Ahh, Fred
I've written a couple of stories about my friend "Fred". This one occured when we were wee lads in first year. (Year 7 to you young scallywags.)

At our school was an older boy called John Steele. His name was legend. His name inspired fear in the hardest kids. Rumours abounded about what he got up to outside school. Nicking cars, stealing, drugs. And he was huge. Imagine a WWF wrestler squeezed into a school uniform and you'll get the picture.

Just to underscore how unbelievably hard and grown-up he was he had a moustache. Well, I say moustache, he had bad teenager bum-fluff clinging optimistically to his upper lip. In fact, that was his nickname: bum-fluff, which you would whisper amongst yourselves then look furtively about in case he or any of his minions were within earshot.

Anyway. One fine day myself and Fred were walking towards the PE department. We passed Bum-fluff on the way down, enduring his sneers and those of his equally huge friend. We had just reached the PE room door when Fred stopped, turned and shouted "OYY! BUM-FLUFF!" at the top of his voice.

I stood there stunned. Slowly I turned to look at Steele. He was standing looking at us with an expression of bemusment. Obviously no-one (certainly not two runty first years) had ever had the temerity to shout his hated nickname at him. He frowned and turned to his companion, who was equally puzzled. They had a short, calm conversation. Then they legged it at full speed down the path towards us.

"Shiiiit!". We dashed into the PE department where we attempted to hide. Luckily for us, Steele was obviously in an indulgent mood and held our collars in his meaty hands as he patiently lectured us on the folly of youthful impertinence. Then, with a quick clip round the back of the head, he left us to it.

John Steele, AKA "Bum-fluff". What a legend.
(MrC. Having the most boring username on b3ta since 2004, Tue 3 Feb 2009, 11:55, Reply)