The smell always touched us when we entered the hall and joined the long line of hungry children. We were pleased if there were burgers (the message was passed along the line), but now I cannot believe that those tiny discs of chewy meat in buns, dropped onto plastic trays, nourished us at all. I waited, and in my memory it seems like chance dictated whether I would offend some grown-up, in those days when the history of everything I had done and said, with genuine feeling, followed me and forged my reputation as the cheekiest boy in the school.