have that problem," Miles told him. "Let's show him."

So they went up to the attic and Toby was as impressed with Twitch's layout as Miles had been, and they spent the afternoon playing with it – or operating it, as Twitch preferred to call it. Toby enjoyed himself a lot, and by the time he went home he was feeling a lot happier than he had felt for a long time.

"He's alright really, isn't he?" said Twitch after Toby had been collected by his parents.

"Yes, I think so. I certainly won't mind if he plays with us again – except I still want to do stuff with just you sometimes, because I'm not sure I want Toby watching when we play our sex games."

"No, I think we'll keep those private. There are some things you only share with your best friend…"

***

School on Monday was marked by a number of empty seats around the room: four of Miles's classmates were now suspended and Graham was still missing, and by now Miles was getting very worried about him. But he had no idea where else he could look, and with most of the gang stuck indoors there wasn't anyone to help him, since Twitch was always picked up as soon as school ended.

But as soon as he turned his phone on at the end of school he found a text message asking him to call Tom's mobile, and so as soon as he was out of the classroom he did that.

"He's not back yet, is he?" asked Tom, as soon as Miles got through.

"No."

"Well, I've had a thought. There's somewhere we used to play a couple of years ago, before Graham moved to his new house – he used to live near our house and we played together a lot. And we used to have this camp out in the woods, not far from where we were playing cards. We were only allowed to go there when Kevin came with us, because me and Graham were too young to go off on our own, and after Graham moved away we didn't go there much. I'd go and look myself, but we're grounded this week."

"How come? Nobody mentioned your names when we went to see our headmistress, and I'm pretty sure Toby hasn't told anyone else."

"I know. We turned ourselves in to our parents. It didn't seem right that everyone else got into trouble, so we told our parents about it and said that we thought we ought to be punished, too. To be honest, we were both afraid that if we didn't do something like that someone else would let something slip – maybe Jamie's mum talking to our mum, or something – and then it would be more serious and our parents might even decide to tell our headmaster. This way they're pleased with us for being honest and it hasn't gone any further. But they spoke to Jamie's parents and agreed to ground us until Monday next week, same as him, and I suppose that's fair, really.

"Anyway, it means I can't go and check the old camp. But Jamie told us you and Twitch weren't in trouble, so maybe you can go and check."

"Okay – where is it?"

"The easiest way is to go to where we were playing cards and then follow the field round, going anticlockwise. After a bit – a couple of hundred yards, I suppose, though I haven't been there for ages – you'll find a path going into the wood. Follow it in for a minute or so and you'll see some rhododendron bushes on your left. We had our camp in the biggest one."

"Okay, thanks, Tom. I'll check it out on the way home."

Miles saw Toby heading for the front gate and went after him, managing to ask him a couple of important questions before he got into his mother's car, and then he got on his bike and rode to the Greyhound, across the main road and down Broom Lane. He pushed his bike through the wood, carefully lifted it over the fence and followed the edge of the field as Tom had told him to. The path came up a little earlier than Tom had suggested, but Miles decided it had to be the right one, so he left his bike propped against the fence, climbed over the stile and followed the path into the wood. He wasn't entirely sure what a rhododendron bush looked like (he'd never asked what the bush at the end of their garden in London was called), but there were some leafy bushes off to his left, so he picked the largest-looking one and pushed his way into it.

At first sight it was empty. He was confident he'd found the right bush because there were some short planks piled up in one place and an old door lying on the ground in another, and there was a folded tarpaulin on top of the planks, all of which suggested that this had once been the camp Tom had told him about. But there was no sign of life, and so he sighed, thinking that Tom had been wrong. It had been a good suggestion: Miles thought this would be a good place for a hideout, because the bush would keep off most of the rain that found its way through the tree canopy above it, and if that tarpaulin was still water-proof it could probably be rigged up as a sort of tent, using the planks to support it – in fact he decided to come back at some point and see if he could get it to work. If he could, maybe he and Twitch could try camping out here…

He wondered if the tarpaulin was big enough to cover two people, so he went and picked it up… and as he reached the pile of planks he saw Graham curled up into a ball, hiding behind them.

"Hey, Graham, are you okay?" he asked.

"Go away. I'm not coming back."

"So what are you going to do? You can't stay here for ever."

"I don't know, but I'm not going to prison!"

"No, you're not. God, Graham, have you really been here since Friday? I mean, did you have anything to eat, even?"

"Of course – I brought some stuff with me, and I went to the shop on Friday before anyone knew I was missing and bought some more. And the tarpaulin kept me dry when it rained on Friday night. I'm fine, Miles – just go away. And you'd better not tell anyone where I am, or else."

"Or else what? You'll kill me, too?"

Graham had stood up by this time. He shrugged, not looking Miles in the eye.

"Of course you won't, stupid," said Miles. "We're friends… well, we were, anyway. Still are, as far as I'm concerned. Look, you've got to come home, Graham – everyone's worried about you, especially your family. And the police are looking for you – I should think it's a miracle they haven't been here yet. But they're only looking for you because you're missing, not because they think you've done anything wrong – they just want to take you home, that's all."

"Yeah? How long will I get to stay there once Toby tells them what I said?"

"That's the thing: I checked with him before I left school this afternoon, and he says he never mentioned a knife at all. Okay, they know you threatened him, but not with anything in particular. Nobody knows about the knife, so you won't get nicked for it."

"You're lying! You're just trying to trick me into going back!"

"No, I'm not. I wouldn't do that to anyone, especially not to a friend. Look, Graham, all that's going to happen is you'll get suspended for a bit – that's what happened to everyone else. Toby's already said he won't be making any official complaint, and he'll make sure his parents don't, either, so once your suspension is finished it'll be all over."

"Really? You swear?"

"I swear. Trust me."

"Well… okay, but… okay. How did you find out about this place, anyway?"

"Tom told me. He's grounded at the moment like everyone else, or he'd have come himself, but he was worried about you, so he asked me to come instead. They're all worried about you: we were all out looking for you yesterday – well, me and Rob and Robyn and Jack were, anyway. I tried calling Tom, but I suppose they'd gone out. What did you do with your bike?"

"It's just back there, covered in dead leaves. Wait while I get my bag and I'll show you."

Graham pushed the old door to one side, revealing that there was a trench underneath it.

"This was our store," he said. "We kept comics and toy guns and stuff here. We dug out a little bit more every time we came – me and Tom had this mad idea of building a proper sort of room, but Kevin said we wouldn't be able to get very far because the roots would get in the way, and he was right. But we made quite a good trench. Me and Tom said that if ever Kevin bossed us around too much we'd put him in there and pile a load of bricks on top so he couldn't get out and he thought that was a good idea – not for him, of course, but for us if we messed about too much. So we made the trench big enough to lie down in and Kevin drew up a list of punishments for us – like if you swore you'd be put in the trench for five minutes, stuff like that. We all tried it out – it was scary, because obviously it's completely dark once the door is on top, and with the other two standing on the door there was no way to shift it – me and Tom were only nine, after all. And the time I tried it I was thinking about worms and ants and spiders and things being in there with me. None of us liked it much and so we never used it as a punishment, though we threatened each other with it. The worst punishment would have been for letting each other down: Kevin said anyone who did that would be stripped naked, tied up so he couldn't move and left in the trench overnight. So maybe I should do that to Tom for telling you where I was…"

"No, you shouldn't. He only told me because he couldn't come himself, and I haven't told anyone else, not even Twitch. And he told me because he was worried about you. And… okay, if you're still worried about what will happen if you go home, I promise that if you think I've got you into bad trouble by me taking you home now you can put me in the trench for as long as you think I deserve."

"You don't know what it's like in there."

"No, and I won't find out, either, because once you get home you'll realise it's the best thing you can do, just to get it all over with."

"Prove it. Come on, I dare you: if you trust me as much as you want me to trust you, let me put you in the trench now."

Miles hesitated. After all, if Graham put him in the trench and left him there nobody would find out about it for ages: the only person who knew he was here was Tom, and because Tom was grounded he'd be in no position to follow up his suggestion to Miles to check this place. Graham could just keep him prisoner for the whole week, or even simply leave him, get on his bike and head off for somewhere where nobody knew him.

But he supposed it was true that he was asking Graham to trust him, and so he really had to show Graham that he was worthy of that trust.

"Okay, then," he said. "How long for?"

"Five minutes should do. But you have to do it properly. Get undressed."

Miles stared at him.

"Chicken!" jeered Graham.

Without a word Miles started to strip, piling his clothes up on top of the planks. When he was naked Graham made him stand with his hands by his sides, pulled some string from his bag and tied one wrist to the other, passing the string behind Miles's back so that he could lie down flat but would not then be able to use his hands. He helped him to lie down in the trench and then tied his ankles together.

"You look funny like that," said Graham. "Say hello to the worms for me." And he pushed the door back over the trench.

Miles tried to control his breathing, because it really was scary being in here: the ground was cold and a bit damp, and he couldn't see anything or move very much. If Graham did decide to go off and leave him like this he really would be in trouble.

He couldn't hear anything outside: there was no way of knowing whether Graham was still there or not. He tried to count the seconds but he wasn't at all sure that he was counting at the right speed. Had he been stupid to trust Graham? After all, he knew Graham was terrified of going to prison, so if he hadn't believed Miles earlier… but he couldn't believe Graham would really leave him here like this. Martin had said he thought that Graham was basically a decent kid, and he thought his brother was right.

But as the time stretched out it got harder and harder to believe that. Surely it was a lot longer than five minutes now? He couldn't do anything with his hands, but by bending his legs he could get his knees against the door, so he did that and tried to push… but nothing happened: the door didn't move an inch. He could get his forehead against it, too, but he couldn't apply any proper pressure, and again the door didn't move.

Now he was getting really scared. He had to fight to stop himself from either screaming or bursting into tears, and only succeeded because he knew that neither would do him any good. He tried to wriggle along so that his head was at the end of the trench: if he could get his head against the point where the door covered the head of the trench, maybe he could push himself up with his feet and force his way out. But his heels slipped on the muddy ground, giving him no leverage. He slumped back…

And the door slid open, and Graham reached in, cut the string around his ankles and helped him to stand up.

"How long was I in there?" asked Miles, standing still so that Graham could cut the string around his wrists.

"Just over four minutes. And you didn't even yell for help… I'm sorry, Miles, I shouldn't have made you do that. Now I really know you trust me, because I bet you were thinking how easy it would have been for me to just leave you there and run – and, to be honest, I did think about it, for about five seconds. But you still got into the trench without arguing. You're a proper friend and I'm really sorry about putting that photo on the board. Come on, get dressed and then you can take me home. If you can trust me that much, I reckon I can trust you, too."

"Does that mean I can put you in the trench, then?"

"Okay," said Graham, without hesitation, and he started to undo his jacket.

"Not now, stupid," said Miles. "We can come back once everything's sorted out. I reckon we could make this into a really good camp. How come you and Tom stopped coming here?"

"Well, after I moved I couldn't come back very easily at weekends. It's only a mile and a bit, but my parents wouldn't let me out on my bike alone – I was still only nine so I suppose I can understand that, though I know I got really upset about it at the time. And then when I was old enough to be allowed to cycle on my own we started playing football a lot, or we'd go round each other's houses and play video games instead. And Kevin's had a lot of extra schoolwork lately – he's in his final year at prep school and he wants to do well in his exams so he can go to a good school next year, and somehow it wouldn't have been the same without him. As big brothers go I reckon he's brilliant: he was always ready to play with me and Tom even though he was two years older than us, and he never seriously bossed us around or anything. Jamie's got an older brother, and he's a complete arsehole."

"Mars is okay," said Miles, pulling his trousers back on. "He's weird – well, you know that, because you've met him – but he's nice. I can't remember him ever trying to boss me about – in fact most of the time he acts like we're the same age, or even like I'm older. I like having a brother."

Graham put the door back over the trench and then waited for Miles to finish dressing, and once he was ready they walked back to the path. Graham went and unearthed his bike from near one of the smaller bushes and then they made their way back to the stile.

"Where does the other end of the path come out?" Miles asked. "If it comes out on the lane it would be quicker to go that way, wouldn't it?"

"I had a look, but it's too overgrown for the bikes – it's got loads of brambles and stuff growing on it now. And it runs right next to one of the houses on the lane, so I didn't want to use it anyway in case someone saw me."

"Maybe we should have a go at clearing it a bit if we're going to play here again: you should always have a clear escape route in case someone attacks you. Otherwise you just get trapped."

They pushed their bikes back to the lane, got on and rode back to Graham's house, though as soon as Graham's mother saw he was safely home Miles thought it would be best if he left them to it, so he rode on home. Once he got in he called Twitch, Toby and Tom to say that he'd found Graham at the old camp and that he was okay, and Tom promised to let everyone else know.

Graham didn't arrive in the classroom next morning, which was enough to start Miles worrying again, especially since he didn't find out why straight away. Just after registration Toby was called to the headmistress's office, and Miles didn't get a chance to ask him about it until break.

"Graham's parents brought him in and they went straight to see the head," Toby told him. "And they called me in to confirm that Graham had been the one who had threatened me. And for a moment I really wanted to drop him in it: I was that close to telling them about the knife, and how I was so scared I wanted to kill myself… but then I thought about what you told me when you called me last night, how he'd spent the weekend outdoors, hiding in the woods because he was terrified of going to prison, and I thought… well, maybe we were quits.

"So I said yes, Graham had threatened me, but that I should have realised that he didn't really mean it. I said that now I'd had time to think about it I'd realised that he was okay underneath, and that I thought he'd only threatened me because he was scared, because he knew he and the others had gone too far. And I said in a lot of ways it was my fault for winding everyone up, and I supposed I could understand why they'd wanted to get me back for it. And if I hadn't over-reacted and taken the pills no harm would have been done.

"The head seemed surprised, and I suppose it was because she'd seen the report from Social Services, and they knew how many bruises I had. But I said as far as I was concerned it was all sorted out now, and that I thought Graham shouldn't get anything worse than the others got – after all, I said, he'd already spent a very uncomfortable weekend living wild, and I thought that ought to count towards his punishment. So then the head told me to go back to class, but I hung around outside until Graham and his parents came out, and they let him talk to me – in fact they said he had to apologise. So he did, and then he said thanks for speaking up for him, which he'd never expected me to do, and I said that a lot of that was down to you, because you'd told me he was a decent kid really. And he told me he's suspended for a week, including yesterday, so he can come back to school on Monday like the others."

"Thanks, Toby," said Miles. "You didn't have to do that, and I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd told them about the knife instead. But I'm glad you didn't. So… do you want to come round to my house at the weekend?"

"Yes, please. Saturday or Sunday?"

"I'll find out when I'm free tonight and call you, okay?"

"Great! Is Twitch coming?"

"Would you like him to?"

"Well, yes, I think so. It would be more fun with three of us. Besides, I know you and him are friends, and I'll bet you'd prefer it if he can come, too."

"Okay, then. I haven't got a train set, though, or a computer."

"That doesn't matter. I'm sure we'll think of stuff to do – playing cards, perhaps."

Miles knew what Toby was thinking of, but he thought that could be fun, too, so he didn't argue. He checked with Twitch that he was going to be free at the weekend, and Twitch said that he was, and so they provisionally agreed on Sunday afternoon at Miles's house, provided that everyone's parents said yes.

***

On his way home after school Miles stopped at Graham's house. Graham came to the door and explained that he was grounded for three weeks, mainly to punish him for frightening his parents by running away like that, and that he wouldn't be allowed to have friends round either, or even to talk to them on the phone or on the computer – in fact, his PC's modem cable had been confiscated to make sure.

"I'll be free again from the first of July," he said. "And obviously I'll see you at school from next week. I'm allowed to cycle to and from school with you, but I have to come straight home after school or I'll be in really bad trouble: I'd probably be grounded for the whole of the summer holidays, and I don't want that. Look… how did you talk Toby into sticking up for me? I thought he'd want to see me in prison after what happened to him."

"I just told him you were okay. I think it helped that Twitch invited him over for tea at the weekend, and I went, too. We got to know him a bit better, and I reckon maybe he isn't quite such a knob as we all thought."

"Well, however you did it, it saved me from a lot of bad stuff. Thanks, Miles… you really are a good friend. I'm sorry I was such a dick last week. I'll make it up to you somehow… maybe when they let me out next month I'll buy you a pizza or something…."

At that point his mother told him to come back inside, so Miles said goodbye and rode the rest of the way home, thinking that it looked as if things had sorted themselves out after all…

Well, that looks like one problem solved, anyway. The next chapter will concentrate on Martin and Luke as they try to deal with the boys who have been giving Luke such a hard time at school.

Chapter Thirteen

In this chapter we'll find out what Martin's plan involved and whether it worked in practice. And we'll also get a chance to see Miles and Twitch teaching Toby something that he wasn't able to learn from reading all those encyclopaedias…

Luke went to school that Monday wondering if Martin's plan would actually work or if he was about to make a colossal mistake. But he thought it had to be tried, because there was absolutely no way he could put up with Hamilton and Young making his life a misery for the rest of his school career. So as soon as he got to school he went up to Hamilton's desk and said he had a proposition for him.

"Yeah? What's that, Freaky?"

"I want to challenge you to a fight – a proper one, somewhere where nobody will interfere. If I win, you swear to leave me alone in future."

"There's no way you're going to win. So what happens if you lose?"

"Then I'll do whatever you say for the rest of the year – so I'll carry your bag, run errands, go to the shop for you, help you do your homework if you need, whatever you want. And if I don't do a good job you can beat me up."

"I can beat you up any time I want now. And it's only a month to the end of the school year. Doesn't seem worth it to me."

"Not the school year, the calendar year – I'm talking about doing whatever you tell me until Christmas. Including the summer holidays, if you want."

"Bloody hell, say yes, Matt," said Young, who was sitting beside Hamilton as usual. "You know you can beat him easily – if he does what he's saying we'll have a slave to have fun with for the rest of the year."

"How do we know you'll keep your word?" Hamilton asked Luke.

"Because I'm ready to swear it – and if I don't, you can go on beating me up and stuff until I do."

"Sounds like I can't lose, then. What's the catch?"

"No catch. We fight, we agree to stick by the result. It's the only way I can think of to get you out of my hair. If I lose I don't think I'll be a lot worse off than I am now, and if I win I'll be able to have a bit of peace and quiet at school."

"You can have that any time you want," said Hamilton. "Just take the freak-boxes out of your ears. But… okay, I like the idea of making you clean my rugby boots and stuff like that, so you're on. When do we fight – lunch-time?"

"No, we can't do it at school – someone would be sure to stop us before we got finished. I was thinking of doing it on Saturday, so we'll have as much time as we need without parents expecting us home for tea or anything. We could use the common, where you took me last week, but even there someone might come past, people walking their dogs and stuff, and on a Saturday there might be a match on at the cricket ground across the road, and there will be too many people about. But there's a place I know near where I live: it's away from any road or footpath and nobody will interrupt us. We can fight for as long as it takes."

"I don't know, Matt," said Young. "That sounds a bit iffy – it could be a trap. Maybe he'll have all his mates there waiting to beat you up."

"How many mates do you think I've got?" Luke asked him. "You know I haven't got any serious friends here. Besides, if I pulled something like that I know you'd kick the shit out of me on Monday."

"That's true," agreed Hamilton. "He can't play tricks or we'll sort him out properly next week. And it'll be interesting to see where he lives – after all, once he's our slave we can go round and order him to give us any of his stuff we fancy, can't we?"

"Yeah! I like that idea – and we can beat him up in his own bedroom," agreed Young. "That'll be a laugh, too."

"Okay, we'll do it like that," said Hamilton to Luke. "Tell me how to find this place of yours and I'll be there on Saturday afternoon – we can check the bus timetables later to work out what time. And then we fight – you swear to accept the result?"

"I swear."

"And you'll do whatever we tell you until Christmas if you lose?"

"Well… not if you order me to break the law, or something – I mean, you can't order me to murder the headmaster or to rob a bank, or anything. But otherwise, yes, I agree."

"Cool! You're going to be in so much shit, Freaky – we're going to think of hundreds of ways to sort you out. And if you argue or disobey we'll have to cane you, or something."

"Fine. But you have to win the fight first," said Luke, and he left them and went to his own desk. He was confident he could handle Hamilton in a fair fight but a lot less confident that Hamilton would keep his side of the bargain if he did. He hoped that Martin's plan would solve that problem for him.

The next day he gave Hamilton a map he'd downloaded from his computer with the path to the dip clearly marked, together with instructions as to where to get off the bus. They'd checked the timetable and found a bus that would reach Luke's house a little before three o'clock, so they agreed to meet at the dip at three.

"We've been thinking of stuff you're going to do for us," Hamilton told him, grinning. "Obviously it'll include cleaning our boots, going to the shop for us, stuff like that, like you said yesterday. And you'll have to come to our houses and do our chores, and clean our bikes, and anything else that needs doing. And while you're working we'll take your plastic ears off, because we know how much you hate not being able to hear what's going on. And if you mess up we'll cane you in front of the whole class."

"Naked," put in Young, grinning. "You can show off your deformities to everyone."

"You've still got to win the fight, remember?" said Luke, handing the map to Hamilton.

"Like that's going to be a problem."

Saturday June 14th

I'm filling this in at lunchtime because if things go wrong this afternoon I might not be able to do it later. Although I hope to have a lot more to write down this evening if everything goes according to plan.

Everything is set up: Luke's given Hamilton details of how to find the dip and he's arranged to meet him there at three o'clock, so we're going to be there a bit before that. If Hamilton comes on his own I'm just going to stay out of sight, but if Young comes with him – and Luke thinks he will – my job will be to keep Young from getting involved in the fight. I think I can do that: Luke says Young isn't very big and we've thought up a way to scare him into staying out of the fight. If it works Luke will be able to have a fair fight with Hamilton.

We spent the morning training, with both of us working on our strength. Luke seems to be in really good shape, and even I feel a bit less weedy than I was before I met him. I hope I'm going to be strong enough to hang on to Young if I have to.

Hamilton has spent the week taunting Luke about all the bad stuff he's going to do to him if he loses – scrubbing his toilet at home, stuff like that. But Luke isn't worried… well, actually I think he is a bit, even though he says he isn't. I really hope he's going to win this fight, because he's going to be very unhappy otherwise. I'm not sure how he'd cope with having to do everything Hamilton tells him – and if he loses because I let him down I'm going to feel really bad about it. I'm just going to have to make sure that doesn't happen…

Luke was waiting in a particular place in the dip at three o'clock, while Martin was hiding behind the trunk of the large tree to whose branch their rope was tied. If Hamilton arrived alone he intended to move round to the far end of the dip (where he would be more likely to remain unnoticed) and watch from there. But of course when Hamilton arrived he had Young with him, as Luke had expected. He waited where he was until they reached him and then walked a short distance past them and turned to face them, a manoeuvre that left them with their backs to Martin.

"What's he doing here?" asked Luke.

"He's my tag-team partner, you know that," replied Hamilton, grinning.

"But I'm only supposed to be fighting you!"

"Who says? You never once said anything about it just being one of us – you just said 'we' were going to fight' and 'I'll fight you' – and as we don't speak French or Latin, 'you' can be singular or plural."

"But that's not fair!"

"Nobody said it had to be fair. And you've sworn, so you can't get out of it now."

"So you're afraid of fighting me on your own, are you?"

"Obviously not. I can thrash you without Sam's help. But I don't see why I should waste all that energy just to get to the same result."

"But… okay, then, I suppose I did say 'you' and 'we' and so on. So, do you agree that whichever of us – I mean you and me, Hamilton – submits first has lost the fight?"

"Yes, okay. Or you could save yourself a major beating by just submitting now."

"I don't think so. See, there's something you need to know."

Martin took hold of the rope and got ready to swing.

"What's that?" asked Hamilton.

"Well, I knew you'd probably bottle it by bringing Young along, so I thought I should bring my own tag-team partner."

"Huh?"

And that was as far as Hamilton got before Martin swung and let go of the rope. He landed a pace behind Young – he assumed the shorter boy was Young, anyway – and used the momentum of his landing to crash into him and knock him to the ground.

"This is Mars," he said to Hamilton. "He doesn't go to our school – in fact he doesn't go to school at all: they had to take him out of school because he attacked this kid and broke his arm."

"I just wanted to see how the joint worked," said Martin, who was having no trouble keeping a winded Young flat on the ground. "See, I wanted to find out why the elbow joint only works one way. It was a simple break and it would have healed fairly quickly, so I don't know why they made such a fuss about it."

"They don't like using words like 'psychopath' for kids our age," said Luke. "They call him 'severely autistic' or something, which is pretty unfair on autistic kids because really Mars is a nutter who doesn't know right from wrong. But he's my friend and he volunteered to help me."

"Do you know how easy it is to kill someone?" Martin asked Young, conversationally. "It's pretty easy, really: see, this pencil is only made of wood, but if I push it into your left ear it'll keep going, skewering your brain, and if I manage to push it in straight it'll come out of your right ear. I wouldn't even have to push it very hard."

"Get him off me!" shrieked Young, flailing uselessly: he really wasn't a lot bigger than Martin, and now that Martin was on top he was managing to stay there quite easily. Hamilton took a couple of paces towards them, but Luke quickly moved between them.

"Don't worry," he said. "He won't use the pencil as long as Young keeps still and stops struggling – will you, Mars?"

"But he's struggling now," said Martin, putting the blunt end of his pencil about a millimetre inside Young's left ear. Young immediately froze.

"See?" said Luke. "Now we can have our fight fair and square. If you win I'll keep my word, and I swear I'll call Mars off, too. If you lose… well, I'll expect you to keep your word, too. Now let's move over there a bit so that we don't trip over these two: if we did we might jog Mars's pencil hand."

Hamilton was at a major disadvantage here because he had never envisaged actually having to fight Luke on his own. But he was a bit taller and heavier than Luke and he wasn't going to back down, so he squared up to him and swung a fist that, had it connected, would have finished the fight before it even started. But Luke swayed back and let it fly past his nose, and while Hamilton was still off-balance he hit him hard in the ribs. Hamilton grunted and stepped back a pace, but he came in again, and this time he managed to hit Luke on the shoulder. It was Luke's turn to step back.

The fight went on: Hamilton kept swinging wildly, trying to hit Luke in the head, while Luke concentrated on hitting Hamilton again and again on the body. Realising that he was getting hurt a bit too much Hamilton closed and grabbed at Luke, trying to switch from boxing to wrestling, but Luke drove him back with a couple of well-aimed jabs to the head.

Finally Hamilton gave up all pretence of fighting a conventional battle and kicked Luke hard on the shin, and Luke cried out and dropped to his knee. Hamilton yelled in triumph and threw himself at him, but Luke managed to roll as they hit the ground and so ended up on top – and that kick had made him angry. He punched Hamilton hard several times and then rolled off him, stood up and kicked him hard on his thigh.

"You want to fight dirty?" he said. "Fine, let's do that." And he kicked him again.

Hamilton pulled himself to his feet and Luke piled into him, hammering him with punch after punch until Hamilton was just trying to cover his head and back away. Luke pursued him, landing punches more or less at will, until finally Hamilton fell over again.

"Submit?" asked Luke.

Hamilton shook his head, so Luke jabbed his toe into Hamilton's ribs.

"Good," he said. "I owe you a lot more than you've had so far, so the longer you go without submitting, the better I like it."

Somehow Hamilton managed to get up, but Luke knocked him down again fairly quickly. Hamilton struggled up again but then dropped to his knees.

"No more," he said.

"Do you submit?"

Hamilton said nothing.

"Stop playing for time. Submit now or I'll have to hit you some more." And Luke stepped forward and raised his fist.

"Okay! Okay, I submit!"

"Good. Now, for some reason I find it hard to believe you're going to keep your word not to beat me up on Monday, so we've thought of a way to make sure you do keep it. Last week you thought it was pretty funny making me strip, so today it's your turn. Get your clothes off."

"Fuck off, Sinclair!"

Luke thumped him again. "I can keep this up all night if I have to," he said. "You've already submitted, but if you don't do what you're told I'll just keep hitting you. So get your clothes off."

Hamilton had taken as much as he could handle, and his shoulders slumped. Painfully he started to get undressed. Luke stood over him making sure he was going as fast as he could and not just trying to stall while he got his breath back, but it seemed that Hamilton really was beaten, because he kept going until he was naked. Martin couldn't see what he looked like because he was still busy keeping Young under control, though Young had stopped struggling as soon as he felt the pencil in his ear.

Luke went to his bag and pulled out a camcorder, and that was enough to galvanise a little more resistance from Hamilton.

"No way!" he said, huddling down into a ball.

"Yes, way. Look, Hamilton, this is simply insurance. I swear nobody is ever going to see this except the four of us unless you break your word and get heavy with me again. And I don't break my word, okay? So it's your choice: you can stand up and walk towards me with your hands at your side, or I'll just have to start beating you up again."

Hamilton didn't move, so Luke sighed, put the camcorder down and walked towards him, raising his fist. Hamilton made a half-hearted effort to resist, but he was already in too much pain to offer any serious resistance and Luke only had to hit him once to make him promise to co-operate.

Luke picked up the camera again and pointed it at Hamilton, who somehow forced himself to get to his feet and walk towards him, keeping his hands at his sides. Luke made him walk as far as the two branches that grew out of the bank and then bend down over them, and Luke set the camera down, still running and pointing in Hamilton's direction, while he walked across and tied the other boy's wrists and ankles to some tent pegs he had hammered into the ground earlier that day. Hamilton found himself immobilised, his body at full stretch and his legs apart.

"Are you going to cane me?" he asked, nervously. "Please don't – I've already agreed to do what we agreed."

"Right, but in an hour or two you'll have stopped hurting, and then you'll decide that I'll be on my own again on Monday and ready to get beaten up again. So I have to make absolutely sure that isn't going to happen, and just filming you naked isn't going to be enough to do the trick – there's nothing wrong with you, after all. I could probably give you some scars to match mine, but I guess that would get me into trouble. But I have to make sure neither of you will ever raise a finger against me again. Okay, Mars, let's get Young ready."

He walked over to where Young was still lying frozen underneath Martin's body. Martin got to his feet and Young relaxed a little, though not for long.

"Stand up," Luke ordered him, getting the camcorder ready once more. "Do what you're told and I won't have to beat you up; mess about and I'll let Mars play some games with his pencil. So stand up and get your clothes off."

Young had seen most of what had happened to Hamilton because his head had been facing the fight, and he knew he wouldn't have a hope if it came to a fight between him and Luke – and he certainly didn't want the loony doing stuff to him with that pencil. So he stood up, faced the camera and began to get undressed, and once his pants were off he stayed obediently facing the camera.

"Okay, Mars," said Luke, "do you think you can get him stiff?"

"I expect so," said Martin. He put his pencil away and stepped up behind Young, pressing his body against the other boy's back and reaching round to touch his genitals lightly, the way that Miles had taught him.

"It's okay, Young," he said. "You can relax – nothing bad is going to happen to you. I wouldn't want to damage you – Luke made me promise I wouldn't."

It took Young a while to relax, but gradually what Martin was doing to him began to have an effect and his penis started to harden. Eventually it was as hard as it could get, throbbing and jerking slightly as Martin caressed it. It was quite thin and completely hairless but a decent length, probably not a lot less than five inches [12 cm].

"You've got a nice big one," Martin told him. "It's really hard, too. Let's get it even harder."

He took Luke's little jar of Vaseline from his pocket and anointed Young's erection with it, smoothing it in and making Young groan and gasp in pleasure.

"And now for the big finish," said Luke. "Follow me."

He backed away towards the branches, still filming, and Young followed him.

"Now all you have to do is stick it up his bum and fuck him," said Luke.

That got a reaction from Hamilton in the form of a lot of shouting, swearing and useless pulling against the string tying him down. Young just stared.

"I can't do that!" he said.

"Yes, you can. You'll probably enjoy it, even."

"But he'll kill me!"

"He bloody well won't, not unless he wants the film to end up on the net. From now on he'll be nice and polite to me, and he won't give you a hard time over it, either. And, like I said, as long as he keeps his word nobody will ever see this."

"Don't you fucking dare, Sam!" yelled Hamilton.

"If you don't we'll just have to pound the shit out of you," threatened Luke. "And maybe Mars can think of a few more holes to stick his pencil into…"

That was enough for Young. His penis had flagged a little while he was contemplating his options, but Martin soon got him back up to full size, and with very little trouble (once Martin had added a dab of Vaseline to Hamilton's entrance) he was able it line up and push it in.

"Now what?" he asked.

"Now you give him one – pull it out and push it in again, and then just keep going."

Young got the idea fairly quickly, and before long he had forgotten that this was something he was being forced to do: soon he was into a rhythm and enjoying the sensation immensely. It took him quite a while to come, and before that happened Hamilton was gasping and groaning too, though Luke didn't think it was in pleasure. Luke filmed the whole thing happily, making sure he got the expression on Young's face at the moment of orgasm.

"Okay, take it out and clean yourself up," said Luke. Martin handed him the roll of kitchen towels, and Young did his best to wipe himself down.

"You can get dressed," Luke told him. "Mars, you'd better go before I untie Hamilton. Make sure your phone's turned on – you know what to do if you don't get my call."

"Okay," said Martin. He took the camera from Luke, put it into his pocket and ran off.

Luke waited a couple of minutes to make sure that Martin was far enough away and then took his knife out.

"Now," he told Hamilton, "you might be mad enough to try to get me when I untie you. That would be a massive mistake, because as soon as Mars gets home he's going to copy the film to a DVD, and if he doesn't get a certain phone call from me he'll also upload it onto a website we've got ready. It'll be encrypted, but the next stage will be to send the key and the site address to every kid in our form whose mail address I've got – which is about half the form.

"But if you're sensible I swear to you nobody will ever see it. And I won't say a word about the fight, either: I'm not going to tell anyone I beat you in a fair fight, so nobody will take the piss out of you for getting beaten by a scarred deaf freak."

He cut Hamilton free, and Hamilton stood up, rubbing his wrists.

"Why not?" he asked. "I'd have thought you'd want everyone to know."

Luke shook his head. "If I did that I'd have a load of other kids wanting to try to take me just to prove I'm not so tough. And I didn't do this to score points off you or make you look stupid, either: I just want you off my back, that's all. If you're sensible we can just draw a line here and forget the whole thing."

Hamilton took a piece of kitchen towel and wiped himself and then, once it was clear that Luke had no objection, he began to get dressed again.

"Okay, I'm off," said Luke. "The bus stop going back isn't opposite the one where you got off: you have to turn right at the main road. The bus stop is fifty yards along by the phone box. I'll see you on Monday."

He went back home, waited twenty-five minutes until the bus went past, just to make sure that Hamilton and Young were out of the area, and then phoned Martin to tell him that it was safe to bring the camera over. Martin said he would be there in ten minutes.

Saturday June 14th (evening)

Everything went perfectly. We'd been pretty sure that forcing the bullies to mate with each other on film would make absolutely sure they left Luke alone in future – after all, I'd hate it if anyone saw a film of me and Luke doing that. Of course we won't know until Monday, when Luke sees them at school, if it has definitely worked, but I'll be amazed if it hasn't. Luke says they were completely docile after he untied Hamilton, anyway.

It was sort of interesting, pretending to be mad. Because I'm not very big or strong I thought I'd have to find another way to intimidate Young, and pretending to be dangerously insane worked really well: he was too scared that I'd really push the pencil into his brain to risk struggling. And I was proud of the rope swing that landed me on top of him, too: all that practice was definitely worth it.

I was amazed by how well Luke fought, but he told me this evening that he's got an uncle who used to be a boxer, and he'd had some lessons from him. He's smaller and lighter than Hamilton, and his left arm doesn't work quite as well as it should, but even so it was obvious that he was a far better boxer. I was really proud of him.

The film came out pretty well, too. Luke says he'll edit out the bits where you can see my face, just in case he has to actually show it to anyone, but apart from that it doesn't need anything much doing to it: you can see everything you need to see, and when they're mating it's obvious from the film that it's real: Luke got close enough to film Young's penis actually going in. I think if anyone ever saw it Hamilton would die of shame.

And I learned something else from the film too, something very important. In the first bit, where Hamilton has to walk towards the branch naked, you can see that there is some hair at the base of his penis. His penis and testicles are quite small, smaller than mine or Luke's and definitely smaller than Young's – he has quite a long one – but the hair is there. So of course I made a comment to Luke about Hamilton having Monkey Disease. He asked what I meant, so I told him what Miles had told me, and Luke thought that was really funny. When he stopped laughing he explained that it's normal to grow hair there when you reach puberty – it happens to everyone, he said. He seemed interested when I told him I had had a little bit but had got rid of it so he wouldn't think there was something wrong with me.

'Let it grow,' he told me. 'I'd like to see it. And you don't have to hide stuff from me – even if you had something seriously wrong with you I'd still want us to be friends.' And I thought that was really good, so I'm going to let the hair grow – if it does grow back properly, of course.

When I got home I took Miles to my room and told him I'd found out the truth. And he said he'd been pretty certain Luke would tell me sooner or later, but that he thought it was a really good tease. 'And you really believed it, didn't you?' he added, and I admitted that I had. He said it didn't really matter, because he thinks I look nice either with or without the hair, and I suppose that's nice to know. I told him Luke has asked me to let the hair grow, and he said that in that case I should. He asked if he could check me every few days to see how fast it grows, and I said I wouldn't mind that at all – in fact I suggested that I could share his bed at least once a week, and because I sleep naked he'll get a chance to see me without any clothes on every week. He said that would be really good, so we're going to do that. It'll be interesting to see how quickly the hair grows…

Miles thought that in one way it was a bit of a pity Martin had found out that 'Monkey Disease' didn't exist: it had been fun teasing him about it. But in another he was glad that Martin had found out, because he thought it would be interesting to watch what happened to his brother's body as it went through puberty – after all, the same thing would be happening to him in a year or two. And he was really pleased to hear that Martin was fully prepared to let him observe the changes.

Toby and Twitch came round to Miles's house the following afternoon as they had arranged. They arrived within a couple of minutes of each other, which meant that Twitch was still saying hello to Miles's mother downstairs when Toby arrived, once again wearing his 'meeting new people for the first time' smart clothes. His parents came in with him to meet Miles's mother and to arrange what time he needed to be collected, and as soon as they had gone Miles took his friends upstairs. Before they retired to his room they went to say hello to Martin, who was lying on his bed reading.

"Hello, Noel," said Martin. "And you must be Toby. Miles has told me all about you."

"Good stuff or bad?" asked Toby.

"Good, mainly. I mean, he did explain why you annoyed everyone, but mostly it was about what had happened to you lately. Why are you dressed like that? It isn't Miles's birthday or anything."

"It was my parents' idea," Toby told him.

"Oh. Okay, then."

They left him to his book and went to Miles's room, shutting the door behind them.

"I thought you said your brother was weird?" said Toby. "He seems okay to me."

"He was deliberately trying to be normal today, I think. He does that sometimes just to confuse me. So… you're trying to show us up with those posh clothes again. I think we ought to do something about that."

"Oh, no, not this time!" said Toby. "Today if you want to get my clothes off you have to do it fair and square. You said we could play a proper strip game, so that's what we'll do. If I lose, fair enough, but if not I get to keep the posh clothes on."

"That seems fair," agreed Miles, getting a pack of cards from his cupboard. "What are we going to play?"

"Can we play poker? Only I've never played Strip Poker and I'd like to do it properly."

"Okay by me. Twitch, do you know how to play?"

Twitch nodded, so they agreed on three-change draw poker (which was the only version any of them knew), cut for deal and Miles shuffled and handed the pack to Toby to cut. Toby hesitated.

"These cards aren't marked, are they?" he asked.

"No. Though if I'd thought I could have borrowed Graham's pack… No, we wouldn't do that to you, even to make you take those shiny shoes off."

Actually none of them had played a proper hand-by-hand strip game before and they all found it exciting, teasing one another as each hand was lost and another garment had to be removed. They found that Toby had an unfair advantage: not only was he still wearing his tie when the game started, but they subsequently discovered that he was wearing a tee-shirt underneath his shirt, too.

"Too late!" he said when they complained. "You should have asked how many things I was wearing before we started playing. Though… since we're friends I won't count my watch. How's that?"

Miles and Twitch were both wearing watches, so they thought that would at least reduce the imbalance a little.

The game went on. It was very even, with nobody getting too far ahead, and Miles thought that made it really interesting: every time he lost an item the other two taunted him, telling him he was going to be naked soon, and every time someone else lost he did some taunting of his own.

Soon they were all down to their last one or two items, and then it was really exciting: Miles knew that if he lost one more hand he would be naked. But it was Twitch who was the first to lose his underpants.

"Now what?" said Twitch, standing up to remove his underwear.

"Now we get to examine you," said Toby, cupping Twitch's balls in his hand. Of course, pretty soon this had the obvious effect.

"Wow, that's really interesting, the way your skin rolls back as it gets hard," said Toby, stroking the erection and trying unsuccessfully to get the skin back over the knob. "Don't you think so, Miles? Does yours do that, too? Mine doesn't."

"Not does mine. But I think it looks nice like that – and I like the way one of his balls hangs lower than the other one, too."

"Yes, that is strange," agreed Toby, lifting the lower one up so that it was level with its partner and then letting it drop back. "And his thing is really hard, too. Do you mind us touching you like this, Twitch?"

"No. I wouldn't like it if it was someone else doing it, but I know I can trust Miles and I reckon I can trust you, too – besides, if you did hurt me I think Miles would kill you for me."

"That's true," Miles confirmed. "Of course, I could decide to hurt you myself, and then you'd be stuffed."

"Yes, but you wouldn't."

"I suppose not. Come on then, Toby, shall we carry on to see who comes second?"

"Okay," agreed Toby at once: he was now wearing only his tee-shirt and pants, while Miles was down to his boxers. Toby lost the next hand, and now that his tee-shirt was out of the way it was obvious from the state of his briefs that he had an erection. And when he lost the next hand as well he confirmed it by pulling the briefs off and throwing them on top of the rest of his clothes.

"Our turn," said Twitch, who was still naked, and he began to caress Toby's big balls. Miles started work on the short hard penis, and soon Toby was wriggling about in enjoyment.

"I reckon your balls are as big as mine and Miles's put together," said Twitch.

"Yes, but his willy is only about one-tenth of the size of mine," added Miles.

"That's not true!" objected Toby. "Come on, Twitch, let's get his pants off so we can prove that he's lying!"

"Okay by me," said Twitch, and they shoved Miles onto the bed, pinned him down and forcibly removed his pants. Miles was stiff and so his penis did look big, but obviously 'one-tenth' was a complete exaggeration. To prove it Toby went and got the ruler from Miles's desk and held it alongside his own erection.

"Mine's just about six centimetres [2⅜ inch]," he reported. "That means yours would have to be well over half a metre [2 feet] long to be ten times bigger – and I don't think it is, somehow. Keep still and I'll find out."

Miles let him measure. "Eleven centimetres [4⅜ inch]," said Toby. "That's not bad, but it isn't exactly ten times bigger, is it?"

"Suppose not. It's nearly twice as big, though."

"So what? I've got bigger balls. Now let's see how big Twitch is."

The ruler was applied once more. "Just under nine centimetres [3½ inch]," Toby announced. And then he flicked the ruler against the tip of Twitch's erection, making him yelp.

"Now you're in trouble," said Twitch, grabbing Toby and pulling him onto the bed. "Come on, Miles, help me."

Between them they got Toby onto his back, and they lay down on either side of him to keep him there. Twitch took hold of Toby's erection and squeezed it gently.

"Shall we find out what happens if we rub this?" he asked Miles.

"Go on, then," Miles encouraged him.

So Twitch started to rub it steadily.

"What are you doing?" asked Toby, not struggling very much. "That feels… well, sort of nice, to be honest."

"Haven't you ever done this before?" asked Twitch.

"Obviously not. You know I haven't had any friends… until now, anyway."

"Then you're going to find this kind of interesting."

Twitch kept rubbing, and of course Toby found it more and more interesting, until he was thrusting up against Twitch's hand and breathing hard.

"There's something happening," he reported.

"Good," said Twitch, keeping going.

Toby kept thrusting and gasping, and then his toes clenched and his groin muscles went taut – and suddenly the tip of his penis was wet.

"Bloody hell, Toby," said Twitch, slowing down but keeping hold. "You can do it."

"Do what?"

"Make sperm. That's what this is, look," and he drew out a thin colourless string of liquid from the tip of Toby's penis. "Okay, I suppose it isn't really proper sperm yet, but you're on the way. It means you could make a girl pregnant if you fucked her."

"Ugh, no thanks!" said Toby.

"It's good, though," insisted Twitch. "I mean, considering that you're only eleven, your thing isn't very big and you haven't got any hair yet, it's pretty impressive to be able to produce sperm already. Me and Miles can't do that yet."

"Really?" said Toby, looking pleased. "You mean I'm better than you two at sex?"

"Well, I suppose you could say that," admitted Twitch.

"Brilliant! I'm better than you are, I'm better than you are, nah-nah-nah!"

So they flipped him over and spanked him (though not too hard) until he apologised.

"Come on, let's get dressed and do something else," he said, once they released him. "Maybe we can play that again later… only I'd better get dressed because I need a pee."

So they all got dressed and Toby disappeared to use the bathroom.

"I didn't think he'd be able to do that yet," said Twitch while he was gone. "I'd have thought you'd be first – okay, you're the youngest of us, but you've got the biggest thingy. Still, I suppose it made him happy, and that's why we asked him round, isn't it?"

"I suppose so. But next week I want you to come round on your own, at least once. There's some stuff we need to practise, and I don't think I'm ready to do it in front of Toby just yet."

"Suits me. Of course, if we go camping with your brother and his friend in the summer we'll be able to do what we want every night, as long as we have our own tent."

"True. We're definitely going to have to arrange that."

Toby came back and Miles suggested they should go out for a walk, so they did that.

"It'd be nice if I could find a partner," Toby mused. "Then we could play some proper doubles games, like we did at half-term, but without the audience and without the bad forfeits. I mean, you two are obviously a proper team, so I need to find someone to partner me."

"What about Jamie?" asked Miles.

"Well, he's nice enough, and he obviously meant it when he said sorry for cheating – I think he really did feel bad about that. But he admitted himself that he wasn't much good at cards. Of course if I can't find anyone else I'll ask him, but I'd like to try to find someone new. There has to be someone in our class who can play cards and who doesn't totally hate me."

"I don't think anyone totally hates you, not even Graham and the others."

"I know. But I'd still like to find someone who wasn't lining up to beat me. Perhaps I'll ask Kevin if there's a massive brain in his class who's brilliant at cards and who wants to help me show up a couple of idiots I know."

"I wouldn't bother. If you do find someone like that they'll never get an invite to my house," Miles told him.

"Or mine," added Twitch. "Or we'll teach Miles's genius brother to play on our side – you might not realise it to look at him, but Mars makes Professor Hawking look like a thickie."

"Well, not quite," said Miles. "But he is quite brainy. So no hiring in geniuses from outside our school, okay?"

"I suppose so," said Toby. "Actually, I don't mind if I don't win very often, if that's what happens to me when I lose. That felt really nice. You won't mind doing that for me again sometimes, will you? Please?"

"As long as you don't mind doing it for us sometimes, too."

"Of course I won't! Thanks, Miles!"

So that was settled, then.

So life is definitely getting better for Toby, and maybe it will for Luke as well from now on. And finally Martin has found out that he doesn't really have Monkey Disease. I bet that comes as a relief.

Chapter Fourteen

This chapter deals with the aftermath of the fight in the dip, in the course of which Young discovers something interesting about his friend Hamilton. And Miles takes part in a little scientific research.

"Oi, Freaky! Come here!"

When Luke arrived at school on Monday morning he hadn't been sure what to expect from Hamilton, but it really wasn't this: this was exactly how he'd been addressed pretty much every day of the term so far, and it suggested that nothing had changed. He scowled and made his way to Hamilton's desk.

"Sorry," said Hamilton quietly when he got there. "But if I suddenly start calling you anything else people are going to wonder what's up. Anyway, I've been thinking: how do we know you really did film us on Saturday? Maybe the camera wasn't working and you were just pretending."

"Thought you might say that," said Luke, opening his bag. "So I made you both a copy." He pulled a couple of CD-Rs from his bag and gave one to Hamilton and the other to Young.

"Okay," said Hamilton, "I don't want to see it," and he handed the disc back.

"I'd like to check mine," said Young, putting it away in his bag. "I reckon one of us ought to make sure it's genuine."

"Even if it is, there's no way he'd put it online, though – is there, Sinclair?" said Hamilton. "After all, this sort of stuff is illegal – you'd get into deep shit if anyone found out."

"I told you, it'd be encrypted."

"It'd still be illegal. And when I thought about it yesterday I reckoned you wouldn't risk it, so we could still give you a good kicking this evening. Except…"

"What?"

"Well, you took me on even though I'm bigger and stronger than you, and you kicked my arse properly. I respect that. So we'll lay off you, like you said."

"And of course if we didn't he could simply give everyone in the form a copy of that CD," Young pointed out. "Then it wouldn't have to go online."

"That, too," admitted Hamilton. "But really it was the fighting that convinced me. Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"My uncle used to be a boxer."

"Oh, right. He must have been good, then. Reckon he'd give me lessons?"

"What, so you can get better than me and then go back to beating me up? I don't think so."

"You'd still have the film."

"True, but I don't think it would be a good idea. You might use it to bully someone else."

"I wouldn't… but I get why you think I might. Okay, then, from now on I'll leave you alone. But… is it okay if I still make comments for a bit? I'll stop gradually, but… well…"

"You mean you told everyone in class you were going to give me a good kicking, and now you don't want them all to find out you lost?"

"Well, sort of."

"I don't see why I should let you get away with that… but I will. Like I said, I didn't do it to make you look stupid, so if calling me names for a couple more weeks will help you save face, I'm okay with that."

"Thanks, Sinclair. We'll wind it down over the next week or so, then."

***

Luke went home on the same bus as Hamilton and Young. He thought this was the real test, because this was the first time the three of them had been alone together, so if Hamilton was going to do anything to him it would be now. But instead they left him alone completely, and when Hamilton got up to get off the bus he actually said "See you" to Luke as he walked past his seat. So it looked as if the battle really had been won.

Next morning Young, who got onto the bus one stop before Hamilton, came and sat next to him.

"I checked the CD last night," he said, "so I know it's genuine, and I'll tell Matt that when he gets on. Is it okay if I keep the CD?"

"Sure, if you want. I wouldn't have thought you'd want to let anyone see it, though."

"I don't, but it makes me look a lot better than Matt. He'd be even less keen to let anyone see it. I notice you cut out the bits with your loony friend in."

"That was just in case I did have to post it. I mean, Hamilton's right, it would have been dangerous, but if he'd decided to beat me up again I'd have done it, and I didn't want Mars on screen. So it's just you and Hamilton in the film."

Hamilton got on and Young moved to sit next to him, and they left Luke alone for the rest of the journey. As the week went by they went on calling him 'Freak' or 'Scarface' occasionally, but they started calling him 'Sinclair', too, and by the end of the week this was the only name they were using.

During the Friday lunch break Young asked if he could speak to him privately, so they went for a walk around the tennis courts.

"Do you want to hear something funny?" Young asked him. "See, when you made me fuck Matt on Saturday it felt fucking amazing, so I wanted to do it again. So on Tuesday I got him to come round to mine after school – we do that a lot because we often do our homework together, so our parents are used to it – and once we were in my room I told him I wanted to fuck him again, and that if he refused I'd pass the first bit of your film, the bit with him naked on his own, round the form. I thought he'd just tell me to fuck off and threaten to kick the shit out of me if I showed anyone the film, and if he had said that I'd have made out I was just taking the piss and said we should get on with our homework. But instead he seemed to get all nervous.

"'Come on, Sam,' he said, 'don't do that. It felt so weird…'

"So I thought, okay, he's not exactly threatening me with murder here, so I just ordered him to strip. And I was gobsmacked when he just started to undress.

"'You swear not to tell anyone?' he said. 'If the rest of the class found out about this they'd kill me.'

"I just waited without saying anything and he stripped completely naked and stood there – and he had a boner! He was trying to hide it, but I could tell. I didn't say anything about it, just told him to lie across the edge of my bed, and I went to the bathroom to get the Vaseline and the spare toilet roll. And then I undressed and did it to him, like on Saturday – except it was a lot better doing it in private and on a comfortable bed, of course. It took me a long time, but it was absolutely brilliant. Afterwards we cleaned up and got dressed and then just did our homework like nothing had happened – but the really funny part was that when he went for a pee just after we got dressed I noticed a little wet patch where he'd been lying, and when I looked more closely I realised that being fucked had made Matt come!

"Anyway, I still didn't say anything, and we did our homework and he went home. And then yesterday he suggested we went to his house to do our homework, and almost as soon as we were in his room he said 'You're not going to fuck me again tonight, are you?' which I thought was a complete give-away, so I said, 'What if I say I am going to?' and he said 'Well, I can't do a lot to stop you while you've got that film, can I? But please don't – it's really humiliating,' and I said, 'Well, it's a lot less humiliating than it would be if the other boys in the form got to see that film, isn't it?' and he said that he supposed that was true. So I ordered him to strip, and he did it without arguing and bent over the bed again, and before I even asked he told me there was some Vaseline in the drawer of his bedside table.

"So this time I was sort of looking out for the moment he came, and I could tell when it happened because everything tightened up and he sort of froze for a moment – in fact he squeezed so hard I nearly came myself: it felt unbelievable. So when we finished I told him to face me, and I saw that his erection had disappeared but that the end of his cock was wet.

"So he likes it, Sinclair – Matt enjoys getting fucked! And I bet if I don't mention it for a few days he'll try to get me to do it again – he'll say something like 'I'm really glad you've stopped fucking me' or something like that, just to get me to do it again."

"Why don't you just ask if he wants you to do it?"

"Don't be stupid – he'd have to say no, because if he ever admitted it he'd be owning up to being gay, and Matt would never do that, even if he is really. Not that I care whether he is or not: as long as he likes it he'll be happy to keep on doing it, and that suits me just fine because it makes me feel fucking incredible. But we have to make a sort of game out of it – he pretends he doesn't want it and is only doing it because I'm forcing him to. That way he can pretend to himself that he's not turning queer."

"Okay. Why tell me, though?"

"I thought you'd like to know. And… well, since you made it happen the first time I'm sort of grateful. So if you want to come and watch sometime – or even join in – I'd be cool with that."

Luke's first thought was 'no', but then he thought some more and decided it might be interesting to watch his erstwhile tormenter allowing himself to be shagged. So he said he'd think about it, which seemed to satisfy Young.

***

Things were back to normal at Miles's school, too: all the suspended pupils were back this week. The five of them seemed a little nervous around Toby at first, but he didn't seem unhappy to see them – in fact his behaviour had become a lot less exclusive since his return to school, and he spent the ten minutes or so before Miss Steadman arrived perched on Twitch's desk chatting happily to him and Miles.

On the Monday morning Graham went and stood at the front of the class, called for everyone to shut up for a moment and then said "I want to apologise to Miles and Twitch for putting that photo up. We played a forfeit game at half-term and when they lost we made them do that, so it wasn't their idea. And I snuck a photo while they were doing it. And sticking it on the board was right out of order and I shouldn't have done it. So I'm sorry, you two, okay?"

"What photo was that?" asked Toby, who of course hadn't been in class the day the photo appeared.

"It was one of me and Twitch kissing," said Miles.

Toby snickered. "I wish I'd seen that," he said.

"I've still got it," said Twitch. "Hang on a moment." He scrabbled in his bag and produced the photo.

"I thought we threw that away," said Miles, staring at him.

Twitch shrugged. "I decided to keep it. When I'm old and dying I'll be able to look at it and remember that one person actually did once kiss me and live."

Miles checked to see that everyone except Toby was looking somewhere else and then put his arm round Twitch's shoulders and hugged him.

"You'll have forgotten me by then, because there will have been hundreds of girls in your life," he said.

"I don't think so. But thanks for saying so, anyway."

"I think he's right," said Toby to Twitch. "Everyone changes as they get older. I might get contact lenses, for a start. And maybe you'll look sort of rugged and strong when you get older."

"Not unless I have plastic surgery… though I suppose I could do that."

"Don't," said Miles. "I like you being you, not a pin-up from a stupid magazine. And I keep telling you that it's your personality that really matters: any girl who gets to know you is going to like you a lot."

"As long as I keep a paper bag over my head. It's okay, Miles, I'm not worried about it – or not yet, anyway. People like me and Toby are always going to find it harder than good-looking boys like you. Girls will be all over you in a year or so."

"Speak for yourself," said Toby. "At least I'm sexually mature, unlike you two."

"Yes, but you'd have to persuade a girl to go out with you before you'd get a chance to prove it," said Twitch. "Miles won't have that problem."

"I'm not interested in going out with girls, or at least not yet," said Miles. "I'd sooner hang around with you two."

And that made them both feel a lot happier.

***

On the Friday Miles got a rather unexpected invitation: Robyn came and found him at break and asked if he was doing anything the following afternoon.

"Well, not so far," Miles told her. "Why?"

"Well… I was hoping that maybe you'd come round to help me and Jack with our investigations."

"Really? Why me?"

"Because you and Jack are sort of different… you know, there, and I'd like to find out more about it."

Miles was in two minds about it. On the one hand he wasn't particularly interested in Robyn's body – at least, he told himself, not until we both get a bit older. But on the other he did think he'd like another look at Jack, and as he had nothing else planned – Toby had rather vaguely said he was going to be busy that weekend, Twitch was going shopping with his dad to find some new stuff for the model railway and Graham was still grounded – he said yes.

"Great! Thanks, Miles. Come round after half-past two."

So Miles did that, and once again he found Jack already in Robyn's room. The difference was that this time Robert took him up to his sister's room and then closed the door from the inside.

"My parents think that if we're both here we won't do anything we shouldn't," he explained. "I'm not quite sure why they think that, but still…"

"Like I told you last time, I'm interested in how boys change as they grow up," Robyn told Miles. "Jack is already starting to grow up, and I think you are, too, and I thought it would be interesting to compare you. So if you'd like to get undressed we can start."

"Hang on," said Miles. "That hardly seems fair – me and Jack have to strip while you and Rob sit there giggling at us with all your clothes on?"

"I won't be giggling," Robyn assured him. "This is a serious study."

"What about Rob?"

"Well… okay," said Robyn. "Rob, since you're here you have to undress too, or it won't be fair on Jack and Miles."

"What about you?" asked Jack.

"I'm conducting the study, not taking part in it. But I suppose I could think about getting undressed afterwards."

The boys looked at each other, and then Jack shrugged and started to undo his shirt. And Miles decided that since he'd already agreed to come to help Robyn with her 'research' he might as well get on with it, so he sat on the bed and removed his trainers.

When he and Jack were down to their boxers he stopped. "Come on, Rob," he said. "You, too, or we'll lock you in the wardrobe."

"Do I have to?"

"Of course you do. This is a study about boys; you're a boy; so you get studied. Get undressed."

Muttering, Robert started to undress. The other two waited for him, and only when Rob's briefs came off did they remove their boxers, revealing that Jack was already stiff, and Miles felt himself beginning to get the same way as soon as he looked at Jack.

"Now that's why boys are interesting," commented Robyn. "I like the way they stick up without any obvious reason."

"The reason is that you're in the room," Jack told her. "Girls have that effect on boys – at least, they do when they're pretty."

"Thank you, Jack. Okay, let's get some details down. Jack, when's your birthday?"

"November the twenty-eighth."

"So you're eleven and… nearly seven months. Miles?"

"July the twenty-fifth."

"So you're still ten – say ten and eleven months. And Rob and I will be eleven next week, so we can put him down as exactly eleven. Okay… I'd say Miles and Jack are about the same length…"

She picked up a ruler and measured. It was the first time Miles had ever been touched like that by a girl, and it was strange, but no more so than it had been the first time Twitch had touched him.

"Jack is maybe half a centimetre longer," Robin reported. "And his is thicker, too, though that's not so easy to measure. Rob, let's check you – can you make it stiff for me?"

Robert was clearly embarrassed but he quickly declared that he could do it himself rather than getting his sister to try. And eventually he achieved the desired result.

"It's still pretty small," said Robyn. "Let's see… I make it a bit over six centimetres [2⅜ inch]. And your balls are a lot smaller than theirs, too. Now, you and Miles are straight, while Jack's curves up a bit. Why is that?"

None of them were able to answer that question: all of them said theirs had always been the way it was now.

"And why hasn't Jack got any skin over the end of his?" asked Robyn.

"It was cut off when I was a baby," Jack told her. "That happens sometimes. The first time I noticed that mine was different from Jamie's – we used to splash about in a paddling pool when we were really small – I asked about it, and my dad told me some families have it cut off their kids. Sometimes it's because the skin won't open properly…"

"Twitch had it done for that reason," Miles put in. "Except he didn't have all of it cut off, just the very end."

"And sometimes it's just because some people think it's healthier," Jack went on. "Boys with skin have to remember to wash underneath it properly, or they can get infections."

That was news to Miles, who decided he was going to have to ask his father about that as soon as he got a chance to do so.

"Well, I think it looks nice without. Mind you, I think Miles looks nice with, so I suppose it's okay either way. Right, now I'd better see how hard they are."

She took hold of Miles and squeezed it gently, pushing it down to find out how far she could get it without hurting him and then letting it spring back up again. Miles felt strange: he decided that he preferred letting Twitch touch him, though he realised that part of the problem might have been the fact that Rob and Jack were watching and trying not to giggle.

Rob stopped giggling when his sister moved on to him. She handled him for a minute or so while he stood there blushing.

"It's nice and hard," she told him. "And it'll probably grow soon – I think we'll reach puberty in the next year or so. I'll tell you why in a minute. Right, Jack's turn."

Jack showed no reluctance at all, and she seemed to spend longer handling him than she had the others. She also stroked his balls at the same time, and as she did so a small bead of liquid appeared at the tip of Jack's penis.

"Are you going to pee?" she asked him, letting go smartly.

Jack shook his head. "That's not pee," he said.

"Oh, right. So… does that mean that your balls already work?"

"Well, I can't get very much out yet, but I suppose they're starting to," he said.

"Wow! What about you, Miles – have you got any sperm yet?"

"Not yet," said Miles. "At least, I'm pretty sure I haven't."

"Rob?"

Robert just shook his head.

"Well, that just proves it's a good thing I wouldn't let them make Jack and me have sex," she said. "Jack's got some sperm, so I could get pregnant. I mean, I probably wouldn't, but it is possible, because I had my first period last month."

Miles had obviously missed that bit in his H&R classes, or maybe he'd just tuned it out because he wasn't interested in girls, so she explained it for him.

"So it means that Jack and I are both just about mature enough to make a baby," she said. "And that's why I think you'll start growing soon, Rob – girls develop a bit earlier than boys, but we're twins, so if I'm starting to mature, soon you will too."

Rob looked a bit happier about that.

"You can tell Jack's getting grown up because he's starting to get some hair," she went on. "I should think Miles will get some soon, too, and probably Rob and I will in a few months. Jack, can you get any more sperm out for us to see?"

"Well… would you like to try?" he asked her.

"Okay. What do I have to do?"

"First you get undressed, because it isn't fair otherwise. Then I'll show you."

By this stage she was interested enough to accept these terms, so she undressed, and then Jack showed her how to hold his erection and what to do with. Then he lay back on the bed and let her get on with it.

Miles and Robert watched with interest, and Miles was surprised how little time it took before Jack gasped and clenched his fists and toes as a couple of little spurts of colourless liquid erupted from his penis. Robyn kept hold of him, still rubbing it until he told her to stop.

"That was really interesting," she told him.

"I liked it, too," said Jack, getting his breath back. "There'll be more when I get a bit older, of course."

"Then I think we ought to do that regularly, so we can monitor your progress," said Robyn.

"That's a really good idea," said Jack immediately, taking a tissue from the little box beside her bed and wiping himself down with it. "Can I get dressed now, please? Only most boys feel a bit strange after that happens to them."

"Oh. Okay, then," she said, a little unenthusiastically. Then she turned to the other two.

"Do you think we should try that with you?" she asked. "Just in case you've started getting some?"

"No, thanks," said her brother at once.

"Miles?"

"No, I don't think so – not yet, anyway. Maybe when I get a bit older and start getting some hair, like Jack."

Actually he didn't think he'd really want Robyn doing that to him: at the moment it was on the list of things he'd prefer to keep between himself and Twitch, and maybe Toby, though he recognised that he might feel differently about it in the future.

They got dressed and Miles said goodbye and rode home. He liked the idea of regular checks on his progress through puberty, although he thought he'd probably choose Twitch to carry them out instead of Robyn. And when he got home he found that his brother had been thinking along similar lines. As soon as Miles put his head around Martin's bedroom door Martin called him inside.

"You know we were talking about letting my fur… I mean, my hair grow?" he asked. "Well, I've been thinking about that. I think it would be really interesting to make a film of it. We'll borrow Luke's camcorder, or get one of our own if we can persuade Mother to buy one for us, and then every week I'll undress and you can film me for exactly one minute. We can mark a big piece of paper with scales showing inches and centimetres and I'll stand in the same place every week so you can see how tall I am, and I'll say something – maybe I could say how much I weigh, or something – so that we can hear when my voice starts to change. If we filmed one minute every week we could probably get at least three years onto a DVD, and then we'd have a complete record of me going through puberty and growing up. What do you think?"

"I think that's a really cool idea – nice thinking, Mars. We'd have to download it onto Luke's PC until we get one of our own, but I don't suppose he'd mind."

"I really like the idea. Only you have to make me swear to keep going with the project every week even if I start getting all moody and bad-tempered later – that's what Mother says often happens to teenage boys, so I suppose I'll get like that, too. Oh, and when your body starts to change we could do the same thing for you, if you like."

Miles wasn't sure about that. "That won't be for ages yet," he said, in contradiction of what Robyn had told him. "I don't think I need to decide if I'm going to do that for a long time." Having Twitch check regularly to see if he had any sperm was one thing: having films of him naked on Luke's computer was another matter.

Sunday June 22nd

This afternoon Luke came round to my house. He's really happy, because everything has worked out perfectly: Hamilton and Young have left him alone all week, and in fact he says Hamilton was impressed with his boxing, and Young seems almost friendly, so it really looks as if his problem is over. He says now he should be able to settle down and enjoy school.

I told him about my idea for filming me as I go through puberty and he thinks it's an interesting idea. He said he'd be happy to do the filming himself, and he won't mind lending me the camcorder so that Miles can do it if Luke is away on holiday or something. We're going to do the first minute next time he comes over, so I'll have to work out exactly how we're going to do it and what information we want on the record before next weekend.

You can just see the first little hairs coming back at the base of my penis now. I asked Luke if I should get rid of them before the first minute of the film, but he said it's entirely up to me: he'd like to see what I look like once it's growing, but he won't mind at all if I decide to use the cream again – he reckons it'll only delay things by three or four weeks at the most. (I asked Miles a bit later, and he said I should use the cream: he thinks it'll look better if I start with no hair at all and then we can record it as it grows, so I'll probably do that).

Then I took him downstairs and played the piano for him. First I played him my arrangement of the track 'Lucky' from the Radiohead album 'OK Computer', and then I played the first track from Anathema's 'Alternative 4' album, which is fairly easy: on the album the first minute or so is just for piano, though when the guitars come in my version isn't anything like as good as the original. Luke liked it, though, and he asked how come I was playing it without music, so I told him I'd learned it by listening to the album, which he said was quite impressive.

And then I asked if he would like to try singing something. My mother has a lot of vocal music – she used to sing a bit when she was younger – and so I found a copy of Handel's 'Ombra mai fu' and asked if he could read music, and when he said he could I suggested we should try it. He wasn't sure – he said he didn't speak Italian, but I said that didn't really matter and that he should just sing something, and it wouldn't matter if he pronounced the words wrong. So I started playing and he came in in the right place… and he was really good. He had good breath control, and even the pronunciation was pretty good, though he used a hard 'g' instead of a soft one. But I don't think that matters at all.

So then he had a go at Bach's 'Bist du bei mir' – he doesn't speak German, either, and so the pronunciation of the word 'freuden' was wrong, but even though the singer gets a lot less help in this than he does in the Handel he still didn't do at all badly. I helped him out here and there, and his voice is definitely better than mine, even though I can sing in tune.

Then I decided to try a proper duet. It's by Rossini, and when I got it out of the piano stool he said something like 'Is it in Italian again?' so I said 'Not exactly' – it's the cats' duet, where the only word is 'meow'. The accompaniment is very easy, so I sang the first part – at least, I started to, but by this time we had an audience: Miles had come down from his room and my mother had come out of the kitchen, and a couple of bars into the duet my mother took over the vocal, leaving me to play the accompaniment. Luke got the idea fairly quickly, and by the time they got to the end he seemed to be enjoying trying to keep up with her as she added more and more ornamentation to her line.

We thought that would be a good place to stop, so we went back to my room to listen to the rest of the Anathema album. Before we went my mother said that Luke had a really good voice and that he ought to use it, but once we were back in my room he said that he wouldn't want to stand up in public and sing because he'd feel too self-conscious about his scar. Miles had come upstairs with us, and he pointed out that a lot of the men who sing in the metal bands I like are as ugly as sin, but that it didn't stop them performing in public. He said we ought to find a couple of friends who can play the guitar and start a band, which is when Luke surprised us by saying that he played the guitar himself, although he said he wasn't very good.

'Then you should definitely start a band,' Miles said. 'All you need now is a drummer and someone who can play bass. I bet if Luke asked around at school he could find someone. And the best way not to worry about your scar is to be completely open about it – seeing that's it's you two starting it up you could call the band "Scarface and the Alien" or something like that.'

Actually I think that's a pretty good name for a band, and Luke said he thought it was a good way of being upfront about his face. Of course, it probably won't happen – Luke hasn't got a lot of friends at school, and Miles said that as far as he knows none of his friends play either the bass or the drums – but it's a nice idea, all the same…

Another week went by. Things were completely back to normal at Miles's school, though Graham still had some time to go before his grounding finished. This meant that he still wasn't available for Miles to spend time with the following weekend, though instead Miles and Twitch both got an invitation to visit Toby on the Saturday afternoon.

"Should we wear our best clothes?" asked Miles, and Toby said, "Definitely not – I don't want my parents thinking it's normal to dress up like a Christmas tree just to go and play at someone's house. And if you do turn up like that I'll make you take all the fancy stuff off and spent the afternoon in your underwear."

"I'd like to see you try," said Miles, though he was pleased to know that his usual jeans and tee-shirt would be acceptable.

And when they got to Toby's house they found that they weren't the only visitors: Toby had found his new cards partner.

"Josh?!" exclaimed Miles.

"Why not? We sit together, he's quite brainy, and he's doing me a big favour at the moment. Tell them, Josh."

"If he puts his hand up to answer a question twice in a row I whisper 'Hermione' at him," Josh told them, grinning. "And if he does it four times in any lesson he has to pay me fifty pence. So far it's cost him a pound."

"It's worth it, though," said Toby. "If I stop doing the Teacher's Pet routine maybe everyone will treat me normally. And it does seem to be working so far. Anyway, I've been teaching Josh to play cards, and now we reckon we're ready to take you two on. Let's play crib – losers get stripped."

"Okay," agreed Miles. "Just as long as you know you're going to end up looking silly."

But it turned out that Toby and Josh won, though whether that was due to more skilful play or just lucky cards was anyone's guess.

"Come on, then," said Toby, grinning triumphantly. "We're waiting."

So Miles and Twitch got undressed. Miles could see that Josh was staring avidly at their groin areas, so he was clearly enthusiastic about this sort of game, and when Toby said that the winners were now allowed to examine the losers Josh almost fell over in his rush to grab told of Miles's genitals. And he wasn't gentle about it, either – in fact it was really painful.

"Ow! Come on, Josh, you're not allowed to try to hurt me," he protested.

"Do it gently," advised Toby. "If you just sort of tickle him it'll make it go hard – see?" Twitch, whom Toby was working on, got an erection right on cue.

"Oh, right. Like this, you mean?" said Josh, delicately caressing Miles instead, and that very quickly had the desired effect.

"Wow, that's big, isn't it, Toby?" he said. "He's miles bigger than you."

"That's me," said Miles, who thought this was an absolute give-away. "I'm Miles, and I'm bigger than you."

"He hasn't got any sperm, though," Toby pointed out. "Want to swap?"

So he and Josh changed places, and Toby played with Miles for a while, and it felt really nice, though Toby stopped before it got too exciting.

"Can we make them kiss each other, like in the photo?" asked Josh.

"We're not doing forfeits," Toby told him. "I mean, I know I can trust these two not to hurt me if I lose, but I'm still off forfeits a bit."

"We'll kiss each other if you like," said Twitch. "But if we do you'll have to do the same thing when you lose."

"Okay," agreed Josh, without hesitation.

"Not that we're going to lose, of course," added Toby.

So Twitch came and put his arms round Miles, who kissed him gently on the lips, and this time Twitch showed no signs of wanting to pull away, even though they were aware of being watched. And Miles thought it felt absolutely amazing, feeling his friend's warm body pressing up against him, being aware of their erections squashed together and feeling Twitch's soft lips moving against his own.

Eventually they came up for air, and saw the other two staring at them.

"Wow!" said Toby. "That looked serious!"

"You two really do like each other, don't you?" said Josh, though it was obvious from his face that he wasn't laughing at them – in fact he looked almost envious.

Miles shrugged. "He's my best friend," he said. "And he's also the only boy I've ever kissed, so if we're not doing it right, I'm sorry. We've only ever done it like that once before, the time Graham had his camera."

"No, you looked good," said Toby. "Okay, next game – except you two aren't allowed to get dressed for it. After all, it's obvious you're going to lose again, so it isn't worth you getting dressed again first."

"Okay," said Miles. "But if we do win we'll keep you two bare all afternoon."

"Dream on," said Toby, shuffling the cards.

It wasn't easy for Miles and Twitch to concentrate on the next game, because at every pause in play – when the cards were being shuffled between hands, or when someone was deliberating what to throw in the box – the other two fondled their genitals, making sure that both of them remained fully stiff throughout the game. But it seemed that Toby and Josh spent too long playing with their opponents' erections and not long enough concentrating on their cards, because Miles and Twitch won the game fairly comfortably.

"Revenge!" cried Miles, grabbing his boxers and pulling them over his still solid penis. "Strip, losers!"

Toby immediately unbuttoned his shirt, but Josh hesitated.

"Are you sure we can trust them?" he asked.

"Absolutely certain. I'd trust these two with my life – they were the ones who helped me over… you know, what I did with the pills, and that. They'd never do or say anything to hurt me, or you, either."

Which was a pretty fine testimonial, Miles thought proudly.

So Josh started to undress, too, though he hesitated once more when he got down to his briefs.

"Don't laugh, or I'll kill you," he said.

He pulled them off, revealing a fairly small set of genitals, but one that was adorned with some pubic hair – not just the odd wisp, like Jack, but proper little brown curls, slightly darker in colour than the nondescript mid-brown of the hair on his head.

"Who's laughing?" said Miles, staring. "The only person I know with as much hair as that is Kevin, and he's thirteen. You're really mature, Josh."

"I've got a little cock, though."

"So what? And, anyway, I reckon it's bigger than Toby's. Come here and I'll see if I can make it any bigger."

Slightly reluctantly Josh came forward and Miles caressed his genitals until he got an erection. He was right: it still wasn't very big, though it was slightly longer than Toby's. Then Miles went to his jeans – he was only wearing his boxers – and got his comb, which he used to fluff up Josh's pubic hair.

"You look really good," he said. "I don't think you've got anything to be ashamed about. Except now you have to kiss Toby, which might make you feel a bit strange."

"I don't see why: we're sort of friends now, and it didn't seem to make you and Twitch feel ashamed. As long as you don't tell anyone else about it, of course."

"Of course we won't."

"Good. Take your glasses off, Tobes – I don't want you to break my nose with them."

Toby removed his specs and they began to kiss, hugging each other at the same time. And they kept it up for several seconds, too, and when they finally stopped they stared at each other.

"That was… God, I didn't know it would be like that," said Toby.

"Me neither. Shall we try again?"

So they did, and this time it lasted even longer.

"You look really good together like that," said Twitch.

"It feels really good, too," said Toby.

"It does, doesn't it?" agreed Josh. "You feel warm and alive and really close… I've wondered what it would be like to kiss someone, but I would never have guessed it would feel like that."

"Can we try something else?" asked Toby. "I'd like to find out if you've got any sperm yet. Can I?"

"Okay."

Toby positioned Josh on his back on the bed, sat down beside him and started to masturbate him. It didn't take long: Josh was soon wriggling about, his eyes closed, his entire body reacting to what Toby was doing to him, and then he gave a short cry and arched his back and a couple of jets of liquid spurted out of his penis – rather more than Jack had managed, and this even had a milky tinge to it.

"Looks like me and Josh are men and you two are still little boys," Toby commented, finding a handkerchief to wipe Josh's tummy with. "How do you feel?"

"Like we might have to duff you up," said Miles, grabbing him. But instead of beating him up they pinned him down and wanked him until he got wet.

"Looks like Josh has got more than you, so I shouldn't start shouting too loudly about who is mature and who isn't," advised Miles.

"I've still got more than you."

"True, but not for long. And if you don't shut up about it we really will make you stay bare all afternoon."

Of course at this point Toby didn't feel like staying bare, so sensibly he shut up, at least until all four of them were fully dressed once more.

They spent the rest of the afternoon playing non-strip games of one sort and another, and by the time he went home Miles thought that Toby had finally found himself a real friend, maybe even one who would become as important to him as Twitch was to Miles. And if that was true, maybe Toby's previous unhappiness might have gone for good.

So Toby has found a like-minded friend, and Martin and Luke are thinking about making use of Luke's singing voice. And we'll find out more about that in the next chapter.

Chapter Fifteen

Okay, this is the final chapter, so hopefully by the end of it all the loose ends should have been dealt with, more or less…

On Thursday evening of the following week – this was July 3rd – Young waited until Hamilton got off the bus and then came and sat next to Luke. Apart from the occasional greeting – generally friendly on the bus (where there were none of their classmates to see what was going on) and neutral at school – neither Young nor Hamilton had said a lot to Luke. But now it became clear that Young at least had things to tell him.

"You know I told you I was sure Matt was enjoying being fucked?" he began. "Well, it's really obvious that he does enjoy it – if I don't mention it for a couple of days he always finds a way to bring the subject up. Except it isn't just being fucked: he wants me to be able to do anything I want to him. Well, obviously because we're still mates I'll only be doing the things he wants, and he knows by now how to tell me what those are: if he begs me not to do something then he knows I'll do it as soon as I can.

"Anyway, this week he decided I ought to be filming everything that happens to him. What he actually said was 'I bet you've got a camera hidden somewhere in your room recording everything that happens there, just to make sure you've got loads of evidence if I ever tried to stop doing what you tell me to. And I suppose you're going to borrow Sinclair's camcorder so you can do it properly, now you realise I know about it.' So I thought I might do just that – except I want you to come and do the filming for us. That'll embarrass him no end, but I reckon he'll actually like the idea, even though he'll never admit it. So, what are you doing on Saturday?"

"Nothing definite," said Luke, who hoped for a chance to spend some time with Martin but hadn't actually arranged anything so far.

"Good. Come over after lunch – say about half-past two. And don't forget the camera." He gave Luke a piece of paper with an address written on it. "Walk up Duskett Drive, cross over Fielding Road and it's the first little close on the left," he explained, and he got off the bus.

So on the Saturday Luke cycled over to Young's house as soon as he had finished lunch. Young met him at the door and opened the side gate for him so that he could wheel the bike round to the back of the house.

"He's in the studio," said Young, nodding in the direction of a shed at the bottom of the garden. "I put him in there as soon as we finished eating and confiscated his clothes, so unless he wants to streak he's stuck there… come to think of it, maybe he would enjoy it if I made him streak. I'll find out what he thinks later. Oh, and you'll never guess what he wants to do today – though I'm not sure whether he'll still want to do it with you there."

"What?"

"He wants to suck me off. Obviously what he actually said was something like 'Now you've got more film of me I suppose you could force me to do anything at all, even if it was something really bad like sucking your cock,' but I got the message, so this afternoon he'll get a chance to find out if he likes doing it or not. If he does, and if I like it – and people say it feels really great – then we'll be doing it again. Got the camera? Let's go, then."

He strode off down the garden with Luke at his heels.

"He's even said a few things recently that suggest he wants me to beat him," Young continued. "I'm not sure I fancy that, and I don't think he will either if we really do it, but he was definitely angling for it last night. Maybe he just wants to try it once to find out what it's like – I mean, I know some people do like getting whipped and stuff, even if it seems mad to me. But if he does want to try that the studio is the best place for it, because it's sound-proofed."

He opened the door to the shed, and Luke saw that it was quite different from the shed in his own garden. For a start, this one was bigger, and the walls were lined with some sort of white board. And instead of tools and a lawn-mower it held an old sofa, a stack of kitchen chairs… and a drum kit.

"You play the drums?" he asked.

Young nodded. "That's why my parents fitted this place out for me – they were getting fed up with me practising indoors. It's completely sound-proofed and double-glazed, so the neighbours won't hear me and complain. So if anyone were to start screaming in here, nobody would hear or come to investigate. And unless you want me to prove that, you'd better come out, Matt."

Hamilton stood up slowly – he'd been hiding behind the sofa, which was the only place in the studio he could hide.

"What's he doing here?" he asked.

Luke couldn't read his face or his tone of voice, so he wasn't sure if Hamilton was really happy about his presence or not.

"I thought he'd be interested," said Young. "And he's brought his camera along, look."

Luke pulled the camcorder from his pocket and showed it to Hamilton. Hamilton's facial expression didn't change, but his body reacted in a completely different way, and one that entirely vindicated everything Young had said so far: clearly Hamilton was pleased to see Luke, or at least his camera. He moved his hands to cover his groin, but nothing like quickly enough to hide his condition.

"You pervert!" exclaimed Young. "Were you playing with yourself while you were waiting? Well, okay, if that's what you want to do, lie on the sofa and get on with it. Turn the camera on, Sinclair."

This didn't appear to be on Hamilton's list of things he wanted to try, but Young insisted, and he was forced to lie on the sofa and masturbate while Luke filmed him. Young kept up a stream of derogatory comments about how disgusting he was, and then switched to commenting on the size of Hamilton's equipment.

"Just how long is that little thing, anyway?" he asked.

"I don't know," replied Hamilton.

"Don't lie! I know you measure it."

"I don't, I swear!"

"Then do it now," said Young, pulling a small plastic ruler from his pocket and tossing it onto Hamilton's stomach.

"Do I have to?" asked Hamilton, plaintively.

"Don't ask stupid questions. Just do it, or else."

So Hamilton held the ruler against his erection and Luke zoomed in so that the ruler could be seen clearly on the screen.

"Well?" asked Young.

"It's about nine centimetres [3½ inch]," said Hamilton, not meeting his eye.

"'About'?"

"Okay, it's eight and a half [3⅜ inch]."

"That's really pathetic for a thirteen-year-old, isn't it, Sinclair?"

"It's a hell of a lot smaller than yours and mine, certainly."

"And he's older than both of us. Okay, Little Cock, get on with it."

Hamilton started masturbating again and kept going until he ejaculated, producing a couple of spurts of thin liquid.

"Pathetic!" commented Young. '"Obviously you need to see what a real boy looks like." He threw his clothes off and sat on the sofa.

"Now suck me off," he ordered.

"I can't do that!" said Hamilton. "Come on, Sammy, that's filthy!"

"It should suit you perfectly, then. Get on with it, unless you want me to start handing copies of what's in Sinclair's camera round the form."

It was obvious that Hamilton had never done this before because he wasn't sure quite how to do it – should he use his hands? Exactly what should he do once it was in his mouth? Young had never been in this position, either, but he was able to issue instructions that eventually led to it feeling really nice, and once that point was reached he ordered Hamilton to carry on like that. And Luke filmed it all, finding it fascinating and wondering what it felt like on be on the receiving end.

It took a while, but before too long Young was holding the back of Hamilton's head and thrusting against it, and it looked to Luke as if this was giving Hamilton a few problems – he guessed that Young's penis was more than long enough to hit the back of Hamilton's throat if he allowed it to. But then Hamilton started holding the base of Young's penis, and that seemed to resolve that problem. And after that he just kept bobbing up and down until Young's body tensed up and he ejaculated into Hamilton's mouth.

"Swallow it," ordered Young as Hamilton started looking around for somewhere to spit, and after a moment's hesitation he did.

"What was that like?" asked Luke.

"That was bloody amazing. I like fucking him more, but that was a pretty close second. Why don't you have a go and find out for yourself?"

Luke thought about that. He thought this was a pretty disgusting thing to make someone do, even if that someone was a bully who had made his life miserable for weeks on end… but Hamilton showed no signs of objecting, and in fact he was just kneeling there waiting – with, Luke noticed, an erection, even though he had only ejaculated a short time previously. And that decided him: if Hamilton was happy to do it, he was happy to give it a try.

"Okay, then," he said, and he gave the camera to Young and stripped off, revealing that he was already in the mood: he wasn't as big as Young, but he was demonstrably bigger than Hamilton. He sat on the sofa and Hamilton shuffled forward and slipped it into his mouth.

Luke thought it felt pretty good – as Young had said, actual fucking was better: he didn't think anything could compare with the way he felt when he coupled with Martin, though of course there was an emotional connection there, too. But this was still nice, and as Hamilton worked on him it got nicer, until eventually he couldn't hold it back any longer. He pulled Hamilton hard against him and held him there until it was over.

"You were right," he told Young. "That was nice. Thanks, Hamilton."

"You don't have to thank him," Young pointed out. "He does as he's told unless he wants to be in deep shit. Anyway, let's have a bit of a break until I'm ready to fuck him. Get dressed and we'll have a drink – there's some Coke in the little fridge in the corner."

"Can I get dressed?" asked Hamilton.

"Obviously not. Perverts stay naked."

Luke and Young got dressed and Young handed round the Coke (and he gave one to Hamilton, even if, as he said, the older boy didn't deserve it), and they sat on the sofa to rest for a bit.

"So, are you any good on those?" asked Luke, indicating the drum kit.

"Well… sort of. I'm taking proper lessons, but I can understand why my parents didn't want me in the house."

"Only we were thinking of starting a band," Luke told him, "and we need a drummer."

"Really? Who's in it?"

"So far, just me and Mars."

"What, the loony? Is he safe?"

"He's not a loony. We made all that stuff up, about him being a psycho and getting thrown out of school and stuff, because we reckoned if you were scared of him you wouldn't struggle, and then I could fight Hamilton in peace. He's home-schooled, but it's because he's super-brainy, not because he's a nutter."

"You bastard! I almost wet myself when he put that pencil in my ear!"

"That was the idea. It was his idea, actually – I told you he was brainy. Anyway, he plays the piano – and any other keyboards we can get hold of, I suppose – and can sing a bit, and I play the guitar and can sing fairly well. And you play the drums. I don't suppose you can play the bass guitar, can you, Hamilton?"

"No, I play the clarinet, and that's not really any use in a rock band. But I might be able to learn. I can read music okay."

"Do you know anyone else who plays the guitar?" asked Luke.

"Well, not really. There's a Spanish kid in 2B who plays flamenco, but I don't really know him and to judge by what he did at the end of term concert at Christmas he's only interested in classical stuff. If Matt really reckons he could learn it would be a lot better – at least with him we could keep him under control and stop him from turning into a drug-fuelled rock maniac who trashes hotel rooms."

"I'd never do drugs," Hamilton said. "I don't even smoke, you know that, Sammy."

"True, and you never will now either, unless you want some of our pictures of you to start circulating."

"Trouble is, if you haven't already got a bass we're going to have to get one from somewhere," said Luke. "And instruments are bloody expensive, and of course we'd need an amp and speakers, too."

"We might be able to find something second hand," said Young. "There are usually instruments for sale in the local paper, or we could try eBay or something. We might as well start looking, anyway."

"Would you really want to be in a band with me and Mars, though? I mean, we're not exactly mates, are we?"

"I don't know – I reckon we could be. You fight pretty well, and you let us down a lot more lightly than you could have done. If it had been me I'd have passed the film around anyway."

"Yes, but then I'd have lost my insurance."

"Right, but I'm not sure I'd have wanted to risk fighting you again after I'd seen you take Matt to pieces, even with two of us against one of you. And anyway, there's not a lot of point in learning to play the drums unless you're going to use it in a band. Okay, I don't think I'm good enough yet, but it'd be more fun practising with other people instead of on my own using tapes, which is what I do at the moment."

"What about you, Hamilton? Could you stand being in a band with a freak?"

"It's not up to me any more, is it? I have to do what I'm told, unless I want Sammy passing dirty pictures of me round the class."

"Don't be stupid, of course it's up to you. What Young does to you is sort of a private game between you two… okay, it might not be a game to you, but it is to him, and I don't think he wants to run your whole life from now on. This is completely different. If none of the films existed, would you want to do it?"

"Well… probably. I mean, who doesn't want to be in a band? Even if we're completely crap to start with, we'd get better. And as for what I think about you… like I told you, I respect the way you fight. And I agree with Sam about the way you didn't use the film – fuck, you didn't even tell anyone else you beat the shit out of me. If I'd won I'd have made bloody sure every kid in the form knew about it. I reckon the question is more would you want to be in a band with me and Sam?"

"We need a drummer," said Luke, "and Sam's the only one I know… is it okay for me to call you 'Sam', Young? Thanks… and at least I know you two. And of course if you two piss me off I've still got the film. Or I'll set Mars loose with the Pencil of Death."

"No, thanks," said Young. "I reckon he was right, anyway: you really could kill someone that way, and I don't want to find out what it's like being pencilled. So… obviously it would be easiest if we could practise here, because it takes ages setting the drum kit up if I have to move it, and this place is sound-proofed… and nobody will interrupt us here, so if I don't think Matt deserves to keep his clothes on he won't have to. But there's no piano here, so we'd have to try to find a keyboard as well as a bass if we do that."

"Well, let's start asking about and checking second-hand shops and stuff," said Luke. "And I'll have a look at eBay when I get home. Like Hamilton says, we'd probably be crap to start with, but it would still be a laugh."

They talked about music for a while and found they had similar tastes, and Hamilton said he liked a lot of metal bands, which Luke thought would please Martin. And then Young told Hamilton to bend over the sofa and get ready to be fucked, and Hamilton obeyed without the remotest hesitation.

Luke filmed them, of course, managing to catch the look on Hamilton's face when he lost control of himself as well as the look on Young's when he reached his own climax some time later, and when they had finished and stood up to clean themselves off he also made a point of filming the small damp mark on the sofa that indicated where Hamilton had been lying.

Once they were dressed he told them that he had to leave if he was to be home in time for tea. He promised Young he'd get the film on a CD and give it to him on Monday morning, and then he rode home and phoned Martin.

Saturday July 5th

Luke called me this evening to tell me that he thinks he's found the rest of our band: apparently Young plays the drums, and Hamilton says he'll learn to play the bass guitar if we can find one. He plays the clarinet, so he does have some musical experience. I said I was surprised that Luke wanted to be in a band with those two, but he said they've been completely different towards him since the fight, and not just because he's got that film of them, either. And if they ever do change the way they are now he'll still have the film to hold over them.

I don't mind, of course: the only time I've met them was that day in the dip, so if Luke is happy playing in a band with them, I am too. Young even has a sound-proofed room for us to practise in, though we'll need to find a portable keyboard and a bass guitar, amplifier and speaker before we can start properly. Maybe my parents might help me to buy a keyboard – after all, playing in a band with three other boys would be a really good way for me to develop my social relationship skills, which is something I probably need to do. I'm going to ask, anyway.

Luke says Hamilton likes metal, so we could probably play covers of music by my favourite bands, though I'd like to try writing some stuff of my own. I think I could do that: Mother says I have a good understanding of music theory. I might even try writing something for keyboard, guitar, drums and clarinet so we would have something to play together until we find a bass – though I think that's a weird combination and so it would probably sound a bit strange. Still, it would be a good challenge.

He's coming over tomorrow to film the first segment of my puberty record. I'm going to use the cream when I have my bath this evening so I don't have any hair at the start of the film, and I've worked out what I'm going to say at the very beginning to introduce the film. I think this is going to be a really interesting project, and if I manage to keep doing it – if I don't decide to stop doing it because my personality changes the way my mother says often happens, that is – I think it'll be fascinating to look back at when I'm older. Miles says it might even make a good educational film for schools, though I'm not sure about having anyone except my family and my special friends, like Luke, seeing a film of me undressed.

We've decided to cut it down to less than a minute for two reasons: first, I don't think we need a full minute every week (perhaps we could do a minute on my birthday or on the anniversary of the start of the film); and second, we'll be able to get a longer period onto the same length DVD, which will be useful if my body takes more than three years to finish changing, which Luke says it probably will. I hope once Miles sees how it's going we'll be able to persuade him to keep a record, too: it'll be really interesting from a scientific point of view to see if there are any major differences in the speed of development between siblings…

Graham's grounding had finally ended this week and Miles had arranged to meet him and as many of the other members of the gang who were free on the Sunday afternoon: he wanted to go and have a proper look at the old camp and see what they could do to transform it into a proper headquarters. But he didn't want to miss the start of Martin's film, so he persuaded his brother to invite Luke over for lunch and to shoot the film either before eating or immediately afterwards.

They had time before lunch to shoot the introduction, which was simply Martin (fully dressed) explaining the purpose of the film.

"My name is Martin Gillespie," he began. "I was born on August 25th 1995. Today is July 6th 2008, so I am about seven weeks short of my thirteenth birthday. This is going to be a record of what happens to a boy's body when he reaches puberty: every week we're going to film me for around forty seconds so that when the sections of film are joined together you'll be able to see exactly what happens to me over the next three years or so. There will be a chart behind me to show how tall I am, and each week I will say how heavy I am and will also tell the camera if I have noticed anything changing.

"My brother Miles and my friend Luke will be doing the filming, so I'd like to thank them now for their help. Okay, that's all I need to say, so the first recording will follow on straight away."

It didn't, in fact, because they went downstairs for lunch first. But after lunch they went back to Martin's room and set everything up: Martin got undressed, went to the bathroom to check his weight on the bathroom scales and then came and stood in the position he had marked for himself in front of the height chart, facing the camera with his legs a little apart. Luke got the camcorder out and turned it on, nodding when he was ready. Martin said, Okay, go!" and as soon as the little light on the camera came on he said, "Today is July 6th 2008. I am twelve years and three hundred and sixteen days old. I am four feet eleven and a half inches tall, or a hundred and fifty-one centimetres, and I weigh exactly six stones or thirty-six kilos. This is the first week of the record, so there is nothing to report yet."

Luke started with a full-length short and then, once Martin had finished talking, he zoomed in on Martin's face and then panned slowly down his body, pausing in the genital area. When he reached the feet Martin moved to stand sideways on and put his hands on his head, and Luke then panned slowly up again. When he reached the head he held shot for a couple of seconds and then turned the camera off.

"Come and see what you think," he said, and without bothering to get dressed Martin came and stood beside Luke and Miles and watched as Luke played it back.

"I don't go too fast, do I?" Luke asked.

"No, it looks fine. Maybe you'll need to take a little longer once things start changing, but for now that's a good speed. How long did it last?"

"Exactly forty seconds. Of course, you'll be able to cut down the intro a bit from now on – you know, next week you can just say 'July 13th, twelve years three hundred and twenty-three days, four feet eleven and a half, a hundred and fifty-one centimetres, six stones, thirty-six kilos, nothing new,' and that'll save a few seconds."

"Okay, maybe I'll do that. Thanks, Luke… can you stay for a while? We can listen to some music."

"Okay. Er, were you thinking of getting dressed? I mean, I won't mind at all if you don't want to, but just in case your mother comes in I think maybe you should…"

"Or we could wedge the chair under the door handle and you could get undressed as well – as soon as Miles has gone, that is. You did say you were going out this afternoon, Miles, didn't you?"

Miles would quite liked to have stayed and watched, but he didn't think they'd let him, so he nodded and went out, closing the door behind him. And once he was out of the way Luke wedged the chair into place and got undressed, and then they lay down together on Martin's bed to listen to some music and to do anything else that came into their heads.

***

Miles rode to Graham's house, and then they rode together to the Greyhound, where they had arranged to meet the rest of the gang. Most of them were there, although Toby wasn't, despite Graham inviting him personally on the Friday afternoon.

"You'll be okay," he had assured him. "We're never going to do that sort of stuff to you again."

"I know," Toby had replied. "And next time I'll definitely come. It's just that I've already arranged something for Sunday afternoon."

The 'something' was a visit to Josh's house. In fact when he had mentioned it to Miles and Twitch they had both said it would be fine to bring Josh along with him, and he'd thought about it and decided that next time he would do that. But this weekend he wanted to try some stuff, just him and Josh in a locked room: kissing, for a start, and undressing each other, and… well, that sort of thing.

The rest of the gang had fun working on the camp. Kevin had brought along a set of garden cutters so that they could remove some of the branches inside the bush and so make space to rig up the tarpaulin into a decent shelter, and although they weren't sure how well it would stay up in a really strong wind they were happy that it would keep the rain off of anyone underneath it.

They spent the rest of the afternoon fighting a number of war games through the woods. This involved a lot of wrestling, but nobody tried to hurt anyone else, and nobody made anyone strip, either, which disappointed quite a few members of the gang. Afterwards Miles gave Twitch a ride home and stayed long enough to check out the new carriages they had bought for the model railway – and long enough for a cuddle, though nothing more on this occasion.

***

Over the next two weeks Luke went round to film Young and Hamilton in action a couple more times. It was fairly obvious that Hamilton was still keen on what was going on (at least if his ever-present erection was anything to go by), though that was put rather to the test on the second occasion, when he finally got the beating he'd been angling for: apparently he'd been needling Young all day, so after school all three of them went to Young's studio, where Hamilton was stripped, tied down over the sofa and had his buttocks roundly thrashed with his own fairly heavy belt. Luke filmed it as usual, and he got the impression afterwards that this was one experiment Hamilton might not want to repeat.

But he showed no inclination to protest about being made to suck or being fucked, which happened every time. Luke was quite happy to be sucked, but he declined Young's offer to fuck Hamilton: as far as he was concerned he only wanted to do that with Martin.

Saturday July 19th

Something really brilliant happened today: I got an early birthday present, and a really good one. My dad had found a second-hand synthesizer (I'm not sure where, or even which country it was in, because of course he's been away somewhere in the Far East this week), and although my birthday isn't until the end of August he decided to give it to me now – he said that if he kept it until my birthday there would only be a week of the school holidays left for me and my friends to use it, whereas by giving it to me now we'd have the whole of the holidays (apart from when we're away with our families, of course) to practise using it. Of course it means I'll only get a couple of little presents when my birthday actually does come round, but I don't mind that at all.

So I called Luke and he came straight over to look at it. It's going to take me ages to work out how to use it properly, because there are loads of buttons and knobs and slides on it as well as a normal keyboard, but there's a manual that goes with it, so I expect I'll work it all out eventually.

The school holidays start this week – the last day of term is on Tuesday – so Luke called Young and arranged for us to get together at the studio on Wednesday afternoon. This will be our first proper practice, though we still haven't found a bass for Hamilton. Still, the synthesizer should be able to fill in a bass line until we do, and I'm going to try to arrange something to include a line for clarinet so that Hamilton will be able to join in even without a bass.

Once he'd made the call to Young we went to my room, closed the door and wedged my chair against the door handle to make sure that nobody came in, and then we got undressed and mated again. I still don't understand why it feels so incredible – I mean, I get why Luke likes it, because I can understand how it might feel the same as doing it with a girl, but I don't know why it feels so good from my point of view, because I'm not a girl and I don't have any of the things a girl has. But I'm not complaining because it's wonderful – wonderful enough that it made me get that weird feeling again, though today I'd made sure I was lying on a small towel just in case.

Afterwards we managed to sneak to the bathroom and back without anyone seeing us, and once we'd cleaned up we went back to my room and wedged the door shut again. And then came what I think might be the best bit of all: we lay on the bed together without any clothes on, and Luke just held me. We didn't need to speak, even: we just lay like that for ages, and I felt totally protected and safe with his strong arms holding me. And then…

I still can't believe this bit, but it really happened. Then he looked at me and said (and I'll try to write down exactly what he said): 'Meeting you was the best thing that has ever happened to me. It's totally changed the way I am and the way I think about stuff. I really love you, Martin.' And then he kissed me on the forehead.

I didn't know what to say, but I managed to tell him that I loved him too, and that I hoped we'd be friends for ever. And I kissed him on the cheek, and then we just lay there for a bit longer until my mother called up from downstairs to ask if Luke wanted to stay for lunch. So he opened the door long enough to shout 'Yes, please', and then we got dressed and went downstairs. But I think I'd have to say that today has been the best day of my life so far.

On the Wednesday afternoon Martin's mother gave him (and the synthesizer) a lift to Young's house. He found the others were already there, so they were able to help him carry his equipment to the studio. What followed was more of a prolonged jam session than a proper rehearsal for any eventual performance, but it gave them a chance to play together, and it also allowed Martin to see that Luke knew some basic chords, that Young could keep a rhythm and that Hamilton was quite a decent player of the clarinet, though whether this would transfer to the bass remained to be seen. And it was fun, too.

After an hour or so they took a break.

"Did you bring the camera?" Young asked Luke, who nodded and took it out of his bag.

"Good. Okay, Matt, strip."

"Oh, God, do I have to? I mean, it's not just Luke here today…"

"Of course you have to. It's not as if Mars hasn't seen you before, is it?"

"Well, no. But still…"

"Just do it, or we might have to beat you again. I see you're wearing that nice heavy belt…"

Hamilton hesitated but then began to get undressed, though the fact that he had an erection when his boxers came off did rather undermine his professed reluctance.

"Better," said Young. "Now kneel down and bend over the edge of the sofa – you know how to do it."

Hamilton did that, folding up a small towel underneath him first (which suggested to Martin that he wasn't the only one who had trouble controlling himself when this was done to him) and spreading his legs a little without waiting to be told to do that, and Young got busy with the Vaseline and then lined up and started to fuck him. Luke was already at work with his camera, so Martin just sat on one of the hard-backed chairs and watched with interest.

Once it was over Young wiped himself down and got dressed, throwing a couple of tissues at Hamilton.

"There's no need for you to get dressed yet," he told him. "Now, I'm going to the house – my mother's got some sandwiches and stuff for us. Luke" (by now all of them were on first-name terms), "would you like to come and give me a hand? Mars, feel free to amuse yourself while we're gone. Did you bring your pencil with you?" And he grinned and led Luke off up the garden.

"You didn't, did you?" asked Hamilton, nervously.

"No. And we told you I'm not really mad, so I wouldn't do something like that anyway. Why don't you sit down?"

So Hamilton got up, and Martin noticed the damp patch on the towel before he folded it up, put it on the floor and sat on the sofa.

"That feels really good, doesn't it?" commented Martin.

"What, being fucked? No, of course it doesn't – I hate it," replied Hamilton, looking flustered.

"Why are you lying? It's obvious you really enjoyed it."

"No it isn't!"

"Yes, it is. It was obvious from looking at your eyes while it was happening, and I know you lost control of yourself – I saw the towel. So why are you trying to pretend you didn't like it?"

"I'm not!"

"Yes, you are, but I don't understand why. I mean, I love it when Luke does it to me – it's the best feeling in the world. So why don't you want Sam to know how much you like it?"

"Luke fucks you?"

"Yes, and it's amazing. I don't talk about it with anyone else, of course, because it's private, but since you and Sam do the same thing I don't think it needs to be secret from you."

"Oh. But… aren't you ashamed? And don't you think Luke will think you're queer?"

"Well, he already knows I'm a bit unusual. Everyone says I don't think the same way as other people – it comes of being part-alien, I think. But I'm not worried about Luke, because I know he really likes me. And Sam likes you, doesn't he? So why do you think he'll like you less if you admit you like mating with him?"

"Well… because… look, boys aren't supposed to like being fucked! Only queers like taking it up the arse, and I don't want Sam thinking I'm queer, okay?"

"But aren't you?"

"No! Well… shit, I don't know. I didn't think so until it happened for the first time, and I still don't really think so, except… you're right, it feels amazing, and it makes me come every time. But it's wrong to be like that! And I don't want anyone to know I like it in case it makes them think I'm bent, because if that got out at school I'd get treated like shit. So I have to pretend I don't want it to happen and that I'm only doing it because I don't have any choice. I don't even want Sam to know I like it in case he tells everyone else."

"I think he already knows you like it – it is fairly obvious. But I don't think he'll tell anyone else, because obviously he wants to stay friends with you. So I think it would be safe to admit to him that you like doing it."

"Well… maybe I'll think about it. But it works okay as it is, I think: it makes him feel good being in charge and being able to boss me about, and it makes me feel good letting him do whatever he wants to me and knowing he's enjoying it, so maybe I don't really need to say anything that might change things. And you're not going to tell him or Luke, are you – please?"

"Not unless you want me to. After all, it isn't my business, is it?"

The other two came back with the food and they ate and talked about music for a bit, and then Young told Hamilton to get dressed and they played some more music together. And by the time the session ended they all thought that even if they weren't very good at the moment, if they practised they would improve. And playing together was fun, anyway.

Friday July 25th

Today was Miles's eleventh birthday, so he had a party and invited all his friends. There were ten of them, and they all seem to like him, so obviously my brother is really good at making friends. They weren't all the same type, either: some of them were the same type as Graham, sort of sporty and outdoor, but Noel was there too, and so were Toby and a couple of other quieter kids: a pale, mousy sort of boy who stayed close to Toby and a slightly older boy who was also wearing glasses. And there was even a girl, so maybe Miles is starting to grow up and look at girls, although this one seemed to have a boyfriend already.

When Miles used to have parties in London I sometimes felt sad watching him – not jealous, exactly, because I always thought I didn't really need friends, but more as if I was on the outside of something looking in. But I didn't feel that at all this time because now I have some friends, too. I suppose Matt and Sam aren't quite proper friends yet, though I think they're on the way, but Luke is different: Luke has changed me in lots of ways. I've discovered that having a proper friend is something special, and that even the things I could do on my own, like reading and listening to music, are somehow enormously better when you have someone to do those things with. And of course there are lots of things that you can only do with a friend – wrestling and helping each other to climb trees and playing in a band… and mating, of course.

We're going to spend a lot of time together this summer, and I'm really looking forward to it. We're going to go camping a few times – we'll ask Miles and Noel if they want to come, provided we can find a second tent, and we might even ask Matt and Sam if they want to try it, though not at the same time as Miles and Noel. I might not even mind sharing a tent with those two, because I think it would be okay for Luke and I to mate even with them in the tent: they'd probably want to do the same thing with each other, even if Matt is still pretending he doesn't want to.

It's really strange to think that we've only been here for one school term, because so much has happened: I've started to go through puberty – and I'm sure I won't get moody and bad-tempered because I wouldn't ever do anything that might make Luke stop liking me – and I've found a true friend.

At the start of this journal I said that it wasn't easy being me, and that I thought I might end up killing myself. But now I don't think there's any chance of that happening, because I've found out that being different doesn't mean you have to be on your own. After all, Luke likes me because I'm different. So perhaps it's true that anyone, if they are lucky enough, can find ways to be happy. Even an alien!

So, as generally happens in my stories, everything seems to have worked out in the end. Okay, real life isn't actually like that sometimes, but I don't really care: I like happy endings.

The End