Chapter 1

My name is Samuel, the year is 2016 and I’ve just turned sixteen. Call me Sam; everyone else does.

Sixteen is a special age in Britain. A sixteen year-old can start doing a lot of new things. Sixteen is the age you finish high school. Sixteen is the age of consent. Sixteen is the age you can get married. Sixteen is the age you can start working full-time. Sixteen is the age you can ride a moped. Sixteen is the age you can leave home.

Of course, there are provisos on pretty much each and every one of these things.

E.g., you finish high school at sixteen, but these days everyone has to stay in education until they are eighteen; yeah, the government recently legislated that in a blatant attempt at fuzzing the unemployment statistics. It didn’t used to be that way.

Did you see in my list above that you can work full-time at sixteen, too? Kinda contradicts the bit about having to stay in the education system until you’re eighteen nowadays, eh? There’s been lots of government initiatives to bring back apprenticeships and things, but ignoring that, no sixteen year-old can work full-time and you have another way modern rules fudge those unemployment statistics: by leaving the crappy jobs that sixteen year-old drop-outs take to the eighteen year-old drop-outs. etcetera. The politicians are damn lucky the sixteen year-olds can’t vote!

Talking of provisos, the age of consent is completely different and weird in Northern Ireland. Gays can only do it at eighteen, heteros have to be seventeen and there’s even this very weird thing where a legal-age girl cannot be prosecuted for sex with an underage boy but a legal-age boy can be prosecuted for sex with an underage girl. I warned you it was weird. Anyway, forget Northern Ireland; I promise this isn’t going to be a story of a wayward young girl seducing minors in Northern Ireland!

The proviso on marriage is one of consent. Not the participant’s consent, mind you! You can only get married at sixteen with parental consent.

Except in Scotland. You can marry at sixteen without parental consent as long as you do it in Scotland. Traditionally, English couples would elope and marry at a place called Gretna Green, the very first stop across the Scottish border on the road from London to Scotland. The blacksmith ordained. That still happens. Romantic, eh?

And you can only leave home at sixteen if you have parental consent, too, although in practice the courts would be unlikely to make you return if you run away; this is one of those rare cases where the difference between the law and reality is on the side of the independent, sixteen year-old.

Is that enough provisos? I doubt I know them all. All told, eighteen is an even more special age. By seventeen you can join the army and die for your country, and you can start to learn to drive a car. But by eighteen you can do all of the above without parental consent, and you don’t have to worry about which part of Britain you’re in, and you can vote, and drink, and drive proper cars, too!

But, if you’ve just turned sixteen, sixteen is still a pretty special age.

As I said, my name is Sam, the year is 2016 and I’ve just turned sixteen. I’ve just finished high-school with decent grades. And as I just briefly explained above, these days, kids my age have to spend at least the next two years in the education system.

Now, if you’re not a Brit, you’re going to find how our school system works a tad confusing, so I’ll do my best to explain it. After all, I have no f’ing clue how old a ‘sophomore’ is and I wish stories that mentioned them would at least explain that kind of thing for international readers.

In Britain, at sixteen, there are really two routes educationally. The ‘sixth form’ is two more years of high-school with harder classes and aimed at preparing you for university at eighteen. You have to get good grades to get into sixth form. And there’s college. These days, you can do pretty hard college courses and get into some universities that way, too, but generally, college courses are more vocational and aimed at those who don’t cut it academically.

Computer Science is an interesting counter-point. You can take full-time college courses in Computer Science or Software Engineering and such, which will really put you in an excellent position to pursue something computer-related at university, whereas everyone takes several different subjects at sixth form, so sixth form Computing is a joke compared to the college courses. Go figure. Still, sixth form is the preferred way to get accepted by a good university for a computer-related degree.

And I mentioned computing because I want a computer-related degree. I went around the college open-day and was really impressed with their computer labs and teachers.

But I opted to go to sixth-form instead.

My reason? Hormones.

All the girls at college seemed to be studying to be hair dressers and beauticians - that kind of thing - and, whilst I could stare at them all day, I knew I wouldn’t stand a chance. I’m still searching for the quiet girl nobody else has noticed, in the hope that, that way, I stand some chance.

That’s right. I avoided the school with all the stunning hot girls because they were out of my league. Better to play in the junior league and get to bat occasionally?

In my town, which is a smallish, but sprawling, old industry town in the Midlands, there is one big high-school and it has an attached sixth-form. The local college is much harder to get to, in a nearby town, so that tilted the balance, too.

At high-school there were ten classes (called ‘forms’) in my year, each around twenty students. So, multiplying that, it works out at around one thousand high-school students. There are only one hundred sixth-form students total, split into two years and three forms (classes) each. So, the sixth-form form-classes are slightly smaller, and everyone is mixed up and only two of my high-school classmates are in my sixth-form class, although I kind of know and recognise many others.

That brought home how few of my high school year I’d actually got to know over our previous four years together. I’m quite shy until I know people, generally quiet, and I’m hopeless with names and faces. It’s some kind of disability, face blindness.

At high school, most of the subjects were mandatory, although you had to pick between some electives for the final two years and for those, you were put into classes with people from other forms. At sixth form it’s all elective – you select which mix of three or four subjects you take, based on what kind of degree you want to pursue at university. (There’s modern complications like you’re now able to do a subject in just a year but that doesn’t apply to me, so I won’t go into that.) In order to study computers at university I have to study Computing and Maths at sixth form, and at least one other subject, with a science recommended. Instead of a science, though, I’ve decided to study Business Management!

A computing student doing a business class is actually quite unusual. I’m probably not quite unique nationally, but I’m certainly the only kid with this combination of subjects in my whole school. Luckily, the school secretary was really good about making sure my lesson schedule fit. The headmistress thinks more computing students should study business and vice versa, but weirdly, so far, I’m the only kid that agrees with her.

Computing is definitely male-dominated, and dominated by the nerds and swots. By contrast, the business subjects are much more evenly split and have a far wider spectrum of engagement, from nerds and swots at one end to slackers at the other. Lots of slacking, posh kids are being groomed to follow in their parents’ footsteps, after all.

Sixth-form has the same hours as high school – from eight in the morning to three or four in the afternoon – but the lessons are fewer and, during the gaps in between, you are supposed to study. The business classes are split into two slots, taught by different teachers. My first business management class on Tuesdays is taught by Mr Eves and is a normal lesson introducing us to the basic fundamentals of business, using text-books and everything. My other business management slot is on Thursdays, taught by Ms Duncan and completely course-work oriented. On the very first lesson we were going to be split into groups to do our practical projects together. This is where my story starts:

“Okay kids, settle down! Lesson’s started! Split yourselves up into teams of four, quickly now!”

Ms Duncan’s raised voice was my first inkling that our teacher had even entered the classroom. She was standing at the front waving a wad of papers, like a flag, to get our attention. Everyone looked around and got up and went off to their friends. I stood alone. I looked around helplessly.

Within seconds things settled down and a hush descended. Ms Duncan moved between us, shuffling people between groups to split up cliques. She knew most of the kids from her high-school forms, but I’d never had her before. She stopped in front of me. “You’re new,” she muttered, a statement, not a question, “What’s your name?”

“Sam,” I stammered back. Everyone was looking at me and I was feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable under their gaze.

Ms Duncan scanned the classroom looking at the other groups, searching for a group to put me in. Her eyes alighted on a pair of girls standing apart from the others. “Here, Sam, you can go join Charlotte and Tiffany,” and she gave me a gentle push in their general direction. I walked over to them as Ms Duncan continued her inspection of the groupings.

“Hi, I’m Sam,” I said to the two girls, thrusting my hand out at them.

One of the girls, the taller, prettier, bustier one with the brown, bob hair, took my offered hand and shook it; “Charlie,” she said, then pointed at her quieter friend, “and this is Tiff.”

Of course, I recognised the girls from my year at high-school, but I’d never really talked to them before. Charlotte – or Charlie, as she prefers – was a typical, popular girl; if this were America she’d have surely been a cheerleader. She has shiny, dark brown hair cut in a tidy bob to her shoulders and lush, arching eyebrows, a flawless complexion and perfect little nose and wide pink lips. She has a slight tan-coloured skin even in winter. She is quite tall, toned, slender but curvy with large breasts that she subtly flaunts. Although we all wear the school uniform, Charlie’s always looks expensive and new and draws attention to her boobs. She’s hot. She’s perfect. She knows it.

Tiff, though, is a swot. The contrast to Charlie couldn’t be wider. She’s also a tiny little thing, not especially tall and extremely skinny. It’s a body she hides with slightly baggy clothes and always trousers instead of a skirt. Her face is hidden behind a wall of thick, dirty-blonde hair and her small, gold-rimmed, round spectacles.

I had no idea these two were friends. They were unlikely friends. And yet they’d paired up, when Charlie could have picked from a half dozen groups.

Those seconds of our introduction had been just long enough to give Ms Duncan time to finish her checking and return to the front. “Please, one team member come to the front and collect the assignment.”

Charlie bounced off. She was an obvious doer. Tiff just stood there silently and a little distant. I smiled at her and she made a pressed-lip, forced smile back which looked more like a grimace. She said nothing.

Charlie returned and every group was talking quietly and looking at the assignment. Charlie had had a quick glance at it while she carried it back to us and she summarized it succinctly: “We have to find a real company, and identify a real business need, and prepare a real business case and present it to them!” Charlie looked really excited. Tiff looked interested. Tiff’s eyes smiled.

We spent the rest of the lesson slot quietly brainstorming. Charlie and I were mostly dreaming up fanciful business needs and then trying to name local companies that might have that need and Tiff was just listening to us, intently. Charlie was drawing me out of my shell and I found it surprisingly easy to just chat casually with her.

Not bad for the first week, I reflected; already talked to a girl! Out of my league, though. I could hear my own mouth running away, saying ridiculous things, and my inner voice groaning and dying of embarrassment and knowing full well I couldn’t be impressing her.