My next school was Diadem Road Secondary, and compared to it, St Cyprian’s was a palace. We pupils used to tell one another that it had at one time been a leper hospital or an abattoir, and when it became too run down the local authorities were faced with a choice of either using it as a cattle market or demolishing it. And they were all scratching their heads down at the town hall, trying to decide, when up popped some bright spark and pointed out that while the building might now be wholly unsuited for the task of turning pigs into sausages, or allowing lepers a sanctuary where they could quietly shed digits and limbs before expiring, it would be just the perfect place to turn the district’s children into young adults before casting them adrift into the wide world of work or unemployment. So they made a minimum of alterations to the building, named it after the thoroughfare in which it sat and threw open wide the gates for Youth to enter. We passed this story around among ourselves, each of us wanting to believe it, and any attempt to disprove it was most unwelcome.

            Likewise we told each other that the rusty drainpipes which ran down one side of the building were all that was holding the place up and we convinced each other that if these pipes were ever to be removed, the school would fall down.

            So, I had to make the transition from being king of the castle at St Cyprian’s to starting again at the bottom at Diadem Road. I’ll be honest with you, I did not relish the idea one little bit. My reputation at St Cyprian’s had been hard won, and many a cut lip, winded gut and Chinese burn had been created in its making and I had no intention of wasting it. So I allowed myself one week maximum to find out for myself how the land lay, then I was going to start on the way up again.

            In fact, it was remarkably easy. It was no hindrance at all to me to be taller than average and quite powerfully built. I had another advantage too – my mother. Or rather, for we must be accurate here, my mother’s profession. Even though I was banished to my room when she took in paying customers while I was at home, it was of course impossible for me not to know what was happening and so I came to realize that I could add sex to my arsenal, to join the violence that had long been there. There were lots of different kinds of sex, I discovered, and I could use any or all of them to help me.

            It took me less than the week I had allotted to myself to discover who the two rulers of the Diadem Road pupils were. There was a boy called Cyril Hewson and a girl called Elsie Young. As far as I could tell they had no connection with each other. Each was a bully and each ruled his or her roost. I dealt with Cyril first.

            Cyril was about my size but he didn’t have my brain. He used his fists to get whatever he wanted, which was generally whatever anyone else had but he didn’t. If anyone refused to turn over to him what he demanded by way of tribute, he would administer swift punishment. He was seldom refused a second time. He was not very bright and he was as lithe and graceful as a hippo with its haemorrhoids on fire. The ironic thing is, he could have been resisted if only anyone had dared to try. It was all so very easy when I put him in his place – or rather I put myself in his place and him in the dirt.

            Cyril (I ask you! Cyril! Did his parents have a grudge against him?) liked comics. I don’t think he could read very fast but he liked the pictures and the bright colours and of course he liked anything that belonged to someone else if he could pinch it. So one day I came to school with the latest Comic Cuts in my hand. Later, in the mid-morning break I made sure I walked round the playground with it open in my hand, engrossed in it, indifferent to what was going on around me. I made sure I walked close to Cyril and I could see out of the corner of my eye that he had taken the bait. He was talking to a couple of his cronies who pretended to be his friends so he wouldn’t hurt them, and I saw him turn to watch me. I walked round the corner of the building and leaned against the wall, still reading. And sure enough, a few moments later, Cyril lumbered into view, his arrival like that of a cow that had failed to get into ballet school.

            I did something to him that he absolutely hated. I ignored him. I felt supremely confident. I was actually reading the comic, not just pretending to.

            “Hey!” he exclaimed. I read on. I didn’t even react.

            “Hey!” he repeated.

            This time I looked up, a mystified frown on my face. But I looked straight ahead, not at Cyril, who was to my right.

            “I’m talking to you,” he said, and I turned my head.

            “Are you, indeed?” I said, “And how may I help you?”

            “I want that comic.”

            “Do you like Comic Cuts?”

            “Yers.”

            “It is good, isn’t it? I bought mine from Murphy’s Newsagent on the corner, but I daresay you’ll be able to buy one from somewhere closer to your home if you prefer.”

            He goggled at me. I could see the oaf was unsettled.

            “No, I want that comic.”

            “But it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to me.”

            The logic of this seemed to stump him for a moment. Obviously, he had been having things far too easy recently. His eyes narrowed and he frowned at me as though he wanted to make sure he remembered me in future.

            “Are you new?”

            “Yes, I started here last week. My name is –”

            “I don’t care what your name is because I’m going to give you a new name. Arse-face. That’s what I’m going to call you, and if I call you that everyone else will call you that. Arse-face How do you like your new name, arse-face?”

            Now I stopped leaning against the wall. I slowly stood up straight and folding the comic and putting it into my back pocket I tuned to face him. My movements were slow and my voice was still calm and collected; all calculated to infuriate.

            “That’s a very rude name to give someone,” I said.

            “Yes it is, arse-face. Don’t you like it, arse-face?”

            “No, not really. But of course there are far ruder names you could call me.”

            “Are there?” He seemed genuinely curious.

            “Oh yes, I can think of some really filthy, disgusting names.”

            “Oh yeah? Like what?”

            “Well,” I said, pondering for a moment, “For example like Cyril.”

            For maybe a full two seconds he didn’t realize what I had said. Then there was a noise like the anguish of a constipated frog and he swung at me.

            Now it was no accident that we were standing facing each other with the wall of the school immediately to his left, my right. That is how I had wanted us to be. Cyril, like most people, was right handed. So he swung his right fist at me. No technique, just a missile consisting of his clenched fist on the end of his arm. I knew what he was going to do before he even did it, so it was easy for me to jump backwards and let good old Cyril’s fist keep on going until it hit the brick wall. I rather like to think I actually heard his knuckles crack, but I suspect that might just be old age embellishing an affectionate memory.

            What is not embellishment, however, is the cry of pain Cyril let out. He let out another one a moment later when I kicked him as hard as I could in the balls. Then he stopped crying with pain because he as too busy lying on the ground gasping for air. His right hand was in his left armpit, his left hand was cradling his crotch, and tears were running down his cheeks. I squatted down next to him, and took one of his ears in my hand and began to twist it. I spoke to him very softly.

            “Cyril, I don’t care what you do to anyone else, but you will never try to take anything of mine again. Do you understand?”

            He didn’t acknowledge me so I gave his ear another turn. He squealed softly.

            “Do you understand?”

            “Y-yes. I understand.”

            “Just so long as you do. The rest of the school is yours to play with, but leave me out of it.”

            “Yes. Yes, I will.”

            “And if you ever call me arse-face again, your balls will be marmalade.”

            I gave his ear another twist for luck and let go. Then I stood up and walked calmly back round the corner to where most of my fellow pupils were still playing. The teacher on playground duty, a useless article called Mr Crowe, had been totally unaware of what had happened.

             I never told anyone what had happened, but of course the word got out soon enough and it was all round the school and Cyril’s power was broken for good. I may have been in the most junior class, but I was still in Cyril’s place. What’s more, with a delightful irony, everyone began to call him arse-face.

            Cyril died in North Africa in 1942, of wounds he had received at El Alamein. They had just awarded him the Military Medal. It was in the papers.

            So much for violence. I used sex to deal with Elsie Young.

**********

            “What you doin’?”

            I said nothing. Just kept on walking.

            A dozen or so more paces.  

            “’Ere! Are you followin’ me?”

            I was, of course, but I didn’t say anything. I just smiled at my prey and kept walking.

            My prey, in this instance, was a repulsive specimen called Elsie Young. She was in the third year and was due to leave school at the end of that academic year. Meanwhile, as long as she was still at the school, she was as feared as the now deflated Cyril. She had a tendency to bully and extort younger members of her own sex but she was by no means inflexible in this rule. She was quite happy to punch a recalcitrant young boy in the face if he displeased her in any way. Where she differed from Cyril was that while he bullied in order to get what he wanted, Elsie bullied for the fun of it. She liked making younger children cry. It didn’t matter if they had nothing to give her; she hit them anyway. She also had a reputation as a slut.

            I judged her to be more intelligent than Cyril so I wasn’t going to be able to deal with her by feinting for an ill thrown punch and then kicking her in the groin. Something a touch more subtle was called for.

            Now, this Elsie was of an appearance as repulsive as her personality. She was overweight, and had a face that not only looked like a cushion after someone particularly misshapen had sat on it but was also liberally sprinkled with pimples in various stages of eruption. She had greasy hair that hung in rats-tails from her head and the smell of her indicated that she bathed once a fortnight or so, whether she needed it or not, and her clothing reflected her habits.

            She lived with her family in a terraced street near the railway sidings, where her father worked. Like a lot of children who lived there she used to take a short cut to and from school across the patch of desolation called Princess Park, and then along the canal towpath until she got to the bottom of Crecy Street.

            She was one of those children who was allowed to go home for lunch and one day, a warm bright one, I followed her on her way home. I wasn’t subtle about it. I wanted her to see me.

            “’Ere! Are you followin’ me?”

            I drew level with her. “Yes, I am actually.”

            I saw her peer at me.

            “I know you. You’re the bloke what flattened that arse Cyril.”

            “That’s me.”

            Evidently there as no love lost between the two bullies. She smiled at the thought of what I had done and I suspect my stock rose several points with her.

            “He’s an arse, that Cyril. He deserved what you did.”

            All the while she was looking at me curiously, and I was looking back at her through narrowed eyes, a half smile on my face. I just nodded.

            “I mean,” she went on, “He was just a thief what will probably end up in prison.” I nodded agreement.

            “What’s your name?”

            “Elijah Hakesley.”

            “Elijah?” she laughed, “Couldn’t your parents think of nuffink better than that?”

            I didn’t think Elsie was such a wonderful name myself, but I kept my own council. An argument here would have ruined everything, so I just smiled again. She could take that as agreement with her opinion if she wanted.

            “Where do you live?” she asked. I told her.

            “That’s right in the other direction.”

            “Yes.”

            “You’re not going home for lunch then?”

            “No, I’m not.” “Then what are you doing here?”

            “I’m doing what you thought I was doing. I was following you.”

            “Why are you doing that?”

            This was a crucial bit. I said nothing, I just looked her in the eye and chuckled softly.

            And it worked. The stories I had heard about her were evidently true.

            “Oh, you fancy a fuck! Alright then.”

            So she took my hand and with nary a backward glance at me, she led me to a clump of weeds under a tree. It was reasonably sheltered, although there was no one else about anyway. She lay on the ground, and pulled her grubby dress up round her waist. Then she lifted her bottom and pushed down her underpants. They had once been white, I imagine, but now they were dirty grey, with a collection of stains that testified to the fact that she didn’t change them every day and that they were never very well washed when she did wear another pair. A few holes and a loose bit of elastic completed the delightful picture. She kicked them to one side and spread her legs, looking up at me. She had to squint, because of the bright sun.

            “Well, come on, I haven’t got all bloody day. Do you want a fuck or not?”

            I had achieved what I wanted. I bent down, grabbed her panties and turned and ran back in the direction of Diadem Road.

            “Oi! What’s your bloody game?” she called after me, “I thought you wanted to fuck me.”

            And then I suspect that mystification gave way to misgivings, because only then, after I had had a head start, did she jump to her feet and start running after me.

            “You bastard!” she yelled, “You give those back. Give then back now.” But she didn’t have a hope of catching me.

            I could hear her cursing me as she chased me back to the school gates but she was not built for speed and I arrived well ahead of her. In the playground, pupils were milling around prior to filing into the dining room. I waved the panties above my head like a flag of triumph.

            “Look!” I shouted, “I’ve got Elsie Young’s knickers!”

            Of course, that remark was a real attention getter. Heads turned all over the playground.

            “She took them off and gave them to me. She’s a dirty little tart.”

            I still had everybody’s attention.

            “Look at the state of them!” I yelled, and held them up again so everyone could see how revolting they were. The sight was greeted with both expressions of disgust and some laughter.

            At this moment, the owner of the knickers herself arrived at a gallop. She came to a halt, her face sheened in sweat, puffing and blowing. She looked vulnerable, which of course she was, and someone in the crowd started to laugh at her.

            “You give them pants back to me, you bastard.” she shouted to me.

            “Do you really want them?” I asked.

            “Give them to me.” she yelled and started coming towards me.

            “Catch!” I trilled, and threw the panties over her head, towards the crowd behind her. They were caught by a boy of Elsie’s age, who made a grimace of disgust and burst out laughing. Elsie abruptly changed direction and ran at him. Of course, before she reached him he threw the panties to someone else. And that was how it was: we had ourselves a multi-player game of pig in the middle, with the bully as pig. She started cursing us all and making threats, but soon the threats gave way to tears of anger and humiliation. Some of the smaller children at the back of the crowd, who had been particularly afraid of Elsie, began chanting “Elsie’s lost her knickers!” over and over.

            Eventually, the teacher on duty, alarmed by the noise, came to see what was going on. It was that fool Mr Crowe again. The action stopped as he strode into our midst.

            “What s going on here?” he demanded.  

            For a moment there was silence then someone, and I rather think it was me, said “We were just all helping Elsie find her underpants.”

            Mr Crowe then noticed that Elsie had picked something up from the ground.

            “Elsie, show me what you have there.” Reluctantly she held up her panties. The last few minutes had not been kind to them, and they looked even shabbier.

            “Put them away at once,” Mr Crowe spluttered, “That is absolutely revolting. You can report to the Headmaster’s study immediately, you disgusting girl”

             And as Elsie sloped off to her meeting with the Head, a wave of laughter swept across the crowd in the playground. Mr Crowe tried to hush us and ordered us to walk into the dining room because the lunch hour had started.

            But Elsie’s spell was broken. No one was ever going to be afraid of her any more. Dozens of little victims realized that she would never be able to bully them again.

            I don’t know what happened to Elsie after Diadem Road, but I am willing to bet cash money that she didn’t end up fighting the Germans in the Western Desert.

            So, the two school bullies were deposed, and I was ready to take over both their positions, to take advantage of the lucrative bullying markets they had established.

            Now I had to secure an advantageous position for myself with the teaching staff; and I already knew just how I was going to do it.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3 -- Dealing with Mr Swape