David Clarke

Why I Hate Wearing Glasses

Chapter 18-20

Chapter Eighteen

In which Henry buys some chocolate and Jeremy makes a decision.

Kevin

Next morning I went round to visit the Microbes. Somehow we'd got away with not having any homework to be done over the holiday, and so there was nothing for me to work on with Jason, but I wanted to see how they were spending the holiday. Not doing very much, apparently.

"We've been shopping," Jason told me, "to get some new stuff for school. I don't know why – it's not as if I'm ever going to grow out of the stuff I've already got."

"Yes, you will," I assured him. "You can't be a Microbe forever."

"He can if I can fix it that way," said Luke, grinning. "I've been online, trying to find some drugs that stop people growing, and if I find any I'll be slipping them into his food for the next ten years. It'd be brilliant if I was the big brother for a change."

"But I don't treat you like a kid brother any more, do I?" said Jason.

"Only because you know I'll beat you up if you try! Anyway, there are drugs that can delay puberty, apparently, but I don't think anyone except a proper doctor can get hold of them – so you're lucky, Jase! So far, anyway. There might be more stuff I just haven't found out about yet."

"And I hope you never do," commented Jason. "It's bad enough being the smallest kid in the class – I don't want to end up the smallest kid in the school when I'm sixteen!"

Oddly he didn't actually look as if the prospect bothered him that much, although of course he probably knew that Luke wouldn't ever find anything that could do that, and even if he did he wouldn't be evil enough to use it.

"I might not even need drugs," said Luke. "If I keep doing what I did yesterday your balls will never grow anyway."

"What was that?" I asked.

"He won three games in a row," Jason told me. "He said that deserved a special punishment, so he took me up into the attic and tied me to one of the beams. He'd made me change into my Speedos first. And when I was tied up he went down to the kitchen and came back with a load of ice cubes, which he stuffed down the front of my Speedos. Then he went away and left me for half an hour."

"Ouch," I said, imagining it. "How did it feel?"

"Guess. No, don't bother, I'll tell you – it was fucking horrible."

"He looked well funny when I went to untie him," said Luke happily. "I pulled his trunks down first, and the ice had almost completely melted. And his bits had all shrivelled up, so they were way smaller than mine. I'm going to do that to him again next time he loses, and if I do it often enough, maybe they'll get used to being tiny and stay that way."

"Yes, but what if he does it to you?"

"He won't, because he's crap at most games, so he'll never beat me. I'm class."

Jason didn't seem too worried about that prospect, either – in find he was actually smiling. Or perhaps he'd thought of a game he was better at than Luke was.

I stayed with them for the rest of the morning, playing various video games (but without penalties), and I was aware that something had changed since my first visit. They'd always seemed to get on pretty well with each other, and occasionally Luke had teased his brother, but there had never been any doubt that Jason was in charge. Now that had completely changed: they seemed more like equals, and not once did Jason tell his brother to do something – instead he asked if he wanted to, or something. In fact if anything it seemed more like Luke was the older one. It was a bit odd, but since they both seemed perfectly happy with things the way they were I didn't see any reason to ask questions.

My mother got back that evening, and we stayed in on Friday and Saturday – Father also came home late Thursday night, so it was the first time we'd all been together since gran hurt her leg. And actually, even though it had been sort of fun looking after ourselves, I was glad to have them back – that house did seem kind of empty when Chris and I were the only ones there.

"Did anything interesting happen while I was away?" my mother asked over supper.

Chris and I looked at each other.

"No, not really," I said. "Chris talked me into helping out with his football team, and that's been fun – and I've made a few new friends, too. In fact one of them is coming to stay next week – if that's okay with you, of course."

"I don't see why not," she said, and so over the weekend she called Jeremy's mum and gave the visit the thumbs up with her. I was quite looking forward to that, because I hadn't had a friend to stay since… well, not since I left primary school, anyway. Both Mark and Colin had stayed over with Chris a few times, but that wasn't really the same thing.

Once we had the go-ahead I spent a fair bit of time online with Jeremy sorting out the details. I thought I'd probably have to take the train to his place to collect him, as I'd done for his first visit, but he said I wouldn't need to do that because he'd have the money for his fare. I guessed that meant that Kenton had stopped pinching his money, but he said he'd prefer to tell me about it face to face, and so I didn't push.

Sunday came and I could have stayed in bed – it was Easter Sunday, so there was no football today – but there were Easter eggs waiting for us, and that was incentive enough to get up and go down to breakfast at the usual time.

"I think you should give yours to me," suggested Chris. "Now that you're growing up you have to be careful what you eat, and chocolate will give you spots."

"Then I'll have to get spots," I said. "Let's face it, they're not going to make a big difference to my chances of pulling, are they?"

"You never know. Maybe they'll open a blind school nearby…"

This led to a play fight which, to my surprise, I actually won.

"Weren't you trying?" I asked afterwards, helping Chris to his feet.

"Oh, I was trying. Looks like all that football training and running up and down touchlines has built up your muscles a bit. You're still too skinny, but if you keep working on your muscles, maybe you'll find a boy who'll be able to see past the glasses."

Once again that was unusually supportive for Chris. Perhaps he was still feeling a bit guilty for sending me to Dwayne and the others, but maybe it was just that we'd got closer together while our parents were away. It was nice, either way.

Mark came round on Sunday afternoon as he had threatened, though I actually didn't mind sharing one of my smaller Easter eggs with him. I managed to get him on his own for a bit by challenging him to a game of chess and, as I had hoped, Chris watched a couple of moves and then wandered off to find something less boring to do.

"So?" I asked. "How did it go with Danny?"

"Really well. I don't think he's ready for anything too much just yet, but he says he thinks he'll get used to the idea eventually. But he definitely likes cuddling, and so do I, so we had a really nice half-hour or so in bed. And we're hoping to be able to go camping next half-term, and if we do that we'll be able to sleep together – obviously we daren't do that at either his house or mine, and in any case my bed's far too small. But in a tent with a double sleeping-bag… that's definitely something to look forward to.

"It's weird, because I'd never have guessed what he's really like from seeing him at school – there he wanders round on his own and he never smiles, but on Thursday he relaxed completely and smiled all the time. He's got a good sense of humour, too. Thanks for getting us together, Kev."

He looked over his shoulder at the door to make sure nobody was around, and then he leant forward across the board and kissed me on the cheek.

"No problem," I said. "As long as you keep me informed about what you get up to I'll consider that payment enough. Well, that and maybe a proper kiss a bit later."

"There's going to come a time – at least, I hope there is – when I'm not going to tell you or anyone else what we do," he said. "But I don't mind giving you a proper kiss later."

And so he did, up in my bedroom after we'd finished the game.

We spent Monday indoors watching old films on TV and nibbling Easter eggs. We didn't all sit and watch TV together very often, but then it was the first weekend the whole family had been at home together for about three months. Father would be jetting off to Dubai or somewhere in a day or so and then things would feel completely back to normal, even though I still sometimes wished that he did a nine-to-five job instead. Still, both Chris and I were used to his long absences by now.

On Tuesday morning I caught the bus into town, got off at the Town Hall and set off down the hill to the railway station, but halfway down the hill I heard someone call my name. I looked around and saw Henry on the other side of the road. He waved, waited for a gap in the traffic and hurried over to my side.

Most of the kids at school – the cool ones, at least – bump fists when they meet, but Henry put out his hand and shook mine like an old-fashioned English gent.

"Morning, Henry," I said. "Still wearing the shorts, I see."

"Of course I am! I promised, remember? So where are you going?"

"I'm meeting someone off a train – or I will be in about twenty-five minutes. Why?"

"No reason. I'm here to do a bit of shopping. Do you want a Coke or something?"

"Well, okay then, if you're buying."

He went into the sweet shop a little way back up the hill and came out with a couple of cans and a bar of chocolate, and then he walked me down the hill and into the park whose entrance is opposite the station. We found an empty bench and sat down.

"Thanks," I said, taking one of the cans. "So, how are Freddie and Lee getting on with their Forties thing?"

Henry

"Rather well, actually," I replied, breaking a bit off the chocolate and passing him the bar. "We found some old coins and even a couple of notes in the attic, so Freddie thinks they've got everything they need. If the weather stays nice they're going to put the plan into action tomorrow."

"And do you think they'll actually manage to fool anyone?"

"Not unless they find someone completely gullible. But I expect they'll have fun with it anyway. Want a bit more chocolate?"

"Well… to be honest I've been stuffing myself with Easter eggs for the last couple of days, and if I eat too much of it my brother might turn out to be right. He says that too much chocolate for a boy of my age is likely to make me all spotty."

"I don't think that's true at all," I said. "I don't think chocolate gives you spots. What gives you spots is if you don't wash properly, and that isn't likely to happen to me because there's normally someone supervising me when I wash – at least, there is during term time."

"What, teachers, you mean?"

"No, the boys in my dorm – I explained last time, remember? They treat me as if I was about nine years old, and of course little boys of that age have to be supervised when they wash or they won't do it properly. At least, that's what they tell me. So they make sure I wash thoroughly, behind my ears and everything, and if I don't do it properly I get punished."

"I thought you liked getting punished?"

"Well, yes I do, normally. But the punishment for not washing properly was going to be having to lie in a bath of cold water for half an hour, and I didn't think I'd like that at all, so I made sure I washed thoroughly. Actually it's seemed really odd, getting washed on my own since the end of term. I still do it properly, though, because I want to be able to eat chocolate without getting spots."

"You could always try getting Freddie to supervise you instead," Kevin suggested.

"Well, yes, and I have tried – and not just for the washing, either, and to be fair he's stood in nicely in a couple of areas. But of course he doesn't live with me, so I only see him now and again, and even when he has been there he hasn't wanted to… well, do what the boys at school do. Freddie likes me too much, you see, and he's afraid of hurting me or upsetting me. And I can't explain to him why I want him to, because if I do he'll think I'm completely insane, and then he won't want to come round any more. I mean, I don't even understand it myself, so how can I explain it to someone else?"

"Well, you've explained it to me," he pointed out. "And like I told you, I can understand bits of it, if not why you want to be properly hurt and stuff. But I suppose that would be quite easy to arrange: if you do end up at a different school, just pick the biggest kid you can find and insult him. That ought to get you hurt badly enough to put you in hospital!"

"No, that's not…"

"I know," he interrupted. "Seriously, I do. You don't want to be beaten up: you want to be used for sex, because that makes you feel good as well. I get that, Henry – but it's still weird. Sex isn't supposed to be about one person making someone else do stuff, even if the person on the receiving end enjoys it. Sex is about sharing and being close and wanting to make each other feel good, and if you could find a friend who really likes you and wants to try stuff with you, I'm sure you'd find it far better than what happens to you at school at the moment."

I didn't try to argue because I knew I wouldn't be able to explain. Of course I understood that what Kevin was talking about is the way it is for most people, but it was never going to be like that for me. I was born strange, I think. For me, the way things were at school was just about perfect, and I couldn't even begin to imagine just being in a one-to-one relationship of the sort Kevin was talking about.

"Henry," said Kevin, when I still didn't speak, "I want you to know something: I'm gay. So I know a bit about being different, and about thinking differently about sex from the way most of the boys in my form think about it. And, like I said to you before, I've been in the position of being made to do things – sex things – that I wouldn't have done otherwise, and like you I found that some of it was okay, or even fun. But I like it a lot better when I share stuff with one of my friends. Maybe you haven't had a chance to try that yet, or maybe you don't even want to, but… well, obviously it's up to you to do things the way you want to. But if you ever find yourself in a position you're not happy about, don't stay there – and if you ever need to talk to someone, you can always talk to me. Okay?"

"All right, and thanks," I said. "But the thing I'm most worried about at the moment is not having anyone to… well, you know, tell me what to do – if I have to go to a different school next year. Still, it might not happen, I suppose, and in any case I've got one more good term to go through first, no matter how badly I mess up the exam."

And that was true, at least – Piers Farringdon, the senior boy in the dorm, had told me that he was going to spend the holiday thinking up lots of ways to make sure that I'd never forget my final term, and I was definitely looking forward to discovering what he had come up with. So, even if the long term future looked uncertain, at least in the short term things would be interesting.

We finished off the chocolate and then Kevin gave me his email and Skype addresses in case I wanted to talk to him. He still seemed a bit worried about me, which I thought was nice of him, considering that he hardly knew me. Then he got up and headed off towards the station. I stayed where I was: I was only in town to do a bit of shopping, and there was no hurry about that, so I finished my drink and sat back quietly.

I thought about what Kevin had said, especially telling me that he was gay. That's not something you would tell just anyone, and even though he knows that I do sex stuff with boys, it doesn't automatically follow that I'm going to be gay when I get older. All right, I suppose it's likely, but even so… which made him telling me rather important. I'd thought all along that I could trust him, but the fact that he was prepared to share something like that with me simply reinforced that trust. I decided that if I ever did need someone to talk to – and I quite possibly would if I failed my exam – he would be first in line.

It was a pity Freddie wasn't prepared to do more. He'd made me suck him once more, but whenever Lee was around – and that was most of the time – he seemed reluctant to do anything more than spank me. I know Lee's a bit more… innocent, I suppose, although since Kevin taught us about sex he really shouldn't be any more. But he still doesn't seem comfortable with it, and so I suppose Freddie thinks it best not to do a lot while he's there. Oh, well, I suppose it won't be long before term starts again…

Kevin

As I walked across the road to the station I found myself worrying about Henry. I'd told him that I understood the way he is, and I did, at least to a certain extent. What I couldn't understand was the fact that he was apparently so happy with things as they were that he didn't want to consider changing. When Mark had first started making me suck him and so on I quickly discovered that I didn't mind it too much, but if someone had offered me the choice between carrying on like that and having a genuine boyfriend, it would have been no contest.

Perhaps Henry had such a low opinion of himself that he didn't believe anyone would ever want to be his boyfriend… but then I didn't think anyone would ever want to be mine either, at least, not unless I had an eye transplant, and I still didn't want to go on being used by other people. Oh, well, I thought, all I can do is to offer him a friendly ear if he needs someone to talk to, and I'd done that, so I supposed it wasn't my problem.

The train arrived right on time, and Jeremy came into the ticket office, where I was waiting, almost as soon as it stopped moving. He gave me a huge smile, which made him look positively gorgeous, and if there hadn't been other people about I don't think I'd have been able to stop myself giving him a long hug and several kisses, even though that would probably have driven him straight onto the next train south: who wants to be kissed by Myopia Man? As it was I managed to restrain myself from doing anything more than smiling back and asking if he'd had a good journey.

"Not bad," he said. "It seemed a bit slow, but of course last time I did the journey you were with me, and I expect that made it go faster, because we were talking all the way."

"So how come you had the money for the fare?" I asked, leading him out of the station and back up the hill. "Was Kenton feeling generous enough to give you an Easter present?"

"Well… sort of. I'll tell you about when we get back to yours, though, because… well, I'd sooner not talk about it in public. So, is your friend Danny going to be around while I'm here?"

"Afraid not. He's Jewish, and he's celebrating Passover with his family all week. But he and I have been teaching Mark to play – well, to play better, anyway – and he might be around if you get bored with playing me all the time."

"I won't get bored with playing you," he assured me. "You might get bored with losing to me all the time, though."

"Like I did in the school match, you mean?"

"That was only because I was too worried about Kenton and his mates to concentrate. You were just lucky you didn't catch me on a normal day!"

We went on talking about chess and other trivia on the bus home. When we got there I introduced Jeremy to my mother and then took him up to my room and closed the door.

"Okay, tell me about Kenton," I said.

Jeremy knelt down and looked under the bed.

"Just checking for microphones," he explained.

"There aren't any, or cameras either, thanks to you. So…?"

He sat next to me on the bed. "We had a long talk about it, and we're sort of friends again. We're not quite back to how we were before… well, before, but I think what you said to him – about it not being a choice for me – changed his mind a bit. He's still a bit wary, but it looks as if he missed us being friends, and that's now more important to him than me being gay. So he's stopped taking money off me. Actually he'd only spent a bit of what he'd taken off me before, so it turns out I've still got a bit saved up for the summer, because even after we'd bought our tent there was still some left over."

"What tent is this, then?" I asked.

"A little while before… well, we found this really good spot to build a den, and we'd just about started it when… Anyway, it turns out that Peter kept working on it, and he showed me what he's done with it a few days ago, and it's really good. And we thought that if we got a small tent we could probably camp overnight there, so we looked around to see what we could afford, and Peter found someone selling one – so it's second hand, but it's just about perfect, because it fits inside the bigger den nicely. So on Friday night we slept in it. We had supper at home, because I don't think either of us can really cook very well, and we didn't have a stove anyway, but then we went out to the tent. Peter made me get undressed once we were inside because he still likes teasing me about… you know, not being very big, and then when it got properly dark he dared me to come for a walk in the wood with nothing on except my shoes. So I did – it wasn't that cold, and anyway the one thing about it being dark is that nobody's likely to see you – not like when you were there and he made me go all that way in daylight.

"But it's pretty scary in the wood at night – you can hear all sorts of weird noises, and you start to wonder exactly what sort of animal might be making them. Anyway, Peter started getting nervous before we'd gone very far and he wanted to go back, but I more or less embarrassed him into going a bit further. We made it all the way to the old railway before turning round. I did get scared when I thought we'd got lost, but Peter had brought his torch and we found our way back to the tent in the end. And when we got back he said he thought I was really brave to go all that way at night with nothing on. So I said 'I knew I'd be okay because you were with me,' and I could see that he liked that. Anyway, we sat around and talked for quite a while, and it really was like it used to be – except for me not having anything on, of course, but I'd got used to that.

"Eventually we got into our sleeping bags and went to sleep, and I slept really well. Next morning when he woke up he said he had an erection, and so I offered to suck it for him, and he actually asked if I really didn't mind before he agreed – so I really don't think he'll make me do it again if I decide I don't want to. Anyway, I made sure he enjoyed it, because it felt so good being almost-friends again that I honestly don't mind sucking him sometimes if we can stay on good terms. And afterwards he said that he won't mind me being gay if I'm going to make him feel that good, so I genuinely think we're basically okay again."

"Good," I said. "That's really great, Jeremy – except… well, I suppose this means you won't need me any longer."

"What? Of course I'm going to need you! Unless… well… if you'd prefer for me not to…"

"Don't be stupid," I said, firmly. "Of course I want us to go on being friends. Even if you and Kenton start to spend most of your spare time together again like you used to, I hope you'll still have time to come and visit me sometimes. Who am I going to thrash at chess if you're not around?"

"Bets?" he said.

"Let's just play a few games and see," I suggested, and so we went down to the study and started playing – and that was the part of the day I'd been particularly looking forward to, of course, because it allowed me to sit across the table from him and just look at him – and even if it didn't help my game much, it was most definitely worth it. Perhaps it was because the problems he'd been having with Kenton were now behind him, but he looked a lot more relaxed, and somehow that made him look even more stunning. Once again I heartily cursed my useless eyes: if it hadn't been for those damned glasses I really think he might have been interested in me.

We didn't stop properly at lunchtime: instead we took a quick ten minutes while I popped into the kitchen and made us both some bacon sandwiches – with the bacon cooked properly, of course, the way I knew we both liked it…

Jeremy

"Hey, these are really nice!" I said. "You remembered how I like them!"

"It's how I like them, too. Oh, I've got ketchup, if you want some?"

"No, thanks, I like them just like this. Thanks, Kevin."

The break in play gave me a chance to have a proper look at Kevin. He'd taken his glasses off to give them a quick clean, and he looked really good without them – I wondered if he'd been working out, because he didn't look quite as skinny as I'd thought. If he kept doing whatever it was that he was doing, by the time I finally reached puberty he'd look absolutely amazing – although I was sure he'd have been snapped up by someone else long before that. God, it was so unfair!

But even if we were only going to be friends it was still good – after all, I hadn't exactly been awash with friends before, and now I had one who could even understand about me being gay, and that was priceless. And he could make awesome bacon sandwiches, too…

We went on playing various sorts of chess for a couple of hours after lunch, but at that point Kevin's mum more or less chased us out of the house, telling us it was a really nice day out and we shouldn't spend the whole day cooped up indoors – in fact she sounded almost exactly like my mum. So Kevin took me for a walk, and it turned out that the area around his house was not all that different from where I live – fields and woods, mostly. And it was nice just being with him and not having to worry in case I said the wrong thing, because by now I'd just about worked out that nothing I was likely to say was going to stop us being friends.

We wandered about for an hour and a half or so, and when we got back to the house we found that Chris had returned from wherever he'd been earlier. I was a bit nervous about meeting him again, to be honest, and I hoped he wasn't mad at me for stopping him telling his brother what to do, even though he hadn't acted at all that way on my previous visit. But actually it turned out fine, and as soon as he got a moment to talk to me on his own he thanked me again for telling him what had been going on. Apparently I'd been right, and he really was a good brother after all.

We spent a while playing video games with him, and he was pretty good, so I didn't win very often and neither did Kevin, but it was still fun. And we actually ate supper sitting at the table instead of off of trays in front of the TV. Kevin's father wasn't there – apparently he'd gone to the Middle East on business – but Kevin's mum said that when they had guests they should still eat properly at the table, and actually I sort of liked that. The only time we all sat down at the table at home was for Sunday lunch, so this made a nice change.

After supper it was more video games, some TV and more chess, until eventually Kevin said that we ought to think about going to bed. He led me upstairs past his room and a little further along the corridor.

"This is your room," he told me. "There's a spare pillow in the cupboard if you need a second one. The bathroom's the next door on the right. If you need anything, give me a shout."

He said goodnight and went out. Well, obviously I'd known this was going to happen, but as I sat on the bed and started to get undressed I found myself wishing that Kevin's dad wasn't quite so rich: if they'd lived in a smaller house, one without a spare bedroom, maybe I would have had to share Kevin's bed…

I sighed, put my pyjamas on, dug into my bag for my washing kit and went along to the bathroom to clean my teeth, and once I'd done that I went back to my room, closed the door and got into bed. But I found it hard to get to sleep: for a start, it was too quiet. At home I could usually hear the murmur of the TV downstairs after I've gone to bed, but this room was probably too far from the lounge for me to hear it even if Mrs Stratford had it on. And the bed felt strange, too – yes, it was comfortable, but it wasn't my bed. And after about half an hour of wriggling about and trying to get comfortable I gave up, turned the light on and got out of bed. And at that point I thought 'To hell with it'.

I opened the door and marched down the corridor to Kevin's room. I paused, took a deep breath and then opened the door and put my head into the room.

"Kevin?" I said, "Are you awake?"

"No," he said, sleepily.

"I don't believe you."

He fumbled for his bedside light and peered at me blearily – obviously he wasn't wearing his glasses.

"Sorry, Jeremy," he said, sounding a bit more alert. "What's wrong?"

"Well, I… I'm not really used to sleeping away from home, and it's a bit quiet in that room, and…"

I took another deep breath.

"Look, I know this is a bit of a cheek, but… do you think I could sleep in here with you tonight instead?"

He didn't answer straight away, and I thought he was probably about to make some scathing comment about little kids and how feeble they are. But instead he said, "Well, sure… but I haven't got another mattress or anything, so unless you just want to sleep on the carpet you'd have to share my bed. Is that okay?"

"Oh, God, yes!" I said.

"Okay, then. Except… could you give me a moment? See, I'm not wearing any pyjamas."

"Don't worry about it," I said, stepping into the room and closing the door behind me. "I really don't mind at all if you're just sleeping in your pants."

"Well, actually, I'm not wearing any pants either."

"Ah. Well, I still don't care. Budge up."

He moved across to the far side of the bed, and I promptly removed my pyjamas and got in next to him.

"Now neither of us is wearing any pants," I said. "That's fair, isn't it?"

"Yes, I should think so," he said.

"Good. Now you can turn the light out again and we can find out if we're going to be able to sleep like this."

"I won't mind too much if we can't," he said, turning the light off.

"Nor will I," I replied, wriggling closer to him.

"Jeremy… are you sure this is what you want?" he asked.

"I'm sure," I told him. "I couldn't be surer."

"But… I mean… Look, I know my glasses make me look a dork…"

"No, they don't. God, Kevin, I wish you'd stop worrying about your glasses, because with or without them on you look great. I just wish I had a bit more to offer you, but if you can hang on for another year or six, or however long it takes me to hit puberty… well, maybe then you won't find me quite so immature."

"Is that what you think I think? Bloody hell, Jer, you look absolutely amazing, right here, right now."

"Yes, but my dick's pathetic."

"No, it isn't. Do you really think you have to have a massive dick to be attractive? Trust me, you don't. Even if yours never grows another millimetre I'll still think you look stunning, and anyway that isn't going to happen. It'll grow, and probably quite soon, but if you think that's all I'm interested in you couldn't be more wrong."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. And in case you don't believe how amazing you look, I have some fairly concrete evidence for you. It got that way the moment you got into bed, and if you move this way a little further you'll be able to check it for yourself."

"Me, too," I admitted.

"Now that's not so easy to believe," he said. "I think maybe I ought to check… bloody hell, you're right!"

How I didn't faint when he touched me I'll never know, because it was about the most incredible feeling I'd ever had. The only problem was that he was even closer to the edge than I was, and I'd barely taken hold of him when…

"Sorry," he said, turning on the light and reaching for the box of tissues beside the bed. "But at least now you know that I meant what I said about the effect you have on me."

And it was true that the evidence was pretty hard to argue with.

"Fair's fair," he said, once he'd cleaned up. "Your turn."

And he took hold of me and rubbed it for thirty seconds or so, which was all it took to get me into the same state, though sadly without any liquid evidence. It was still a phenomenal experience, though.

He turned off the light and snuggled close to me, putting an arm around me.

"I wish you'd said something sooner," he said. "I was convinced you hated my glasses so much that you'd prefer death to being seen with me."

"You dick," I said. "How could you think that?"

"How could you think I'd care about you being a late developer?" he countered. "We're the same age… when's your birthday?"

"September the twenty-fifth."

"Then you're actually about seven weeks older than me, because mine is November the eighteenth," he said. "And if we're the same age there's no reason why we can't go out together… I mean, if you want to, that is?"

"Of course I want to!" I said.

"Great! Then that's all that matters. Of course you're going to get taller and stronger when you reach puberty, whereas my eyes aren't going to get any better, so I'll still be wearing the glasses when you look even more like a Greek god than you do now, but if you can put up with that, I'm certainly not going to argue."

"Good. And you'd better not."

He cuddled me a bit more and it felt better being in his arms than I had ever imagined it. I felt comfortable and happy: I actually had a boyfriend! And he didn't care about my lack of development!! I fell asleep, still not really able to believe how lucky I was…

Kevin

I woke up to find Jeremy asleep with his head against my chest. I still couldn't believe how lucky I was: not only did I have a stunningly beautiful boyfriend, but apparently he didn't care about my glasses!

I stroked his hair gently for a while until finally he began to stir.

"Morning," he said sleepily

"Morning," I replied. "I can't get over how beautiful your hair is…"

He looked up at me.

"Or your eyes," I went on. "Or your nose, or your lips… I wonder if they feel as soft as they look… Please can I find out?"

"I don't see why not."

So I pulled him up so that his head was level with mine and kissed him gently on the lips, which turned out to be every bit as soft as they looked. He slipped his arm round me and wriggled a bit closer, in the process inadvertently letting me know that one part of him at least was pleased to see me.

We nuzzled together for a while, and then he drew back for a moment.

"Would you like me to show you what Peter taught me to do?" he asked.

"Well… yes, obviously – but only if you're sure you want to."

"Oh, I want to."

He wriggled down into the bed, and over the next twenty minutes or so I discovered that Kenton had been a very good teacher. And after I got my breath back and Jeremy had reappeared beside me I told him so.

"Well, I'd say you're almost exactly the same size as he is," he told me. "The difference is just that you've got a bit more hair. And by now I know exactly what to do to make it feel good for him, so I'm glad it works for you, too."

"Trust me, it works," I said. "And now I'm going to show you what some of Chris's friends have taught me."

"Okay," he said. "Just remember that I've never had this done to me before, so be careful!"

"Don't worry," I said, ducking down beneath the duvet.

If mine was the same size as Kenton's, it turned out that Jeremy's was almost identical to Silvio's, minus the hair. I didn't intend telling him this, though: I didn't think he's really want to be told that he was the same size as an eleven-year-old, or that the eleven-year-old had some hair. But it did mean that I'd had practice on something of this size, and Silvio had seemed happy with my efforts…

So, it turned out, was Jeremy, although possibly that was partially due to this being his first experience of it. But he seemed thoroughly happy with the result anyway, to judge by the way he hugged me and kissed me afterwards.

"Does it always feel like that?" he asked.

"Well, if it felt good, I hope so. But I won't mind practising with you a few times until you're sure."

We cuddled for a bit longer and then got up, got partly dressed – I put on my boxers and jeans, he put on his pyjama trousers – and went and had a wash. Afterwards he diverted to his room to collect the rest of his clothes, and once he got back to my room we put on the rest of our clothes except for our shirts.

"I think we need to try something first," I said, dropping my shirt on the bed.

"What's that?"

"I think we ought to see if we can cope with the height difference. Put down that shirt and come here."

It isn't hard to manage a difference of less than four inches, of course, but any excuse… So he stood in front of me and tilted his head up a little, and I stooped slightly, and like that we are able to kiss with no trouble at all. Of course, I thought we ought to have a thorough check, and so we put our arms around each other and hugged, kissing at the same time.

And right at that moment the bedroom door opened and I heard Chris's voice.

"Hey, Kev," he started, "after breakfast we're… going… ah. Sorry."

I looked up and saw Chris standing in the doorway looking a bit embarrassed. And right next to him, staring open-mouthed in my direction, was Colin.

So finally Kevin and Jeremy have removed their blinkers and got together… but now there's a rather large fly in Kevin's ointment: how is Colin likely to react? All will be revealed in the next chapter.

Chapter Nineteen

In which Colin speaks his mind and Freddie and Lee go time-travelling.

Kevin

"Oh my God!" exclaimed Colin, but it wasn't me he was looking at any longer. Instead he was staring at my brother.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"Well… I thought it wouldn't be fair to Kev. He specifically asked me not to tell you he was gay. And actually I didn't know he and Jeremy were… how long have you two been…?" he asked me.

"Since about midnight," I told him. "We hadn't realised that we both wanted the same thing: I was scared to say anything to him because I thought he hated my glasses, and he was scared to say anything to me because he's small for fourteen and thought I wouldn't be interested. But last night we found out we were both worrying about nothing, and so… but… look, Col…"

"Why didn't you want to tell me you were gay?" demanded Colin.

"Well… I didn't know how you'd react," I admitted.

"Why would you even care how I'd react?"

"Well, because you're Chris's best friend, and because you're round here a lot, and… well… I like you, okay? Every time you come round you treat me almost like you're my friend as well as Chris's, and I didn't want that to stop, so…"

"What, you thought I'd hate you if I found out you were gay? Gosh, thanks, Kev. I've always wanted people to think I'm a hater."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't think I really thought you'd turn out to be like that, but it does happen: Jeremy's best friend turned very nasty when he found out about him, and they're only really starting to patch it up a bit now. And I care what you think, too. I didn't want you to hate me."

"I don't hate you. I mean, obviously I wasn't going to. You know I think you're a really good big brother, and I don't think anything could change my mind about that, so you could have told me."

"I know. Sorry," I said again.

"Oh, well, I suppose it doesn't matter. So does this mean that you two are… well, going out with each other?"

"I suppose so," I said. "We haven't really talked about it yet, but I hope we'll be able to get together a lot."

"Good," said Colin. "Maybe when Chris and I finally get girlfriends we can triple-date. I like the idea of that."

I wondered how the putative girlfriends would feel about that, but perhaps they'd find it interesting, too. But that did pretty much answer any lingering questions I might have had about my chances of scoring with Colin: it sounded as if Mark had been right when he said that Colin liked girls.

"Anyway," said Chris, "What I was going to say before we found you two snogging your noses off was that we're going swimming after breakfast and we wanted to know if you would like to come with us. Of course, if you just want to go back to bed instead I think I could understand that…"

I looked at Jeremy, who nodded.

"No, I think that's a good idea," I said. "After all, we'll have plenty of time for other stuff."

"Only one problem," said Jeremy. "I don't have any swimming stuff. Can one of you find me a pair of shorts or something?"

"I expect I'll have one that will fit you," said Chris. "And we've got loads of towels. And if mine don't fit I'll give Mark a call and ask him to bring a pair. He's meeting us at the pool."

It turned out that Chris's spare swim shorts fitted Jeremy perfectly, so after breakfast – and after a further half-hour's rest, which Mother insisted on ("You shouldn't go swimming right after a meal," she said, which failed to take into account the time we'd be spending on the bus between the house and the pool) we headed into town. Mark was waiting outside the pool, staring ostentatiously at his watch.

"Yes, I know," said Chris, before Mark could open his mouth. "Blame my mother. Anyway, we're here now."

He turned to go into the building, but I stopped him.

"Wait a moment," I said. "There's something Mark needs to know. Mark, Jeremy and me…"

"He means they're an item," interrupted Colin. "It's good, isn't it? It's about time Kev found someone. Of course, I didn't know until this morning that it was going to be a boy, but what the hell, he's got a partner, and I bet you hadn't expected that. I know I hadn't."

Mark looked at me, and I think that if Chris and Colin hadn't been there he'd probably have kissed me, but clearly he wasn't quite ready to tell them about Danny just yet – although Colin's reaction to finding out about me strongly suggested that there was no good reason not to. Probably he just wanted to check with Danny about it first.

"Nice one, Kev," he said. "Obviously Jeremy must be mad as well as blind – or did you drug him?"

"Shut up, Dwarf-man," I said. "At least Jeremy's over five feet tall…"

"Just about," put in Jeremy in my ear.

"Unlike you," I went on. "If Jeremy had to be mad and blind to choose me, who do you think is ever going to choose you? A professional midget-handler?"

Mark grinned at me. "I think people might be surprised to discover just how irresistible I am," he said.

"They might, at that," I admitted, looking at Chris and Colin.

"Maybe I'll surprise you," said Mark. "Or some of you, anyway. So, am I going to have to stand here for another half hour, or are we actually going to swim today?"

I'm not a great swimmer. I mean, I can swim, but not all that quickly: Chris is far better at it than I am, just as he is with most other sports. But it was fun, all the same. We splashed around for about an hour and a half and then went back to the changing room

Of course, I'd spent the past few Sunday mornings trying to catch a glimpse of Colin in the changing-rooms without any success at all, but I needn't have bothered, because now he simply slipped off his shorts and started to dry himself – starting with his hair – while standing right next to me. The only way he could have been more obliging would have been to hand me a full-frontal photo of himself naked. It was nice, too, probably not much smaller than mine and with a few little hairs around the base. He had some good muscle development, too – as indeed did Chris, although Chris was a little smaller where it counts and didn't seem to have any hair yet.

I looked back at Colin: yes, I decided, he looks amazing… and yet somehow the fact that he liked girls didn't seem to matter any more, because now I actually had a genuine boyfriend, and not just an impossible fantasy. It's true that Jeremy was a couple of inches shorter than Colin and didn't have his muscles, but he was still stunningly beautiful, and even if his equipment was a little smaller than Colin's, the difference was that I was never going to get near Colin's, whereas Jeremy had already demonstrated that he was perfectly happy to share his with me.

Mark caught my eye and gave me a little nod, and I smiled back at him. I hoped it wouldn't be too long before Danny could come swimming with us – I decided that I liked the idea of double-dating with him and Mark…

Colin and Mark came back home with us and stayed for lunch, and after lunch we had a mass video games session.

"This might be my last chance to whip everyone," Mark said to me quietly at one point. "Danny's going to kill all of us if we let him play."

"Are you going to tell Chris and Colin about him?"

"Yes, of course I am – provided Danny's okay with it. I want to ask him first. I mean, I don't suppose for a moment that Chris or Col would let anything slip, but I'm not sure how it would go down with Danny's parents if it got out. Actually I don't think it would go down too well with mine, either, so we'll be keeping fairly quiet about it. But as far as I'm concerned I won't mind everyone here knowing about it."

Jeremy wasn't all that great at video games either, but he did seem to be having fun. It was probably the first time he'd actually been with a bunch of friends for quite a long time, and even though they weren't strictly speaking 'his' friends, it was obvious that everyone liked him.

Of course we weren't broadcasting our relationship to my mother: officially Jeremy was staying in the guest room, so we left all his stuff in there and messed up the bed a bit, but of course this evening as soon as he'd had a wash he simply dumped his washing kit in the guest room and came straight along to mine. We were under slightly better control tonight, so we were able to cuddle nicely without accidents.

"Kevin," he said, "are we going to have proper sex? Not straight away, obviously, but later?"

"That depends what you mean by 'proper sex," I said. "As far as I'm concerned everything we've done so far has been proper sex."

"You know what I mean. I mean are you going to put it in me?"

"Not unless you put it in me too. We're equals, Jer. This isn't a one way relationship."

"Well, okay, but I don't think I'm really big enough… you know what I mean."

"I think you probably are, actually," I said. "But if we decide we're going to do that you'll definitely get a chance to find out. Although if you want me to do it to you as well, I'm sure I won't mind too much!"

"I'm not completely sure if I do or not. That's really why I asked. I like the idea a lot, but I'm scared it'll hurt."

"Why do you think that?"

"Well, you're pretty big… you see, Peter wanted to do it to me. He really liked the idea – we were talking about it that night in the tent. But he said that although he really wanted to he was afraid it would hurt me too much, and even when he was still seriously angry with me he didn't want to hurt me as much as that. I mean, I think it would be a lot different if you did it, because we'd be doing it because of how we feel about each other. If he'd done it he would have been trying to humiliate me and hurt me at the same time. But physically it would be the same basic idea…"

"If you really want to do it there are ways of getting ready," I told him. "Mark's got something… maybe we could borrow it, or he might be able to get us one for just us to use…. Anyway, I'll talk to him. But I promise I'm never going to do anything that hurts you, Jer, okay?"

"Okay." And he gave me a little hug and a kiss, and then we settled down for the night.

Freddie

When we checked out the weather online on Wednesday morning we found that it was going to be fairly bright but with a bit of a breeze, particularly along the coast. That wasn't too much of a problem, because we weren't intending to swim anyway – we didn't have any Forties swimming costumes, and I wouldn't have been too keen on wearing one even if we'd found some because apparently back then boys often wore something that looked like a modern girls' one-piece. I'll do a lot for the sake of making it look real, but wearing a girl's swimming costume would have been a step too far.

The important thing was that no rain was forecast – rain would obviously have made it impossible to find anyone to try out our time-travel story on. So after breakfast we packed our Forties stuff in our bags and headed for the station.

Lee was starting to show signs of cold feet by this stage: he was convinced we were going to get caught, and he wasn't sure that he could remember to speak without using modern expressions. But I managed to persuade him to come with me, telling him that we could always change our minds later. As far as I was concerned, that was definitely not going to happen.

We caught the train to Hastings and then changed onto the coastal line that took us to Eastbourne, and there we got onto a bus heading for Seaford. We got off five miles or so along the road, by which time we were about halfway between the two towns. I'd chosen that point because there was a large forest north of the road where we could get changed and leave our modern clothes, and because the coastal path ran along the top of the cliffs to the left of the road, about a mile away. I was fairly sure we'd find a few people at least there.

There was a path running parallel to the road just inside the trees, but once we got past that the area looked fairly wild and I thought it unlikely that anyone would come past, and so I started to get undressed.

"Are you sure about this?" asked Lee.

"Of course I am! Come on, Lee, it'll be a laugh – and if we get found out we'll give them the 'We're researching a project for school' story. Actually I think I could do a rather good project on being a kid in World War Two by now – I've done enough research on it."

I didn't wait for Lee, I just took everything off and then started to get dressed in the Forties clothes, and after a few seconds Lee started to get changed too. Once we were ready we checked our pockets carefully to make sure that we weren't carrying anything that could give us away and then put on our caps and picked up our gas-masks – we'd found another one for Lee eventually – and looked each other up and down.

"You look fine," I assured him. "Ready?"

"No, not really."

"Tough." And I set off back towards the road. He hesitated, but only for a few seconds, and he had caught me up by the time we crossed the road. There was a convenient gate a little way along, and once we were through this it was a gentle stroll across the open grass that led towards the cliffs a mile or so away.

To be completely honest I didn't expect our time-travel story to stand up for ten seconds: any adult we told it to would just say, 'Yeah, right!' and I didn't think even I could try to stick to the story in the face of adult disbelief – and I knew Lee wouldn't be able to. In fact I was seriously thinking about not even trying the story if the person we met looked sufficiently sceptical: I thought it would be better to switch to the school project story straight away. But then I changed my mind again, because the first person we met wasn't an adult.

We'd only got about halfway to the cliffs and had reached the point where the land began to slope downhill, and there, behind a scrubby little bush and lying flat on the ground with a notebook beside him and a pair of binoculars against his eyes, was a boy of around our own age, and that really was too good a chance to miss.

"I say!" I said, making him start. "Are you a spy?"

He rolled over to face us, stared, scrabbled in his pocket for a pair of glasses almost as geeky as mine, put them on and stared some more.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Well, at least you're not a bally German," I said. "At least, you don't sound like one. But what are you doing? Surely this area is restricted?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"We're only about half a mile from the coast," I said. "I'm sure civilians aren't usually allowed this close. We managed to sneak through a gate that nobody was guarding, but I bet there's barbed wire all over the place – so how did you get here?"

"Barbed wire? Are you insane?"

"You mean, there isn't any? Well, that's deuced odd," I said. "All right, I know the Jerries probably couldn't scale the cliffs without someone noticing, but even so, I'm surprised there isn't at least a guard post up here."

By now he was just about speechless, and I suppose that in his shoes I would have been fairly confused too.

"Is this a game, or something?" he asked, finally.

"A game? No, not really. We just decided to come and have a look at the sea – I mean, we knew we wouldn't be allowed anywhere near a proper beach, but we hoped we'd be able to see the sea from up here – even if I expected there to be soldiers about to keep an eye on us. But there doesn't seem to be anyone except you. And where on earth did you find those clothes? I've never seen anything like your trousers."

He was wearing jeans, of course, together with a zip-up black jacket.

"You think my clothes are odd? He said. "What about yours? I don't think anyone has dressed like that since about 1960."

Now that was an absolute godsend, and of course I grabbed it.

"Nineteen-sixty?" I said. "What on earth do you mean? It's only 1941!"

I was fighting like mad to keep a straight face, though a glance at Lee suggested that he wasn't having any trouble doing so at all – he obviously thought that sooner or later this was going to get us into trouble.

"It's two thousand and twelve!" said the boy, gaping at us.

"It's nineteen forty-one," I countered. "I think I'd have noticed if I'd overslept by seventy-one years!"

He went on staring, and I just stared right back, still not really expecting him to go for it, but willing to give it a try all the same.

"Oh, come on!" he said. "You're winding me up!"

"What does 'winding you up' mean?" I asked. "It isn't English."

"Yes, it is… all right, I can prove you're not real," he said. "Let's see what's in your pockets."

I shrugged, dug into the pocket of my shorts and produced a handkerchief, a comb, a paper bag containing half a dozen pear drops (there's a shop in town that still sells sweets the old way by the quarter-pound, even though I have to translate to work out what a quarter-pound is – roughly a hundred grams, I think) and three and eightpence halfpenny in pre-war coins. Lee's wallet contained a couple of unused George VI postage stamps and a photo of his great-grandma that had actually been taken in 1938 when she was about fifteen years old – there was a photographer's stamp on the back that said so – and one and elevenpence three-farthings.

Our victim stared at this lot and then came and stuck his hands in my blazer pockets, which I didn't mind at all because there was now nothing in them.

"All right, that's enough," I said, pushing him back a step or two. "Anyway, are you satisfied?"

"Well, yes, but… I mean… look at this!"

His pockets contained a collection of modern coins and a five pound note, and also a couple of pencils, a cheap biro, some keys and a phone.

"What's that?" I said, pointing at the phone.

"It's a phone."

"No, it isn't! It doesn't look anything like one – and where are the cables, then? You can't have a phone without cables!"

By now he was just about sold. I don't think I would have been in his position, but then nobody has ever put me in that position. Anyway, he hit a couple of buttons on the phone, held it to his ear, and started talking to someone, beckoning me over and holding the phone close enough to my ear that I could hear the person at the other end, who sounded like another boy. They talked about nothing much – our boy asked when the other one would be back home and was told on Saturday – and then our boy hung up. Clearly it was now time to find out if I could really act or not.

"That's impossible!" I said, staring at the boy. "All right, I know the army has small radios, but they're twenty times bigger than that – I've seen them on the newsreels! And that money – who's the woman?"

"Queen Elizabeth."

"You mean Princess Elizabeth… oh. So… what year did you say this was again?"

"Twenty-twelve."

I sat down on the grass. "But… how…I mean, it was definitely 1941 when we left Eastbourne!"

"I thought those motor cars looked odd – you know, when we crossed the road," said Lee, who had apparently decided that he might as well join in. "I said so, remember?"

"Well, yes, but you know I don't know an Austin from a Bugatti," I said. "But how could we possibly have got here? It must have been after we got off the bus but before we crossed the road, if you're right… while we were in the forest! There was that little tremor, remember? It felt a bit like a bomb going off a few streets away…"

"Yes, but that doesn't explain how we got here, does it?" Lee pointed out.

"No, but if we go back to the same place and just sort of reverse our route it'll probably take us back," I said.

"How do you know?" asked the boy.

"Well, I don't, obviously, but if we walk back the way we came we should end up in the same time as we started from as well as the same place. That's logical, I think. But since we're here… well, there are no guns or barbed wire, so has the war finished?"

"Of course it has! It ended in 1945!"

"And do we… I mean, did we win? Only you're not speaking German, so…"

"Yes, we won."

"Hey, we're going to win!" I said to Lee, and we both tried to look really happy. "But I don't quite see how… I mean, I know Winnie keeps saying the British Empire cannot be beaten, but to be completely honest things didn't look terribly bright this morning. The Jerries are in France, I don't think things are going terribly well in North Africa, and we're about the only country still fighting them. Our navy and air force are wizard, certainly, but… well…"

"I bet the Yanks came in!" said Lee.

"I bet they didn't!" I replied. "Why would they? Germany is no threat to them, and you heard Mrs Lamb say the Yanks know better than to get dragged into this one. It must have been something else."

We both looked at our audience, who looked uncertain – perhaps he wasn't old enough to have studied World War Two yet.

"The Americans did come in," he said. "The Japanese attacked them without warning and sank their fleet, and after that the Yanks had to come in on our side. There was a film about it on TV a little while back. And I think the Russians joined in, too."

"What, on our side?" I said. "That sounds mad! I thought the Jerries had a pact with them, or something."

"Sorry," said the boy. "I don't really know. But I can find out. If you come home with me I can look it up on my computer."

"What's a computer?" asked Lee.

"Oh! It's a sort of… it's a bit hard to explain. But I can show you."

"I think we ought to try to get back," said Lee. "What if something happens and we can't? Suppose we get stuck here?"

"Well, it's probably better here, because there's no war," I said. "But maybe you're right. And I wouldn't want to put your parents to any trouble, either," I added to the boy.

"Oh, you won't. There's nobody home, and there won't be until about six o'clock. They're both at work, and my sister's gone shopping."

"Well… how far away do you live?"

"Not far. I live on the edge of East Dean. It's only about ten minutes away."

"Shall we?" I said to Lee. "I don't suppose it'll make a lot of difference to our chances of getting back."

"I suppose we could," he agreed.

"Great!" said the boy. "Look, I'm Josh – Josh Morden. Who are you?"

"I don't think I've ever met a 'Josh' before," I said. "I'm Freddie, and this is L… George."

"I think it's short for 'Joshua'," said Lee. "Does that mean that you're Jewish?"

"No! Why would you think that?"

"I just thought it was a Jewish name," said Lee. "Sorry."

"Well, I suppose it was originally, but now there are a lot of people called Josh."

"I bet there wouldn't be if the Jerries had won," said Lee, and I hoped he was going to shut up, because of course we weren't supposed to know anything about the Holocaust.

"So how long have you lived round here?" I asked quickly.

"All my life. I go to school in Eastbourne. It's okay, I suppose."

"What's 'okay'?" asked Lee, which I was quite impressed by, because I wouldn't have picked up on it.

"You know – it means 'all right… oh, perhaps you don't know," said Josh. "It's American, and it might not have been around before the war."

I hid a little smile, because it was now fairly clear that he'd bought the story. All we had to do was play along for a bit longer, express amazement at his computer, and then we could count the mission a complete success…

Josh

At this stage I wasn't completely sure that this was a wind-up – after all, there were clearly no hidden cameras around to catch my reaction, and there was nothing about either the appearance of the two boys or their speech to yell 'Fake!' at me. Nor was there any obvious reason for them to be trying to wind me up. But it's not easy to believe that two people standing right in front of you have just popped out of a time warp, and so I was far from convinced. I'd decided to go along with it for a while to see what happened.

"So if you're not a spy, what are you doing here?" asked the one with glasses – Freddie, if that was really his name.

"I'm bird-watching – well, I was hoping to, anyway. There aren't too many birds around except for gulls, but you never know. Hence the binoculars. I don't think there were ever any military posts up here for me to be spying on even if now was then, or however we're going to put it, although there are a couple of gun emplacements down beside the river, but they're in ruins now. I expect they were properly equipped with guns and men in your time, though. Would you like to come and have a look? It's not far."

"All right," said Freddie, and so I led them in the direction of the trig point that overlooks the valley of the River Cuckmere, and from just past there you can see the remains of some of the old fortifications that had presumably been put there during the war.

"Crikey," said Freddie. "I think that proves you're telling the truth, because it's not possible that it could look like that where we come from. I'm sorry for not believing you, Josh."

"That's okay," I said. "Now, if we follow the path along the cliff-tops it'll take us back to my house – if you still want to come?"

"Yes, please. I'm rather intrigued to discover what a twenty-first century house looks like."

"Where do you come from, then?" I asked as we set off.

"Well, we live just south of London, in a town called Croydon, but we got evacuated when the blitz started because we lived too close to Croydon Airport. We ended up billeted in a village about halfway between Croydon and Hastings. It's not too bad there, I suppose, but it's not as nice as it is at home. At home we were just about due to get electricity put in, but at the place we are now there's nothing like that."

It didn't take that long to walk back to my house, maybe twenty minutes or so – of course, going to the trig point first had increased the distance. We didn't talk a lot: they seemed happy to admire the view, and I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound like I was testing them.

My house isn't particularly big or even particularly modern, but compared to a place with no electricity it would seem positively amazing – and in fairness to them, amazed was how they appeared when I showed them our TV.

"I bet you've never seen anything like that," I said, turning it off again.

"Well, no. I know televisions exist, of course: they started five or six years ago – it was on the newsreels. But I've never actually seen one, and the ones in the news didn't look anything like that. But I suppose seventy years is a long time, and it would be normal for things to get better – after all, motor cars today… I mean, in our time – don't look anything like the very early ones did. So what else have you got?"

I was about to show them the kitchen, but then I had a brainwave and took them upstairs to the bathroom instead.

"You said your place doesn't have electricity," I said. "Does that mean you don't have hot water either?"

"Well, we can heat water up on the range," said Freddie. "You mean you have hot water without having to heat it up first?"

"That's right. You just turn the tap."

"Crikey! I wish we had that. We have to use a tin bath in the outhouse, and we have to heat up the water for it on the range a bit at a time. And we have to share, too, because otherwise we'd use up too much water, and it would take ages to heat enough of it up."

"Well, why don't you try this one?" I said. "Have a proper bath in hot water. I bet you'll enjoy that a lot more than your tin thing."

"I think we ought to go back," said the other one.

"It won't take long," I said, "especially if you share – after all, you're used to that."

They looked at each other, and I thought this would be where I found out if they were for real or not: if they were, and if they really had to bathe the way they said, they would surely fall over themselves to try a proper bath. If they were faking it they'd just go. And maybe they realised that, because Freddie said that he'd definitely like to try it.

"Okay," I said, starting to run the bath. "Come through to my room and get undressed, and I'll find you some towels."

They looked at each other again.

"I'm not getting undressed in front of you!" said George.

"Oh – I thought you be used to it, what with having to share a bath," I pointed out. "But that's okay, I don't mind getting undressed too."

"All right," said Freddie, although George still looked as if he wanted to argue.

So I found a couple of towels in the bathroom cupboard and then took them through to my room.

"That's my computer," I said, indicating my machine. "Once you've had your bath I can try to find out exactly what happened in the war for you."

I waited for them to get undressed.

"You first," said George, distrustfully.

"Oh, okay. But I bet we look the same, even if you are seventy years older than me!"

I turned the computer on, pointed the webcam in their direction and set it to capturing and then switched the monitor off.

"It'll warm up while you're in the bath," I told them, and I started to get undressed. Of course this really was the clincher: if they were faking it they'd know exactly what I was doing, so they now had the choice of either giving themselves away by moving away from the camera or risking ending up on video. Or they could simply throw in the towel and admit they were trying to con me.

But they didn't move, and they did start to get undressed, and at that point I found myself almost believing them again. Of course they might not have seen me activate the camera – my body had been between them and the screen, after all. And when they removed their shorts and I saw their underwear I was almost completely convinced, because I couldn't imagine where you could find underwear like that in this day and age.

"Come on, then," I said, and I picked up my phone and took them through to the bathroom.

"Why do you need that?" asked Freddie.

"In case my sister decides to come home early. She'll call to see if I'm in. You don't want a girl walking in on you while you're in the bath, do you?"

Once again they were on the spot: if they were fakes, surely they wouldn't let me film them naked in the bath? If they were genuine, on the other hand, they'd have no idea that I was holding a camera. By now I was genuinely unsure, and when Freddie took his underwear off and got into the bath I was just about sold. George seemed a little more reluctant, but maybe he was just shy.

"Take yours off first," he said to me, so I slipped my boxers off, and then George took a deep breath, removed his own underwear and got into the bath.

"This is spiffing," said Freddie, sliding down with his legs on either side of his friend's. "I say, you wouldn't have any soap, would you?"

I handed them the soap, turning the video capture of the phone on at the same time. I was aware that Freddie in particular was checking me out, which I didn't mind too much – after all, there's nothing wrong with me.

They washed themselves and then started larking about and splashing each other, and in the end I had to stop them before too much water ended up on the floor. By now I was completely convinced, because I didn't think they could possibly have acted as relaxed as that otherwise, so I handed them a towel each and filmed them drying each other's backs. I grabbed their underwear as well as my own and headed back to the bedroom, telling them to put the towels on the radiator and to follow me as soon as they were dry, and by the time they came through thirty seconds later I had Googled a timeline of World War Two. The webcam was still running, of course, and I realised I might have to edit myself out of the final film, but I wasn't too worried about that.

"Come here," I said, as soon as they entered the room.

"Can't we get dressed first?" asked Freddie.

"No, you might as well see this," I said, stepping back out of the way so that they could see the screen – and stand right in front of the webcam at the same time.

"Look," I said. "You can see that Germany invaded Russia in June 1941, and that America entered the war in December. After that it was just a matter of time. So you're going to win, however it feels where you come from."

"How does it work?" asked Freddie. "Is there somewhere sending this stuff out, like with a television?"

"No, it's more like you turning on your television and telling it what you want to watch. All this information is out there – you just have to find it."

"Oh, wow! We've got to find out more about this!" said Freddie enthusiastically.

"Well, get dressed, and then I'll see what else I can find out for you."

I filmed them as they dressed and then put the phone away while I got dressed myself. By now I was totally convinced: I couldn't imagine for a moment that they would have let me film them naked without arguing if they knew what I was doing, and the way I'd held the phone in the bathroom would have made it completely obvious. So I almost didn't bother with my final attempt at cracking their cover.

"Now," I said, once we were all dressed, "if you're really from 1941 you're not going to understand a single word of what I'm about to tell you, but if this is a wind-up you need to know that I'm going to upload everything from the webcam and the mobile to the web as soon as you've gone. So if you don't want to go viral on YouTube this is your last chance to come clean."

Freddie was staring with me with something close to a stone face, but George looked agitated: first he whispered into Freddie's ear, and then, when Freddie just shook his head, he stood up.

"All right," he said.

"Lee! Shit, I mean George!" said Freddie.

"Shut up, Freddie. I'm not going to let him put pictures of me online. It's time we stopped this, okay?"

Freddie sighed. "All right," he said, "we surrender. What gave us away?"

"To be honest, nothing at all," I told him. "You were completely convincing. The only problem is that I don't believe in time travel, and that meant that I started out not believing you at all. The fact that I did just about believe you by the end is pretty impressive, to tell the truth. Where did you get the clothes? They look completely real."

"They are completely real. There's this shop I know. See, it started with me having to wear a pair of really geeky glasses…"

"Even geekier than mine, you mean?" I interrupted.

"Well, just about. Then I started deliberately trying to look geeky, and then a friend made some comment about my hairstyle looking like it came from 1940, and everything else sort of followed on from there. I wanted to find out if I could act as if I really came from 1940, and so here I am. Lee… that's his real name, by the way, but it isn't very 1940 – wasn't so keen, but I more or less dragged him along with me, so… well, you are going to delete those films, aren't you?"

"Maybe," I said, grinning. "But why the hell did you let me film you in the first place?"

"I don't know, really," said Freddie. "I suppose I just dug myself in so deep by agreeing to try your bath that I couldn't get out of it without giving myself away. To be honest I didn't think you'd really post them – after all, that could get you into trouble too. But I'd still like to watch you delete them."

"I think I'd have thrown in the towel as soon as I saw the phone," I said.

"So would I," said George, or Lee. "I didn't want to let Freddie down, otherwise I would have. But I'm still going to beat him up later, even if you do delete the films."

"Oh, really?" said Freddie. "That'll be a first, then!"

"Shall we look at the films before I delete them?" I suggested.

And so we sat and watched the webcam film of the boys getting undressed – that one wasn't too bad because of course they didn't remove their underwear until they reached the bathroom.

"This is just a good film showing what boys of our age wore during the war," I said. "I might keep it to use at school – the war is bound to come up sooner or later, because it always does, and I think I'd get some good marks for this."

"I suppose I wouldn't mind that too much," said Lee, and Freddie nodded.

"I'm not so sure about this bit, though," I said, and ran the film on to the point where the three of us came back into the room, all naked, and started looking at the screen.

"No, I think that can definitely go," I said. I opened the editing software, cut the film at the point where Freddie and Lee left the room in their underpants and dumped the rest. Next I downloaded the video clips I'd shot in the bathroom onto the computer – it's a lot easier to watch them there than on the phone's own screen. I've got a good phone and the quality wasn't bad at all, and so it wasn't all that surprising that they wanted that deleting too. So I duly deleted it.

"And from the phone!" demanded Freddie.

"Damn!" I said, grinning. "I was hoping you'd forget about that."

I let him watch as I deleted the clips from the phone.

"Thanks," he said. "I hope you're not too hacked off about us trying to convince you…"

"No, not at all. It was a lot more fun than looking for birds that weren't there. If you want to try again – as Victorian chimney-sweeps or Saxon peasants, or whatever – you can certainly come back."

"I think once is enough," said Lee.

"I don't know," argued Freddie. "It might be interesting. Or you could come and see how you like living in 1941. I'd quite like to see you trying to cope with a tin bath in an outhouse. I'll have to see if I can find one."

"Don't bother," I said. "I'm quite happy staying in twenty-twelve. But you obviously know loads about the war, so I wouldn't mind staying in touch – just in case I ever get asked to do a project on it."

"Yes, all right," said Freddie, and so we swapped Facebook details and phone numbers.

"Did you really come all the way here dressed like that?" I asked. "You must have got some funny looks on the train."

"No, we only got changed after we got here. Our stuff is up in the forest – and probably we ought to go now. It'll take us a while to walk back, and I don't want to be too late home."

"You don't have to go all that way back. If you just walk up to the top of this road and turn left it'll take you back to the main road."

"Thanks," said Freddie, and I took them down to the front door and showed them which way to go. They walked away, and I went back upstairs, sat at the computer, opened the Rubbish Bin and undeleted the two bits of film. It's amazing how many people think that simply deleting a file gets rid of it for good.

Of course I wasn't going to post it anywhere, just keep it for my own entertainment. After all, they both looked good naked, especially Freddie – even with his geeky glasses on – and I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't keep a little souvenir!

I guess that comes under the heading of 'close but no cigar'. And at least Freddie and Lee don't know about Josh's souvenirs… meanwhile, back with Kevin, it looks as if everything has worked out pretty well: now that he knows Colin is on board he should be able to relax and enjoy life.

'Woe, woe and thrice woe! The end is nigh!' as the soothsayer on Up Pompeii used to say. Well, she's right: there's only one more chapter to come.

Chapter Twenty

In which Peter gets a surprise, Freddie has a visitor and Kevin sums up.

Kevin

Jeremy and I went window-shopping on Thursday morning. It's not something I do very often, but I actually enjoyed it a lot – it's completely different doing it with a friend, although to be honest I think I'd have been perfectly happy if we'd just spent the whole day sitting on the sofa talking to each other. I'd never realised how having a proper friend – or a partner – can change the way you look at stuff. It helped that I knew Colin approved, of course: it might have been a bit awkward if he'd been unhappy about it. Mind you, I still didn't think I was ready to actually come out at school, because every form contains a few idiots, and even though I thought most of my form-mates wouldn't have cared either way I didn't see the point of looking for trouble – or not just yet, anyway.

I thought I might tell Jason, though, because he and I had become quite good friends since we started sitting next to each other in class. In view of what his brother had told me I didn't expect Jason to be even remotely anti. But that would probably be the limit of it. And I certainly wasn't going to tell my parents, not because I thought they'd react badly – although in Father's case I suppose he might – but because I thought they wouldn't let me have Jeremy to stay again if they found out we were sharing a bed, and that was something I wanted to go on doing. A lot. It wasn't just the sex, either: it was waking up next to someone and being able to start the day with a kiss and a cuddle before you even have to get out of bed. I didn't want to do anything that might stop me from doing that again. Jeremy went home on Thursday evening, and somehow my bed seemed far too big on Thursday night.

There was a football training session on Friday morning: Sunday's game was against the Royals, who were still top of the league, and it was important: if we beat them we would still have an outside chance of winning the league ourselves – provided the Royals dropped a couple more points in their last two games – but if they beat us we might not even finish second. Needless to say, Mr Clifford expected us to win, and so the training was a little more arduous than usual. I did my best to keep out of the way – I didn't fancy being sent on a long training run.

Afterwards Lee Woodford slipped me a note asking if I could go round to Freddie's the following morning because he wanted to talk to me, and since I didn't have anything planned I said I would. And then Dwayne grabbed me and walked me round behind the changing room.

"I just wanted to say thanks, man," he said.

"How come?" I asked.

"'Cos you suggested we talked to Clive. And he done it for us – me and Silvio both. He done it with Silvio first – he swears he's never done it before, but Silvio says he learned quick if that was true. And then he came round my yard on Tuesday. He was a bit nervous, like – 'cos of me being so huge, natch!" He grinned at me. "But he did it anyway, and it was class. As good as you, anyway. He said he'd been hoping someone would ask because he liked the idea and wanted to see what it was like – that's why he told us all he was gay, 'cos he hoped someone would ask. And he liked doing it, so he's going to do it for us some more. Course, I'll get a girl soon and then I won't need him, but till then he's gonna be well useful. This afternoon Silvio's coming to mine and Clive's gonna do us both. So we both wanted to thank you for getting it started."

"No problem," I said, and he gave me a big smile and walked away.

So it looked as if almost everyone was happy now – everyone Chris had involved in his scheme seemed to have benefitted from it, but in ways Chris probably hadn't foreseen when he sent me round to their houses.

On Saturday morning I went round to Freddie's house. Lee wasn't there, but Cousin Henry was, still obediently wearing his shorts. Freddie, however, was today dressed entirely in the style of 2012 – he'd even combed his hair into a much less geeky style with no hair gel.

"Given up on Just William?" I asked.

"No, not at all. I'm just having a day off," he said. "And we were good enough to make someone think we really might have come from 1941 – well, almost. We didn't actually make any real mistakes – he just couldn't believe in time travel, no matter how convincing we were. He was impressed by our efforts, though. He's supposed to be coming to visit this afternoon. I don't suppose you know where I can find a tin bath, do you?"

"Sorry," I said. "Isn't there one in Henry's attic? I thought that was supposed to be full of stuff."

"No tin baths, I'm afraid," said Henry. "We did look, but I think tin baths weren't quite the done thing for the aristocracy."

"The servants might have had one, surely?"

"Well, if they did, it didn't end up in our loft. I suppose we could have a trawl through the old outbuildings…"

"Don't bother," said Freddie. "It was just a thought. I expect if I root around online I might be able to find one, but not before this afternoon."

"You could always use a cattle trough," I suggested. "It might not be terribly warm at this time of year, mind."

"Maybe I'll suggest it," said Freddie. "I'm not sure he'll go for it, though."

"Anyway," I said, "Lee said you wanted to see me…?"

"Oh! No, it's not me, it's Henry – although since you're here I will say thank you for encouraging us with the wartime thing, because it turned out to be a lot of fun. So thank you."

"Always a pleasure," I said. "So, Henry, what can I do for you?"

"Can we go for a walk in the garden?" asked Henry, which suggested clearly that he didn't want Freddie listening in.

"Yes, okay," I said, and so we went outside and wandered down to the far end of the garden.

"Still worrying about next September?" I asked.

"Well, yes, and really that's why I wanted to speak to you. See, I was wondering… if I do fail my exam… well, I thought that perhaps you might be able to take over, as it were. I thought that since you're gay, maybe you'd like to… you know… look after me. I'm not sure if I could get to your school, because I live in Sussex, but maybe I could, and even if I couldn't, perhaps we could do stuff at weekends? That would be miles better than nothing…"

"No," I said firmly. "Sorry, Henry, but that really isn't my thing at all. Besides, I've got a boyfriend now, and I hope he and I are going to be busy at weekends – most of the time, anyway. But even if I didn't have someone I wouldn't be able to do the sort of thing you want. Like I said when we were in the park, it seems seriously fucked up to me. I only want to share stuff that makes my boyfriend feel good – I don't think I'd be able to hurt him."

"Oh."

He looked unhappy, but I wasn't going to change my mind, because my idea of sex is nothing like his.

"I don't suppose you know anyone else who might…?" he added.

"No," I said. "I'm afraid everyone I know is like me. None of my friends is into hurting people or forcing them to do… stuff…"

I tailed off, because I'd just had a thought: actually I did know someone like that. Not very well, certainly, but all the same… except I wasn't at all sure I should mention it. Like I said, Henry's view of sex is seriously fucked up, and I wasn't at all convinced that I ought to do anything to encourage it. I'd be a lot happier seeing him blissfully in love with someone and thinking about him – or her – the way I thought about Jeremy.

On the other hand, I wouldn't want some straight boy telling me that my view of sex was fucked up and that if I wasn't going out with a girl I was doing it wrong. So maybe if he was absolutely sure about what he wanted I ought to help him…

"All right, Henry," I said. "Suppose one of those genies in a bottle appeared and gave you a wish: what would be your idea of a perfect sex situation?""

"Crumbs," he said. "I suppose I'd be happy if I could keep doing what I do at school."

"Yes, but this is magic and you can have absolutely anything," I said. "You might be happy enough with the way things are at school, but what would make it even better?"

"Well… yes, I suppose there are some ways it could be better," he said. "Let me think about it for a few minutes."

So we strolled back to the house and then turned round and returned to the bottom of the garden.

"All right," he said. "If this is magic and I can have anything… the first rule is no grown-ups ever get to find out about it. I'd have to be absolutely sure that nobody was ever going to tell their parents, because if that happened they would make us stop and people would get into trouble."

"Well, it's a fantasy, so if you want you can have a world with no adults," I pointed out.

"That might be going a bit too far – after all, we'd need houses and food and stuff. But, anyway, in my perfect world my parents would be away somewhere for a while – it doesn't matter where or how long, but while they were away I'd have to stay with someone else. A younger version of Farringdon would be perfect."

"Who's Farringdon?"

"The senior boy in my dorm. A younger version would be better because Farringdon is the same age as me, and it would be better if whoever was in charge of me was younger – at least two years younger, but stronger than me and a lot bigger… you know, there. And his parents would be away a lot too, so he'd be in charge and I'd have to do everything he tells me. Obviously I wouldn't like that at first because I'm older than him, and so the first time he told me what to do I'd refuse, and he'd punish me by stripping me and beating me.

"Obviously when he saw how feeble I am, and how small my thingy is, he'd start to make fun of me. And after that he'd force me to do anything he ordered me to, like putting his thingy in my mouth and up my bum and stuff. I wouldn't be allowed to wear any clothes at all indoors, and he'd start inviting his friends round to come and join in doing stuff to me, until loads of kids were doing it, all younger than me and all bigger. Sometimes I'd get beaten in front of them, but mostly they'd just do sex stuff to me. I think that would be amazing."

"I think it would be appalling," I replied. "But then I'm not you. But it still sounds seriously fucked up. Have you ever thought about seeing a psychiatrist?"

"Ah, so you think I'm mad, do you? Well, I suppose I can understand that. I'm not, though: I'm just a bit strange."

"A bit? That's like saying the North Pole's a bit chilly. But if that's really your idea of heaven… maybe I do know someone who could give you at least some of that. No promises or anything, and he might not be interested, but I'll call him when I get home and find out."

"Thanks!" he said enthusiastically, thus convincing me that he really was completely round the bend.

All the same, when I got home I called Peter Kenton – if what Jeremy had told me about him was true he might like the idea of being able to dominate someone without having to hold back because he still had bonds of friendship with his victim…

Peter

I hadn't expected to hear from Four Eyes again, but out of the blue he calls me on Saturday morning.

"How's things between you and Jeremy?" he asks.

"All right, I suppose," I tell him. "What you said… it sort of made me think I'd gone a bit over the top with him. Obviously I'm still not happy with him being bent, but I've decided I can live with it, and so we're sort of hanging again. Why?"

"Just wondering," he says. "I was talking to him earlier this week and he seems a lot happier with life, and when I asked why he said it's because you and he have patched it up a bit. I don't get how he can still want to be mates with you after what you did, but he does, and so he's happy you're talking to each other again."

"Well, we were mates for a long time," I tell him. "We was always together at weekends, doing stuff, and I missed it when he turned out queer. And like you said, it's not like he did it deliberately to piss me off. So I suppose I should say thank you for fixing it up for us."

"From what he told me, that was mainly down to you. Anyway, he also said that while you weren't mates you really enjoyed stripping him off and making him suck and stuff, but that you sort of held back from going too far because deep down you still liked him, at least a bit. Is that true?"

"I suppose so. Why?"

"Well… suppose I said I knew another boy you could push around and do stuff to, only without needing to hold back at all… well, obviously you couldn't put him in hospital or anything like that, but otherwise you could do pretty much what you wanted to him – and you could let your mates join in, too, if you wanted. Would you be interested?"

"Well, yeah, obviously. I'd have liked to do a lot more to Jeremy, except like you said I couldn't go too far 'cos of us being sort of ex-friends. And it was a right laugh stripping him off, and being sucked was awesome… but I can't believe you've found another kid who would take all that and more without grassing me up."

"Believe it," he says. "This kid's seriously weird: the other kids at his school – he's at a boarding school at the moment, although he doesn't think he will be in September – have been doing all sorts of shit to him for ages – including fucking him – and it's messed him up so much that now he sort of likes it. In fact he likes it so much that he's looking for someone to take over from the boys in his dorm if he doesn't pass his exam this term. So, would you be interested?"

"What, and I could do anything I wanted? Fucking him, whipping him, making him suck, whatever?"

"Yup."

"Then, yes, I reckon I'm interested."

"Then I'll try to arrange for you to meet him. What are you doing this afternoon?"

"Nothing. But I still don't believe this. There has to be a catch."

"No catch. Look, I'll find out if he's free, and if he is we'll come down after lunch. I'll call you back in ten minutes."

So ten minutes later he calls back and I arrange to meet him by the pond in the wood at around three o'clock. I still don't believe what he's telling me – after all, I can't believe that anyone would actually want to be beaten up and fucked. I'm pretty sure Four Eyes has got it wrong, or there's stuff he isn't telling me. But I don't have anything else planned for this afternoon – Jeremy's out with his parents somewhere, and the other couple of mates I've called aren't free either – and so at three o'clock I'm waiting at the pond like Four Eyes said.

Five minutes later he arrives with this other kid. He's a couple of inches taller than me, but he's wearing shorts, which is strange as it's actually a bit chilly this afternoon. He's got nondescript mid-brown hair and blue eyes and he looks completely ordinary, but when he opens his mouth and says hello he sounds unbelievably posh.

"Okay," I say. "Let' hear the story – only this time let's hear the real story, because I'm not stupid. Four Eyes says you want to be beaten up. Tell me why."

"Well," he says, "it's not that I want you to beat me up – not at all. But… according to the boys at school, I deserve it, and they don't want me to escape by going to a different school in September – which will happen if I fail my exams this term. So they said I have to find someone else to take over from them, and Kevin believes you might be interested."

"I'm interested," I tell him. "But why do the kids at your school reckon you deserve it?"

"Well… they said I was spying on them while they were getting changed – and not just them, either. They caught me doing the same thing in the changing rooms a couple of times."

"And were you spying on them?"

"Well, yes. I wanted to see what they looked like undressed."

"So you're queer, then," I say.

"Well… I suppose I might be," he admits. "I suppose I could stop trying to see what other boys look like, but I don't want to. It's interesting. But the other boys in my dorm didn't like me doing it, and so they gave me a beating, but when they undressed me to beat me they saw that… I'm not very big, you see, and they said that made it even worse, because being spied on by a little baby is worse than if it's someone who is at the same stage of growing up as you. So now they punish me a lot, and because what I was doing has to do with sex they punish me with sex. But I really won't mind at all if you don't want to do that."

"Oh, I should think I can manage to keep doing it," I tell him. "So how long do you have to be punished for?"

"They didn't say. I suppose it's until I leave school."

Bloody hell, I think, this is far too good to be true…

"Where do you live?" I ask, and that looks a bit like a snag because it's sixteen or seventeen miles away, so he can't just pop over at a minute's notice. But it turns out he's not far from the railway, and that makes it easier.

"All right," I say. "What's your name?"

"I'm The Honourable Henry Latimer."

"His father's a Lord," explains Four Eyes. "That's why he's called The Honourable."

"And actually that's another reason why the boys said I should be punished really badly," says The Honourable. "They said that my behaviour was completely unacceptable for a member of the aristocracy, and I suppose they're right."

"All right, but you live a long way away from me," I point out. "If I call you and tell you to come over, what's to stop you just telling me to fuck off?"

"Well, the boys at school have some photographs and videos of me that I wouldn't want anyone else to see," he says. "I'm supposed to put you in touch with them so that you can tell them if I don't do what you tell me. I expect if that happens they'll put everything on the internet. Or they might send you the photos so that you could do it yourself."

God, I think, if that's true he's completely screwed. I can actually feel myself getting an erection at the thought of it – and him being a bloody aristocrat just makes it so much better. My dad doesn't like queers, and he doesn't like snobby rich bastards either, and I think I'd agree with him on that.

"Okay," I say, "let's have a trial run. Get your clothes off."

"What, out here?"

"Yes, out here. And you'd better get on with it unless you want a trial whipping too."

And the kid starts to strip, and I have to do my jacket up in order to hide the bulge in my jeans. He stops when he's only wearing a pair of white briefs.

"Look, do I have to?" he asks.

"Of course you have to!" I tell him. "Get on with it!"

So he slips them off and sort of huddles down with his hands over his groin.

"Stand up straight and put your hands on your head!" I yell.

My God, it's tiny. This kid is so small he makes Jeremy look like a porn star. Okay, it's a bit cold out, but I don't think I've ever seen a smaller one – there's almost nothing of it except a little pink knob with no skin over it. And his balls are about the size of frozen peas.

"Fucking hell," I say. "How old are you?"

"I'm thirteen," he says. "I'll be fourteen in September."

That makes him almost two years older than me because my birthday's in August, and that's pretty hard to believe. Okay, he's taller than me, but still…

"God, that's pathetic," I say. "If I do end up dealing with you, you can be sure that that won't spend much time covered up. Now I could give you a whipping anyway – you were a bit slow getting stripped – but you said the others give you sex punishments. What sort of stuff are we talking about?"

"Well… they like to put theirs in me," he says. "In my bum, or sometimes in my mouth. And they like hurting mine, too, if you want to count that."

"I'm surprised they can find enough of it to hurt," I say. "Well, okay, let's see if they've taught you anything. You can give me a suck."

Of course I'm still expecting him to say 'no' at this point – after all, I don't know who the other kids are, and so if he did refuse I wouldn't have any way of making him or punishing him for refusing. Somehow I don't think Four Eyes is going to get that involved. But perhaps Henry's afraid I will find out who the others are – after all, I expect Four Eyes knows which school he goes to – and so he just kneels down in front of me and waits for me to drop my jeans and boxers to my knees.

"Crikey," he says when he sees it. "That's really big… How old are you?"

"Eleven," I tell him. "Now get on with it."

And to my absolute astonishment he does, and he turns out to be bloody good at it, too – it took ages for Jeremy to get this good. So maybe it's true about the kids at his school forcing him to do this, because somehow he's learned an awesome technique. It doesn't take long before I can feel it getting close, and I warn him just before it happens – I've got into the habit of doing that for Jeremy, so he can prepare himself – and he turns his head a little so that it doesn't shoot against the back of his throat. Yes, I think, he definitely knows what he's doing.

"Not bad," I say, taking it out of his mouth and pulling up my boxers and jeans. "Keep that up and I won't have to torture you too often. Okay, I suppose you can get dressed, and you can also tell the boys at school that you've found someone to sort you out during holidays, and from September if you try to duck out of the same school as them. We'll have to make sure you come to my school if that happens."

Surprisingly he doesn't look too worried about that, so maybe he thinks he's going to pass his exams after all, or maybe he thinks his dad will cough up whatever it takes to send him to some posh private place. But even if I only get to see him in the holidays this is going to be fun.

"Thanks," I say to Four Eyes. "If you know who the kids at his school are, give them my number so we can sort out how it's going to go. And you, posh boy: you needn't think it's going to be as easy as this next time. This was just a quick audition. Next time we'll have a much longer session and try a lot more things out. And I'll probably invite a few mates round, too."

"Please don't," he says. "It's really embarrassing having people looking at me when I'm undressed."

"Tough," I said. "Serves you right for spying – and for having a pathetic cock."

Once Posh Boy is dressed they head back towards the station and I go back home. I still expect this to fall through, because I can't believe I can possibly be this lucky – but I really hope it doesn't fall though, because the idea of having a posh kid at my mercy is awesome. I'm going to have to think up some really good tortures for him…

Kevin

"Well?" I said as we got into the train, "what do you think?"

"I think he'll be really good. And he's got a really big one for eleven, too – I thought Freddie's was big, but his is even bigger. Actually it's probably no smaller than Farringdon's… and he seemed to like it, too, so perhaps this really is going to solve my problem. Thank you, Kevin – not just for introducing me to him, but for telling me what to say to get him interested, too."

"You're not really going to let him have any dodgy photos of you, though, are you?" I asked. "At the moment you can just walk away if he goes too far. You probably wouldn't be able to do that if he had some naked photos of you."

"I don't want to be able to walk away. That's the whole point, Kevin: I want to have no choice."

"That sounds really stupid, if you don't mind me saying so. My brother had some photos of me recently, and I was delighted when he deleted them. Okay, I know, you're unusual… but you could find yourself in serious trouble one day if you're not careful."

"Maybe, but I trust you, and I don't think you'd have introduced me to that boy if you thought he was likely to do anything too serious too me."

"You can't be sure, though."

"No, and that's what makes it exciting. Don't worry, Kevin. Anyway, Farringdon has heaps of photos and videos of me, and he's never gone too far. But if I ever do find myself in real trouble I promise I'll come to you for help."

"Gee, thanks! It would be a lot better if you were just a bit careful."

"I know. Don't worry, I'm sure everything will work out. Just let me have his number so I can pass it on to Farringdon."

Well, it's your life, I thought, and so I gave him Kenton's phone number. I just hoped I would never be called upon to come and dig him out of the mire.

It rained on Saturday night, so on Sunday morning we found the football pitch was a bit muddy. Maybe that would make it harder for the Royals to pass the ball about the way they usually did, but of course it was the same for both sides. Our team was at full strength: anyone who had been away for the Easter holidays was back, and so if we did lose there couldn't be any excuses.

Quite a few more spectators than usual turned up, too: this was an important game, after all. Even Freddie appeared, and I was fairly sure that he wasn't a huge fan of football, so it was nice of him to come and watch Lee's performance, although since Lee started out as a sub he was going to have to wait.

If this had been a Hollywood production we would have fought out a thrilling match and won with a goal scored in the 94th minute (although since at this age level they only played thirty-five minutes each way that would have called for a hell of a lot of injury time). But this wasn't Hollywood, and whoever had written the script, it clearly wasn't Mr Clifford. We were two-nil down at half time, and then ten minutes into the second half Tony Plaistow, who was one of our midfield players, horribly mistimed a tackle on the greasy surface and almost cut the opposing winger in half. If I'd been the ref I'd have sent him off, and the guy in the middle agreed with me, waving a red card almost at once. Poor Tony, who was a quiet boy at the best of times and who had never even been booked before, was literally in tears, although this was mainly on behalf of the player he'd injured.

After that it was hard for the team to concentrate, and even if they hadn't been a man down I don't think they could have got back on terms. In the end the Royals won four-nil, and the only reason it wasn't more was probably that most of them were worrying about their injured team-mate too.

I expected Mr Clifford to go ballistic, but instead he was the complete opposite of his normal self, merely telling the team that he knew they'd done their best and then spending ten minutes talking quietly with Tony and then taking him to see how the injured Royal was doing. He came back ten minutes later and told us that the boy was basically OK, with no lasting damage, and that at least was good news. But it did mean that the league championship was now out of reach, although if we won our last two games we could still finish second.

Afterwards Freddie, who was still in 2012 mode, came and said hello while I was waiting for Chris to finish getting changed.

"I have to say that just demonstrates why I don't like football," he commented. "It's muddy and messy and really not very civilised. I really don't know why Lee likes it so much. I think that the fact that they stopped playing – at least in the top leagues – during the war is another reason the war was a good thing."

"Another reason?" I queried. "I can't think of any reasons why war is ever a good thing."

"Oh, I don't know. If we hadn't decided to fight we'd probably all be speaking German now, and it's a really difficult language, so I'm glad we don't. But I agree that most of it was bad. I spent most of yesterday afternoon teaching my new friend Josh about it."

"Is that the boy you met while you were pretending to be from 1940?"

"Actually it was 1941, but yes. He came to visit yesterday…"

Freddie

Actually I hadn't expected to hear from Josh again, or at least not unless he got involved in a WW2 project at his school. But he'd called me up and asked if he could come to visit, and I thought that might be fun, and so I said yes.

He arrived at around half-past two on Saturday afternoon, which suggested that he was keen – he would have had to eat lunch quite early to get here that soon. Anyway, I took him up to my room. Most boys of my age have posters of football teams or pop stars or racing cars on their bedroom walls, but I've got posters from World War Two – including one which had come from some sort of Sunday supplement that said 'Danzig ist deutsch!' which was apparently one of the Nazi claims in the late 1930s and was used in part to justify the invasion of Poland. Josh looked at the posters.

"You're definitely strange," he told me.

"Yes, I know," I said. "So?"

"I like strange things. So have you really got a tin bath?"

"No, but I did look for one. Maybe I can find one for the next time you come."

"And did people really have to use them the way you said?"

"Yes, of course. After all, in 1940 a lot of places still didn't have electricity, and so the only way to heat water up was on the stove. But it must have been hard for kids who did have electricity at home when they got evacuated to the country and had to survive without it. I've done a lot of reading on what happened to kids who get evacuated, and there were loads of them – over a million just from London. They got taken from their families, stuck on a train and ended up miles away, having to live with complete strangers. Often they had to share a room, or even a bed, with someone they didn't know, or at least not very well, and I've already told you about having to share a bath. Some people got lucky and ended up in nice families, but a lot more hated being away from home, especially if they'd never been in the country before. I'm glad I didn't have to do that."

"I can imagine," he said. "Can I have another look at your 1940 clothes?"

I got them out of the wardrobe. Lee had left the other set with me, too – after all, I'd bought them and so really they were mine.

"They're quite thick, aren't they?" he commented. "A lot thicker than modern shirts, anyway. Aren't they uncomfortable to wear?"

"Not really," I said. "They feel a bit odd at first, but you soon get used to it."

"Can I try them on?"

"Yes, if you want."

"You too, then – I don't want to be the only one looking weird."

"All right," I said, and we both got undressed and put on the complete 1940s kit.

"Can you do my hair like you had yours?" he asked, and so I helped him to gel his hair into a side parting, and then did the same myself.

"Take a picture of me," he said, handing me his camera, and so I took three or four, as well as couple of us together.

"It's a pity you couldn't find a tin bath," he said. "I'd like to find out what that was like."

"Well, you can find out what having to share a bath is like in a normal bath," I pointed out. "It's probably a bit bigger than a tin one, but you'd get a fair idea."

"Can we, then?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Can we share a bath? I'd just like to know what it would have been like, having to share with someone you hardly knew."

"Well… all right, then," I said, because I was quite keen to get another look at him without his clothes on. My sister was officially babysitting, but she was in her room with her headphones on, and I was 99 per cent sure she wouldn't emerge again before supper. And so I took Josh through to the bathroom and ran a bath.

"I'm not sure if the soap would have been as good as ours during the war," I said. "And probably there wouldn't have been any shampoo I'll try to find out. Anyway, I don't think it would have been any deeper than this because of having to heat the water on the stove, so we can try if you like."

"Okay," he said, and began to get undressed. "Last one naked gets the tap end!"

So I threw my clothes off as fast as I could and managed to finish first.

"We can swap halfway if you like," I offered.

"No, it's all right… oh, this is a bit embarrassing," he said, removing his underpants to reveal an erection.

"That's quite big, isn't it?" I commented. "Don't worry about it, though – I expect it happened a lot when you had to share your bath. I expect you'd just get used to it."

"I suppose so. It's still sort of embarrassing, though."

He might have said that, but he made no attempt at all to cover it as he got into the bath, and nor did he put his hands over it when he was sitting down.

"There's not a lot of room to wash, is there?" he commented.

"I expect there was only one piece of soap, so they would have had to take it in turns," I said. "Or maybe they washed standing up and only sat down again when they were properly soaped up."

"We could try that," he said, and he stood up and started to soap his chest and arms. Of course this left me staring at his stiff thingy, and I didn't have to stare at it for too long before mine went the same way.

"Could you wash my back?" he said, turning round.

So I stood up, took the soap from him and washed his back. I'd never done this before – obviously – but it was interesting, and he seemed to enjoy it, too, accusing me of deliberately tickling him at one point.

"Right, give me the soap and turn round," he said after a bit, and he started to wash my back – and not just my back, either: he reached around and soaped my chest and up both arms, and then he did the small of my back, and then he got a little lower… I think he was waiting for me to shout 'stop' but I didn't actually want to shout 'stop', and so he went lower still and washed my bum.

"Spread your legs," he said, squatting down, and so I did that as best I could and he washed the cleft of my bottom, which felt really interesting.

"Turn round," he said again, and when I did he lathered up his hands and looked up at me. And then, when I still didn't say anything, he took hold of my erection and washed it, and my balls, very slowly and thoroughly. It had felt nice when Lee had held it and squeezed it, but having it done by hands that are really soapy and slippery somehow felt a whole lot better.

"I don't think you've washed yours yet," I pointed out. "Do you want to give me the soap?"

So he gave me the soap, and this felt pretty amazing, too, having his hard thingy just slipping through my fingers.

"Do under the skin," he told me, and so I carefully pushed the skin back and washed the head.

"That's really nice," he said, dreamily – and then he caught himself and said, "Nice and clean, I mean," in a much more normal voice. "Perhaps we should sit down and wash the soap off?"

So we did that, splashing each other quite a lot in order to get rid of all the soap.

"We'd better pretend there's no shampoo," he said; "otherwise we'll have to use up more of your gel getting our hair right again. So, do you think we're clean enough yet?"

"I expect so," I said, and I stood up and got out of the bath, finding a couple of towels in the cupboard and handing one to him.

"Could you dry my back?" he asked, and so of course we dried each other, thoroughly, and that was a lot of fun too. Finally I decided I was dry enough and I picked up my underpants.

"Wait," he said. "Can we go back to the bedroom?"

I didn't think there was any danger of my sister coming out of her room, but even so…

"All right," I said, picking up my clothes. "Come on, then."

I dived across the landing and into my room, and as soon as he was in the room with me I closed the door.

"Have you got any 1940s pyjamas?" he asked.

"Well, no. I didn't see any reason to – although actually some boys wore nightshirts instead back then. Why?"

"Well, we've tried sharing the bath and I was wondering about sharing the bed. I can't see how two people could actually sleep in a bed that small, though. But I suppose we can't try if you haven't got any pyjamas."

"Do we really need pyjamas if we're just going to try it out?" I asked.

"I suppose not," he agreed. "You get in first, then."

I got into bed and wriggled across as far as I could and he climbed in after me and pulled the duvet over us.

"We wouldn't have had a duvet," I said. "It would have been sheets and blankets. I'll have to ask Mum if we've still got any."

"Well, we can get an idea like this," he said. "There really isn't a lot of room, though, is there? I should think that every time one of us moves it would wake the other one up."

"I expect if we had to sleep together every night we'd get used to it – we'd probably adjust the way we sleep so as not to move too much."

"I bet it would take quite a while, though," he said. "The first few weeks would be really uncomfortable. There certainly isn't room for us both to sleep on our backs… let's try it on our sides. I think we'll have to face the same way, or our knees will keep bumping into each other."

So I rolled onto my right side and he did the same and wriggled close to me.

"It's still all big and hard, then," I commented as it pressed against my bottom.

"So what? I bet yours is too."

And he snaked his hand round me and took hold of it, which felt really rather good.

"See?" he said. "Told you."

I reached behind me and took hold of his.

"This is fun, isn't it?" he said. "I don't think I'd have minded being evacuated if I ended up sharing with you. I knew I was right about you."

"What do you mean?"

"When you were at my house… I knew you were sort of brave and adventurous as soon as you owned up to being from 2012 – after all, you'd just stripped naked and had a bath in front of me even though you knew I was filming you. Not many people would have done that. And that's why I wanted to come and visit, to find out if you really were as brave and adventurous as I thought. And obviously I've decided that you are, and that you're a good laugh, too.

"Hey… maybe we could try exploring other bits of history – we could try to find out what it would have been like if we were boys in Ancient Rome, or in the Middle Ages…what do you think?"

"Do you like history, then?" I asked him.

"Yes, it's really interesting… of course, the other kids at school think I'm a total nerd because I'm interested in the past, but I don't really care. That's why I wanted to know more about the war. I'd really like it if you could tell me a bit more about it – if you don't mind, of course?"

"I think the Geekoid Twins might just have become triplets," I commented. "You've even got the glasses for it. And I think you'll fit right in…"

Kevin

Freddie finding a new friend was just about the last chapter of what Sherlock Holmes might have called The Singular Case of Kevin's Glasses. Yes, the various relationships that started as a result of Chris walking into my bedroom back in January – almost exactly three months ago – would continue to grow and develop; but Josh's visit to Freddie was the last real new connection.

We all went back to school the following day, and with Mother back home again our situation was virtually the same as it had been at the start of the spring term in January. But in some ways our lives had changed altogether. It wasn't quite the plot of Love, Actually because in some cases it was nothing to do with love: instead it was exclusively about sex or friendship: Dwayne and Silvio had linked up with Clive in a relationship that apparently suited all three of them; the Microbe Brothers' relationship had changed for the better – at least, that's what Jason said, even though he was now almost playing second fiddle to his brother – to the extent that Jason was no longer desperate for the loft conversion to finish, because he was much happier sharing with Luke; and Henry had a safety net lined up in the form of Peter in case he failed his exams.

To be honest I was still worried about Henry, because I still don't understand how anyone could enjoy being on the receiving end as much as he did. But I got a letter from him a couple of weeks into the term telling me how much he was enjoying what was happening to him at school, and that he'd arranged to introduce Farringdon to Peter so that he could pass on all the photos, videos and nasty ideas he'd dreamed up. And it was easy to tell from the letter that he was having the time of his life, and so I just shrugged: if he's happy, I thought, good luck to him.

Rather closer to a Love, Actually couple were Mark and Danny. They were keeping a very low profile at school because neither of them wanted to make waves with either their parents or their classmates (though Mark had told both Colin and Chris about it and their reaction had been as positive as it had been about me and Jeremy). But when I saw them in private it as obvious that they really liked each other, and when we finally managed to double-date with them at half term it was a lot of fun.

My social life had blossomed a lot, too: I'd made friends with Jason and Danny and enjoyed helping out with the football team, and all that running about had certainly made me fitter. The team did win its last two matches and so managed to finish in second place, one point ahead of North End but six points behind the Royals. Still, there's always next season. And next season I might actually be the man with the whistle, because at half term I passed my referee's exam. I expect I'll get a lot of comments about my glasses, but it doesn't worry me anything like as much as it would have done three months ago, because now I know that they aren't quite as repulsive as I'd always thought.

And that of course brings me on to Jeremy. I can only say that he's changed my life. I'd never expected to find a boyfriend anyway, and I'd had no idea of how different things seem when you've got someone special. Of course we're both new to this and we might well make a mess of it or fall out with each other, but right now I can't begin to imagine how that could possibly happen. Being with him still feels completely wonderful.

So maybe Why I hate wearing glasses isn't really such a good title after all, because now it really doesn't bother me half as much as it used to. And if it hadn't been for my glasses, quite a few people would be less happy today than they actually are. Life can be really strange sometimes…

The End