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The School Trip

The first of the new stories. This is set immediately after the events of Rule Breaker .

Gabe

I come awake slowly and roll over. Dylan’s body is warm against mine, and I drift, enjoying his scent and listening to the sound of the gulls calling outside. After a few minutes, he wriggles back against me, rubbing his arse against my very interested cock, and I chuckle. “Trying to tell me something, my dearest?”

“If you can’t understand this message, there’s no hope for you.”

I caress the full, round globes of his arse and then reach into the bedside table for the lube. When I turn back, I blink because he’s no longer there. “Wait. Where are you going?”

Dylan looks back at me from his route towards the bathroom door. “For a shower. We haven’t got time for sex.”

“What could possibly be happening in the world for that to be a true statement? Meteors hitting the earth? Me losing my personality?”

“The school trip.”

I fall back against the pillows. “I think I’d rather take my chances with a meteor,” I say gloomily.

He laughs, and I hear the noise of the shower starting. When he comes out ten minutes later with a towel wrapped around his narrow hips, he cocks his head. “I think it’s termed avoidance if you stay in bed all day.”

“I think it’s called being astute.”

He scrubs the towel over his brown-blond hair and grins. “If you don’t get up now, Jude will be able to say I told you so until the end of days.”

“You think you’re motivating me, but you’re not,” I say darkly and then sigh. “Okay, you are. So why would Jude be happy about me not making his son’s school trip?”

“Because he’s got a bet on with Asa.”

I roll my eyes. “It seems to me that people with children are closer to a child’s mentality than an adult’s.”

“Let’s see how close you are after today.”

“I’ll be closer to death from aggravation.”

I pad through the bedroom, avoiding the suitcases that are open and spewing clothes across the floor. We only got back from holiday yesterday, and I’m unsure which genius scheduled this in our diary. I look at my boyfriend. Oh, that genius.

“Get ready,” he orders, swiping me across the arse. I make sure to put a wiggle in it just to hear my favourite sound in the world — his laugh.

An hour later, I’m wondering what I was thinking.

We’re sitting in Jude’s classroom. It’s brightly decorated with tinsel and Christmas decorations and is empty of children in the early morning. Their shouts and screams come from the playground outside, but they can’t entirely drown out the laughter from Dylan and Jude.

“And then the jellyfish stung him on the arse,” Dylan says, barely able to speak he’s so amused.

“I don’t know why this is funny,” I say plaintively. “It was rather painful.”

“It could have been worse. It could have been your coffee receptors,” Dylan says rather callously.

“I’m unsure why my boyfriend is taking so much joy in the incident.”

“I videoed it. His voice went higher than when I spilt mustard on his Tom Ford suit,” he announces to Jude, who’s red-faced with laughter.

“Well, how wonderful it is to have given you so much joy,” I say. “It makes me extraordinarily happy. And it was equally scrumptious of the doctor to give me that lecture on swimming naked.”

“He was only trying to help.”

“For an hour ?”

The two of them collapse into more laughter, and then Dylan gets his phone out and swipes the screen.

“You had better not be showing Jude my backside,” I say.

He bites his lip, attempting to look innocent. “Of course not.”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever, Pinocchio.” I look around. “So, where’s Billy?”

“Oh, he’s not here,” Jude says casually. He turns the phone and examines the picture more closely. “Where are your tan lines, you naughty little strumpet?”

“What do you mean he’s not here?”

“He’s got a cold, so we kept him home.”

“Oh dear,” Dylan says much more sympathetically than he managed for my poor jellyfish-abused bum. “We’ll bring him something back from the gift shop.”

“What will we bring?” I say. “A better excuse for his absence?”

Jude laughs. “He was disappointed, but Asa’s got a new book for him, and he promised they could decorate the Christmas tree.”

“So, we can go home? You surely won’t need us if the child we’re representing isn’t here.”

Jude offers me a smirk. “Oh no. We still need you. You’d mess up the ratio of adults and children if you don’t go.”

“Great,” I say morosely.

He waves a careless hand. “Oh, it won’t be that bad.”

“Really? Compared to what?”

“Armageddon?” He bites his lip.

“Oh, joy .”

I stare down at my group of tiny people. They look back at me, and I have to double-check that they’re actually blinking.

“Okay, are we ready, Team Smiley Salmon?” Dylan says next to me. The small people in his group cheer enthusiastically, and I glance back at mine, who look just as dubious as before. I suppose I can’t blame them. The feeling is entirely mutual.

“Does anyone need the toilet?” I ask, checking the list that the class teacher shoved into my hands five minutes ago. “This is longer than War and Peace ,” I say to Dylan. “We can’t possibly need this much information.”

“Aww, you’re so sweet, baby. And dense as a brick too,” my beloved says cheerfully. “By the end of the day, you’ll have used every single piece of information.”

“What’s our team’s name?” a small girl asks me.

I check her cheerful-looking name badge, which appears to have sequins. “Do we need to have one, Zoe?”

She nods. “I think so.”

I purse my lips. “Well, okay, but you’ll have to think of one. It’s completely beyond me.”

“Maybe Big Boobies,” she says thoughtfully.

Dylan coughs. “I don’t think that’s appropriate,” he says unhelpfully.

“How about Team Death?” a dark-haired boy with a somewhat disgruntled expression says.

I check his name badge, which appears to be adorned with wonky skulls. “Good idea, Kyle,” I say, glaring at Dylan. Instead of cowing him—which, let’s face it, I gave up on years ago—he just looks like he wants to laugh.

“We don’t want to be Team Death ,” the twin girls in my group exclaim. They’re wearing more shades of pink than Barbara Cartland, and their bottom lips are trembling. “It’s nasty .”

“How about Team Shark?” I say. The Grady sisters look doubtful. “They’re very fast, and they have big smiles,” I say quickly and relax when they all cheer. I straighten my shoulders and offer Dylan a superior look. “I appear to have nipped that insurrection in the bud very ably.” I see Billy’s class teacher, Greg Hampson, approaching and raise my voice so he can hear me. “I can’t imagine why teachers are paid so much. This isn’t difficult at all.”

“We get paid extra because the food is so bad,” he says happily as he comes up next to us.

I roll my eyes. “What really chafes is that Billy isn’t even here.”

“He can’t help having a cold.”

“I wish I’d thought of it,” I mutter. I check my list. The word “toilet” seems to be mentioned more than in a Blackadder skit. I turn back to my group. “Anyone need the toilet, Team Shark?”

“No, thank you,” they all chorus.

“Are you sure ?” Dylan says, staring at them.

I nudge him. “Whose team is this? Don’t you have your own perennially sunny group to manage?”

“I can multitask.”

A thought flits through my brain of how good he is at multitasking in bed, but I dismiss it very quickly. Extremely super quickly.

“Go away,” I say, and he snorts and turns back to his group.

I look back at mine. “Okay, no loo breaks mean we get first dibs on seats on the bus. Let’s show the others how to get the best seats.”

They all cheer, and I look up to find Dylan shaking his head.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re introducing a rather competitive element to the day.”

I shrug. “I can’t help that. Children possess it naturally.”

“And some never lose it,” he mutters.

I ignore him in favour of ushering my group, or the winners as they are in my head, onto the bus. Fifteen minutes later, as we pull off the school car park, I revise my assessment when three of them look at me. “Mr Foster, we need the toilet,” they chorus.

I gape at them. “ What ?”

“I’m desperate,” one boy whispers. Reggie is his name.

“You’ve gone from not needing the toilet to being desperate in ten minutes. That is a surprisingly temperamental bladder.” I sigh. “Okay. Mr Finch,” I call to the driver. “We need to stop.”

The driver gives a weary sigh, strongly suggesting he’s done this before, and opens the door with a pneumatic wheeze.

Ten minutes later, I board the bus and fall into the seat next to Dylan. “If ever we think of doing this again, let’s just go to the zoo and sit in the penguin enclosure and let them eat us.”

He snorts. “You took a while.”

“You were timing me?” I narrow my eyes, my competitive instinct stirring. “Can it be done quicker?”

“There’s no hurrying children.”

“You say that like they’re a separate life form.”

“I think they might be. Of course, my experience is mainly narrowed down to Billy and my nephews.”

I shudder. “Don’t speak their names.”

He pats me on the hand. His skin is tanned from our holiday, and I spare a thought to how he looked sun-kissed and golden in the evening sun. Then I pack the thought away to somewhere a million miles away from a school bus.

“Is it time to go home yet?” I say plaintively, but the love of my life just laughs unsympathetically.

Greg Hampson walks up the aisle and stops next to us. “How’s it going?” he asks.

I stare at him. “We’re not off the car park yet.”

He shoots me a wry look. “Yes, but this is the best part of the trip.”

Dylan bursts into laughter, and I glare at him. A click of a camera phone draws my attention to Greg. “Did you just photograph us?”

“Yep.” He scans his phone and taps a few buttons. “Jude made me promise to document this entire event through the medium of photography and hopefully the odd bit of video. That frown was definitely worth a picture.”

Dylan snorts, and I shake my head. “I’m going to kill Jude, but it’ll be very slowly and inventively.”

Greg pats me on the shoulder and then looks up. “Ingrid, if I catch you doing that with Emily’s Frozen bag again, we will be having a little talk,” he calls. “A backpack is not a lethal weapon.”

There’s a clatter as the tiny culprit drops the implement, and he strides off down the aisle. Dylan hums contemplatively. “I’d like to say this is only for a few hours, but I think school trips warp the space-time continuum.”

“ Great ,” I say gloomily.

Four hours later, it occurs to me never to doubt my boyfriend again. This day is never-ending. It’s been full of arguments, refereeing on a scale last seen at a World Cup, and handing down judgements that probably would have been received more light-heartedly if I’d been wearing a black cap on my head. And toilet breaks. So many toilet breaks. Oh, and in between, we’ve actually seen some fish.

The aquarium is quite nice. Airy tunnels are overhead through which fish swim lazily by, occasionally brushing up against the glass as if giving the children a friendly wave. Christmas decorations wave in the breeze from the heating, and music plays softly.

We’re currently in an area set aside for school parties with lots of little seats. I’d contemplated sitting on one because my feet are hurting, but I reconsidered when Freya, one of the parents, sat down and nearly ruptured something. I’m therefore leaning against the wall, keeping a careful eye on my group as they draw the fish they can see.

I look at Sita’s paper and do a double take. “I’m not sure that any of the fish look like that,” I offer.

She eyes me with a sceptical expression I’ve become very used to since meeting Dylan. “Mr Hampson said to draw what we see.”

“And you see a fish with purple and yellow sequinned stripes?”

“Yes,” she says, her expression turning somewhat truculent.

“Okay, then. Keep going.” She eyes me, and I nod. “Brilliant. Quite brilliant.”

Appeased, she turns back to drawing her completely fictional fish.

“Billy said that you’re going out with Dylan. Is that right?” a voice says.

I look down to find Kyle and hesitate for a second. Then, “Yes, I am.”

I search his face for any incipient problem, but he looks at Dylan contemplatively. My boyfriend is talking to his group, his face lively, and it makes my heart clench with happiness that he’s mine.

“He’s a bit cheerful, isn’t he?” Kyle finally says doubtfully.

I chuckle. “He makes CBeebies presenters look depressed.”

“Okay, folks,” Greg says. “How’s everyone getting on? One more minute, and then we’ll pack away. It’s nearly home time.” He walks past us and takes his by-now-obligatory shot of me. I resist the urge to stick my finger up at him and smile at Dylan as he comes up next to me.

“Do fish celebrate Christmas, Mr Foster?” The question comes from Polly, another of my group. She has shiny pigtails and a sunny expression.

I eye the tank next to us. “Probably not, seeing as they’re likely to end up on someone’s pla?—”

Dylan coughs loudly, and I stare at him. “Have you got a sore throat?”

“No. Just a sense of impending disaster.” He turns to my group. “I think they do celebrate under the sea with waterproof tinsel, and they leave out little sand dollars for Father Christmas.”

I raise one eyebrow at his flight of fancy, aware of my fellow tiny sceptic eyeing Dylan from beside me.

“Wouldn’t Santa drown under the sea?” Kyle asks.

A chorus of distressed comments greets this statement. “ No ,” the twins shout, their pigtails bouncing in a rather apoplectic manner.

I happily step back to allow Dylan to deal with this, as it was entirely his decision to stick his nosy beak into my group.

“No, no,” he says hurriedly. “Santa is magic . He can go anywhere.”

“Well, that’s not even remotely disturbing,” I mutter. I cannot fathom how having a fat old man creeping into children’s bedrooms ever managed to catch on.

Kyle stands next to me, and I jump as he slides his hand into mine. “Santa doesn’t exist anyway,” he says as insouciantly as if he’s remarking on the weather and not throwing a truth bomb into the arena.

“Sir, Kyle says Santa isn’t real ,” Polly shrieks at me.

I shake my head to clear my eardrums. “I am well aware of that, Polly, as I’m standing right next to him.”

“Santa does exist,” she says, glaring at Kyle as if she’s going to belt him.

He shrugs, displaying a casualness that I admire. “Nope, and you can’t tell me what to think. Santa isn’t real.” He points at one of the boys in my group. “Thomas says his dad brings his presents.”

As the entire group turn to stare at him, Thomas immediately looks as if he wishes he’d been left out of this discussion. “Well, erm,” he says, pushing his hands into his pockets.

“ Tell them,” Kyle demands. “You said your dad fell over some toys on the floor and woke you up last year.”

Thomas looks around the group, who are staring at him with more militant poses than I saw at a climate protest in London the other week. “Yeah, maybe,” he mutters and then rallies. “But maybe he was just standing in for Santa.”

“What was Santa doing, then?” a little girl breathes wonderingly.

“Maybe he’s at the pub,” Kyle says.

“Santa doesn’t go to the pub ,” Polly scoffs.

“He might do,” Kyle says fiercely. “Everyone gets thirsty at times.”

“Very true,” I say solemnly, winking at Dylan, who looks as worried as if World War Three is going to break out. I roll my eyes. “Oh, ye of little faith,” I mutter. “Watch this.”

I step forward. “Of course Santa gets thirsty,” I say briskly. “He works nearly as hard as a lawyer on a school trip. Who wants the gift shop?”

All discussion of Santa’s drinking problem ceases immediately.

“Me, me!” they all shriek.

“Okay. Pack up tidily, and we’ll go.”

I stand back and offer Dylan a modest look. “I think it’s in the way you handle them. They’re like Charlie Hunnam, really.”

“Oh, yes? And how many times have you taken our dog to a gift shop?”

“Well, never, but how bad can it be?”

“Gabe, there is you, a group of seven children with pocket money in their hot little hands, and a shop full of scented rubbers and coloured pens.”

I sag. “I’m going to kill Jude.” Dylan laughs, and I prod his side. “And then I’m coming for you.”

“Promises, promises.”

I smile at him. “I always keep the ones I make to you.”

Later that evening, I slump on my stool at the counter in our kitchen and groan. “I can’t believe the behaviour of those children in that shop,” I say for what feels like the twentieth time. “It was like some sort of dystopian nightmare.”

Dylan snorts. “Have many of those, do you?”

I shudder. “And that tug of war over the shark ruler. I never knew children could be so violent. I think it was a bit of a shock to the gift shop employee too.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine once the swelling goes down.”

I look around our kitchen appreciatively. Warm, white fairy lights are draped over the cupboards, offering a twinkling display against the darkening sky outside the window. The sea roars in the background, and music plays softly. Charlie Hunnam sleeps at my feet, and I feel warm and cosy. Then my eyes narrow.

“Are those new fairy lights? Don’t we already own fifty thousand strands of them?”

He looks up from where he’s rolling pastry. “Ssh. You’re drowning out George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley.”

“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

“It is,” he says earnestly. “Jude’s coming round for supper, and he’s so close to Whamageddon. Christmas is next week, and he’s gone until now without hearing ‘Last Christmas’.”

“I do that every year. I didn’t know it had a name.”

“I’ve never got this far,” he says enviously. “It’s a miracle.”

“Not one sanctioned by the Church of England.”

“Anyway, he and Asa have a lot of money riding on it this year.”

“So, you’re playing it when he’s due round here at any moment?” I say slowly.

He nods. “Strange things happen when you dump a school trip on your friends.”

I grin at my devious boyfriend. “Have I ever told you how much I love your mind?”

“Not as much as you wax lyrical about my penis.”

I raise my glass at him. “Well, Merry Christmas to both of them.”

“Ho-ho-ho.”

“Not right now, but we have all night.”