Highgate Wood School, London, 2016
The text came at about 3 p.m:
wanna see The Martian?
I tutted. Mordor was almost mine and I only needed to defeat the final boss; too much was at stake here for me to go wandering off to see some stupid film. Besides, as far as I knew, the only ‘Martians’ were insects they’d found in the ground up there, and I don’t know about you but watching a film about space insects wasn’t something I wanted to waste my weekend on. Sorry mate, have plans. I’d barely resumed my assault on the Black Gate, when the phone vibrated with the reply,
oh yeah? ‘going to your gran’s’ again Imaru? We all know what that really means y’know. That riled me. Luke had been giving me gip like that for far too long and it was time to wipe the smirk that I knew he’d be wearing off that sorry face of his. no actually, you div, I do have plans!
Veep-veep, came the response.
you do not
Veep-veep
Of course I do
Veep-veep
Sure
Veep-veep
Piss off!
Veep-veep
What then? This should be interesting
Bubbling with uncontainable rage and indignance, I wrote down something that I knew would silence him before punching the send button… I MET A GIRL! Instantly I realised the mistake. The phone sat blankly as I eyed it pensively. Perhaps he hadn’t received the text. I pleaded silently with the message to somehow bounce back, to have mercy. The dreaded reply came.
… really?
What could I do? My pride was in the balance, retreating now would ruin me. So I text back, simply, yes. Another crippling pause as I waited for the phone to buzz once again. Here it came.
what’s her name then?
Desperately I gave a name, running through the various ways in which I could escape the situation. her name is Angela, and we met at Waitrose…
