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~~~

A few days later we are sitting in Latin class. Lemmy, who usually sits right down the back, quietly takes a seat right behind Ken Johnston. We're waiting for Mr Chisnall, our Latin teacher, to arrive.

Now Ken Johnston has this brylcreamed swished-back-hairdo he is very proud of. He has an old grey/yellow comb he slips out of his back pocket, sharp as a knife, which he then pulls, luxuriantly, through his hair, so we can appreciate the extra length. This comb always has a thin line of pus in it from grease and dandruff. Normally someone would have said something about it but the fact is Ken Johnston's father has the only swimming pool in our class and a two-storey house, and you could tell every time Ken Johnston pulled that comb through his Fabian hairdo he was just thinking about being the only boy in our class with a swimming pool and who can he invite home for a swim.

But Ken Johnston is pretty clever, he never actually says his father has a swimming pool. He doesn't have to. Every move he makes advertises it, and the way his hair is all sort of elaborately piled up on his head and swished back into a kind of duck's tail says it for him. Ken has a bike with turned up handlebars, which he rides looknohands, and to see him you know all he's thinking about is how to get that beautiful brylcreamed hairdo home in one piece so he can float it, all reflected, in his swimming pool.

Anyway, we're all waiting for Mr Chisnall to arrive, to bang his books down on the desk with an extra thump and for him to look at us fierce and angry, and begin. Mr Chisnall is a sports hero, he represented NZ in sprinting and it's always as if he's straining at the start line, muscles all tensed, waiting for the gun to go off. We're all making a lot of noise, filling in our freedom with waiting.

Suddenly I notice the others nudging each other and pointing down the front. I look. There is Lemmy looking very very serious and while Ken is putting out on show his native woods ruler and pencil sharpener in the shape of San Francisco Harbour Bridge, Lemmy is very very intently picking something off the back of Ken Johnston's black jersey. It is the way Lemmy is doing it that gradually gets everyone's attention.

He plucks a little piece off like it's gold, just on the tip of Ken Johnston's shoulder, just out of his sight. Lemmy then holds it up in the air, as if he's

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inspecting it: then suddenly, it turns into a flea, he drops it with a look of distaste on his face, blows it away from him, flicks it as if it might jump back on him.

He starts off slow and concentrated but, bit by bit, he is finding so much of Ken's dandruff that one by one, everyone in the class starts watching.

There is this pure corridor of silence, we all stand down one end and watch Lemmy touching, or rather not touching, Ken, so delicate is his whisk. Then Ajax Murphy, who has thick pebble lenses and is just about as unpopular as Lemmy, starts off this hyena laughter, it's as if he can't really control it.

Ken can hear this laughter and he turns around but Lemmy is faster, he's reading his Latin book very seriously, slowly turning the page. The moment Ken turns back, there is Lemmy back doing it, even more exaggerated and bored.

Ken starts going red, he can't turn around too quickly or his elaborate hairdo might sort of glide to the side, the fringe'd come unthatched. Besides Ken is so cool he can't move quickly, cool people don't. So he just sort of sits there wanting to die with this big cheese-eating grin on his face every time he turns around, suddenly, to find everyone just looking at him and laughing and laughing and Lemmy sitting there so cool and still and flicking over a page, his lips even moving as he reads.

I looked at Lemmy whose face never changed once, though you could tell behind its whiteness beat this fierce rush, and I suddenly thought I want to know you Lemmy Stephenson. I need to know you. Lemmy please know me.