He got up and instinctively went for the guitar, a traditional,wooden acoustic model. He still owned it in 2018 but it had been sadlyneglected, languishing in the loft for years. Perhaps he ought to get it backdown and dust it off when he got back to his own time.
He picked it up now and tried to play a chord. It soundedterrible, but then it always had in his hands. Deciding it would probably bebest left in the loft, he reluctantly put it down and looked at the clock. Itwas already half past eleven. It was not unusual for him to get up this lateduring his teenage years on days when he didn’t need to be in school. On thisday, he knew that he didn’t, at least not until the evening.
During that final term there had been no need for them toattend lessons once the A Levels had started. Kent’s last exam had been somedays earlier so effectively he had already left, other than this final ballwhich always took place on the Friday after the final exams.
On the window sill, Kent spotted his ticket for the ball:
Year 13 Leavers
SuperheroMasked Ball
Friday 8th July1994 – 7pm-11pm
Below were listed some of the attractions of the evening,which included a disco and a barbecue. Also highlighted in capitals at thebottom were the words STRICTLY NO ALCOHOL.
Good luck with that, then, thought Kent, triggering a memoryabout the amount of illicit booze that had been smuggled in. He didn’t rememberthe teachers being that strict at enforcing the alcohol ban. He was onlyseventeen but the majority of the kids attending had already turned eighteen.He guessed the school were obliged to put that on there for appearance’s sake. Thenif any of the teenagers got drunk, went home and threw up, they could absolve themselvesof responsibility.
Next to the ticket was his wallet. Made of black leather, heremembered it well. His parents had given it him for his sixteenth birthday andit had lasted a good few years. He opened it up to find three ten-pound notesinside. That was a reasonable sum, especially in 1994, and he was sure he couldput it to good use.
Kent had done all manner of odd jobs as a teenager to earnextra money. He had graduated from paper boy to working on the tills for a fewhours on a Sunday morning at the local newsagent’s and also worked a couple ofnights as a washer-upper in a local restaurant.
He opened his wardrobe to find his Batman costume hanginginside. It was the classic Adam West design from the 1960s TV series that Kent hadwatched over and over when he had been growing up. Glen had tried to talk him intogetting the Robin costume instead, but for once Kent hadn’t let himself beswayed by this dubious advice. Who would want to be Robin when they could beBatman?
He closed the wardrobe door and pondered how he was going tobring about the change of events he desired. As always he had two very strongaces up his sleeve – the benefit of hindsight and the element of surprise. Glenclearly thought he was a naïve idiot whom he could manipulate to his heart’sdelight. Maybe that had been true when he was seventeen but now Kent had decadesof life experience under his belt. Glen would be at his mercy, so long as hecould come up with an effective plan.
The process of arranging dates for the ball had alreadytaken place several days previously so there was nothing he could do about that.It was a done and dusted deal, one in which Kent had come off very badly.
It had been agreed by everyone in the class that they wouldpair off for the ball in the style of an American prom. There were four moreboys than girls in Kent’s year at school so inevitably some were going to beleft on the shelf. Kent had ended up being one of the unwanted four along withPizza Dave, Fat Simon and Nerdy Spencer.
This wasn’t auspicious company to be in. The latter two certainlywere not going to win any popular competitions. They had consistently been thelast two selected when picking teams for football at school and now he was officiallyon a par with them. As for acne-ridden Dave, most people steered clear of him forfear of being splattered by an exploding zit.
Kent’s failure to acquire a date had been primarily down to misfortuneand bad planning. It certainly wasn’t down to any physical attributes.Wandering through to the bathroom, he took a good look in the mirror, marvellingat the youthful demeanour facing back at him. The skin was smooth, the faceimpossibly thin and the eyes were crystal-clear blue, not yet ravaged by the yearsof heavy drinking that lay ahead.
“Quite a handsome young chap,” he remarked out loud. “Even ifI do say so myself.”
If he had been more organised he could have sorted out hisball date with no problems. Throughout the exams he had agonised about whetheror not to ask Kay, but he was too fearful of rejection to make the move. Thenhe made the mistake of confiding in Glen who had used the information toscupper his chances at it and get in there first. By that time, it was too lateto find somebody else. Almost everyone had been taken.
There was a girl called Sally left, but he couldn’t bring himselfto ask her. She wasn’t bad-looking but had terrible halitosis. Kent could smellher fishy breath at twenty paces. Even she got snapped up eventually, foughtover by the last few desperate boys as if she was the last turkey in the shopon Christmas Eve.
Victory had gone to a boy called Gareth, slightly less fatthan
