The start of Boots O'Neal's last year was marked by hormones descending like a plague of locusts on Macdonald Hall. He guessed it had only been a matter of time, given the way seventeen-year-old boys were meant to act and when you subtracted parents and added in Bruno Walton, chaos was nearly ordered in its predictability.

That didn't mean he had to like it.

Getting to class on time the first period of the first day was something of a tradition for Bruno and Boots, if only because Bruno wouldn't show up on time for the rest of year. Give them one day, Bruno always said, and I'll use the rest to sleep. This would have been more amusing if Boots didn't have to drag Bruno to class after he dozed off, face first, into his pancakes.

"Are you going to eat that?" Wilbur Hackenschleimer had asked as Boots wearily slid the plate across the table.

"Boots, why do you let me do these things?" Bruno lifted his sleepy head off Boots's shoulder to look at his roommate. There was syrup on his face, which meant there was most likely syrup on Boots's sweater, too.

Boots sighed. "Because if you don't go to class, you get expelled, and if you get expelled, you're on your first bus out of the Hall and home to your parents to get a jumpstart on your career as a delinquent. We've gone over this before."

"Pfft. The Fish would be so bored without me. He'd let me stay on as a testament to perfection within the student body."

"Yeah, of course he would," said Boots, rolling his eyes. "Now get your student body into English Lit before we have to test that theory."

Bruno yawned; Boots shoved. Bruno stumbled into the classroom, and Boots followed, crashing into Bruno's back two seconds later.

"Good morning!" announced a pleasant female voice.

There was a teacher standing in front of the class that Boots didn't recognize. Not that new teachers were anything strange at Macdonald Hall. Every year a new crop of teachers braved the wilds of life at an all-boys boarding school, but Boots couldn't remember any of the others being so sweet-faced, so young, so blonde, so eager, and so bursting out of their button-down cardigans.

"Good morning," Boots said warily, observing the gobsmacked expressions on his classmates' faces. He glanced over at Bruno to see what he thought about all this, only to find his roommate pale and choking.

Oh, this wasn't good.

Ms. Kellogg was straight out of university, of course, and was incredibly pleased by the reaction her teaching methods were getting. Bruno had forced Boots -- had forced Boots! -- to sit up front with him, and even though he pretty clearly hadn't spent his summer vacation reading On the Road like he was supposed to, Bruno still had his hand thrust high in the air to try and answer every question.

Not that he was alone in his enthusiasm; for once Wilbur wasn't snacking through the entire lesson, Chris Talbot wasn't drawing on the back of his hand with ballpoint pen, and Pete Anderson was actually taking notes. Boots hadn't even known Pete owned a notebook. When Larry came to deliver a note from the office, he nearly tripped over his own feet before handing it over to Ms. Kellogg and then bowed like he was meeting royalty. This was Canada! They hadn't had royalty in...well, technically decades, but that didn't lessen how ridiculous this all was. Ironically, the only person other than Boots that hadn't just discovered his future in literary criticism was Elmer Drimsdale, who didn't even try answering one question, but as he spent the majority of class wide eyed and approximately the colour of a cherry tomato, Boots felt kind of alone in the world.

Ms. Kellogg laughed at an answer Sidney Rampulsky gave and stretched up to write on the chalkboard. Sidney leaned so far forward in his desk that Boots felt Sidney had only narrowly avoided another concussion. Boots narrowed his eyes. She was all right, he guessed. Just okay.

Boots watched Bruno as Bruno bounced around in his seat, enthusiastically giving his thoughts on Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness writing. The explanation was pretty stream-of-consciousness itself.

Ms. Kellogg nodded as he spoke and when he was done ruffled Bruno's hair with a fondness no faculty member had ever shown in the history of ever. Boots scowled. Just okay, Boots thought, even if she could probably stand to buy her sweaters one size up. Definitely nothing to write home to his parents about.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Boots stared at the one-line letter he'd written so far. His parents were now demanding two letters a week because both of their sons were at Macdonald Hall, but since Edward was more likely to get run over by a train while simultaneously struck by lightning than write home, Boots had to struggle twice weekly instead of just once. He sighed and picked up his pen.

Life at Macdonald Hall is great! My room is mostly unpacked. Classes are good, the food is good, Bruno is good. He's taken an interest in literature lately. We have this new English teacher, and all he seems to do is read and do homework for her class. It's like he wants to make a good impression on her, which is so dumb. She's not even that pretty, seriously, and if he thinks for one second that any teacher is going to go along with one of his schemes, he sure has another thing coming!

"Oh, God, what is wrong with me?" Boots cried, reading over what he wrote. He crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it away.

Boots plaintively stabbed his lunch, a mushy, grey mass that had once been roast beef and gravy with green beans and mashed potatoes.

"That looks like a brain," Elmer Drimsdale observed, adjusting his glasses. "A rather good representation of medula oblongata, in fact."

They'd had English again that morning and if Boots had to hear one more word from Bruno's mouth about Ms. Kellogg's revolutionary approach to teaching, Boots was going to tear out his own medula oblongata. "I guess I'm not hungry," Boots said.

Wilbur leaned over Boots from his other side. "Are you going to eat that?" Boots sighed and shoved his tray over.

"...And I swear, I swear," Mark Davies was saying, "that when she bent over, I could see right down her shirt and her bra was purple."

Boots rolled his eyes. The one problem with being seventeen at an all-boys school was the fact that purple bras were still considered risqué long after they would be at a co-ed school. Or so he assumed.

"That's not all," added Chris Talbot. "When she gets up on her tiptoes to reach for the top of the board, her skirt goes up a little. I love that she wears the stockings with the lines down the back. No one wears stockings with those lines anymore."

"Seams!" Elmer interjected, his cheeks going bright red at just the word. Then his face took on a suspiciously dreamy expression. "I like seams."

"Hey, chums," Bruno said, shoving Elmer aside to sit between him and Boots. "What are we talking about?"

"How hot Ms. Kellogg is!" Sidney Rampulsky said, waving his fork around for emphasis. "Mark saw her purple underwear!"

Chris grinned knowingly. "I bet she has all sorts of colours. Patterns, too...lacy, and silky, and--"

"NOT ONE MORE WORD," Bruno shouted, interrupting the table's collective groan of hormonal anguish and looking murderous. Sidney hit himself in the face with his fork. "SHE IS AN AUTHORITY FIGURE AND A HUMAN BEING AND YOU WILL SHOW HER PROPER RESPECT."

"Bruno?" Boots asked in disbelief. "Are you all right?"

But Bruno wasn't listening. He pushed back his chair and practically ran out of the room, leaving his lunch untouched. Wilbur lunged.

"What's with him?" Mark wondered.

Elmer cleared his throat. "I have a theory." He was red to the tips of his ears. "That reaction indicates deeper feelings than simple teenaged lust."

"No," Boots breathed, feeling the few bites of grey brain matter he'd eaten churning in his stomach. "No."

"I think so," Elmer said, peering at Boots over the tops of his glasses. "It seems that Bruno Walton has fallen in love with Ms. Kellogg."

"O'Neal, you look terrible," Cathy Burton observed, throwing down the rope of knotted sheets. Boots clenched his jaw and climbed angrily, kind of flopping through the window and landing on the floor of the room Cathy shared with Diane Grant.

Diane peered at him from her bed. "Are you breaking land-speed records for breaking into proper young ladies' dormitories? That took like twelve seconds."

"Coach Flynn said I broke two school records at swim practice, actually. I have a lot of expendable energy." Boots struggled into a sitting position and ran his hands through his still wet hair. He hadn't even bothered showering after practice, so he still reeked of chlorine but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Sea-speed records then," Diane observed dryly.

Boots scowled.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Cathy asked. "It's usually your roommate breaking the rules to do the solo angst thing, not you."

"My roommate," Boots gritted out, "is too busy assisting our new English teacher after classes to break rules."

Cathy and Diane fell into fits of laughter that quickly faded to nothing when they realized Boots was glaring at them both. "Seriously?" asked Diane.

"Seriously."

"Bruno's helping a teacher, Boots?" Cathy raised an eyebrow. "What's in it for him? Eternal glory? A car?"

"A sweater a size too small and a purple bra," Boots admitted.

"Ohhh," they said in unison. They both sat on the floor to put their arms around Boots; Boots rested his head on Cathy's shoulder, which actually felt pretty nice.

"And you're upset about it why?" Diane prodded gently.

Boots sighed, but before he could answer a rock sailed through the open window, hitting Boots in the back of the head. "What the hell?" he said, distressed. Diane pulled herself to her feet and stuck her head outside.

"Idiot, that only works with closed windows!"

"It got your attention, didn't it?" shouted the disembodied voice of Bruno Walton. "Can I come up?"

"Depends on what you want," Diane said, leaning on the windowsill, her chin propped up in her hand.

Boots could picture Bruno's frustrated face and smiled despite himself. "I'm looking for Rapunzel!" Bruno shouted at the top of his lungs. "What the hell do you think?! I want to talk to you and your dumb roommate, but I can do that just as well from here! Have you seen Boots today?!"

"Hey, Rapunzel, your prince has announced his arrival." Cathy smirked and nudged Boots's shoulder.

"Yeah, announced it loud enough to hear two towns over," Boots grumbled, pulling himself to his feet. He looked out the window, and Bruno's face lit up. Boots swallowed. "Let down your rope sheet, Diane."

Diane giggled. "As you wish, your majesty," she said, and Boots wondered what was with his friends and royalty these days.

"Hey," Boots said to Bruno, once he'd climbed down and Diane and Cathy had disappeared from view. "Long time no see." He carefully kept the bitter edge out of his voice.

"Hey," Bruno replied. He dug his toe into Miss Scrimmage's perfectly manicured lawn. "Are you mad at me or something?"

Boots blinked.

"I just feel like you've been avoiding me," Bruno continued.

"No," lied Boots. "What could you have done?"

Bruno shrugged and looked up. A streak of dirt stuck to his cheek, reminding Boots of the syrup and pancakes Bruno only got to eat once a year. Well, before this year, that was. "I haven't seen you all day."

"I had swim practice. Besides," Boots said, and this time he couldn't keep the edge out of his voice no matter how hard he tried, "you were so busy helping Ms. Kellogg, I'm surprised you realized I was gone."

Bruno looked befuddled. "Huh?"

"You know, the one you'll wake up early for, the genius of academic reform, the love of your life," Boots went on, and now it was like his parents' letter again, all stream-of-consciousness babble that he had no way of stopping. "With her tight sweaters and purple bras and her Kerouac."

"Oh my God," Bruno said. He punched Boots hard, right in the shoulder. Boots winced. "EW!"

That hadn't been the reaction Boots had been expecting, and it was his turn to look befuddled. "Huh?"

"Ew," Bruno repeated with emphasis. "Boots, I'm helping her out because she's my cousin. My whole family had been keeping her job a secret from me because they didn't want me freaking out all summer long."

So that explained the surprise the first day. Bruno's family apparently knew him as well as Boots did.

"And the two of us decided not to tell anyone here because we didn't want anyone giving either of us a hard time because of it."

"Oh." Boots felt beyond stupid. "You could have told me."

"Idiot, I was going to, I just wanted to make sure it was okay with Melissa first. Ms. Kellogg," Bruno explained. "But I didn't think you'd think I was in love with my cousin. EW!"

"Well, I didn't know!" Boots threw his hands up in frustration.

"Well, you should have!" Bruno pushed Boots arms down and kept his hands there, right on Boots's shoulders. "I care about as much about purple bras as I do the gross national product! Everyone on earth can tell I'm totally gay for you. Why do you think I keep asking you to be my roommate every year?"

Boots's eyes widened. "What?"

"And everyone knows you're into me, too. Even Melissa guessed that," Bruno went on. Boots's head spun; how could Bruno so calmly say these things? Bruno liked him and he liked Bruno, and everyone knew, including their English teacher? Boots felt so panicked that he was afraid of barfing up pool water and he didn't think he'd even swallowed any. Then Bruno must have caught the look on Boots's face because he wrinkled his forehead and said, "Oh. Well, maybe not everyone."

But Bruno solved this matter with typical Bruno Walton ingenuity, leaning in and pressing their mouths together. Boots's eyes went wide, but Bruno kept right on with the kissing, even going so far as to let go of Boots's shoulders so he could slide his palm along Boots's jaw and coax it open. Bruno's lips were dry and Boots couldn't quite get his brain to work, but somehow this still worked out to be the best kiss ever. It was a complete mystery, just like the way Bruno's mind worked.

When Bruno pulled away, Boots was at a loss for words, but that problem was solved by Cathy Burton yelling out her window, "God, go be totally gay for each other at your own school!" After all, outrunning Miss Scrimmage's shotgun had a way of solving awkward situations.

"Very insightful, Melvin," Ms. Kellogg said when Boots finished speaking, smiling fondly and shifting glances back and forth between Bruno and Boots as Boots took his seat again.

Bruno threw a note onto Boots's desk. 'TEACHER'S PET,' it read.

Ms. Kellogg intercepted the note and swiftly assigned Bruno detention. "It's good to see that some students actually care enough about their education to do the work." She ruffled Boots's hair and a button popped off the middle of her shirt, hitting Boots in the head.

The room gave a collective gasp. Bruno leapt to his feet and shouted, "NOT ONE WORD." His face was all red and angry, he wouldn't stop flailing his arms, and Boots couldn't take his eyes off of him.

Boots thoughtfully rubbed his forehead where the button hit. It seemed that his own hormonal locusts were totally gay for Bruno Walton. And he kind of liked it.

END.