Page 8 of A Cornish Love Story
Kira’s giggle was a bubbling sound that made me feel like I was floating. My funny, kind, smart, beautiful best friend. ‘Probably not Spunk. He’s handsome, in a cruel kind of way.’
I closed my notebook, intrigued. ‘Why do you think he’s cruel?’
Kira swapped positions, putting her legs on the desk, her DMs clunking into the Formica. ‘He stared us all down, even Daggers Dave at the back, who was looking as scary as ever. He managed a deepheywhen Mrs Couch told him to introduce himself.’
‘That doesn’t mean he’s cruel. He’s probably just shy.’ I turned back to my notes. ‘Anyway, what about Freddy?’
‘I’m not replacing Freddy with Spunk boy.’ They’d been dating since the beginning of year twelve, which already felt like a lifetime to me. ‘There’s not a lot of excitement here, that’s all. The new guy is the most interesting thing that’s happened all week.’
‘I’ll have to look out for him.’ I was about to throw my biro across the common room, towards the aloe vera plant that had been dying long before we started using it for target practice, when my phone buzzed. It was a clunky Nokia with buttons that kept sticking, and I envied Freddy with his newfangled iPhone, but I didn’t have a dad who was high up in the tech industry in London. I had no dad and a mum who worked as a dentist’s receptionist when she wasn’t laid low by MS. I read the message.
‘What is it?’ Kira asked, her petulance gone. ‘Your mum OK?’
‘Yeah.’ I sighed. ‘She’s been given an appointment at the hospital tomorrow, so I’m going to have to miss English and take her.’
Kira frowned. ‘Can’t she get someone else to take her? I know you’reonlydoing English and Media Studies and—’
‘Hey!’ I whacked her on the arm.
‘You still need to pass the exams if you want to go to uni. You work hard enough as it is.’
I nodded, doodling a flower in my notebook. Mum was part of a new MS trial at the hospital, which had the potential to reduce her symptoms and improve her general condition, but it meant lots of trips to Truro, forty-five minutes away, and then periods afterwards when, because of the side effects, she needed a lot more care. She preferred me to look after her rather than strangers, which I understood, but it was putting pressure on other parts of my life, and I was eighteen now, months away from university, so everything – my friendships, my schoolwork – really mattered.
‘It’s just A levels, G,’ she’d say with a soft, coaxing smile. ‘You can pick it up so easily. You’re clever and you apply yourself. No need to worry, my girl.’
‘Tell me about Ethan Spunk.’ I slid my notebook into my rucksack, done with Media Studies and thoughts about Mum and everything except some gossip with my friend.
Kira stared at the ceiling and I waited, anticipation building, knowing that whatever she said would begood. ‘Ethan Spunk is … like the mostexpensive Easter egg.’
I laughed. ‘In what way?’
‘He’s really hard to crack open, but you know that, when you finally prise him apart, you’ll be generously rewarded with the contents.’
I swallowed. I hadn’t even seen this guy and already I wanted to know how accurate that was. ‘What kind of contents?’
She shrugged, her brown eyes twinkling. ‘They could be anything. Something sharp and fruity, like the candied oranges you get at Christmas, or bitter, like 80 per cent chocolate drops. He looks like he’d have a dry sense of humour.’ She tapped her lips. ‘Or they might be sweet: I can see that about him, too. He seemed wary, but also as if he might warm up, like chocolate truffles with coffee cream inside.’
‘Right.’ It was my turn to slump over the desk. ‘Thanks, Kira. Now I won’t have anything to say in Media Studies.’
‘Because you’re thinking about a guy you’ve never seen whose surname might be Spunk?’
‘You started this,’ I pointed out. ‘Iamthinking about him, but now I also want some chocolate truffles.’ My stomach rumbled, and Kira laughed and slumped over me, two girls heaped over a desk like we’d completely given up. When the laughter faded, I pushed my blonde fringe out of my eyes and said, ‘When’s your next Maths class?’
‘Why?’ Kira took an apple out of her bag. ‘You’re practically allergic to Maths.’
‘I might need to come and give you a crucial message, sometime very soon.’ I watched the smile spread slowly over her face, matching mine.
I met Ethan, the most expensive Easter egg, two days later, in inauspicious circumstances. I was walking across the courtyard in front of the sixth-form block, replying to a message from Mum, when something thumped into the middle of my back with a heavythwack,pushing all the air out of me. My mobile flew out of my hands, and I followed it onto the hard concrete, my knees and palms taking the brunt.
‘Fuck,’ I gasped, tears springing to my eyes at the shock.
‘Hey.’ The voice came from beside me, and I turned to see a pair of grey trainers, jean-clad knees in a crouching position, fingertips pressing into the ground next to my hand. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Was that your football?’ I sounded shrill, and I swallowed, trying to force the tears away.
‘I don’t have a football,’ the voice said. ‘Here, do you want to sit?’ Hands cupped my shoulders, gentle but insistent, manoeuvring me until I was sitting on the ground, the pressure off my knees and hands. I looked up into a pair of brown eyes, a furrow between neat brows, his concern aimed at me.
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled.
