Josh and the Biology Lesson

[Robert Brooks]

Here’s another from me:

Josh and the Biology Lesson

This is one of my favourite memories from school — an extraordinary scene I witnessed when I was fourteen, in a biology lesson like no other. It remains one of the strangest and most exhilarating sights I’ve seen. I still think about it almost every time I eat a banana.

***

“I’ll need a volunteer for this demonstration,” Mr Shaw announced, like a magician at a kids’ birthday party. He looked around the room before picking Josh. Smiling, Josh jumped down from his stool next to me and hurried to the front — being asked to take part in the live demonstrations was always a privilege and a treat.

Our biology teacher was remarkable in many ways, the most notable being his height. An absolute towering giant of a man — he must have been seven-foot at least — he actually had to stoop to make it in and out though the classroom door.

Josh and I were roughly the same size, which is to say among the shortest and skinniest in our year. At fourteen, even the tallest of us year-ten boys only came up to Mr Shaw’s collar bone; Josh and I barely came up to his elbow. I’m sure it was because of his lack of height that Josh had been chosen for the demonstration. It chills me to think it could just as easily have been me.

We were learning about the digestive system that term and as yet, there had been no practical demonstration. Mr Shaw’s demonstrations were always a lot of fun, so when Josh was called to the front, asked to remove his shoes and handed a banana, we were excited to see what would happen. I don’t think anyone, especially Josh, was ready for what came next.

The subject of the demonstration was the effect (or perhaps absence of effect) that gravity has on being able to swallow and digest. The point being that Josh should still be able to swallow food whether he was the right way up or upside down.

“Are you ready?” Mr. Shaw asked, carefully taking hold of Josh around the waist.

“Err…” Josh replied, but before he could say much more, he was lifted off the ground.

There was a great deal of laughter as Mr. Shaw lifted him right up in the air and, with only a minimal amount of difficulty, flipped him upside down, wrapping his arms around Josh’s legs to let him dangle; his tie and hair flopping down ridiculously towards the ground, his face bright red. It was a very funny sight, the sort of playful scene you could imagine between a fun uncle who’d come to visit and his giggling six-year-old nephew.

Josh was then given the instruction to eat the banana. No easy task but he did a surprisingly good job. Nobody stayed very interested in whether he could do it for long however, as something much more exciting was about to happen.

After a few moments squirming in Mr Shaw’s enormous arms while he attempted to eat the banana, Josh’s shirt became untucked from his trousers and the whole thing slid down a few inches towards his face. There were a few sniggers at this unintended uncovering of skin but for now, the show continued with the lower portion of his tummy now exposed. I myself was already beginning to feel quite stimulated by what I was seeing.

The next thing to happen you can probably guess.

Slowly at first then gradually picking up momentum, Josh’s trousers began to creep down. Or rather Josh began to creep down, while his trousers stayed where they were. Millimetre by millimetre, down they came, revealing more and more pale, sun-deprived skin. My heart was hammering as I willed them to keep going.

To my absolute delight, after a few more seconds a tiny hint of white appeared above (or rather below, since he was upside down) the waistband of his trousers: Josh’s underpants. Josh’s WHITE underpants… now that was new. I was genuinely surprised. Not once in the four years I’d known him had I seen Josh ever wear white underwear to school.

Not many boys wore white anymore — briefs or boxers; it was considered embarrassing for some reason but no-one really knew why — peer pressure among teenage boys has seemingly very little logic. It was just the rule: anything other than black or darkly coloured boxers was risky business. Briefs were of course embarrassing in any colour and had been for quite some time, easily attracting the odd teasing comment or wedgie, but if they were white, or worse, had cartoons on them, well… let’s just say you ought to watch your back — there may well be someone lurking behind you ready to pull your trousers down. It had been a long time since anyone had last been seen wearing the infamous ‘tighty-whities.’

Another few moments squirming and Josh had slid a little further out of his trousers. Now the whole of his underpants waistband was visible and from the look of it, they were clearly not top designer brand (as some boys in the class were fortunate enough to wear). From many years of expert underwear-spying in the changing rooms, I quickly deduced they were also unlikely to be boxers, designer or not, since it was really only cheap, basic briefs that had that distinctive narrow, crinkly waistband. My excitement increased significantly.

I had seen Josh wear briefs a few times over the years, mostly when we were younger, but even then he stuck largely to boxers and I NEVER saw him wear white ones. It had been so long in fact — at least a year — since I’d last noticed him in briefs, I assumed he’d made the switch to boxers permanently. If these were indeed briefs he was wearing, not only that but tighty-whities, it would be one heck of a revelation. I couldn’t be sure, but from what I was seeing, they certainly looked right.

By now it was pretty obvious what was happening and the noise in the room began to change accordingly. No longer were we interested in the effects of gravity on one’s ability to eat a stupid banana; now we were far more interested in the effect gravity was having on Josh’s ability to keep his trousers on!

Another squirm, another few millimetres of underwear uncovered… then another… and another…

It seemed josh could now tell something was TERRIBLY wrong, either by sensing the slippage of his trousers or the change in noises in the room. Whilst diligently continuing to eat the banana with one hand like he was told, he reached up to grab hold of his trousers with the other. By this point a good two inches of his gleaming white underwear was showing and the whole room was going crazy. Any more and we would be able to see if my suspicions were true. Just another half-an-inch and we would have the answer to that ultimate playground question: ‘boxers or briefs?’

As the shouts, laughter and much hand pointing in the direction of Josh’s exposed undies reached its peak, Mr Shaw had, at long last, worked out what was going on, and promptly put him down — but not before that crucial half-inch was reached.

It was only there for a moment. A tiny glimpse for all of about eight-micro-seconds before it was all over. Easy to miss, but I spotted it: the very top of one of the leg holes that belonged to no other style of underwear.

‘Briefs! In year ten! Oh my god! He’s wearing briefs!’ A voice inside my head was yelling. Not only that, they were WHITE BRIEFS — the kind of underwear no-one had been seen wearing since first year! ‘Josh is wearing tighty-whities!’ The voice in my head kept screaming, expecting to hear the same words shouted aloud from somebody’s mouth any second; but no-one did. If others had spotted this fleeting telltale detail of the leg holes, they were not letting on, as the noise in the room had not changed. Perhaps I was the only one who had such razor-sharp eyes when it came to underwear sightings, or maybe I was the only one who cared — I think probably the former. I’m sure if certain boys present had realised Josh was actually wearing tighty-whities, he could have looked forward to being pantsed in the corridors several times before the day was out.

It took a minute or two for the class to settle down after all that excitement. In the meantime, blushing profusely (although that might have been from being upside down for so long) Josh hitched up his trousers to their original position and hurried back to his seat next to me. I could hardly believe what I had seen. My best friend had basically been invited to the front of the class to be pantsed by the biology teacher!

For the rest of the lesson, indeed the rest of the day, I found it very difficult to focus on my work, especially the classes I sat next to josh. I couldn’t help picture him sitting there next to me in nothing but those white briefs. I also wondered how many other times had he come to school secretly wearing them, or any other briefs; supposedly safe in the knowledge it wasn’t a PE day so no-one would see.

It had been one of the most thrilling spectacles I’d witnessed; but all the same, as we filed out of the classroom at the end of biology, I was left with an aching, tingling sense of disappointment it hadn’t gone just a little further. If only his trousers had slid down far enough for everyone in the class to clearly see what he had on underneath, or better yet… if he had fallen out of them altogether, landing on the floor in a heap in just his shirt and tie, socks and gleaming white briefs!

We can but dream.

[TeenFan]

Nice little story. I bet many of the kids fondly recalled this incident during the remaining days of that school year.
Maybe it would have been better if he was wearing boxers. Many times boxer waistbands are not as tight as the ones on Tighty-whities.
Josh might have been showing his boynana to the class. ( I just made up the term boynana and plan to copyright it, lol )
You said you saw him in briefs several times. Ever see him undressed? Would he have been showing a big boynana if he got de-briefed as well
as de-pantsed? or a small one?

[Robert Brooks]

Ha, you should definitely copyright ‘boynana’, lol.
Glad you enjoyed the story.

Being longer, boxers would also get caught inside his trousers where Mr Shaw was gripping around his legs, so could easily have come down as well!

At my school we all showered together so yes, I did see his you-know-what… many, many times. I’d say he was pretty average, like me really. Perhaps the slightly smaller side of average but by no means tiny! He was lovely, had a little bit of a crush on him — sigh. I would have loved to have got my hands on his boynana, hehe