Scott was late. Justin waited for him outside E-block, and at the last moment, when Justin thought he would have to go in to English class, Scott came around the corner, hurrying, his pack slung over his back. He had a worried expression on his face, worried when he saw Justin, as though he was afraid of him.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey.’

‘What happened to you?’ Scott said, ‘Don’t you want to be friends anymore?’

‘Come on angels,’ Mr Thompson called, passing them.

‘I was sick.’

‘Yeah. You could have rung me back. My Mum said you could come over. I didn’t think you were going to speak to me anymore.’

They walked into the classroom and sat down at the front of the room. They always sat at the front.

‘Are you pissed off with me?’ Scott said, leaning over as Mr Thompson was trying to settle the class.

Justin looked at Mr Thompson. He was waiting for the class.

‘I will do it,’ Scott said quietly to him as the room was settling. ‘I thought about it. I will take them.’

‘Connor!’

‘You know you missed the game,’ Scott whispered quickly. He looked up at Mr Thompson who was glared at him, and then relented.

‘Lord of the Flies, Chapter 17,’ Mr Thompson said to the class.

Justin opened his novel.

‘Who can tell me why Simon is in the scrub? What’s he doing there?’

Scott was getting himself organised, pulling his notepad and his pencil and his copy of the novel out of his pack. He unzipped his pencil case and rifled in it, looking for a pencil. He reached in and pulled “The Cracker” out, putting it to one side while he searched for a pencil.

Justin swallowed and stared. Hesitating firstly, he reached over and picked it up. He turned it over in his hands and stared at it. He sucked in a deep breath and felt suddenly, his cock extending in his shorts. It seemed to have changed. Obviously, it was the same ruler, but it had a lightness about it now, as though it was new wood on which the varnish hadn’t darkened with age. He noted Scott’s ‘cracks’ suddenly. There were as many as there had been the last time he looked, but strangely, it looked like many of them, perhaps a quarter of them, hadn’t yet been received.

When Scott recorded the cracks, he made a light tally mark with his biro. When they had been received, he dug down into the marks, forcing his biro into them with a fist while Justin sat next to him in class. He always had a scowl on his face when he did this – gritted teeth, his hair disarranged, sitting awkwardly, in pain. He would make deep dents out of the cracks, twisting his hips and pulling his shorts away from his groin every minute or so, making sure Justin couldn’t later say he hadn’t got these ‘cracks’.

The sight of the lighter cracks, the number of them, made Justin hard. What if he really owed Scott all of these. It would take days! Weeks!

‘He’s wanking,’ one of the guys yelled out.

Justin went red and took his hand away from his shorts.

‘Masturbating,’ Mr Thompson said. ‘What makes you think that, Jackson? How can you tell?’

‘You know Geelong beat us,’ Scott whipered. ‘Mr Jameson’s pretty pissed off with you.’

‘Connor! What is wrong with you today?’

‘Sorry, Sir,’ Scott said. ‘I haven’t seen him since Friday.’

Some of the boys started laughing.

‘He missed him,’ Mark called out.

Everyone laughed.

‘That’s enough,’ Mr Thomspon said. ‘I thought you could fly to him,’ he said, ruffling Scottie’s hair. ‘Can’t angels fly?’

Scott looked like he was about to answer ‘Yes, Sir’ but thought better of it. He offered Mr Thompson an embarrassed smile.

It was a joke among the guys that Scottie and Justin were in love – and that they were lovers because they were always hanging around together and going places without the other guys, doing things on the weekend and phoning each other. None of the guys thought it was really true, Justin supposed. It was a joke, started by Shane-o, that had been carried to the point where even the teachers knew about it. Mr Thompson had said they were two angels, dark and light, being angels because they never put a foot wrong. It was natural that two such ‘angelic beings’ should seek each other’s company.

Shane-o said Mr Thompson was a hamper. Justin didn’t believe this, or didn’t want to, because he was Mr Thompson’s favourite and the best in the class. Mr Thompson’s being a hamper would make Justin Mr Thompson’s boy, an idea which he found frightening.

‘Not a fan of the Nazi’s, Cumberland?’ Mr Thompson said.

Justin had been staring at “The Cracker”, looking up from time to time, but returning to it again and again. There was something different about it (apart from the fact that he clearly remembered snapping it). And now, as Mr Thompson asked him about the Nazis, he was staring at the swastika, which, for some reason, Scott had given a pale blue (a sky blue) background, in texta. Was Justin a fan of the Nazis?

‘No, Sir,’ Justin said, and put the ruler down on Scottie’s desk.

‘Well, you can’t expect a dark angel not to be.’ He ruffled Scottie’s fair hair. ‘They like darkness.’

‘It’s the new symbol,’ Scott said. ‘It’s got a blue background.’

‘And what does that stand for, junge?’

‘The Earth,’ Scott said. ‘It’s meant to be the sky.’

‘Total domination?’

‘Ya,’ Scott said. ‘Yes, Sir.’

Mr Thompson turned to write on the board and Scott started jotting a note. He made sure Mr Thompson wasn’t about to turn around. He watched him, sitting rigid for a moment, and he then slipped the note into Justin’s hand, tapping the back of his hand on Justin’s thigh, and brushing his knuckles (unknowinlgy) against head of Justin’s cock.

Justin took the note from Scott’s fingers and opened it on his desk. Mr Thompson turned. Justin slid it under his notebook and wrote the first question down. “Identify three sado-masochistic passages.” Unseen, Mr Thompson eyed the class, paused and turned back to the board. White chalk scratched. Everyone had their heads down. Justin edged the note out.

Appointment 3.30. Okay. I agree. I’ll take all of them like you said. 178, like you said. I tried to tell you on the phone. I wish you’d rung me back. I’ve been worried all weekend that we weren’t going to be friends anymore. I’m sorry about Friday. I won’t do it again.

Justin didn’t understand the note. He didn’t know what Scott had to be sorry about and he didn’t (at first) understand what he was going to take. Cracks? Scott had already taken all of his cracks hadn’t he? Justin looked across at “The Cracker”. It was slightly caught under the edge of Scott’s hand. Scott moved his hand to turn the page. Justin saw the tens and tens of tally marks that he had already looked at – those that were lightly scored on the wood. More than a hundred easily. Did Scott mean that? Them? All of them? 178 of them?

Scott turned his page and picked up “The Cracker”. He angled it sideways and began to rule a margin. His blond hair hung forward and he bit his bottom lip, concentrating, while the morning sunshine blared around his hair and dust motes circled in the classroom. Scott smelt like soap, all clean and crisp. His uniform and his tie were done up neatly. His light grey shorts were caught up around his groin. His thighs sprang out of them, smooth and curved, wheat-golden below and milky above his tan line. His feet were crossed under the chair, one foot upside-down on the other, white sport-socks, polished shoes.

Scott tucked his hair back with his free hand and scooped it around his ear. He repositioned his hands and ruled a line across the top of the page, a slight crease on his brow, biting his bottom lip. He picked up “The Cracker” and put it back on the edge of the desk. He caught Justin’s eye and they smiled at each other shyly, as though they shared some secret joke. Scott was obviously happy that they were still going to be friends! When weren’t they going to be?

Scott leant over and put his hand on Justin’s shoulder. He turned his head and glanced around him, checking, and then he put his mouth up to Justin’s ear. ‘I’m not wearing any jocks,’ he whispered.