Shield-eaters and world leaders have many likes alike.

Ancient Hylian Proverb

“Here,” she said.

I turned around to look at her. She had a semi-quizzical, semi-dirty look on her face. I hadn’t known her for that long, at that point… but I knew that look. Whatever she was about to say wouldn’t be a pleasant thing. I’d stake my reputation (as a hopeless social misfit) on it. In that moment, I could solemnly swear that she was up to no good.

“Yes?” I tried tentatively.
“I know someone who likes you…” she started. “Like, she really likes you.”
“No she doesn’t,” I said automatically.

Of course she was lying. Nobody liked me – that was impossible. Plus, at that age it wasn’t proper for anyone to like me. I certainly didn’t like anyone (although maybe I did… I just wouldn’t admit it…), at least not enough to entertain any particular fantasies. 12 was too young to be a romantic person, someone who went on dates or had girlfriends. I was going to wait until 13 until I started to ritualistically get my heart broken.

“You don’t even know who I’m talking about!” she exclaimed. I’m talking about…”

Here she gave a name. I didn’t recognise it. I didn’t know many of the girls in my year anyway, although everyone knew who I was. I knew the Floof. I knew the Manics fan and would end up wanting to have sex with her. I knew Dani who pinched my bum. This name I didn’t recognise, although I didn’t go to the same primary school as the majority of my year either, so I was none the wiser.

“Oh,” was my eloquent reply. “Well, I don’t know who that is, and I can’t like someone who I don’t know. And if I don’t know her, she won’t know me, and I’m not sure how she could like me if she doesn’t.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I think you don’t like her because you don’t think she’d be good in bed.”

Good in bed. I’d never heard that phrase before. I didn’t need to work out what it meant, though. It was fairly self-explanatory. But then at the age of twelve I wasn’t exactly beginning to rank people I knew by whether or not they’d be good in bed. Considering the year I’d been having, I was beginning to know people by how hard they hit.

“…no,” I managed after I’d recovered from this curve ball. “I’d never… I mean, I don’t know who this is and I…”
“So you don’t think she’d be good in bed?”

This girl wasn’t a bully – she was a bit of a tease. But I knew I was in dangerous territory. Any answer I gave would be weaponised against me in some way. Whatever I said would have found its way through to the rowdy boys at some point. Throughout the year I’d been gay (because I wasn’t interested), a pervert (because I said someone was pretty), radical (because I gave a speech in favour of sex before marriage), and then gay again (because a friend of mine accidentally sat on my hand and apparently that was me groping him. My bully kept saying things like “I don’t feel safe around [ILB}, he keeps looking at me in a homosexual way”.) The last thing I wanted to now be was someone who didn’t think someone I didn’t know existed wasn’t good in bed.

What was I supposed to say?

“I don’t know what it’s like in bed,” I said theatrically, making my excuse to go to the bathroom and end the conversation there and then. I got stuck in one of the stalls and my Geography teacher had to kick the door in.

By the time I got back to class my bully had heard that I didn’t know what a bed was like and was telling everyone that I actually slept on the floor under a second-hand flea-infested rug in the hovel that I lived in, and that’s why I was so stupid and dirty.

But at least I didn’t have to have sex. Gross!