He smiled. - The usual.

- Out with Mabel?

He nodded.

- Snogged her yet?

- Dude, it was like our two-month anniversary.

- Yeah, so you snogged her yet?

He grinned. - Things are getting pretty hot.

- Meaning?

He just beamed at me.

- Owen'll be jealous, I said.

- I know, said Iain.

He had a satisfied look on his face.

Our lockers were in adjacent columns. I opened mine to dump off that hardback mega-atlas they required us to have for geography. A yellow Post-it note fluttered out.

- What's that? Iain asked.

- Someone put it in my locker, I said, bending down to pick it up off the floor.

Iain chuckled. - Must be Owen.

I turned the note over. He was right. 'Meet me outside the changing rooms at break,' it said, and it was marked 'URGENT'. Owen hadn't signed it, but I recognised his scratchy writing. I screwed it up and tossed it back into my locker.

I left Iain in the locker room and headed round the back of the school. There was no sign of Owen outside the changing rooms, but shortly after I arrived, Joe Fletcher appeared. He walked toward me, frowning.

- You seen Owen? he said.

- Did you get a message too? I asked.

He held up a Post-it note.

- What's this about? he asked.

- Seeing as you're here, I could hazard a guess.

Owen showed up, a little flustered, several minutes later. He smiled when he saw us both waiting for him.

- Let's go somewhere we can talk, he said.

There was a patch of lawn right in front of the school that nobody used to play football because it was right next to the large windows of the school hall. In the first year they drummed it into us how each pane cost three hundred pounds so woe betide anybody who broke one.

Owen led the way and we sat down on the grass. There was only five minutes left of break.

- What's this about? asked Joe.

Owen help up his thumb and forefinger, the gap between them less than a centimetre.

- Gentlemen, we are this close to finding out the identity of our peeping tom, he announced.

Joe rolled his eyes.

- When you wrote 'URGENT' on the note I thought it was something important, I said.

It had been three weeks since Joe's little secret had come out. In the meantime it seemed like everyone had forgotten. Owen's attempt to find out who started the rumour that Joe was Jewish was unsuccessful. Until now it had seemed like he'd forgotten too.

- So, who is it? asked Joe.

- I don't know yet, said Owen.

- But who do you think it is?

- Joe, I won't lie to you. It could be anyone.

Joe was playing with blades of grass in his lap. He looked up and gave Owen a less-than-bemused look.

- And we're that close to finding out who's the fag that's been eyeing me up in the showers, are we? he said. - Great.

Owen ignored his sarcasm.

- This morning I had an idea, he said. - It came to me suddenly whilst I was in the shower.

- Dude, too much info, I said.

- Au contraire, mon ami, went Owen. - Where I came up with the plan is entirely relevant.

- Go on, said Joe.

- Gentlemen, this plan is one hundred percent foolproof. Providing they are in school today, by the beginning of the lunch break, we will know who they are. It can not fail.

- It sounds doomed already, I said.

Well, Joe laughed. Owen glared at me.

- What does this grand plan of yours entail? Joe asked.

- In a word, Owen said. - Bait.

- Bait? we said.

- Yes, but it'll have to wait till sports, Owen told us. - Or more specifically, it'll have to wait till after sports.

And then the bell rang.

- Owen's really getting into this, isn't he? Joe said as we walked to technology.

It was my only other Owen-less subject.

I chuckled. - Yeah, he loves a good mystery does Owen.

- It's a bit freaky.

I laughed.

- Do you know what he's planning? Joe asked.

- No, I said.

But I had a nasty suspicion.

We had sports after technology. Sports was always timetabled in before break, before lunch or last thing in the day. That way we could get dressed and shower on our own time rather than take up ten minutes of valuable cross-country running time at the end of the period.

We spent the entire lesson running around the edge of the school field. We weren't running a set distance, and you didn't know how far you'd run. You started when they said 'go' and you stopped when the bell rang at the start of lunch.

Joe and I stopped long before that. After about ten minutes we slowed to a walking pace and only sped up when we were near the sports teachers. Owen was fitter than us. He ran ahead. But when the bell rang at the end of the lesson, he came running back.

- Quickly, into the showers! he said.

Joe almost choked on phlegm.

- What did you just say?

- The peeping tom's going to be in there, Owen said. - This is our chance to catch him at it.

Joe let out a hysterical squawk. - Now I know what you meant by bait, Owen. Me!

- Not just you, said Owen. - Me and him too.

- Hey! What? I said.

Owen was jogging backwards in front of us.

- We'll do it in a relay, he said. - We'll be the first in there and the last out. Now come on.

Then he turned and ran ahead.

- Before you ask, I said. - Yes, I think he was serious.

Joe and I looked at each other.

- Are you going to? he asked.

- Are you?

We just kept on walking.

- Oh, fuck it, Joe said finally. - The fag's seen it all before anyway.

- And at least we can find out who it is, I said.

- Exactly.

- Yeah, exactly.

Owen was already putting his plan into action by the time Joe and I got back to the changing rooms. I could see his sports kit heaped on the bench and his school uniform was still hanging up.

He reappeared a couple of minutes later, soaking wet and wrapped in a towel. He spotted Joe first, and gave him the signal to get the hell in there before he missed anything.

I had several minutes more to wait, by which time most people were dressed and heading off for lunch. But there were still stragglers; those unfortunates who had been on the other side of the school field when the bell rang. They always got a cheer when they came in.

- Meet out front, Owen told me as he left. - Same place as earlier. Tell Joe.

Joe came out of the showers just as Owen went out the door. He looked around for me and gave me a slight nod when he found me. His expression was stormy.

I went in with the stragglers. The place was packed. I left my towel on a hook even though there was somebody else's towel already on it. The shower-heads were on the adjacent two walls.

For perhaps the first time I felt naked; properly naked, where being naked is about more than just not wearing any clothes.

I had to wait for a shower-head to become free, and I wasn't alone.

Eyes. I had to watch their eyes. I couldn't look down at my feet like I usually did. I had to look them straight in the face when they passed me. They'd only see me doing it if they were looking up too.

- Better than looking down.

Owen's voice was inside my head.

A shower-head came free and I pressed the button in with my knuckles. Slowly it slid out again, and the water stopped when it was out fully. I had to do that several times.

The water was tepid, the flow erratic. Limescale, I thought, and then I got the jingle from the Calgon advert stuck in my head.

I ran my hair under the stream, turning my head and snatching the opportunity to check neither of my neighbours were sneaking a peek. The person on my left was squeezing their eyes tightly shut as they dowsed their face. The person on my right was Iain Wilkins.

- All right, dude? he said as he rubbed water over his saggy manboobs.

- All right? I replied.

People spoke in the showers all the time. That's not to say they held lengthy conversations, but there was always someone making a boisterous noise.

- Attention seekers, Owen always said. - Poseurs.

I felt more secure with Iain protecting my right flank. It meant I only had to worry about who was standing on my left.

Next that person was Chris Parsons. He was bobbing his head and chewing in time to some rhythm inside his head. He didn't show any interest at all.

- See you later, dude, said Iain.

I looked round to return the same.

And saw him glance briefly downwards at me as he turned to leave.

No words came out of my mouth.

I left the showers about thirty seconds later. I found my towel lying on the floor beneath the hooks. It was soaking wet, useless. Someone had knocked it off getting theirs out from underneath and then just left it there.

Joe waited for me outside the changing rooms. His expression hadn't changed. We found Owen in the exact same spot on the lawn in front of the school hall. He was eating a Mars bar and sipping a Coke.

- Well, I think that was a resounding success, he said as we sat down. - I have discovered our peeping tom. I know who he is.

- Don't you mean who they are? said Joe.

- Que? went Owen.

I said nothing.

- We've got a big fag problem in this school, Joe said in a low, angry voice.

- You're talking about Graham Forster? said Owen.

- I don't even know who the hell that is, Joe snarled. - I'm talking about Philip Baxter. I'm talking about Corey Goldman. I'm talking about Peter Harris. I'm talking about Toby fucking Miller.

Owen frowned. - They all?

- Yeah, they all, said Joe. - Bastards. Fags.

Owen stared in silence at his lunch.

- What about you? Joe said to me. - Anybody check you out, man?

I shook my head.

- No.

Joe snorted as he took a sandwich out of a gripper-zipper food bag and bit into it.

- Y'know, I think I was happier not knowing, he said with his mouth full. - Ignorance is bliss.

At which point he spat food all over us.

- Do you really think they're all gay? I asked Owen later.

We were walking down the road to the bus stop after school again.

- Well, they do say one in ten of the population are, said Owen. - And that includes our school.

- Still, I said. - Maybe they were just, I don't know, curious.

- Yeah. About dicks. We call that gayness.

- I suppose.

We walked in silence.

- You've never done it, then? I said.

- What?

- Even just to check you're normal or something.

Owen looked at me funny. - What are you saying?

- Nothing.

I had missed my bus. Owen's would arrive in a matter of minutes. There was nobody else at the bus stop.

- Have you? Owen asked.

- Me?

- Have you ever looked?

- No, I said hotly. - Of course not.

- Fair enough.

We waited for his bus without speaking. He saw it coming, saw it get stuck at the traffic lights. He sighed.

- If you were gay, he said. - And I'm not saying you are, but if you were, who would you go for? Me or Joe?

After a second, I burst out laughing.

- What? he said. - I'm serious.

- Can I say neither?

Owen's bus passed the traffic lights.

- Y'see, what I don't understand is, he said. - How come four of them looked at him but only one of them looked at me?

I laughed again as his bus pulled up.

- Still, better than none, he said.

Then he poked me in the ribs and boarded the bus.

NOTES:
Originally this story was going to be in three parts, with this second part going to be about Owen's investigation into who started the rumour that Joe was Jewish, and the third part being, well, this. I originally posted the first draft, but promptly removed it when I realised it was just bridging the gap between the first episode and this. Former SHSB-ers should be aware (if they are not already) that there were plenty of real Iain Wilkins, though this story is completely fictional. And by way of a disclaimer, the views expressed by characters aren't necessarily my own (but if you need me to tell you that, then you don't know me very well).