You know that feeling you get when you feel that something horrible is standing right behind you and preparing to eat your neck, but when you turn around, you realise that there's actually nothing and you're really just being a retard? Yeah? Well when I walk down the corridors in my school, I get that feeling too. The only difference is that when I turn round I see that an ancient froglike creature with multi-faceted bulging eyeballs and a Primal Scream T-shirt has already stabbed me four times in the neck with a fondu fork before hopping off.
This evil corruption has only just come to my attention, but I realise now that it's been there all along, a hideously repulsive being that sits just out of the corner of my eyes and sings a hideous screaming din two octaves higher than my hearing can detect (kind of like Mariah Carey). I've been trying to ignore its presence for all these years (also kind of like Mariah Carey), but now I'm forced to finally acknowledge and face up to it (unlike Mariah Carey, who I hope dies of leukemia before I'm forced to listen to any of her 'songs'). For, you see, I have been offered a responsibility; a gauntlet, if you will, an ancient brotherhood of chosen ones who must relinquish their childhood and take up the mantle of Men to protect and serve their schoolmates and comrades, often at the very brutal costs of their own lives and dreams. After a short, musical montage of shots of me sitting on a sofa thinking about it, I have decided that the only thing that a proper man can do is to take up this heavy burden and to accept the consequences of being the saviour of the people of the future, to fight against the evil that pervades my school, to strike it dead with my metaphorical sword of justice and, hopefully, to survive to live a full life, however unlikely that may be.
Yes, my friends, Thomas the schoolboy is no more. I have now become... Thomas The Prefect.
OMG. Yes, I have become a Prefect at my school. Can you believe it, me? I couldn't believe it, either, but I'm holding the truth in my hands. I am a Prefect, one of the elite of my educational facility, truly the utter cream of my intellectual crop. For those of you who don't know, the word "prefect" comes from the Olde Englishe word "fraklax", meaning, depending on your translator, "God Amongst Men", "Protector of Mankind", "Owner of a giant penis" or, far less commonly and popularly, "Pointlessly redundant position of power". But to be honest, the scholars who devised the latter position were just jealous that they didn't pass the rigorous selection process required to become a member of the Modern Knights Templar.
Because, I gotta tell you, boy, the selection process was tough. Firstly, we all had to give a blood sample, drawn directly from our eyeballs with a piece of craft paper, to make sure that we were free of drugs, blood-borne diseases, tubeworms, alien parasites and the evil blood of the foul beast-king Chattur’gha. Then followed an intense elimination period where we were forced to wrestle lions, slice open our own testicular sacks with a pair of nail clippers, listen to Dido's greatest hits, and then cage-fight yetis. But that was only the beginning, for the few that survived had to go through the hardest task of all: We had to fill in a form saying that perhaps we wanted to be Prefects, and then the teachers just arbitrarily chose us out of the long list. That was by far the hardest shit I've ever done in my entire life, that form. I mean, I had to find a PEN then I had to remember my NAME and, like, write WHY I wanted to be a prefect and shit, and, well, I have to tell you that the experience nearly killed me. I'm not even joking. By the time that form was filled in, I was crying like a baby and bleeding out of both eyeballs. Phew.
But, hey, as it turned out, all the hard form filling-in was worth it, as just a few weeks ago I was told that I was one of the FEW (about 75 in all out of our year of roughly 95 students, which just goes to show how strict the selection process was) new Prefects. Immediately I became an integral part of history. For the title of Prefectitude is as ancient and long lasting as the very bricks of immigrant blood on which this country was founded; nowadays the title is just as respected as it was in the Middle Ages, when prefects got their own private common rooms replete with red leather-bound chairs and whiskey-midgets, as well as canes with which to beat the younger pupils and the privilege of being allowed to grow luxurious handlebar moustaches. Of course, nowadays, the massive perks of being a Prefect are subtler, but still grandiose and amazing. First and foremost, all Prefects get a lifetime supply of one of the most important commodities available in the fast-moving world of today: respect. Yes, just by becoming a prefect in my school, one gets instant kudos and street-kred. For nothing is cooler than the ultimate power of being one of the chosen few. I mean, just look at the huge range of people whom I have power over and who will respect me, just because I am a prefect:
- Smaller, weaker, younger, less handsome male students in the lower years who happen to attend my school.
Of course, there are the odd few people who overpower me, and in my opinion, that's a good thing. It's like the Cold War: you can't give too much power to one person or it will go to his head and he will end up destroying the world. Therefore, I need a few Russias to counterbalance the awesome power of me, as the nuclear-missile-equipped Prefect of America. These come in the shape of:
- Anybody bigger than me.
- Anybody older than me.
- Teachers.
- Adults.
- Other prefects.
- Anybody who doesn't respect the power of the Office of Prefect (believe me, for some reason such people exist)
- Senior Prefects.
Wait?? WHAT'S THAT? WHAT'S THAT YOU SAY? SENIOR PREFECTS? Yes, such things exist, but we only speak of them in whispers. We must be glad that there are Senior Prefects, those holy meccas of manhood who have a much more important job than us normal Prefects and thus deserve all our love and respect. We must pray to God and thank him every night for making the Senior Prefects to guide us. I mean, there are some people out there - misguided fools - who think that *HAHAHAHA* being a Senior Prefects is an arbitrary, nominal post that means nothing and is just an excuse for the teacher's pets to be extra-rewarded for being suck ups. Such people are wrong. WRONG I SAY. That's all there is to it. WRONG. Because - I mean - why would our teachers do that? Just to add another layer of pointless hierachy and give an ego-boost to the already megalmonaiacal pupils at the upper echelon of the school by giving them a meaningless title that somehow conveys superiority without the drawbacks of power? HAH, as if! You people make me laugh! Losers!
But I haven't even mentioned the most awesome part of being a Prefect yet, the thing that really tells you that you've finally made it in the world. More important than respect. More important that money. More important than life itself. Yes, I'm talking about... the Tie. You see, most of the [scum] non-prefects in our school have the standard school tie. It's blue. It has little yellow lions on it. And stripes. It's ok, I guess... IF YOU'RE A FRENCHMAN. But when you're a Prefect, you get something better. Something... amazing. You get one of THESE BAD BOYS:
You see that? You see that? Look at it carefully. Can you see any stripes on that tie? Can you? Can you? No? THAT'S BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY! NO STRIPES! HOLY SHIT, JUST LOOKING AT THAT TIE MAKES ME SO EXCITED A BLOOD VEIN IN MY NOSE BURST OPEN AND I'M SPRAYING BLOOD ACROSS THE DESK! That tie is like gold dust in my school. You wear that tie, and crowds of people just move apart to allow you uncumbered egress while you're walking down the corridor (kind of like Jesus splitting the waters of the Red Sea, but far more awesome). It's like a police badge, but really much more impressive, because what you're doing is really Making A Difference.
But, Thomas, what are you doing? I hear you ask. What is it? I'll tell you what: DUTIES. Yes, all prefects, Senior and Normal flavour alike, must perform duties. Without such duties being performed, the school will split asunder under the power of the horrifying wave of evil and chaos that stalks every corridor. Why, if I stop and think what'd happen if somebody didn't pin up the room changes signs every day, or if the newspapers weren't carried to the Common Room, or if (heaven forbid) somebody didn't show up to man the Tuck Shop Queue... I tell you, it'd be like fucking Sodom and Gonnorrah within a day. Nobody would survive. That's why we Prefects are so vital: we do the jobs that nobody else will. Like be in charge of Lunch Cards during the 12:50 rush.
I have one of the most dangerous and important jobs of all: every Friday I must patrol the main block at lunchtimes and breaks. I must wander about, stopping any badness going on in classrooms and reporting any evil-doers to a teacher for immediate Hot Justice. If needs must, I should also use the most potent weapon in a Prefect's armoury: Recommending that a fellow pupil be given a detention. It's the final resort, the one that no Prefect wants to be forced to use, but knows that he must when the situation demands it. I feel the power of the Recommended Detention just burning in my grip, and I know that, should the time come, I am ready to use it.
I did my first solo duty last week. It was pretty exciting. I walked around the halls and nothing much happened. Although, as I realised as I performed my second lap of the chemistry department, I was unlikely to do anything if I saw any naughtiness going on. I mean, for fuck's sake, if I see a multi-classroom riot going on, I feel that it's unlikely that they're going to stop and surrender if I walk in yelling "PREFECT! STOP!". Maybe they would; I don't know. Luckily, the corridors were surprisingly quiet and I wasn't forced to murder anybody with the throwing knife that I'd brought along especially for the occasion. Well, there was one small incident. Look, I drew a picture in Private Study:
(For those of you whose eyes don't work properly, the words in the first frame are "me" and "rapscallion")
I spent far too long writing this.
Criminals beware, for he's coming. Any time, any place, as long as it's in school, he is coming for you... beware the mighty... beware the incredible... PREFECT MAN!
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