WE ALL come from junior high schools. We were weaned and scrubbed in their vinyl bassinets and many of us haven't been able to dirty ourselves ever since. Last week, I returned to one of the scenes of our collective baptism, a junior high on Long Island. I didn't formerly attend this particular school, but what reason was there to suspect that it was any different than my own, a thousand miles away?

Here were the narrow tan lockers, the light green and brown tile floors, the closely shaven mathematics teachers, the Art Deco furniture-all preserved through the years an unwitting museum of redolent nostalgia. The scaled-down desks, the dwarfed nation of students, the knee-high urinals-all attested to the passage of time. The clots of eighth-grade hoydens with their manila complexions and pink eraser thighs attested to my eternal puerility. Most of the boys, however, still on the verge of their powerful pubescence, still four feet eleven, flitted unsuspectingly down the corridors like little frightened birds.

There were definite signs of modernity. Everyone wore mod clothes, girls came in blue jeans and transclucent blouses through which boys could see their over-the-shoulder boulder-holders. The girls had more make-up; the boys, it seemed, fewer braces. The girls obviously had no idea how seductively their mothers had dressed them. Neither did the boys. Only me and the mathematics teachers, who loitered by the drinking fountain between classes looking for fresh talent.

I HAD BEEN asked to read some poetry and discuss that art with classes during the day, but found myself sitting in on an English class first module. The PA system clicked on overhead and in an instant the entire class was on its feet, facing the flag. After that, we all settled back to listen to Leslie's oral report on Greek mythology. Leslie was one of the bigger boys and hardly used his note cards.

"First there was Chaos," he began. "Anybody don't know what Chaos is? OK. Then there was Erebus, you know, Chaos gave birth to Erebus. What came from Erebus was love and the banishment of confusion, and everywhere that love would go it was beautiful and there was light."

"What's Chaos?" a pretty girl asked, chewing on her Papermate.

"Jesus, Karen," a guy said. "he already asked if anybody didn't know." Then, without warning, Robbie and Stewart started slugging it out in their chairs.

"Robbie! Stewart! Stop it this instant!" the teacher cried from the back of the room.

"I still don't know what chaos is."

"Jesus, Karen." the guy shrilled.

"There was a regard," continued Leslie, "for the earth and for the grain, but there was a conflict. Both the earth and the gods couldn't be the base for life. . ."

"How long is this report supposed to be anyways?" someone whined.

"Three minutes," Robbie replied.

"He's only been up there for an hour an a half," Stewart said.

"Well," said a boy in a hippie vest. "The Creation takes longer."