Sex Education • Ashton Irwin

sixteen - boys and their toys

Luke knows whats up

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I watch Mr Raye intently looking into his front camera on his phone, dabbing at his bright red nose which was still recovering from the wasp sting last week. I felt pretty bad for him actually, since the swollen wound on the end of his pointy nose was visable from a mile away.

Whilst Mr Raye continues to pount into his camera and feel sorry for himself, I turn to look at the doorway where a group of boys causing a loud noise soon enter. Ashton, closely followed behind by his usual crew, stroll their way into class - discussing a new football game which had apparently come out today. I hear Calum say he's just going to 'get his shit' and go home because he didn't wake up at six in the morning to get this game for no reason - but Ashton just rolls his eyes as they walk to the back of the room.

Luke walks straight passed me, without a smile or any form a greeting. His face turned somewhat cold as he just ignored me clearly looking up to him. I was probably going to find myself reading too much into it, since Luke was probably just having a bad day - although the fear of knowing that I've done something to offend him made me feel uneasy and on edge as Mr Raye steps up to begin the class.

Mr Raye begins, "So today we're going to-"

"Sir," Michael Clifford shouts from the back of the room, causing everyone to turn their heads, "I'm not trying to be funny right now, but the new FIFA came out today..."

Mr Raye looks to Michael slowly as he props himself on the edge of his desk at the front. "And?"

"Well, you know sir," Michael stammers, his eyes widening as if the answer was obvious.

"No, Michael, I don't know. Does it mean that you're going to have less of a life than you do now?" Mr Raye sighs as he rests his chin in his hands and continues to stare unenthusiastically at Michael.

Michael lets out a loud breath. "Basically, if I have to spend another hour here instead of staring at a computer screen - I will probably jump out of the window."

Mr Raye looks to Michael, his face creasing as he can't seem to comprehend Michael's works. Slowly, Mr Raye shuffles off of the desk and walks over to the back of the class, with all of our eyes watching his movement slowly. Mr Raye walks to the row of windows at the back of the class, looks down to the ground and then turns to face the rest of us once again.

"Well, it's a pretty long way down Michael," Mr Raye shrugs as he begins to walk back to the front, "but if you're sure about your choice of words, please, be my guest."

Everyone watches Mr Raye, not saying a word because there really were no words to say. Honestly, Mr Raye was just one of those teachers who you could not stand having, yet his lessons always seemed to be the most exciting and interesting.

"So if anyone would like to throw themselves out of the window since Lord knows you're going nowhere within the next hour, go for it." Mr Raye looks around to the class as we all sit in complete silence. "No one? Okay, good. Now, let's talk about sex."

The next twenty minutes travel really slowly, of all of us listening to Mr Raye rant about his red nose and how his wife doesn't care about him. Also apparently we were doing about the topic of 'the best time to start a family', which just seemed dead boring so I turned my mind off after the first few sentences and just began to nod along. I could feel Luke's eyes burning into the back of me, since he made it uncomfortable for me to move - but I decided to play it off until I could ask what I had done wrong after class.

"...and then the horse got hit by a bus." Mr Raye concludes his story of whatever he was talking about. I seem to always choose to listen at the wrong times. "Now that I've told you the story of how I proposed I-"