fourteen

INCREDIBLY HOT GUY

I tear out of the classroom and actually burn rubber on the soles of my trainers as I do a scorching ninety-degree turn on the wooden floor of the corridor. I take the stairs not two but three at a time, and when a gaggle of twelve-year-olds on the last flight are coming up as I’m flying down, I actually do that thing you see in films: I jump onto the banister and let my jeans-clad bum be pulled down it by gravity and the cunning sideways tilt of my buttocks, which gives me extra speed. Thank God the banister is old and highly polished. I’m going so fast I’d be worried about splinters otherwise.

The twelve-year-olds gasp in shock and awe as I whiz past them. I’m high. I’m flying. I’m Scarlett Wakefield and someone else besides me thinks that it wasn’t my fault! I grab the newel post with my left hand, just as I’m about to hit it, and vault off the banister, hitting the ground running.

“Scarlett Wakefield!” calls a teacher from behind me.

“That’s my name!” I sing. “Thank you for caring!”

I don’t think she hears me, because I’m long gone by then, out the door and zooming around the side of the school, through the courtyard, scattering rope-skippers, sending the two French Elastic players with the elastic round their ankles tripping as they swivel round to see who’s sprinting as if she has the devil on her heels. Past the weeping willow, where the swots turn to stare at me—they’ve probably never had a good run in their lives. Round the outside of the maze, skirting Lime Walk, and onto the Great Lawn, aka the hockey pitches, which are still green and grassy, not the slicks of mud they’ll be after Sharon Persaud and her psycho friends have had a go at it with their cleats and killer sticks. I tumble down the steep slope from Lime Walk, and as I hit the lawn I use the momentum I’ve built up and run hard, one two three lunge and push into a handspring, which has such a good landing that I go mad and throw in a bounder straight afterward, which, to be honest, I barely land without doing myself a serious injury.

Three months off gymnastics, and I’m tumbling on grass in trainers. I must be insane. Especially doing a bounder. It’s like a handspring, only you jump into it with both feet together, which is much harder than lunging and kicking into it. People who have freakishly strong legs don’t have any problems with bounders. But if you don’t, you have to work really hard to make it over without landing ignominiously on your bum. When my hands hit the grass, I shove the ground away with everything I’ve got, popping my shoulders as much as I can, and it’s just enough to get me over and back to my feet again.

My head is spinning, and it’s not the tumbling that’s done it. I am high on pure joy. There isn’t a drug in the world that’s worth one gram of my own adrenaline (I didn’t make that up; it’s a Ricky-ism).

Also, I’m very relieved that I didn’t just break an ankle. I stand there, panting, when I hear clapping. I turn round, and a rook flies out of one of the linden trees, cawing loudly. Oh. No applause. Just a bird beating its wings. My shoulders sag. I was actually hoping, pathetically, that someone had seen me and spontaneously burst into—

I look further down the avenue of trees, and see him. That gardener boy again, piling leaves into a wheelbarrow. Only he’s put down his rake, and he’s walking toward me, down the slope. Clapping.

“Hey,” I say, still catching my breath.

He’s beaming at me. He has a lovely smile. And I know this is going to sound crazy, but, as he gets closer, I suddenly realize that he’s drop-dead gorgeous. He has butterscotch skin, a head of short black curls so tight they look as if they were each made by winding them round a knitting needle, and eyes of such a light, bright hazel that they seem almost gold. I remember when I met him before I thought that eye color was a trick of the light. Well, it isn’t. His eyes really are that golden. He must be biracial, with hair like that and skin that toffee color.

Wow. I stand there and goggle at him. I can’t believe I didn’t notice before how handsome he was. His teeth are incredibly white against his caramel skin. I feel very self-conscious about mine by comparison. And suddenly I’m aware of how old and faded my red T-shirt is, how unfashionable my jeans and trainers are, and that when I was upside down he must have seen a bit of my tummy, which isn’t half as flat and toned as Taylor’s is. It’s genetics, I know, but I’d still kill to have a flatter tummy.

“I didn’t know you did gymnastics,” he says, and then looks a bit embarrassed himself. “Well, why would I? That’s a stupid thing to say.  .  .  .”

He trails off, and I find myself jumping in to keep the conversation going. “Ever since I was small.”

“You must have won a lot of prizes.”

I laugh. “Oh, I’m not that good. Anyway, that was nothing. You should see me when I’ve got a proper spring floor to bounce off.”

And then I catch myself, realizing that I sound like I’m boasting. I am boasting. What’s he supposed to say to that?

“Well, I thought it looked really cool,” he says.

It’s a warm day, and he’s wearing loose jeans and a bright green T-shirt that’s pretty much plastered to him. He’s worked up a sweat, raking leaves and pushing the wheel-barrow, and I can see that though he’s pretty lean, he’s not skinny. I remember noticing his forearms before, which are bulging and corded from hard physical labor. But now I look up and see how wide his shoulders are, how capped they are with muscle.

I realize I’m staring, and I feel a blush flooding my cheeks.

“You’re all pink,” he comments, smiling again. “You were really racing along there.”

“I didn’t see you,” I say, very glad that he’s misinterpreted my blush.

“I’m just the invisible man where you’re concerned, aren’t I?” he says, looking me straight in the eye. “I waved to you earlier, when I was pruning the hedge over by the rose garden, but I don’t think you saw me.”

I stare back into his eyes, golden and glowing in the afternoon sunlight. I’ve never seen a color like that before. It’s mesmerizing. He’s mesmerizing.

“My name’s Jase, by the way,” he adds, rubbing his hand on his jeans and reaching it out to me. “Short for Jason. My granddad’s the head gardener here. Old Ted.”

“You’re Ted Barnes’s grandson?”

My eyes widen. Ted Barnes is wizened, ancient, and definitely one hundred percent white, with a face covered in broken veins from gardening in all sorts of weather, and, my aunt Gwen says darkly, a drinking habit to boot. His grandson couldn’t look less like him if he was actively trying.

Completely unoffended, Jason Barnes grins.

“Not that much alike, are we? Lucky for me. Granddad’s no oil painting.”

He’s still holding out his hand. I grab at it, feeling I’ve made him wait too long, and as I touch it, I don’t understand why he even needed to wipe it. He’s dry as a bone, his palm rough from the work of gardening, and I can feel calluses studding the base of his fingers. Without thinking, I touch them with the pad of my index finger.

He jerks his hand away. It’s the first awkward gesture or movement I’ve seen from him.

“I shouldn’t have shaken hands,” he blurts, shoving his into his pockets. “Mine are all cracked. Sorry, it’s all the digging.”

I think he’s blushing, though it’s harder to tell on him than on me.

“I’ve got those, too,” I jump in quickly. “Look.”

Three months have diminished my calluses a bit, but they’ve been built up by years of training, and you don’t lose that kind of thing overnight. I turn my hands over to show him my palms.

“God, you do as well,” he says in surprise.

“Asymmetric bars and rope climbing,” I explain. “If the calluses get big you have to pumice them down, or they really hurt when you’re holding on to something. They dig into you.”

“I pick mine off,” Jase admits, grinning.

I can’t believe we’re bonding over calluses. How weird is that?

Jase takes my hands in his. My whole body fizzes at the contact as if I’m radioactive. My hands rest in his larger ones, on his palms, which are a pale pink gray edged by caramel, and are much, much bigger than mine.

“You’ve got tiny hands,” he says. “I’m amazed they can hold you up when you’re upside down like that.”

I laugh, and then I hear the sound I’m making. It’s not a laugh. It’s a full-on girly giggle.

I am giggling with a boy.

Now it’s my turn to pull my hands away, though not as fast as he did. I stand there and look at Jase, at his wide shoulders and his bright golden eyes, and I feel a rush of excitement flood through me.

“Are you okay?” he asks curiously.

I swallow hard. “Yeah, I just need to get back. I’ve got to do some revision, there’s this test tomorrow  .  .  .”

“Oh, okay then.” Jase looks a bit disappointed, and it makes me grin a little. “See you round?”

“Definitely.”

“At least you know my name now, eh?”

“Jase,” I say, and my voice comes out wobbly, to my great embarrassment.

“That’s right,” he says, quite seriously. “Don’t you go forgetting it, now.”

“I won’t.”

I turn away and start walking across the Great Lawn, taking a shortcut through the grounds to the gatekeeper’s cottage.

“Scarlett?” Jase calls after me.

I turn round and look at him.

“Good luck with the test!” he yells.

I can only manage a wave and then I break into another run, not because I’m in any hurry to get back to Aunt Gwen’s, but because there are so many feelings inside of me that I’m scared I’ll explode all over the Great Lawn.

After a few minutes, I stop for a minute at a bench and take a deep breath. What I need right now is some time by myself, alone in my room. At the end there, talking to Jase, I got sort of overloaded, like a computer just before it crashes, because I suddenly found myself being reminded of Dan. Dan was really impressed when he saw me do gymnastics. Just like Jase. And while the circumstances were different—I was deliberately showing off for Dan, and I didn’t know Jase was there when I threw myself into that handspring bounder—it still felt weird, like déjà vu.

My brain flashed to that night outside on Nadia’s terrace, and I couldn’t quite deal with it. I had to run away and get some space, find somewhere to be alone so I could sort through all of my emotions, which are completely at war with one another—happy shock over the note, excitement from talking with Jase, sadness at the thought of Dan. It’s all a blur.

I begin running toward home again. I weave through the ornamental garden, round the hedge (which is looking nicely trimmed, I notice: good work, Jase), and arrive at our front door. It’s unlocked. Aunt Gwen is in. But there’s one very positive side to living with Aunt Gwen: like Lady Severs, she wants to see as little of me as possible. She may be large and pale and have big buggy eyes like a frog’s, but she never comes near me unless it’s absolutely necessary. I can just about see her shoulder—she’s in her study, as she pretty much always is, sitting at her desk—but she doesn’t turn round as I come in, let alone say “hi” or acknowledge me in any way.

That’s fine. It’s just the way I like it. For years, Aunt Gwen and I have basically pretended that the other one doesn’t exist. It’s a system that has worked very well for both of us, and neither of us sees any reason to mess with it now. I run upstairs and into my room, closing the door behind me. For an instant, I shut my eyes. Peace and quiet, I think.

A chance to look again at that note (which is shoved deep into my jeans pocket) and see what deductions I can draw from it. A chance to absorb the impact of meeting Jase Barnes again and properly seeing him. A chance to feel again the incredible sensation of him taking my hands in his and saying how small they were.

Heat rushes over me as I remember Dan kissing me on Nadia’s terrace, and my heart is beating so loudly, I think I can actually hear it.

But suddenly I hear a crashing noise, which is certainly not my heart beating.

My eyes snap open. I sweep a quick look round the room and realize that it’s not as I left it. My folder with all the articles about Dan and me is lying on my bed, open. The articles are scattered all over the bed. Some have blown to the floor because there’s a breeze coming in from the window, which I’m sure I didn’t leave wide open this morning.  .  .  .

I run to the window and look out.

That’s where the noise was coming from. Someone was in my room. And now they’re—I lean further out and look down—climbing down the drainpipe, which is rattling as it’s knocked against the wall by her weight.

I don’t need to identify the shock of shaggy hair directly below me.

It’s Taylor. Taylor was in my room, spying on me.

Any wish for a moment of peace and quiet has gone in a flash. I vault up onto the windowsill, look for my mark, take a deep breath, and jump out the window.