Desk Four

“Larry, you’re here on desk four.”

Larry nodded and, carrying his backpack in front of him a little like a shield for his nervousness, picked his way between the desks towards the one Mrs Polgen was pointing at. It was an unremarkable desk in the second row, on the right-hand side of the room by the window. The surface was unfinished wood. Towards the back of the surface, former students had carved doodles and their names into its margin.

Much of the decoration was crude. Not rude, just poorly drawn: scratches too deep and lines that didn’t quite meet. But some of it was really good. Someone called Marcus had carved his name into the wood and somehow managed a three-dimensional effect in the light from the window. Larry sat down on the right-hand side of the desk so he could look more closely at what Marcus had written and perhaps work out a little of the how.

It was the first day at a new school. The students had been through an induction assembly in the main hall, where they’d been divided into classes as their names were read from the register. Larry had spent the time looking around, trying to work out who he wanted in his class and who he didn’t. A couple of boys had already given him looks he interpreted as challenging, and he was relieved when they were assigned to different forms.

It was a mixed school, and Larry found himself thinking about the other students in terms of how attractive he found them. These were still new feelings. He remembered the last years of primary school, when the people around him had changed from a collection of names, faces and temperaments into boys and girls. There had been a sort of magical moment when he was suddenly interested in different groups of people for different reasons, without being able to explain why.

Larry had noticed a girl called Laura in his year. Not yet fully conversant with his own feelings, he would probably have struggled to explain why he was so delighted when she was assigned to his form. They were going to be in the same class for the next three years. Maybe five, depending on subject choices. The idea of spending time with her felt like a big plus for being part of 7P.

“Laura, you’re also here on desk four.”

Larry’s heart stopped. Not literally, but you get the idea. He turned towards the students waiting at the back of the room. Laura stood in a loose group with a couple of other girls and was now looking towards him where he sat on the right-hand side of desk four.

The world seemed to open up as new possibilities streamed like a river through Larry’s mind. He was going to sit next to Laura! They would have so much time to talk. She would be the person he leaned towards to whisper something conspiratorial, and she would whisper conspiratorial things back. They might exchange notes, he’d seen people doing that before and had wanted to be part of the group. They would get to know each other, appreciate each other. They would be desk mates, one of the closest relationships a child could have apart from being siblings.

At the very least, they were going to be friends for life. Over the next three years they would go to all their different classes together, making the transition from children to young adults. He would learn everything about her: what her family was like, what interested her, what she wanted to do with her life. And she was so pretty. He would have to make sure he didn’t spend too much time looking at her instead of paying attention to the teachers.

Perhaps they might end up as more than friends. Something more earnest and serious might blossom from their school friendship. They might become one of those couples who met at the humble age of eleven and went on to spend the rest of their lives together. Larry felt taller as his spine straightened and he sat up in his chair, filled with pride at the prospect of a relationship with Laura.

Her face not having lit up quite as much as Larry hoped it might, Laura had taken a couple of steps towards desk four, but now she stopped and addressed the teacher.

“Mrs Polgen, can I sit next to Emily on desk three?”

Oh. Wait, Larry could not be too worried yet. After all, this would surely have to be referred to the courts of The Hague to ensure that such a profound injustice couldn’t be carried out. Perhaps the headteacher should be called? At least a year head. Someone needed to sit Laura down and explain that destiny wasn’t to be trifled with. Whatever random or alphabetical process had led to them being assigned to the same desk was like bed time – an absolute law.

To his amazement, Mrs Polgen was entertaining the notion, she turned to desk three.

“Sergei, would you mind swapping with Laura?”

A tall boy with glasses looked up. “No, Mrs Polgen. Happy to swap.”

Larry could see it was a lie. Sergei was looking at Emily with the same crestfallen, emotionally vacant gaze that Larry was directing towards Laura. If Larry could read minds he would have known that Sergei’s dreams were also falling apart. With an extra minute of thinking time Sergei’s own fantasy had progressed to whether or not he and Emily’s children would attend the school their parents met at. Fortunately, Larry couldn’t read minds.

What had just happened?

Sergei had gotten up while Laura waited, and then walked over to desk four. Past him Larry could see Emily leaning in to whisper conspiratorially to Laura who was smiling as she put her backpack beneath desk three.

Not only was he now sitting with a boy, but he was on the far side of the desk, against the window, with nobody to talk to on his other side. Looking at the arrangement of the desks, he realised that the three students nearest him were all boys. He wasn’t going to spend any time with girls at all.

Perhaps trying to cheer himself up as much as the clearly unhappy Larry, Sergei sat down at desk four and stuck out his hand. “Hi, Larry. I’m Sergei. Shall we make the best of it?”