Just turned 13, I was let off my lead and taken with the school to a suburb of Paris to play. The town of Dourdan had a large complex for visiting tourists, mostly made up of chalets but also with a central building with large restaurant, games room, bar, and loads and loads of conference rooms. And this particular week had about 40 kids with dodgy cockney accents roaming in it's halls.
The usual mischief of a teenage boy ensued, including breaking the sliding back door, so that it was hanging from one corner for the whole week. One of the other boys, my fellow rugby prop, was a large Indian boy called Dharinder. Dharinder had a tendency to sleep like a log, and this freaked out another of the boys called Richard. Richard had a distinctive feature, where his chin was pointy and long, so he become (and as far as I know still is) known as Toblerone. He was also the weird kid, the one everyone made fun of. At night he was convinced Dharinder was dead, and in a moment of mischief, we told him he was. We then proceeded to convince him that seeing him the following morning, walking around, he was only a spirit. This meant poor Richard genuinely thought he was seeing poor dead Dharinder walking around, playing pool or Pole Position in the games room. Eventually he told one of the teachers, who scalded us on a monumental scale.
The site organisers had quite wisely put us kids all in one corner of the site, where we had to pass the teacher's chalets to get anywhere else. This meant that a) we didn't stray off site, looking for a pint and an evening with the local madame, and b) we did however go looking for talent in the girl's chalets. I must point out something at this point. The boys were outnumbered substantially.
There were 6 of us. And 36 girls.
During the day, we'd spend being driven from one tourist haven to another. We took in the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, even the palace at Fontainebleau. But at night we'd become sex crazed maniacs. We'd dress up in our best hoodies, trying to look like ninjas, so we could get into other girls chalets. What we'd do once we got there, we had no idea (well one idea, but THAT wasn't going to happen), but we tried anyway.
On the last night we all had a party. We had to entertain the teachers, who were sat in a conference room corner, sampling the local vino far too much. Some of the kids had also smuggled some of the local produce in, and were now getting drunk. We, meanwhile, weren't. But we were overflowing with testosterone, and seeing how relaxed the girls had now become, were convinced that if we could just get into their room, we'd get laid. That night, we were caught 4 times, trying to sneak two blocks down, to Michelle's (blonde, as busty as a 13 year old can be) room. In fact, we were caught all 4 times, by the same teacher. I remember being caught the fourth time, playing my best game of Statues. I would have succeeded if it weren't for the fact I had my black hoodie on, and the wall behind me was white. Stealthy, I was not.
Monsieur Dickie (I kid you not), was most unimpressed, and proceeded to not only literally kick my arse all the way back too the chalet, but to then lock us all in. I ended up losing my cherry and all my other fruit to a pair of fours in a game of poker.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHIPPY TEA
3 years ago