Free The Sound of Laughter by Peter Kay

nutters) we were going to be presented with the unique opportunity of choosing one of two academic options.
    Choice number one was simple: 'Just do your course-work and study hard for your all-important final exams.' OR (and this is when I half expected the stage to light up and turn into the set of a game show): 'You can choose Mode II, a revolutionary new option where there'll be no coursework and no exam. Instead you'll be given the opportunity to gain experience in some of the important things in life like Painting & Decorating, Car Maintenance and Gardening, to name but a few.'
    But it didn't end there. In the pamphlet they provided
it said that 'you will be continually assessed by staff throughout the duration of Mode II and if your grades are sufficient you'll be awarded with a qualification equivalent to a GCSE'. 'So, why not do what's right for YOU and choose Mode II?' I think they fell down a bit on the tag line but other than that it sounded perfect for me and I couldn't wait to sign up.
    But my parents had a different opinion.
    'Gardening instead of exams? That can't be right,' my dad said as he studied the pamphlet during The Disabled Krypton Factor.
    Mum agreed with him. 'They just want to get rid of all the troublemakers,' and she was right. I knew that but I still fancied doing it.
    'Not a chance,' my dad said. 'Fixing cars and decorating – what a load of crap. They're luring a bunch of idiots over to a school that's sinking and then letting them all sink . . . Now bugger off, will you, I'm trying to watch this bloke land the space shuttle with his feet!'
    So I didn't do Mode II and my mum and dad were right. All the nutters signed up and like lambs to the slaughter they joined a sinking St Bernadette's. School wasn't the same any more. We still had a laugh but all the controversy had been sucked out of our lives.
    I'd still see my old friends each night as they
dismounted their Mode II bus proudly wearing overalls stained with oil and silk emulsion. They seemed so grown up all of a sudden while we were doing boring coursework. Our jealousy didn't last long and I have to admit I was relieved a few months later when Danny Thorncliffe flipped his lid and took four nuns hostage with some turps and a Bunsen burner.
    Mentally, the cheese had slid off Danny's cracker a long time ago. I remember saying that when I saw him trying to headbutt wasps in the convent gardens. But taking hostages was the final straw. When he blew up the science lab he made it on to the local TV news.
    Danny was suspended but had the last laugh when he sued the education authority for damages and won. He reckoned the cuts he received to his face as a result of the blast ruined any chance he might have had of becoming a male model.
    The last time we were all together was when the school was entered for a local design project. Every Thursday for a few weeks, Mode II students were invited back to our school (much to the nuns' disgust) and Mr India, the head of the Craft and Design department, put us into groups.
    I was crap at Craft and Design. I'd only taken it as an option because I'd been a dab hand with Lego and because Mr India promised I could build my own
hovercraft and travel to school in it. I never got any further than dismantling my nana's Ewbank for parts. I ended up getting a U in my final exam and I think I only got that because I spelt my name right at the top of the paper.
    Our task for this project was to design and build 'something' that could travel thirty feet – that was the brief. It could be any shape or size. It could be powered by any means. It just had to travel thirty feet across the assembly-hall floor, four weeks from that day, in front of our parents, some governors and possibly the Bishop, depending on whether or not he was back from the World Cup.
    I was put into a group with some of my old friends from Mode II and it was great being in a lesson with them again. In fact, we were only together for five minutes