Two in the morning (Wednesday) things start to get well complicated. My phone rings and because I’m lacking any common sense at the moment, it isn’t on silent, so it wakes me up, which is dead annoying. I’m already expecting to feel steam-rolled in the morning – this is only going to add to it. As I always seem to do, I answer the bloody thing more to stop the noise than anything. Probably I should just turn it off at night, but who knows, the man of my dreams might call and then I’d feel like a right plonker for having it switched off when I found out. Course, for that to happen I’d need to have someone in mind to be the man of my dreams – Angel-Boy’s just been forcibly abdicated. I’ll have to start auditioning substitutes.

“Nick. This is Charles,” is the last thing I expect to hear. I push my palm against my eyes and slide it down my face, blinking up at the ceiling that I can’t actually see in the dark.

“What d’you want? It’s the middle of the fudging night.”

“Give me Dougie Klein’s number.”

Though he doesn’t say it, there’s a dead-strong sense of or else dangling on the end of that sentence. This convinces me that I’m either having some kind of bizarre dream, or I’ve entered an alternate universe. Steadily waking up faster than I want to, I glower at nothing in particular in all-encompassing bewilderment. My life doesn’t go like this. Someone’s hijacked the controls.

“Mate, he’s not into you. You scared him off with the nipple clamps.”

There’s a long heavy silence as he digests that. I can practically hear the confusion as he chooses to ignore what I said. “Give me his number. Don’t mess with me, Jones, I go to school with your sister.”

I sit up slightly, consigned to entering the Twilight Zone now. “I’m sorry. Are we on the same page? Did you just threaten to beat up my thirteen year old sister? I don’t think you’re that much of a shit, Charles – what the hell’s going on?”

“I want his number.” Oh, broken record. It’s too late – early – dark, for this.

“Yeah,” I sigh, rubbing at my eyes, “I got that. I’m asking why.”

“We had a good time,” he says eventually, squeezing the words out as if they’re toxic and painful. I frown. This is definitely not my planet. Charles does not seek out dates with boys – he just fucks about with them every now and then when he gets the chance. He’s happy having girlfriends and bumming about on the side.

“Are you high or something? Dougie was well freaked out. I mean, congratulations to you – the guy’s a pervert, I didn’t think it was possible to beat him at his own game, but I doubt he wants to see you again.”

“Fuck you Jones. Give me his number.”

“Charles – I’m serious. I don’t know what you did to him…”

“I did nothing, you wanker. He just fucking left.”

I sink back into my pillow wearily. “He found nipple clamps and a lacy pink thong. Ring any bells, genius?”

“What the fuck are nipple clamps?” he splutters. He doesn’t deny the thong, which is interesting, but then again knowing his promiscuous ways (and I do) it probably belongs to some girl he’s going out with, or shagging, or whatever it is he does with girls. To be dead honest I don’t know if he genuinely swings both ways or just uses the fairer sex like body armour, so he doesn’t get pulverised by the rest of his rugby team in the shower for checking out their gear. Sports teams get insecure when they get a whiff of faggot off you – side effect of wandering around naked in the locker rooms and whipping each other with towels, I suspect. Well, the whipping each other with towels might be all in my sordid imagination – I’ve never been on a rugby team like.

“Well,” I sigh, too bloody tired to be giving lessons in the playthings of the sexually perverted to the sexually perverted. “They pretty much do what it says on the tin, though I believe some can be attached to an electricity source for extra stimulus.”

“Why the fuck would I have nipple clamps?”

“I did wonder that, but last time I saw you, you were into hairbrushes, so I didn’t wonder all that hard. It seemed like a logical progression.”

From the dense silence that follows I can tell Charles is not best pleased with that answer. He breathes out, sounding a lot like an angry bull. “Your sister is dead meat.”

“Woah. Wait just a minute.” Suddenly, I’m awake. Nobody threatens my sister. “Back up. I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement, we’re both reasonable guys here.” Treacle has my loyalty more than Doug does. I’ll throw him to the lions to save my family, even though I know it means I’m going to go to hell for knowingly subjecting another human being to sexual torture. Well, I say human, but it’s Doug we’re talking about here.

He grunts – all very angry caveman. “Start talking.”

“You want Doug’s number?” I ask even though that bit’s dead obvious, because I’m buying time while my thought processes kick in. I’m far too close to being unconscious and held hostage by my body in the depths of an REM cycle to be particularly devious, but something comes out of nowhere. “I want you to find out who my sister thinks she’s going out with and bash him about a bit. Then I’ll give it to you.”

Fudge. I grimace, realising I just sicced an angry rugby player on some guy I don’t know. This is definitely an alternate universe. Here I was thinking I disapproved of physical violence. It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers tonight- someone else is clearly in control of my vocal chords.

Silence again. Then, “Are you serious? Man – this is the 21st century. What are you doing? Defending your sister’s honour? Nobody does that.”

“He’s fucking sixteen!” I tell him – voice squeaking slightly higher than I’d really like to be able to go.

“Oh. Oh fair enough then. How bashed up d’you want him?”

I shrug. “I dunno. Like – a bit.” I scratch my head. “Nothing permanent. Just… you know, scare him off?” I have negative potential as a future mob boss. “Or… or, you know what? Just show me who he is. Yeah. That’ll do.”

Charles sort of laughs in this half-bothered way that barely lasts more than an exhale. “You’ll be hearing from me Jones. You better not dick me about.”

I open my mouth to say something back and meet dial-tone. I blink at the glowing screen, trying to piece together what jut happened. That was officially the strangest threatening phone call I’ve ever had. Haven’t actually had all that many, but that was like a bad version of a British gangster film. All we need is Vinnie Jones and it’s Lock, Stock and a Flaming Homo.

Morning comes around too bloody quickly. After years of sleep deprivation and a well honed hatred of getting up to go to school, I’ve developed a way of switching off my alarm without being conscious of waking up. I only know it happens when I wake up in confusion, check the silent alarm, realise I didn’t sleep through it (another talent I’ve developed) because the ‘missed alarm’ icon isn’t showing, but yet it’s still set for the correct time, usually anywhere between half an hour to three hours earlier. When this happens it triggers the set of events I’m currently rushing through. Today I’m only half an hour late.

First, I sit bolt upright when I realise exactly what’s happened. “Shit.” Then, I scramble out of bed, stumbling as the covers tangle around my legs and rush about my room trying to find clean socks and a shirt without a stain. “Fuckitty fuck, fuck, fuck. Going to miss the bus!” Trousers with a hop-hop, zip, tie dangled round neck, blazer chucked on top of bag, and I can only find one shoe. What the hell use is one shoe? Why is the other one not with it? I took them off together. “Fudging fucking hell!” I growl, feeling a lot like Hugh Grant in the beginning sequence of Four Weddings, standing there with my lone shoe suspended by its laces in my hand.

I chuck it down and turn my room over searching for the other bloody one. Finally it turns up under my bed in the far corner by the wall. Ten minutes ‘til the bus goes and public buses don’t wait. I’ve stopped swearing – I’ve devolved to animalistic growling as the laces decide to be stubborn and refuse my attempts to force the piece of crap leather onto my feet without undoing them. Triumphant, I grab my jumper and all the rest of my school stuff, slam my way out of my room and barrel down the stairs.

“Move – move – late. Very late.” Tanya’s standing on the stairs doing her airhead impression, getting in the way.

“Oh but Nick-”

She doesn’t move, so I shove her out the way, tripping down the stairs, suppressing the knowledge that I just touched her breast because I don’t have the time to have a mental breakdown. “Sorry!” I call back, vaguely looking behind me as I thunder down the rest of the stairs, shaking off feelings of revulsion.

I glance at my watch as I shoulder my bag, heaving open the front door. “Shit.”

I slam the door, hit the pavement and start running. By the time I make it round the corner, the bus is already at the wrong end of the traffic free road and the stop is deserted of people.

“Fudge,” I mumble, grinding to a halt, hands on my knees and head between my legs as I suck in air. I look at my watch again as I catch my breath. Two options – start walking or wait for the next bus. The bus only gets me in ten minutes later than walking, even though the next one doesn’t come along for an hour. You know what? I want breakfast.

Annoyed with my whole morning experience, I turn tail and walk slowly back to my house trailing my feet. I’m well calm by the time I open the front door; I just dump my school bag down and trail into the kitchen. On autopilot I walk straight to the toaster and slot a couple of slices in to brown and flip on the kettle before pulling out a chair and slumping down, letting my head sink onto folded arms. Half an hour is such a useless amount of time to have to wait. I can’t even go back to bed.

“You’re shirt’s done up wrong,” Mr Roberts says from across the table, before he takes a bite of marmalade covered toast and goes back to the magazine he was reading. He’s wearing his glasses again. I look down and notice that I missed a button or two when I was doing it up. The bottom seams don’t match up. I look like a tool.

“Thanks,” I say, sitting up to fix the problem with sleepy fingers and slumping down again as soon as I’m done.

“And you need to brush your hair,” he adds without looking up.

A hand shoots to my scalp, my fingers smoothing through my hair, easily finding the cow-lick he must be talking about. “Oh bloody brilliant,” I breathe. Cow licks take a shower to come out properly - either that or a ton of gel, so I’ll have to wander round looking like a wassock all day. My response makes him smile, unless of course it’s something in his article that’s funny.

“I’m leaving in ten minutes. Go and sort yourself out. I’ll do you some toast and a coffee. You can eat in the car.”

I nod, rubbing a hand across my face as I heave myself back to my feet, realising I’ve just been offered a lift. “Thanks Mr Roberts,” I say, not really capable of intelligent conversation.

It’s his turn to shrug. As I look at him his concentration is firmly on the magazine, but the skin on his face has a little more vibrancy to it and his refusal to look up seems forced. He looks almost uncomfortable. “Nick, I told you, my name’s Mike.”

It’s then that I start to wonder if maybe the mysterious Mr Roberts doesn’t mind at all that I’ve been checking him out, because he seems more awkward around me than I am around him.

“Right, yeah. Ok,” I say, on a confused frown while I figure out if I even want to call him that. I rub at my neck, deciding I can probably give the ‘Mr Roberts’ thing a rest when we’re not in school given that I only kept up with it because of his stupendously idiotic advice with Treacle and him acting like he has some kind of authority here. His being a decent bloke is cancelling out my annoyance at his interfering, but he doesn’t need to know that, even if I do start calling him Mike.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell him, ducking out of the kitchen before it can get even more awkward and leg it up the stairs to the bathroom.