Page 38 of Everything That Kills Me
“Whatever he wants.”
Jack looked at Zeph’s mouth and Zeph felt his face flush.
As Zeph had expected, Jack was soon ahead. Zeph nodded to the others as he passed them. There was no sign of Alice, which was worrying.
When he saw Jack had come to a halt in the next field, he guessed why. As he drew near, he spotted Alice sitting on the ground. She was crying.
“What’s happened?” Zeph asked.
“She’s twisted her ankle.”
Zeph crouched at her side. “Sure it’s only twisted and not broken?”
Alice glared at him. “Yes.”
“We could make a chair with our arms and carry you back?” Zeph suggested.
“No,” Alice snapped.
Zeph guessed she wanted Jack to pick her up.
“We can’t leave you here and you don’t need an ambulance,” Zeph said. “Let us help you.”
She finally agreed and they carried her back to school between them. She’d tried to only have her arm around Jack’s neck but when Jack told her to hold onto Zeph too, she did. Zeph doubted there was anything wrong with her ankle, but someone else could tell her that. Once she’d been handed over to a teacher, Jack and Zeph went to get changed.
“Does anyone shower?” Jack asked.
“Not usually. We just wash if we’ve got mud on us.”
“Which we have.”
No way was Zeph going anywhere near a shower with Jack. He was getting hard at the thought of it. He used his PE shirt to clean his legs at one of the sinks and Jack did the same.The changing room door opened and a group of boys came in, among them Rufus and Scott.
“Been rolling in mud together?” Rufus asked.
Please ignore him!
Jack finished drying his legs and turned to face him. “With Alice.”
Zeph thought that was a weird thing to say until he caught sight of Rufus’s face. He looked…stricken.Oh.
“What?” Rufus croaked.
Jack shrugged. “We carried her back. She hurt her ankle.”
“Badly?”
“I don’t think so. She’s in the med room.”
Zeph sidled to his clothes and quickly got changed.
At the end of the day, Zeph went off to do his homework in the study area and Jack joined him. When he handed over the phone, Zeph’s eyes widened.
“This is an iPhone. Are you sure?”
“It’s not new. There’s credit on it and I brought a charger too, just in case.”
“Thank you.”
