“I think he wants me,” Jack says. “Do you think he realized I might be gay?”
“Hard to say.” I shrug. “You’re sitting there in red cut-offs and rainbow braces, saying things like ‘mais oui’ – it’d be pretty impossible for anyone to work out.”
“Is anyone going to help build this raft?” Elliot asks, looking up from where he’s tying a rope around two planks. “I want to win the prize. What if it’s cupcakes?”
“Knowing Hunter, I feel it’s more likely to be a cold shower,” Jack says, “but if there’s even a chance it could be cupcakes, then I agree, we must try our best. Gay boys! Assemble!”
And we get on with the raft building with surprising speed, which is basically what happens when gay boys are thinking about butter icing.
We’re the last to launch our raft into the lake, but only just, which makes me very happy, since my entire life has been one of not just coming last in any form of competition involving physical activity, but actually coming badly last, like half an hour after everyone else. Jack’s on one side with a paddle, I’m on the other, and Elliot’s at the back, paddling alternately either side, in an attempt to keep us on course.
Hunter blows his whistle from the shore. “Jack from Gay Ship Lollipop! Where’s your life jacket?”
“It’s on the raft!” Jack replies.
“Put it on! Flotation aids are mandatory!”
“The colour clashes with my shorts!”
“Put it on or you’ll be disqualified!”
“This is barbaric!”
“Final warning!”
Jack huffs and puffs as he struggles into his life jacket, while the boys from Destroyer start wolf-whistling him. He responds by blowing them kisses. “Oh, you sweethearts!” he giggles. Then his face drops as he turns to me and Elliot. “Right, let’s paddle and get out of this hellhole before it turns into Lord of the Flies.”
It’s surprisingly hard work. The lake is bigger than it looked from the shore, and trying to steer in a straight line towards the island in the middle is near impossible. This is made harder still as Jack decides now is the time to recreate the iconic scene from Titanic for the sake of Instagram. He clambers to his feet, rocking the rickety raft to and fro as he stands at the front, arms outstretched. “Nate! You know what to do!”
“Seriously?” I say.
“Correct your course! Gay Ship Lollipop! Correct your course!” Hunter shouts from the shore.
“Nate!” Jack insists. “And, Elliot? You need to get this moment on your phone.”
“Jack, we need to try to get to the island!” I tell him.
“What’s more important?” he snaps. “The stupid island or Instagram?”
He’s not giving up, so I also struggle to my feet, clamber up behind him, and take his outstretched arms.
“I’m flying!” Jack shouts. “Did you get it?” he shouts to Elliot.
“No, I just got your backs, turn around!” Elliot says.
We do a one-eighty shuffle and assume the position again.
“I’m flying!” Jack says.
“You’re on a collision course with Armageddon!” Hunter shouts. “Gay Ship Lollipop! Take evasive action!”
I look to my right and see, to my horror, Team Armageddon frantically waving at us as we career, with speed, towards them. But before I can even open my mouth it’s too late; we plough into them, the impact knocking Jack to his knees and me straight into the water.
“Wow! Bitchy!” Jack shouts at the other team, even though it’s totally not their fault.
I’m frozen, shocked, in the freezing water, but manage to grasp the side of our stricken vessel. “Help!” I rasp.
Jack glances at me and takes my hand. “I’m sorry, Nate. There simply isn’t room for both of us on this floating wreckage, so you’ll just have to freeze to death in the water…” He starts singing “My Heart Will Go On”.
“Just help me!”
“I’m afraid that’s what you get for booking steerage!”
“Screw you! Pull me back on!”
And it’s at this point that Elliot tries to help me back on the raft, but the weight of me bearing down on the side causes a catastrophic pivot situation, the entire raft upends, and both Elliot and Jack slide into the water with me.
“Gay Ship Lollipop! You’ve capsized!” Hunter shouts from the shore.
“Oh my god, I didn’t know that, did you know that?” Jack says.
“Get out of the water, you bunch of pansies!” Hunter screams.
Oh. My. God. Even the probation kids are shocked. Everyone just freezes and stares at Hunter on the shore. And me? I don’t know exactly where it comes from, but I’m not putting up with it, I’m not having Hunter say that about Jack, Elliot, or me; I’ve spent my whole life at secondary school just ignoring those sorts of comments, and you know what? No more. It ends. Right here.
“What did you say?” I shout.
“Don’t get all snowflakey on me!” Hunter shouts back. “This is survival! There’s no time for any of your whiny Generation Z stuff here!”
I openly laugh at him. “Yeah, OK, Boomer!”
Jack stares at me, completely agog. He can’t believe I just said that.
I can’t believe it either.
And then a wide grin spreads across Jack’s face.
“Hey, Boomer?” the hacker lad from Armageddon shouts across to Hunter. “FYI, mate, we’re ‘pansy-fying’ our raft and will now be known as the Bitanic!”
“And we’re the Jolly Roger!” another lad from Destroyer adds, making a sudden hip thrusting motion at another boy who he promptly rams into the lake.
Hunter blows his whistle, but he’s lost all his power now, as the boys from the other two rafts also jump into the lake, shouting, “BOOMER!” as they plunge in.
“Ha!” says Elliot, doing an amazing job of keeping his phone in the air so it doesn’t get wet. “No one takes the piss out of our Homo Love Boats!”
“Yeah, love boat, baby!” Jack adds.
And maybe it’s the freezing water, the adrenaline, I don’t know, but Jack and Elliot, simultaneously, like they have some weird gay boy psychic connection, start singing, to the tune of the B-52’s “Love Shack”, “Love Boat! Homo Love Boat!”
And I find myself joining in.
And
