on the map//spencer 'spider' white

18

I follow Ant, Spider, Woodsy, and Voss to the infirmary. Ant is sitting on a bed with one of those emergency blankets wrapped around him. He looks like shit.

"I wasn't really gonna do it," Ant insists.

"Yes, but Anthony Vaughn, there are better ways of expressing your emotions than threatening to extricate your penis," Woodsy tells him.

"Like what?" Ant asks.

"We've actually gone through this in SLTs," Jojo says. "It can be useful to talk about how we're feeling before it starts to come out of us in other ways."

"Here we go," Voss remarks.

Jojo crosses her arms. "Something to add?"

"Turned my back for ten weeks, Hartley's transformed into a woke snowflake nightmare," Voss says.

"Sorry, "woke snowflake nightmare"?" Jojo questions.

"Yes, excuse me, Timothy, but the SLT classes have been a roaring success, thanks to Jojo," Woodsy explains.

"Oh, really? This is a roaring success, is it?" Voss remarks.

"Oh, you're blaming this on SLTs?" Jojo asks.

"They're your words, not mine," Voss insists. "Now, male school dropouts are through the roof, are they not?"

"They are," Woodsy agrees.

"Suspension's left, right, and in the center. Young men are experiencing a crisis of confidence right now," Voss states.

"Yeah, he's not wrong," Woodsy agrees again.

"Now the boys at Hartley are scared to breathe. And SLT classes may be exacerbating that," Voss argues.

Spider nods his head. "Sounds right. All we get told is that everything wrong in the world is caused by our dicks."

"We don't target boys in SLT class," Jojo argues. "The point is to give these kids the space to discuss what they're going through."

"Discuss," Voss says with disgust. "Boys can't communicate the same way as girls. You know that. We communicate by doing. Now the great Nollsy said it best. "There is a little boy waiting at the counter of a corner shop. Now he has been waiting down there, waiting half of the day, and they never ever see him from the top. Now he's been pushed around. Knocked to the ground. And he gets to his feet and he says, what about...'"

"Me?" Ant says nervously.

"'What about he?'" Voss continues. "'It isn't fair.'"

"Why are you singing Shannon..." Jojo starts.

Voss interrupts her to continue singing, "I've had enough! Now I want my share."

Woodsy joins in, "Can't you see, yeah."

Her and Voss sing the next line together, "I wanna live. But you... Just take more than you give..."

"I love this song," Woodsy states.

"Okay," Jojo starts.

"It's so true," Voss insists.

"Yeah, sure. Look..." Jojo says.

"I do love this song," Woodsy agrees.

"SLT class might not be perfect but unless you've got a better idea," Jojo says.

"Maybe I do," Voss tells her.

"That's good then, isn't it? Jojo, well done. And Timothy, I really do look forward to that idea," Woodsy says.