An Ordinary Boy
by Hamster
Chapter 5: The Governor
When Mike woke up on Monday morning he hadn't made any plans for what he and Josh were going to do. It was the last full day they'd have together before Josh had to be back at Bourne Hall. He'd left Josh to sleep off the excitement of the previous day, full of drama and then the frenzied activities at Paignton pier, and was idly wondering if Josh's parents had heard anything yet from the Chairman of the Board of Governors. He was half day dreaming, looking out over his garden and quietly drinking coffee when the phone rang. He picked it up and heard a lady speaking.
"Could I speak to Mike Carpenter, please?"
"Speaking."
"I'm sorry to bother you so early in the morning, Mr. Carpenter. My name is Alice and I'm the personal secretary to Mr. Marcus Smith from the law firm of Smith, Smith and Frobisher. Do you have a few minutes?"
"Yes, of course."
"I believe you have a boy named Joshua Wilkins staying with you."
"Yes, that's correct."
"Mr. Smith would like very much if you and Joshua could come and talk to him as soon as possible. I think you are aware that Joshua's parents have made a serious complaint about the treatment of their son by certain people in the school, and that as Chairman of the school's Board of Governors he wishes to resolve the matter as quickly as possible. Mr. Smith wondered if you would both be willing to come to our offices at eleven o'clock, spend some time with him, and then have lunch with him. He also wanted me to tell you that neither of you have any reason to be concerned because the complaint appears to exonerate either of you from anything inappropriate or illegal."
"Thank you, Alice. Neither Joshua nor I have any plans for today. We will be happy to come to see him as requested at eleven. That means I have to try to wake a sleeping teenager and get him ready in time! But I promise we'll be there."
"Thank you, Mr. Carpenter, I understand your problem, I've been there and done that! We will look forward to seeing you both soon. Thank you and goodbye."
Mike hung up the phone, went up to Josh's door and banged on it a few times.
"Come on, Josh, wake up!"
"What?"
"You have to get up, we've got stuff to do."
"I want to go back to sleep! I'm tired."
"We have to go see the lawyer about your parents' complaint!"
"What! When!"
The door opened and a pyjama clad boy with a bad case of bedhead looked blearily at Mike.
"Good morning, Josh, I'm glad to see you're decent for once! Mr. Smith wants to see us at eleven, so we have to leave at ten thirty. You need to take a shower, have breakfast, and get dressed in the best clothes you have."
"Oh crap, that means school blazer and tie! My white shirt isn't clean."
"Give it to me, I'll get it washed and dried and ironed while you're getting ready."
Josh turned around, picked up his white school shirt from the floor, and handed it to Mike.
"Here. I'm hungry, can I eat first and then shower?"
"OK, but keep your pyjamas on, please!"
"Ok, ok! I'll pee first and then breakfast."
Mike put the shirt in the washing machine on the shortest available cycle, then went to make yet another large pile of scrambled eggs and bacon. Josh came into the kitchen in his pyjamas, sat down, drank some juice and then when the eggs and bacon were ready, scarfed down a very large helping. Then he gave a loud belch, stood up and headed for the bathroom.
Mike sat there and shook his head. 'Teenagers' he thought, got Josh's shirt out of the washing machine and into the drier, got out the ironing board and iron, then went and got dressed himself in his normal school outfit of sports jacket and tie, white shirt and grey slacks. When he was dressed and ready to go, he gave Josh's shirt a quick iron, and took it to the boy's room. When he knocked and told him his shirt was ready the door opened just a little, Josh stuck his hand out, retrieved his shirt, and the door closed.
At ten thirty they were both ready to go. Josh looked very neat and tidy in his uniform, and Mike had to smile to himself when he realised Josh's normally scruffy appearance was part of his plan to be anonymous at school. Apparently he could look smart when he wanted.
"I wonder what this Mr. Smith guy wants from us?"
"No idea, Josh, but I assume he wants to verify the information your parents put in the complaint. If there's some form of inquiry going to happen then you and me would be witnesses and have to tell them what happened."
"Do you think we're in trouble?"
"No, I don't. The lady I talked to said we shouldn't be worried because it looked like we hadn't done anything wrong. And she said he'd buy us lunch after he'd talked to us. I don't think he'd do that if we were in trouble."
"Lunch sounds good! I'll be hungry soon!"
"You just had a large breakfast!"
"Teenagers have very high metabolisms, Mike, you know that, we need feeding constantly or we waste away and die!"
At the lawyers' office Alice met them and waved them straight into Mr. Smith's office.
"Good morning, Mike, and you must be Joshua!"
"I prefer Josh, sir, if you don't mind."
"Sorry. Welcome, Josh. You look very smart in your uniform, but I think it's far too warm these days to wear a jacket and tie, and anyway it's half term so you shouldn't have to wear a uniform."
With that, Mr. Smith removed his jacket and tie while Josh gleefully tore off his tie and slipped out of his blazer.
"Thank you, sir, that's much nicer."
"Let's just use first names, Josh, I'm Marcus. We don't need to be too formal today. Let me explain what I'd like us to do today. I received a complaint from your parents, Josh, that made accusations against the school, and specifically against the Headmaster, Colonel Carruthers. If the accusations are substantiated then I have little doubt that the Board of Governors will have to take quick actions in order to avoid a potential lawsuit. A lawsuit the school would almost certainly lose, and cost a great deal of money.
"I'd like to get each of you, independently, to tell us in as much detail as possible, the sequence of events that led up to you, Josh, ending up spending half term with Mike. I may ask a few questions of clarification, but essentially I just want a statement from each of you. Your statements will be recorded, and Alice will type them up. We three will have lunch by which time your statements will be ready, you can read them, make any corrections or clarifications, then you will sign them and they will be notarised."
"What's 'notarised' mean?"
"It means that it verifies that what you signed is your signature and you accept that information in the statement is correct. Is that clear, Josh?"
"Yeah, thanks."
"When I have both of your notarised statements, I'm going to send them together with Josh's parents' complaint to all of the Board of Governors, and I've arranged an emergency meeting for the Board for five o'clock this evening. Then we'll have to see what happens. Is this all clear?"
Josh and Mike looked at each other and nodded, and Mike replied.
"Thank you, Marcus, that's all very clear. It all seems very straightforward. We both appreciate how quickly you are moving to resolve the matter. I'd not want it hanging over all of our heads for very long."
"It's absolutely in everyone's interest to get to the bottom of all of this as quickly as possible. So, I'm going to propose that Josh goes first. We do that here in my office and Mike will sit in our waiting room. Is that OK?"
When everyone nodded agreement, Mike got up and left, Marcus got a tape recorder out of his desk drawer, and Josh started to talk.
Alice had prepared coffee for Mike, so he sat and chatted to her while Josh gave his statement. She said she always had to read Mr. Smith's emails before he came to the office in case there were urgent matters he had to address before his first client meetings. She said she had called Mr. Smith at home immediately after she read Josh's parents' complaint. Mr. Smith was really angry as soon as she told about the email, he cancelled all his meetings for the day and begged her to make sure Mike and Josh would be available as soon as possible. She said he never cancelled meetings unless it was absolutely necessary, so she assumed he was going to take this all very seriously.
After about thirty minutes Josh emerged from Mr. Smith's office, and Mike took his place. He related the full sequence of events from the interruption of his class on Friday morning to having to take Josh home a couple of hours later. It didn't take Mike long to complete his statement, so he was finished in fifteen minutes.
It was just before noon when they walked a short distance down the street and went into a fancy restaurant. Mike had never eaten there but heard it was excellent. Marcus had booked a table for three and as soon as they sat down waiters were there with water and menus and asking what they wanted to drink. Mike got the strong impression that Marcus was a frequent customer, taking clients to lunch there.
Mike chose lamb chops while Marcus had roast beef. Josh surprised them all by ordering a sirloin steak, medium rare with fries and asparagus cooked in butter and garlic, and just plain water to drink. Josh looked at them with a fake look of indignation.
"Just because I'm a teenager and eat burgers and pizza and stuff doesn't mean I don't know how to eat a steak properly. My parents said it's important to know how to behave in public when you're with grownups, and this is one of those times."
And when their meals arrived, Josh ate his steak slowly, the first time Mike had ever seen Josh failing to stuff food into his mouth as fast as possible. He even ate his ice cream with fudge sauce at a reasonable pace.
The conversation among the three did not refer once to the issues relating to the Wilkins. Instead, Marcus asked Josh what he had done during the half term break, and both Mike and Marcus were entertained as Josh provided a sanitised version of their activities, their trips to the beach and Paignton pier, lunches at pubs, and the trials and tribulations a poor little thirteen year old boy had to suffer as the houseguest of one of his teachers.
Eventually they returned to the office and found Alice waiting with copies of their statements. They read them through, and neither had any cause to make changes. Both signed their respective statements, and Alice notarised them. Marcus asked them both to come into his office for a final briefing.
"Thank you both for your time and your statements. You've both been very clear and concise, and everything you've said seems to corroborate Josh's parents' complaint. So I'm sending copies of everything to my fellow board members, and we will meet here at five o'clock.
"I would like to ask you both to keep everything completely confidential, not just now but in light of whatever the board decides to do. If I can I'll let you know in advance what the Board decides, but if I don't you both need to keep quiet and pretend you had no idea what it's all about. Is that OK? Can you keep it quiet, Josh?
"Yes, Marcus, I can keep my mouth shut. Do you think the Colonel is in big trouble?"
"I can't tell that definitely, Josh, because it has to be a Board decision, not mine alone. But in confidence I'll tell you that he is in trouble! Even if your parents aren't serious about filing a lawsuit, the threat alone will force the Board to make a decision. So, yes, Josh, and excuse my French, I think he's in deep shit!"
Josh giggled, they all shook hands, Josh and Mike thanked Marcus and Alice, retrieved their ties and jackets, and headed home. Having had a large lunch Mike wasn't particularly hungry, but naturally Josh was, so they decided to get burgers delivered for dinner. While they were waiting for the burgers, Josh started getting fidgety about what was going to happen to the Headmaster.
"Mike, do you think they'll fire the Blimp?"
"I can't tell, but I doubt it will be anything as dramatic as that."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure, but I expect they'll try to cook up some story that doesn't make the school look bad. It's not good for a school to get a bad reputation because then parents don't want to send their kids there any more. Would you send your kids to a school where they announced the Headmaster, who had been there for years, was a total dickhead? No, so I expect they'll be more discrete and find an excuse that will not hurt the school's image. But I expect he will be gone pretty quickly. We'll just have to wait and see. But I'm sure of one thing."
"What?"
"It's time for both of us to have a beer!"
"YEAH!"
That evening and the following morning passed quickly. Mike decided that he had to take Josh back to school that afternoon, when all the other boarders came back. He felt that if Josh came to school with him on Wednesday it might just raise awkward questions. But he was worried Josh wouldn't want to go back.
"Don't worry, Mike, I don't mind going back this afternoon. I'll catch up with my friends, and if I'm lucky I'll get to fuck Chris Jenkins, I think he'll let me!"
"I thought you said you're not gay!"
"I'm not! But I like sex, and sex is always better with someone else, and there's no girls so I have to make do with boys, and while I like being wanked and having my dick sucked, just like all the other boys, fucking someone is the best. I've tried to fuck as many boys as possible, and I've got a good reputation for being gentle and then not so gentle. Lots of boys come back for more! Too bad you wouldn't let me show you how well I can fuck!"
"You're gross!"
"No, I'm just horny. And I haven't fucked Jenkins yet, but he has a really cute little ass and I'm told he loves being fucked, so seeing I'm not getting any sex with you, I'd rather go back to school and make do with what I can find there!"
Mike just sighed, shook his head, and laughed.
"OK, before you go and get ready to go back to school, I want to say something to you. When I found out I had to take you home for half term I was really upset and very angry. And I thought you would be really difficult to handle because you've always been so quiet and anonymous, and had some bad attitude as well. But you've turned out to be super nice, I've enjoyed myself much more than I would have dreamed of, and I've gotten very fond of you, and to my great surprise I'll miss you when you go back to school."
"Thanks, Mike, I'll miss you as well. It's too bad I couldn't get it on with you, but I understand. And I hope you'll also understand this, Mike. What we did this weekend is between us and it will remain that way. If other boys ask what we did I'll tell them it was really boring and that you pretty much ignored me, and that we didn't go anywhere, and I just had to be alone and play video games. Is that OK?"
"Perfect! Come here!"
And Mike gave him a huge hug and another kiss.
"Now go get ready!"
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