Duet

He sat next to me when many boys wouldn't. I liked him. He was smart. he read books when many of the other kids didn't read. There were two seats left at the beginning of the school term and one of them was next to me and he took it. Many wouldn't have. I was the kind of person you should avoid. The kind that would ensure that you were not cool if you sat in the seat next to me. He sat in the seat next to me.

I always answered the questions first even though I knew it would make me unpopular. He didn't seem to mind. He still waved to me in the playground if he saw me. Once he leant me a pen.

On fridays there were singing classes. The teacher would put the radio on and we would listen to the ABC Lets Sing programme. Most of the songs were funny. Kids snorted while they sang. I liked the slow songs but there were almost no slow songs on the list. Speed Bonny Boat was a relief when we came to it. I could really let my lungs fill up with air and belt it out with long clear sustained notes. I was in the combined school's choir and we sang hymns, beautiful things with complicated notation. I learned to sight sing, which was another nail in the coffin of my 'coolness'. This day, in class I listened to the music and I sang along and it was beautiful. I sang, and he sang beside me, at my shoulder. We sang for the longest time.

When I looked around the other kids were snickering. They had all stopped singing and they were watching us, him and me as we sang a duet. Speed Bonny Boat with just two passengers. I noticed that he had a beautiful voice.

We stopped. We both blushed. The rest of the kids laughed and laughed, until the teacher, who was in on the joke, told them all to shush.

We sang more quietly after that, with restraint, but when I walked down the school path to my mother's car I realised that perhaps our singing together was the beginning of something. Perhaps we were in love. My first love.

I wish I could remember his name.