'Hormone Haze' by Rebecca Field

It’s the last week of term and its double maths first thing (which totally sucks) and Marty Franklin slinks into the back of class two minutes after the bell hoping nobody will notice, but he forgets his BO stench precedes him by several paces and there’s no way Matt Hughes won’t clock him, I see him wrinkling his nose up from here, scraping his chair as far from Marty as possible, shifting his books and calculator like he doesn’t want them contaminating and Marty acts like he doesn’t notice, doesn’t hear Ben Jeffers shouting, ‘Phwoar what’s that stink? Have you let one out again Jonno?’ as Ben fake-punches Jonno next to him and they start swinging back on their chairs, shirts flailing, shoelaces whipping the air as they aim jabs, shunting Cheryl Eason’s desk who shouts ‘Hey! Watch it Jonno!’ and slaps him on his back with her textbook, then Mrs Finkel (who has been fiddling with the electronic whiteboard the whole time) turns round and shouts, ‘Hey you lot, pack it in! Or there’ll be C3s on your conduct cards!’ and that shuts everyone up for approximately two point five minutes until Jonno really does let one out and everyone sniggers, and Mrs Finkel sighs, opens the window and gets out an air freshener she keeps for exactly this purpose and sprays it around and nobody notices Marty quietly get out his books and look round for a pen (because he never has one), except me, I notice because I’m sat diagonally across, and I give him one of mine because it’s not his fault he stinks, it’s his hormones, and he says thanks and I say, don’t mention it, and as the lilac blossom drizzle descends and the chaos subsides it doesn’t smell too bad after all.