I once had a teacher who was known for taking a more than professional interest in some of his pupils, especially the boys in the school cricket team. Too short-sighted to see an incoming cricket ball until it was inches from my face, by which time it was too late to do anything more useful than flinch out of the way, I was never one of those he liked to tickle as he strolled about the classroom - unlike my friend G. One of the faster under-13 bowlers in the county, he was also fairly adept at rebuffing unwanted attention. At breaktime one day, the teacher approached him in the playground, and said they needed to talk: 'I think our relationship's been going downhill recently,' he murmured. 'What relationship?' G. replied, and walked away.

LRB 3 March 2005 | PDF Download