Illustration by Javier Jaén

I was almost twelve years old, going into the fifth year of barneskole. At times it was as though the girls really hated me, considered me some sort of scum; at others it was the opposite—not only did they want to talk to me but at the class parties we had begun to arrange, at one another’s houses and at school, they also wanted to dance with me. My attitude toward them was also ambivalent, at least as far as the girls in my class were concerned. On the one hand, I knew them so well I was completely indifferent toward them; on the other hand, they had started changing—the bulges under their sweaters were growing, their hips were widening, and they were behaving differently. They had risen above us: suddenly the boys they looked at were from two or three classes up. With our high-pitched voices, our more or less furtive glances as we admired all the attributes they now possessed, we were no more than air to them. But, no matter how important they were, they knew nothing about the world they were moving toward. What did they know about men and women and desire? Had they read Wilbur Smith, where women were taken by force under stormy skies? Had they read Ken Follett, where a man shaves a woman’s pussy while she lies in a foam-filled bathtub with her eyes closed? Had they read “Insect Summer,” by Knut Faldbakken, the passage that I knew by heart, when the boy takes the girl’s panties off in the hay? Had they ever got their hands on a porn magazine? And what did they know about music? They liked what everyone liked—the Kids and all the other crap on the top-ten lists. It meant nothing to them, not really; they had no idea what music was or what it could be. They could barely dress; they turned up at school wearing the strangest combinations of clothes. And then they were looking down on me?

Every Friday we had something we called “Class Top of the Pops.” Six students brought a song each and we all voted for our favorite one. Mine always came in last, whatever I played. Led Zeppelin, Queen, Wings, the Beatles, the Police, the Jam, Skids—the result was the same, only one or two votes, last. I knew that my classmates were voting against me and not the music. They weren’t really listening to the music. This irritated me beyond endurance. I complained to my older brother Yngve, and he not only understood how irritating it was but also came up with a way to trick them. The Kids’ second record hadn’t been released yet. One Friday I took to school the Aller Værste!’s first LP, “Materialtretthet,” which Yngve had bought a few days before, and said that I had an advance copy of the Kids’ new album. When the first notes of the band’s first song sounded in the classroom, there were mumbles of appreciation and mounting enthusiasm, which culminated when the vote was taken, and it turned out that the Aller Værste! had won, hands down. How the triumph shone in my eyes as I stood and informed them that they had not voted for the Kids.

Of course, I never heard the last of it. I was conceited, I thought I was quite something, I always had to like weird things, instead of what everyone else liked. That wasn’t true, though. Surely it wasn’t my fault that I liked good music? And I was learning more and more about it, thanks to Yngve and his music magazines and the records he played me. He also taught me chords on the guitar, and when he wasn’t at home I would play by myself with the black Gibson plectrum in my hand and the black Fender strap over my shoulder. The only person on my wavelength at school was Dag Magne. We were mostly up at his house, playing records and trying to imitate the songs on his twelve-string guitar or talking about girls or the band we were going to start, especially what we were going to call it. He wanted it to be Dag Magne’s Anonymous Disciples; I wanted it to be Blood Clot. They were equally good, we agreed, and we didn’t need to make a decision until the time was ripe and we were performing on a stage.

In this way the winter passed, with the first class parties, where we played post office and slow-danced, round and round the floor with girls we knew better than our sisters, and my head almost exploded when I held Anne Lisbet’s body so close to mine. The fragrance of her hair, the sparkling eyes that were bursting with life. And, oh, the little breasts under the thin white blouse.

Wasn’t that a fantastic feeling?

It was completely new, unknown for all these years, but, now I knew it, now I wanted to go there again.

Spring came, with its light, which held the passage to night open a little longer each day, and with its cold rain, which caused the snow to slump and dwindle. One of those stormy March mornings, we had gym class.

In the changing room afterward, the ventilation grilles howled and wheezed as though the building were alive, a huge beast full of rooms, corridors, and shafts that had settled here beside the school and in its despondency sang lonely laments. Or perhaps it was the sounds that were alive. I took my towel and went into the shower, which was already hot with steam. I found a place among the throng of pale, almost marble-white boys’ bodies, and was engulfed by the hot water that first hit the top of my head and then ran in steady streams down my face and chest, neck and back. My hair stuck to my forehead and I closed my eyes. That was when someone shouted.

“Tor’s got a hard-on! Tor’s got a hard-on!”

I opened my eyes and looked over at Sverre, the boy who had shouted. He was pointing across the narrow room to where Tor was standing, with his arms down by his sides, his dick in the air and a smile on his face.

Tor had the biggest dick in the class, or, perhaps, in the whole school. It dangled between his legs like a pork sausage, and this was no secret, because he always wore tight trousers and placed it at an angle, pointing upward, so that everyone could see. Yes, it was big. But now, in its erect state, it was enormous.

“Jumping Jehoshaphat,” Geir Håkon shouted.

Everyone looked at Tor. There was a sudden excitement in the atmosphere, and it was obvious that something had to be done. Such an extraordinary circumstance could not be allowed to go to waste.

“Let’s take him to Fru Hensel!” Sverre shouted. “Come on, quick, before it’s too late!”

Fru Hensel was our gym teacher. She came from Germany and spoke broken Norwegian. She was meticulous yet distant—in sum, what we called snooty. As a teacher she was a nightmare because she had a predilection for gym apparatus and hardly ever let us play soccer.