There’s me, there’s Mark and there’s the gorgeous girl
it began as an English Language exercise; a piece of homework
with the long brown hair and strangely alluring eyelashes,
devised by Mr Kenjins to teach the pupils a little something
all three of us sitting at the bottom of a hill – a small,
about journalistic methods. He suggested they all write
gentle English hill, with long grass and daises, maybe even
a newspaper-style report on some trivial thing that was
the odd rogue buttercup or dandelion. And there’s me
going on at the school: a sports match, for instance, or an
challenging Mark to a race up the hill, with the winner
election for class representative – something like that.
to take the gorgeous girl’s hand in marriage (or something
A relatively mundane exercise, by any measure, yet one which
more exciting in the long grass.) Challenge duly accepted
produced rather frightening results. Take Robin’s revealing
and there’s Mark getting a good start, me catching up
report into the apparently ‘coincidental’ death of four tropical
and us reaching the top at exactly the same time and deciding
fish in the biology labs or Saka’s damning review of the
to continue racing down. Then there’s me taking a
school’s approach to the twenty-first century feminist issues,
spectacular lead, leaving Mark floundering. What a
not to mention Michelle’s obituary of the Head-Master.
fantastic burst of speed! What a resounding victory!
Mr Kenjins was shocked, both by the industrious response to
There’s me reaching the bottom of the hill, ready to seize my
the task and by the revelation that his close friend Miss
prize. And there she is, halfway up the hill, kissing Mark.
House – the head of chemistry – might be a serial fish killer.
(Pierre Monceau and Jean-Pierre Sertin)
