PDHPE hadn’t quite started.

Our usual high-panting gym teacher, Mr Ford, was away, so a substitute was in charge. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry for us to get going, so a couple of the boys were on the basketball court while everyone else was dicking about in the change rooms.

‘The homo,’ said Hamish Banning. ‘So good of you to join us. I thought you might have been off with your boyfriend, Beard, drinking chai lattes and talking about trees and roots and rooting each other.’ He was looking about like one of those wobbly-headed dogs you see in the back windows of cars, but with a smirk. ‘What a pair of poofters you turned out to be.’

I barely glanced at him. There wasn’t much to say.

I could have told him where to go but no one says that stuff to Hamish Banning because if he doesn’t belt you, he’ll get his mate Lurch to do it. Or worse, it’ll be his older brother Bevan or his black-belt mate. They were the school gorillas, and spent most of their lunchtimes hanging out at the top end of the oval pointing and laughing and bullying, basically acting like a couple of steroid-fuelled silverbacks looking for something to whack.

Besides, I was still swept up in the funk of Gracie Chilcott. She was probably definitely going to ask me out. I could tell from the way she got all shy and cutesy when she had her head poking out the classroom door. ‘So, do you wanna . . .?’ ‘Can I . . .?’

It was so easy to put it all together for her. ‘Can I – ask you something? Do you wanna – go out with me? We could go out, just the two of us. Do something different. Get a coffee or go for a walk or, gee, I dunno, do you, like, want to go fishing, maybe? I love fishing. Do you love fishing? Fishing’s cool. We could fish and then cook what we catch for a late breakfast on those barbeques at Little Manly. You got rods?’

‘I got at least one,’ I’d say. ‘You bet I do. I could give it to you, if you like. You wanna go for a swim? I’ve seen you in your bikini on Instagram but I’d love to seeeee you, if you know what I mean?’

How could anyone think she’s a bitch? She must have got that reputation somehow, but I can’t see it. Not after our walk ’n’talk.

My head was definitely not in the school change rooms. At that moment, I was about as far away as anyone could be from school. The beach was right there in the forefront of my mind, and the water beyond was that perfect aquamariney-island-postcardy pale blue, a bit like Gracie Chilcott’s eyes, just not as deep.

If I didn’t start thinking about algebra or factorising quadratics I was going to have a problem. I bent forward to mask my excitement and dug my hands in my pockets. Turning back to face the gym lockers, I used one foot to hold the back of the other so I could take off my Clarks without using my hands. There’s not much worse than being caught with a chubby at school, especially in the locker rooms before gym.

‘Can I . . .?’, ‘So, do you wanna . . .?’ Shit. It was all so full of possibility, I thought I was going to explode. ‘You bet you can . . .’

‘Wed-GEEEEEE!’ I heard it before I felt it, but by the time I realised someone had got hold of the back of my undies I was up on my toes, being lifted skyward. I mean, I was up, I was airborne. I was flying in the locker room. It must have been Banning, or that slobbering idiot, Lurch – hadn’t he turned into a dickhead since becoming Banning’s best mate.

But I could see Lurch against the lockers hacking out a huge laugh as I was literally swung around in a circle. My hands were pinned deep in my pockets, I couldn’t free them, and I started to pitch forward. With no free hands, I was going to end up face first in a locker or a bench or something else with a hard edge. Mercifully, I thought, the world stopped spinning and I started bouncing up and down. With every bounce my jocks were wedged further and further into my arse crack. It hurt as much as it burned.

Everyone was pissing themselves laughing, as if seeing me swung around and bounced about like a ragdoll by Hamish Banning was the funniest thing ever. They started a chant, ‘Wed-gee! Wed-gee! Wed-gee!’

‘Stop!’ I tried to yell. ‘Stoooop!’ I finally got my hands free and started flailing about at Hamish, trying to hit him with an elbow or a fist. I tried to kick him, to hurt him any way I could. But he had a good purchase on my undies and, for reasons I’ll never know, they wouldn’t rip. Once again, he lifted me clean off the ground and roared, ‘How do you like that, homo? You like shit up your arse, don’t you, poof? You love this shit! He’s a fag!’ he yelled to his gallery. ‘He loves it!’

It hurt more than I’d imagined it could have.

He was loud and menacing and whatever I tried was useless against the might of Hamish Banning. The tears finally blurred everything, but brought on a different, shameful pain.

‘Enough,’ I heard someone say. ‘That’s enough.’ I thought it must have been the sub teacher, but it was Teddy Abrahams. He’s got such a big voice for a little dude. He wasn’t big enough to do anything but he tried. My wedgie was so perfect, so complete, that Hamish Banning’s hands were up near the middle of my back. He pushed me forward and I kind of flailed and fell into Teddy and the lockers beyond.

‘Nice G-banger, you arse bandit, tree hugger,’ cacked Hamish.

I was physically hot. Tears stung my cheeks. My face was red, and my zits were probably glowing like they were radioactive. I was steaming and seething, and balled my hands ready to punch the absolute life out of that prick. My underpants were literally halfway up my back. I wanted to jump up and face off. I wanted to be that kid at the end of the movie who makes a stand and humiliates the bastard who’s done all the humiliating. I wanted to sting him with words that would ring in his ears for days or months to come, words that would wound and bruise and penetrate his fantastically dumb, thick skin. But as I untangled myself from Teddy I slipped again which set off a new chorus of laughter.

It wasn’t as if I needed help humiliating myself.

I finally made it to my feet and brought the waistband of my underpants back to where it belonged. My undies were still up my crack, though, and there was no way I was going to pull them out in front of Hamish Banning or Lurch or these other wankers.

‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!’ It was the sub teacher, all active and enthusiastic, and where the hell had he been two minutes ago?

‘Yes, Sir!’ said Hamish. ‘Let’s go, let’s go! Come on, tree hugger homo. You coming? Are you okay? You look like you’ve got something up your arse!’

‘You’re a –’ I started.

‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘I’m a . . .?’ And he came in menacingly close to my face and whispered, ‘If you ever make me look like a dickhead again, I will fuck you up so bad you’ll be cleaning your teeth through your arsehole! Got that, faggot!’ He stood up and said, ‘Let’s go’ again, just the way the substitute teacher had.

A couple of the boys hung back and asked if I was okay. It was hard to save face, but I said once I got my undies out of my butt I’d be fine, unless I had to get them surgically removed, which was pretty much how it felt. They left me to it. Teddy gave me a pat on the back and said everyone knew Hamish was a turd, it’s just that no one had figured out the best way to deal with him.

I could think of a few ways.

‘Thanks for trying,’ I said to Teddy. ‘I owe you one.’

Had I really made Hamish look like a dickhead? And how? All I’d done was write a story that the teacher liked. Big deal. Every day someone does school work the teachers like more than Hamish’s – he should be used to it. He didn’t have to call me a homo for writing the story, but it was kind of cool when Mr Baird turned on him. It was good to see him squirm a bit, to watch him suffer,struggling to read aloud.

The stupid thing is, his story actually sounded okay, kind of like an action story, just a bit simple. A bit like him, really. I don’t think it was worth trying to split me in half with my undies, though.

It was a struggle to get my jocks out of my butt. I tried to pull them down from the back with the waistband, but it hurt too much. Somehow my underpants had become like a band-aid that was too painful to peel off – it was either going to have to be a quick rip or find another way.

In the end I had to slide my thumbs in between my nuts and the fabric and gently peel my jocks out of my crack. Once they were free, I pulled my underpants down to my knees to have a look at them. There was red stuff, I’m guessing it was blood, in my underpants. It should have been shit, but this was red, not brown.

What had he done?

Still with my jocks around my knees, I went to the mirror and tried to get a look at my backside. I couldn’t see much, just a welt from where the fabric had been ripped up and down my skin, the line was like an extension of my crack. It must have been worse further down if that actually was blood in my undies. Maybe there was a pimple there, maybe that’s what had happened; all that friction had just ripped the head off it. It’d be fine, eventually. Still, it’d be good to know – maybe I should go to the school nurse or something. But what would I say? How would I show her? I grabbed my crappy phone and opened the camera. Pulling my arse cheeks apart with one hand, I tried to manoeuvre the phone the right way to take a photo – it was just so I could see what was going on back there, to see if I needed to get it fixed or not. That’s all it was.

I didn’t hear the door open.

I just heard the words, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’