Our year was split up for all our classes. I was with Owen for everything except geography and woodwork, which he didn't do. We were both with Iain for maths and science, and Iain was also in my geography class. Fortunately, we only had maths with Dean Henderson, but the entire year came together for sports.

Joe Fletcher was the first person to bring a TippEx mouse into school. He was treated like he invented the thing. They wouldn't let you use the normal TippEx in a pot because they said it made a mess.

- I heard they caught some first years sniffing it in the toilets, Owen said.

- Oh, yeah? I said.

- Before our time.

A TippEx mouse made no mess. You just rolled it across the mistake and wrote over the top immediately. People were always asking Joe if they could borrow it. He always let them.

- You should charge, I said.

- How much would you be willing to pay to use it? he asked.

- I wouldn't.

- Yeah, I thought so.

So he kept on letting people use it for free, even though if he'd charged for it people would stop asking him for it.

- Hey. The mouse. Can I borrow? asked Jesse.

Jesse was sitting in the row in front of us in history. He rocked back on the hind legs of his chair and tipped his head back, looking at Joe upside down.

Jesse wasn't Jesse's real name. He was really called Derek but he hated the name. His middle initial was J and he told us it stood for Jesse, but we didn't believe him. If your parents gave you Derek as a first name, they were hardly going to give you Jesse as a middle name. Some of the teachers even called him Jesse.

Miss Patterson didn't. She was our history teacher. She had only graduated this summer. This was her first teaching job. Being nearer in age to us than she was most of the teachers, she was really formal. She called Jesse Mr Armstrong. If she had caught him rocking on the hind legs of his chair she would have called him out for it.

- Mis-ter Arm-st-rong.

That's how she said it, with an extra syllable. But I checked. She wasn't looking up.

Joe took out the TippEx mouse with a sigh and placed it in Jesse's offered palm.

- Cheers, Jew-boy, said Jesse.

Then he rocked back onto four chair legs. The sound made Miss Patterson look up over her glasses.

Owen and I had glanced up at Jesse, but now we pretended to return to our work.

- Why'd he call you that? asked Owen in a whisper.

- Yeah, I said.

- Dunno, said Joe.

- Are you Jewish? said Owen.

- No.

Jesse didn't turn round to return the TippEx mouse. He stayed bent over his work and fed his hand under his armpit and dropped the TippEx mouse on our desk.

Owen and I caught up with him later.

- Why did you call Joe Jew-boy? asked Owen.

- Isn't he a Jew? said Jesse.

- No, we said.

- I don't have anything against them, y'know, Jesse told us. - I just thought he was one.

- Why? Owen asked.

- Tom said he was.

Tom Dodson had an identical twin called Paul. In the first year when we didn't know about Paul, Owen and I met him in town and thought it was Tom. We thought he was just being a prick when he pretended he didn't know us. We didn't believe Tom at first when he told us about Paul, but then he brought him to the school fete. These days you could tell them apart because Paul went to a school that allowed you to have a goatee, which he did.

We couldn't find Tom.

Technology was another class I had with Joe, one in which he sat with two other friends, though I usually took the fourth seat at their table. They didn't let us into the room before the teacher arrived, what with all the sharp things in there, so we were queuing outside when Chris Parsons came over.

- Hey, does it hurt when you wank? he asked.

He was talking to Joe. Joe's two friends laughed.

- Piss off, Parsons, said Joe.

- What? I just wanted to know, said Chris.

- Are you fag?

- No. I just wanted to know, does it hurt when you wank?

Joe's friends laughed again.

- Why would it hurt when he? I asked.

- Because he's, you know, had the snip, Chris said.

Joe snorted and shook his head.

- A vasectomy? I said.

- What? said Chris.

- I'm circumcised, Joe hissed.

His two friends laughed again. A couple of people ahead of us glanced back at him but didn't break in their conversation.

- So does it hurt when you wank? asked Chris.

When I met Owen after school, he was bristling with eagerness, a twinkle in his eyes.

- I found Tom, he announced.

- Yeah, I know already, I said.

- Joe's, y'know, cut.

- Yeah, I know.

Owen frowned. - Who told you?

- Joe did.

- Joe himself?

- Yeah. Who told Tom?

The sparkle returned to Owen's eyes.

- Ah, now that's the thing, he said. - Tom told me Mark told him but I just asked Mark and he said it was Tom who told him, so I went back to Tom, and now he's saying he thought it was Mark, but it might have been anyone in their group when they were, y'know, discussing it.

I nodded. - So who told them?

- Joe?

Owen shrugged.

- It's not like it was a secret, said Joe.

We were back in Miss Patterson's room for the last history lesson of the week.

- But you never told anyone, Owen said.

- No. No one.

- So there's no one who knew?

He sighed. - Not before this week. Not that would have started spreading it around, anyway.

I watched Owen doodle in the corner of his exercise book. He didn't say anything, but he was like someone talking on the phone. His mind was elsewhere.

- Why'd you have it done? I asked.

I was sitting on the other side of Owen, who was between me and Joe. I had to whisper loudly.

Joe shrugged. - It was just after I was born. I never asked them why. I didn't think it was a big deal.

- Ouch.

That was all I could think to say.

- I can see why they thought you were Jewish, Owen said suddenly.

He beat the air with his pen.

- Yeah? said Joe.

- Yes. In this country it's quite rare, but everyone knows Jews have it done.

- Yeah, but you don't have to be Jewish to have it done.

- Well, no. Obviously.

- I read everyone has it done in America, I said.

They both glanced across at me.

- Anyway, said Owen. - It's not that great a leap of logic to think: hmm, snipped, must be Jewish.

I snickered. Joe frowned.

- Wait, he said slowly. - Are you saying that someone found out I was circumcised, then started the rumour I was Jewish, Owen?

- Yeah. Exactly. But you haven't told anyone.

He shook his head. - The only person I ever told was that nurse who gave us that medical. But that was in the first year. And she asked.

- Oh, I remember that! I said. - I had to ask her what it meant!

I laughed. Owen glared at me.

- What I'm getting at is, he said. - If you didn't tell them, then they must have found out another way.

He lowered his pen and pressed his lips together so tightly they bunched up over his teeth. It dawned on me what he was implying, but he was waiting for Joe to catch on. He didn't.

- Did you have a shower after sports on Monday? Owen eventually asked.

- Yeah, Joe said.

A moment later he pressed the knuckles of a fist to his mouth and looked between Owen and me.

- You think? he said.

- I think, Owen replied, nodding.

Joe started shaking his head. - No. No. That's just wrong. Augh.

- The question is: who? said Owen.

- We got a fag, said Joe.

- Maybe, yes.

- I'm never taking a shower again!

He said that a little too loudly. It wasn't only Jesse Armstrong who heard and gave Joe a funny look.

- Then you won't be welcome in my class, Mis-ter Flet-cher, said Miss Patterson.

Most of the class chuckled.

- Who do you think it is? I asked Owen.

This was later, after the end of school, after Joe had gone back to his other friends. Owen and I were walking down the road to the bus stop near the newsagent.

- I don't know, he said. - But I intend to find out.

- How? I asked.

- By finding out who started the Jewish rumour to begin with. They're the one who made the false assumption.

I nodded. We joined the bus queue just as the number eight came round the corner. Owen's number twenty-two was due five minutes later.

- I don't think I'm ever going into those showers again, I said. - Not even when you find out who it is.

Owen chuckled.

- Who wants to be ogled? I cried.

He smiled. - Well, I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of.

It was my turn to get on the bus.

- You wish, I said.

NOTES:
This two-part story was directly inspired by two conversations I actually overheard. Somebody actually asked a Jewish friend what Chris Parsons asks Joe Fletcher, whilst after a sixth form Biology field-trip, some members of the group came back calling another "Jew-boy", which made me wonder: why do they think that (seeing as he wasn't Jewish)?