School Days Scotland
THE SCIENCE LAB
The collar of his shirt always poked out at odd angles beneath his jumper, and his glasses slid down his nose whenever he bent over his notebooks. At thirteen, James still had the round cheeks and soft jawline of a much younger boy, while other lads in his year had begun to sprout like weeds. During cross-country, he wheezed along in the middle of the pack, his school trousers hitched higher than the others. Yet when Mr. Henderson distributed the chemistry exam results, James’s paper always came last—the one with the red “98%” circled at the top, setting off whispers through the rows of the children who were put together as the brightest talents in the school.
Sulphur hung in the air, mingling with the tang of floor wax and the faint blue flames of twenty Bunsen burners. James hunched at the back bench, the cuffs of his blazer hanging past his wrists as he scribbled calculations. When he reached for his pencil, the sleeve dragged through a puddle of spilled ink, adding another stain to his collection. From two benches ahead, Melanie’s red curls bounced as she turned, her whisper carrying just loudly enough for Kate to giggle in response, their eyes flickering toward him with something beyond mere mockery.
Melanie turned in her seat, her vibrant hair bouncing as she leaned back. “Oi, James. What’s that you’re scribbling? Is it the formula for the experiment, or are you writing another one of those long essays the Headmaster likes so much?”
James adjusted his glasses, eyes not leaving his notebook. “It’s a calculation for the displacement of the volume, Melanie. If you’d listen to Mr. Henderson, you’d know we’re meant to be halfway through the chart by now.”
Kate giggled and nudged Melanie, her long dark hair falling over her shoulder. “Oh, listen to him! ‘Displacement of volume.’ You sound like a little professor, James. Do you ever think about anything that isn’t in a textbook?”
“I bet he’s got the whole periodic table memorized,” Melanie said. “Go on, James, what’s number seventy-nine? Kate thinks it’s Arsenic.”
James finally looked up, a small, shy smile tugging at his mouth. “It’s Gold. Arsenic is thirty-three. And your Bunsen burner is smoking because the air hole is closed, Melanie. If you don’t open it, you’ll soot up the beaker and Henderson will have a fit.”
“See? He’s helpful, even when he’s being a bore,” Kate smirked, turning back to her own bench. “You should walk home with us after school, James. You can explain the rest of the table to us.”
“Only if he can keep up!” Melanie whispered loudly. “You’re always dawdling on the lane to your posh new house, James. What are you always looking at on the ground? Looking for more gold?”
James went back to his notebook, his face a little redder than before. He was the “untidy boy at the back,” but in this moment, the teasing felt less like a burden and more like he was finally being noticed by the world outside his own head.
JOHNNY MARSHALL LOAN – The Lane
The crunch of the gravel under his scuffed shoes is the only rhythm James can manage as he walks home, his heavy leather satchel bumping against his hip. The interaction with Melanie and Kate has left him with a fluttering heart, but it’s quickly replaced by the cold, creeping dread of December.
Tomorrow is the school Christmas party is the social mountain James feels he simply cannot climb. His mind plays a vivid, unwelcome preview of the evening:
The country dancing. This is the “organized” part of the night. He knows the steps—his brain has memorized the Gay Gordons and the Dashing White Sergeant with mathematical precision. But he knows the ritual: the boys lining up on one side, the girls on the other. He knows the feeling of being the “odd man out” while the teacher scans the room to find someone—usually a girl who looks like she’s being sent to the gallows—to be his partner.
He’s acutely aware of his own body—his “late development” making him feel like a collection of soft edges and uncoordinated limbs. He imagines himself tripping over his own feet, his glasses sliding down his nose while the violins shriek through the tinny school speakers.
Then there is the end of the night. The lights will dim, replaced by a spinning glitter ball or a few colored filters over the stage lights. The Beatles or The Monkees will blast through the hall.
To James, “freestyle” dancing is a foreign language he hasn’t learned the alphabet for. He sees himself standing by the table with the lukewarm orange squash and the curled-up sandwiches, trying to look busy by reading the labels on the bottles. He fears the “Slow Dance” most of all—that agonizing three minutes where everyone seems to pair up by some invisible magnetic force, leaving him as a solitary island in a sea of swaying teenagers.
As he nears his house, he stops to look at a frost-covered stone. He picks it up, turning it over in his hand. Gold is 79, he thinks. At least the elements are predictable. The invitation from Kate and Melanie to walk home had been a joke—or had it? He didn’t follow them. He stayed behind to pack his bag properly, terrified that if he actually walked with them, he’d run out of things to say before they reached the end of the lane.