Back to school

Earlier that day, much earlier, in the hour when the darkest night begins to lift and the first pink fingers of dawn are stretching themselves across an unseeable horizon, Alan and Colin were discussing their respective futures as only centimeters away, a bored 19 year from Corowa call Krystal gyrated listlessly.

“Run this past me again, what’s the plan,” said Alan as he sipped his 23rd Big Fat Root of the night.

“Chrisso's missus has been getting the good news off Caroline, all that, you saw the video,” said Colin.

Alan had seen the footage. It had become the most popular YouTube video in the country within days.

“So, apparently Rebecca has decided she’s back on solids but that she can’t stay in Melbourne coz everyone knows she had Caro studying her fish pie recipe for a while. She’s getting in Chrisso’s ear saying ‘Let’s go to the Gold Coast’. Then Stewy Dew’s gone and eaten those crocodiles …”

“And the rest of it,” interrupted Alan. He had always been fond of animals and news of Dew’s bloody rampage at the Zoo had turned his stomach.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. So Dew’s gunna get the arse, we’re both playing at shitful teams. I reckon it goes like this. Chris goes to the Gold Coast, you go to Carlton and I’ll fill big Stewie’s boots over at Hawthorn.”

Alan liked the sound of it. He knew that he would fit in perfectly at the by-the-book culture predominant at Princes Park. He was an abstemious chap by nature and that was the kind of thing they respected at Carlton. In fact, it was well known that their high moral standards meant that nobody with even the slightest cloud over them was welcome.

He had a problem though. He had one blot in his copybook. In Grade Four, he’d gotten a detention after carelessly allowing an icy pole stick to slip from his grasp in the playground and been spotted by a teacher.

He knew if the indiscretion was revealed, the Blues would shut the door on him. He confided his problem in Colin.

Who suggested a solution. An entirely plausible solution. Stay and here getting pissed on Big Fat Roots and watching Krystal’s tits sway hypnotically back and forth, then head up to the primary school when it opened and politely ask them to excise the matter from his permanent record.

Simple. What could go wrong?