I survived embarrassed and having to write, “I will not forget my homework” a hundred or, maybe, two hundred times. I’d written lines plenty of times in prep. Prefects, senior boys put in charge of bossing around the younger ones more than older brothers, loved to give out lines for minor infractions, and I infracted often. Sometimes they gave out essays, too, and I’d have to write a page on the sex life of a ping pong ball or snail or ball-point pen. The subject didn’t matter nearly as much as the creativity.
Some prefects were good fun. Like the one who interrupted prep to ask, “Who knows what screwin’ is?”
Some of the boys didn’t have a clue, and some did but were too shy to say anything.
“Come on, anyone?”
I raised my hand nervously. “That’s when you stick it in and grind round and round,” I said.
The prefect chuckled. “Ach, bejesus that would make you dizzy for sure,” he said.
Boys around me laughed.
