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"Mam?"
"Yes, Spikey?"
"You like Mr Kelson, don't you?"
"Yeah," she said. "He used to be the science teacher when I was at school, before he became the head. He was probably my favourite. Oh, apart from the history teacher, I had such a crush on him."
"Not Mr MacManus!"
"Shit," said Mam, "I forgot he was still there."
"Language, Mam. Of course he's still there, he's Sam's dad."
"Oh, yes," she said. "Sam's dad."
She was teasing him, because she thought he had a crush on Sam MacManus. As if! Sam MacManus was a total swot, and anyway she didn't even know that Spike existed, not that he cared.
"Why'd you ask, anyway? About Mr Kelson?"
"Well… Dad was saying I should watch myself around him. He says it's shady when someone who's like that wants to work with kids."
Mam's face dropped. It always freaked Spike out a little bit when that happened, because he got scared she was going funny again, but it was just normal anger this time. "Did he," she said. "Well. Me and your dad don't always agree on everything."
"You could say that."
"But what do you think?"
"I think he's kind," said Spike. "Especially when you were in the hospital, and when Dad left, he was really nice to me. And he's never done anything shady that I've heard about. I think Dad's just being homophobic."
Mam pulled him into a hug and kissed him on the forehead. "Oh, you're a good lad, Spikey," she said. "I love you so much."
"Do you think he ever gets lonely?"
"Who?" asked Kelly. She was eating a slice of pizza from the canteen that was so greasy that the paper bag it was in had gone see-through. It made Spike feel a bit sick even looking at it.
He bit into his lovely apple. "Mr Kelson."
"Who cares?"
"I don't know," said Spike. "Don't you like him?"
"He's okay," said Kelly. "I'm not bothered about his personal life, though."
"But did you see the way Mr Samson was looking at him earlier?"
"Everybody was looking at him," said Kelly. "He was doing the assembly."
"Not like that, though! Like, when me mam and dad were still married, his new girlfriend Rosie used to look at him like that, like she knew she wasn't supposed to but she couldn't help herself."
"Wow," said Kelly, "you make your dad's affair sound so romantic."
Spike shrugged. "Maybe it was, to them."
He'd been upset, when it first happened, but now he was glad. He hadn't realised it until afterwards, but his parents didn't like each other anymore. It was harder for his mam now, with money and everything, but she was relieved too. She'd been so unhappy before, and he'd thought it was just because she was ill, but it wasn't. Anyway, he'd been one of the only kids in school whose parents were still together, if you didn't count Sam MacManus.
"I think Mr Samson has a thing for Mr Kelson," he said.
"So?" said Kelly.
"Well, have you ever seen Clueless?"
"Clueless? Isn't that movie for girls?"
"You're a girl, aren't you?"
Kelly shrugged.
"I think we should join Science Club," said Spike.
"Why the fuck would we do that?"
"So we can keep an eye on Mr Samson and figure out a way to get him and Mr Kelson together. Maybe then he'd be nicer to us."
"He's okay anyway," said Kelly. She actually knew him better than Spike did, because as well as being the science teacher Mr Samson was the coach for the cross country team, which Kelly was on.
"Yeah," admitted Spike. The truth was he just thought they'd be sweet together, but Kelly wasn't getting on board with that, so he had to come up with some other reason. "Well, it's the last place Jimmy would think of to look for you, though. It'd save us hiding from him at lunch."
"That's true," said Kelly. "Yeah, okay, whatever."
Mr Samson wasn't horrible or anything, but he wasn't nice either. He could be strict with people if they were messing about, but mostly he was just serious. Spike had never seen his face look like this before.
Mr Kelson had just stuck his head around the door, and smiled to see Spike and Kelly there. "Oh, hello," he'd said. "Sorry to interrupt. Could I just borrow you for two minutes?"
"Yep," said Mr Samson, expression going soft and happy. "Don't blow anything up while I'm gone," he said to Spike and Kelly and Sam MacManus on his way out the door, barely even glancing at them.
"Oh my God," said Kelly, nudging Spike, "you were so right."
"Right about what?" asked Sam MacManus.
"Nothing," mumbled Spike.
"Spike said Mr Samson is in love with Mr Kelson, and I was like, whatever, who cares, but oh my God," said Kelly.
"Well," said Sam MacManus.
"What?" said Kelly.
"No, I can't say anything, my dad'll kill me."
"We get it," said Kelly, "your dad's a teacher." Kelly never talked about her own dad. "You're such a fucking—"
The door opened, and the sound of laughter came in from the hallway.
"Okay, I'll see you later," Spike could just hear Mr Kelson say.
Mr Samson looked slightly pink and his eyes were all sparkly, but not for long. He went back to normal pretty quick.
"Everything okay?" he asked Sam MacManus, maybe because she was the only regular Science Club person or maybe because she looked a bit upset from what Kelly had started to say to her.
Sam MacManus shrugged and nodded.
"Okay," said Mr Samson, clapping his hands together. "Let's talk zombie apocalypse."
Spike and Kelly looked at each other. Was this what Science Club was?
Spike couldn't exactly remember everything that Cher had done to get her teachers together, but she had definitely put a card with a poem in it in one of their pigeonholes and made it seem like it was from the other one. Maybe he should try that.
In the film it was something by Shakespeare, but Spike thought that was a bit too obvious. He could find something better, he was sure.
"Mam," he said, "what's your favourite poem?"
"Ooh, good question," she said. "Probably 'Tintern Abbey'."
It took Spike a little while to find which poem she meant, because it wasn't actually called 'Tintern Abbey', it had a longer name. And then, when he did find it, it was ridiculously long. Also it wasn't a love poem, unless you counted loving mountains and your sister, which was all very nice but probably wouldn't work for this.
He looked up "love poems" instead, and he even found a collection called 'Queer Love Poems', but those seemed to be mostly about lesbians. The ones for men were all either really sad or about bath houses, or both. Spike wasn't sure exactly what a 'bath house' was—maybe it was an old-fashioned name for a swimming pool? He didn't even know if Mr Kelson liked swimming.
Spike tried "short love poems", and he found one eventually called 'The sun has burst the sky' which he thought was nice. It did say "I love you" five whole times, which Spike thought maybe was overkill, but he decided to go for it anyway. Go hard or go home, right?
He took a piece of red card from the paper stash and folded it in half, then copied the poem inside in his best handwriting. "To Mr K," he wrote at the top, "from Mr S". There. That should do it.
The next day, Mr Samson made him stay behind after Physics.
"Can I have a word with you, Spike?"
Spike nodded nervously. Whenever a grown-up wanted to 'have a word' it was never good.
"So," said Mr Samson, and took the card Spike had made out from his desk. "Mr Kelson found this in his pigeonhole, and I couldn't help but notice that the handwriting looks quite a lot like yours. Were you maybe trying to play a little joke on us?"
"No!" said Spike. "It wasn't a joke, I was trying to help."
"Trying to help how?"
"Well, I noticed the way that you were looking at Mr Kelson in assembly—"
Mr Samson pressed his lips together like he was trying not to laugh, but also like he was embarrassed. "Okay."
"And I just thought you'd make a really good couple, and I couldn't really tell if he had a crush on you back, but then when you were together in the hallway it seemed like maybe, and I just thought I could… help."
Mr Samson nodded thoughtfully. "Have you been watching the film Clueless by any chance?"
"Yeah, I watched it with me mam. It's her favourite."
"Thought so," said Mr Samson. "Right. So. Even if I did have a—" He smiled suddenly, then quickly wiped it off his face and looked stern again. "A crush on Mr Kelson, which I'm not saying I do or don't, because it's not really appropriate for me to talk about that with a student. But let's just say I did. We wouldn't be allowed to be together, because he's my boss, and he'd get in trouble. And it also wouldn't help that we're both men, and there are some parents who would kick up a fuss. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Spike nodded, shamefaced. It was so embarrassing that his dad was one of the types of parents Mr Samson was talking about. And it was so sad that Mr Samson and Mr Kelson couldn't be together even if they wanted to. "I'm really sorry," he said.
"It's okay, Spike," said Mr Samson. "You meant well."
When he told Kelly about it later, she crowed "They're soooo fucking!"
"What are you talking about?" said Spike. "He said they're not allowed."
"Oh my God, Spike, are you daft or what?"
"You're daft," said Spike, and shoved her into a hedge.