FIRST PAST THE POST

“Hello, I’m Gary Connor and you’re?” Gary said to Rebecca as they both entered the boarding schools dining room for the first time.

Oh hello, I’m Rebecca, Rebecca Taylor, where are you from Gary,” Rebecca asked.

        “Oh, I’m from??????, Gary said.

        “And did you come by bus, or did your parents bring you here,” Rebecca said.

        “Parents, and you,” “Parents,” Rebecca replied, as they both lined up at the very hot silver Bain-Maries to select their very first evening meal at the coeducational boarding school.

The dining room with its banquette setting of one hundred and twenty-five tables set out in four chairs and one table made from aluminium, the floor being black and white diamond tiles designed so that the students wouldn’t overeat. The walls painted dynamic blue.

        “Well at least we’re allowed to mix during meal times and recess that has to be a bonus,” Rebecca said, as she sat opposite Gary at the same table.

        Rebecca was fully grown standing at five foot six for her thirteen years of age with electric blue eyes with shoulder-length straight blond hair parted in the middle, petite, fair-skinned with fading juvenile freckles and an athletic body.

        Garry standing some five-eight inches tall and plenty of space grow tall with a skinny frame, looking somewhat deceiving and immature for his first year as a teenager, with scrawny build with piercing brown eyes.

        “Oi, in the morning mister, I’m sitting here with her and you can sit over there,” Mark Matthews said. Mark stood some five foot seven inches tall, well, and truly obese for his age, with a slightly olive complexion and green eyes.

        “And who says so?” Gary said.

        “I did,” Mark stated abruptly.

        “I have better things to do than listen to you,” Garry said as he stood up from the chair only to be pushed back down on his chair by Mark.

        “I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m guessing it’s hard to pronounce,” Rebecca said, as Mark get smiling after he made Garry slumber back on the aluminium chair.

        “Oh, so now the lady speaks, now sweetheart, you had better be here at this table in the morning without your skinny mate if you know what’s good for you,” Mark said.

        “Are you always so stupid or is today a special occasion,” Rebecca asked Mark as the two-night shift security guards entered the dining room.

        “What’s going on here,” one of the guards asked.

        “It’s all been sorted hasn’t it,” Mark said, smiling at the security guards along with eyeing Rebecca off.

        “Yes, it’s all be sorted,” both Rebecca and Gary said at the same time.

        “Well what’re your names, you are first the security guard said pointing at Mark. “I don’t have to give you my name you’re not a copper just a security guard,” Mark retorted. “

        “Well if you don’t give me your name you will be breaking the school’s rules and you will have face the deputy principle the security guard said.

        “And you what’s your name the second security?” said pointing at Garry.

        “My name I Gary Connor sir and the young girl with me here is Rebecca Taylor,” Gary said.

        “That’s all I need, as everything has been captured on the CCTV,” the first security guard said shaking hands with Gary.

        “Now, you mister we can identify you later by your profile picture that was taking after you enrolled, so for your own sake, what is your name?”

        “Mark Matthews.”

“Well mark go and sit over there and leave these two people alone because the next time there is an incident like the one we just viewed on the CCTV you will be giving your name to the local constabulary,” the first security guard said.

Rebecca looked at her alarm clock, as it rang out at five-thirty in the morning, the very first day of the school year. Climbing out of her bottom bunk, unsteady on her feet, Rebecca walked slowly to the wardrobe grabbing her green school dress and white blouse and blue tie, and the towel she had gotten for Christmas.

“Well I think we’re quite lucky we have our own ensuite and not a communal shower facility,” Rebecca said to her roommate who was still having trouble clambering out of the top bunk.

“Well looks like we will be living together,” Mark said to Gary, as he threw his duffle bag on the top bunk. “Wouldn’t be more sensible for me to have the top bunk,” Gary said. 

“No, my name is clearly marked whereby I get the top bunk,” Mark said, smiling at Gary with disdain, as he clambered the old iron cast double bunk bed.

“Oh well suit yourself,” Gary said mockingly, patting the bedspread of the lower bunk.

The bunk bed creaked and groaned as Mark climbed onto the top bunk and sagging in the middle as he lay horizontally upon the top bunk.

“Bloody hell, I hope those springs don’t give way during the night,” Gary said looking up at the way the middle of the top bunk was sagging.

“Okay girls and boys my name is mister Thompkins, I am the deputy principal of the school and today we will be going through the do’s and don’ts of the school rules, in addition, I am also the housemaster of the boy's dormitory number five, and I see I have two of my boarders in my morning briefing class as well, and that is Gary Connor, and Mark Mathews, now we have to pick house prefects, and everyone votes for whom they want as the house prefects who are conduits between the boarding students and the staff. Any questions?”

        “Ah we answer for the girl’s dormitory, that is Rebecca Taylor, and the boys we have Gary Connor,” Mr Thompkins said.

        “That damn unfair, I want a recount,” Mark demanded.

        “I’m sorry Mark, but its first past the post with the schools voting policy, and if you desperately want a recount you will have to write to the school board and they very rarely allow recounts.”

THE END