Page 15 of Sex Ed

It’s a strange comment to make for a person who hangs out with young people all day, every day, and I feel a surprising urge to defend the kids. ‘They’re not all bad. It’s just like anywhere. You can’t squeeze one thousand people into one place and expect them all to get along.’

‘True,’ she replies but I can only suppose she occasionally gets intimidated by it all, like someone else I know. She has library mouse written all over her. Organised, hair behind the ear, reading the classics. God, she’s perfect for my Ed.

‘Actually, I wanted to say thank you for coming along on Friday. It was fun. Is it always like that?’ she asks me, as we move out of the school past the Art department.

‘Oh, the shotsandthe dancing? We usually reserve that for Christmas and end of year. But it’s a good faculty.’

‘The P.E. guys seem nice?’ she asks me.

‘Yes and no.’ I don’t know how to tell her not to touch Tommy without incriminating myself as some sort of faculty bike. She’ll work it out for herself, I hope.

‘So, tell me more about you. You run, you’re twenty-five and you like a gin and tonic…’

‘That’s a good memory,’ she tells me. I open the door to the playground, and we re-enter the madness like prison guards on patrol looking for fights and contraband, i.e., people with nuts and vapes. I expertly catch a football before it hits me in the face.

‘Lads? We spent a lot of money on a 3G pitch so you could kick a ball over there,’ I suggest. The group of boys are in Year 8, so younger, and still respect me as an authority figure.

‘Yes, Miss. Good skills, Miss. Like Courtois.’

I nod. They are correct even though I don’t know who Courtois is.

‘What do you want to know?’ Caitlin asks me, as the boys dribble away.

‘Married, single, kids?’

‘Oh, very single. I was dating someone at my old school but no one serious since.’

‘Then snap,’ I tell her, smiling. ‘Not the boyfriend thing. I haven’t really had one of those for a while. But this is good. Us single ladies need to stick together for all the social events. It also helps to have an ally when they need volunteers. The marrieds and the parents always have instant excuses so the responsibility always falls to us.’

‘Right? Same at my other school,’ she responds. ‘So what’s the deal with the vending machines? They have fruit in them.’

‘Oh, that’s a new thing we’re trying. They buy the fruit to throw at each other but it means the corner shops near us run an excellent trade in junk food, so I feel it feeds back into the local economy.’

She laughs and I notice she has very symmetrical teeth, the sort that show me she’s into her flossing and, unlike me, she never went over the handlebars on a bike in Copenhagen and chipped her front tooth on a cobble.

‘And how’s it been today? You learning the lay of the land?’ I ask her.

She sighs with relief to be able to offload to someone. ‘Good, I think. I’ve got some easy groups, caught up with where I need to be with the syllabus. I don’t get the photocopier room though.’

‘Oh, you need a card for that… It’s because someone last year printed a shitload of flyers for their am-dram group and we had an end of year prank where a kid photocopied their arse for all of us.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘Yeah, I’d always recommend hand sanitiser after use.’

A small flicker of an idea suddenly comes into view. ‘Actually, come with me. I know someone who’s an ace with the photocopier. He knows what all the buttons mean, too.’

I walk her up a staircase to the staffroom and I head to the sofa areas, where Ed and I usually set up camp, to find him tucking into one of his good sandwiches.

‘Eduardo… how goes it?’ I greet him, sitting down beside him.

‘Good,’ he replies curiously, his eyes shifting between me and Caitlin. He’s probably wondering what mischief I’ve been up to now. He narrows his eyes at me, I mimic his expression. I haven’t told your crush you’re a virgin if that’s what you’re worried about. In fact, I haven’t uttered a word to a soul about what he told me on that cold bathroom floor but if he was looking to solve a problem then this might be the solution? He glares back at me, looking utterly baffled.

‘I was just chatting to Caitlin about how you are a dab hand at…’

He coughs and a bit of lettuce flies to the carpet. I pat him sharply on the back.

‘…the photocopier.’

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