Slated (24 page)

Ben releases me; I spring up. ‘What did you do that for?’

‘He was going to see us, anyhow. Might as well let him think we were having a cuddle, not a dangerous conversation.’

Having a
cuddle
. Is that what we were doing, or was it just a cover story? My face burns despite the cold. I turn once again at a sound; is someone else about to overtake?

‘Let’s run,’ Ben says, and without waiting for an answer, he sprints ahead at full speed.

Well. I follow after him, and try to catch up, but can’t; he must have been holding back before. His stride lengthens and soon he is out of sight. It is almost like something is chasing him, something he doesn’t want to face.

It is only me.

Phoebe’s robin is on the front wall in the art studio. No other pictures hang there. Many are displayed on the sides, the back, but never the front. She hasn’t signed her sketch; no one but us would know whose it is. Instead of barking at us to hurry, Mr Gianelli is silent as we file in and scan our cards, for this: our first class since Phoebe was taken. Everyone sees her sketch of the robin, and falls silent also.

He must know. I glance towards the door; Mrs Ali stands there. She still shadows me between classes most of the time, though it is obvious I know how to get around. She is keeping tabs on me: will she always? Ben and Amy don’t have anyone in their footsteps.

Mrs Ali glances around the room; she can sense something is up, looks from face to face. She stays.

‘Class, today I want you to think about something: the importance of connecting with what you put on paper. Take our friend Mr Red Breast, here. See the care, the connection; it takes an ordinary moment and moves it beyond, makes you be better than you are, finds the artist within. The
communication
between you, and your subject, yes? Give and take. How you see your subject, in a way nobody else can.’

And he stands back, so he is with us: all eyes are on Phoebe’s sketch. Everyone, together, studying the drawing. The robin that trusted her, hopped closer and closer. Phoebe’s smile as she sketched, murmuring at the robin, him chirping back. Seconds tick by: to a minute of silence, then two.

He shakes his head sadly, and returns to the front of the class.

‘Today, draw something or someone you care about, that makes you
feel
something; feel anything. Good or bad, I don’t care. Go! Get started.’

He slumps at his desk. Movements begin around the room; small, unhurried. Paper smoothed. Pencils, charcoals selected. All as if waking from a dream, a trance.

I lean over crisp, white sheets. Out of the corner of my eye I track Mrs Ali. Hers are thoughtful, puzzled; she departs.

Gianelli looks older today, the lines about his eyes more pronounced; his skin as grey as his hair. A silent protest at one of his students being taken, but we all know what he did just now, the risk he took. I see him slip a flask out of his pocket, tilt it into his tea. Then start a sketch of his own.

Without thought or question, I use my left hand. Turned in my seat a little so I can see the door, in case Mrs Ali comes back.

Draw someone I care about; someone who makes me
feel
something…

Quick and smooth strokes. A subject I haven’t tried before, but there is no trial and error with my left hand: it is right the first time. His thoughtful eyes. Strong chin, dark hair that is more wavy than curly, just below his ears: Ben.

Where are you?
He wasn’t in biology this morning. Worry makes me chew my lip so hard it hurts. He hasn’t done something stupid? I asked Miss Fern but she didn’t know; she wasn’t hiding anything, though; there was no worry or remoteness in her. I’m starting to understand that there are different types of teachers. Fern, Gianelli, and the running coach, Ferguson: they are real. They might tell me off on occasion, they’re not always nice, exactly, but they talk to me like I exist, like I matter. Then there are ones like the Head, Rickson, Dr Winston, the ed psych, and Mrs Ali: who for all their smiles and ‘I’m just here to help you’ chat are really just watching for mistakes, for anything outside the rules.

I jump when the bell goes. Time passed unnoticed. I lay down my pencil as Mrs Ali appears in the door. Gianelli starts to gather up drawings, and pin them up around the robin. When he gets to me, I say, ‘Wait. It’s not finished.’ He looks at it and sees that it is, but doesn’t comment, moves on to the next one as I pack it away.

I look up at the sketches. It is a sea of faces; important to each of us. Some probably a mum or dad, brother or sister, friends. One of a dog.

Mrs Ali appears at my shoulder. ‘Let me see,’ she demands, and opens my folder. Stares at my drawing of Ben, and raises an eyebrow. I flush.

She studies it. ‘It is a good likeness of Ben,’ she says, finally.

It is better than good. It isn’t just that it looks like him: it is his eyes. They are
him
, a him that I don’t want to share: the way he looked at me yesterday, just before I thought he might kiss me and I pulled away. Before I told him about missing persons, and Lucy. Before he
ran
.

We walk across the class to the door just as Gianelli pins up his own drawing. He’s never done that before; showed us something he did, himself. Everyone still in the room looks up, and catches their breath: it is Phoebe. He has captured a side of her I didn’t know. The anger is gone: her face, the way she stands, everything about her is so very sad. She stands alone. Mrs Ali’s eyes grow cold as she stares at Gianelli.

I go to the track at lunch, afraid to look; afraid of what it might mean if I can’t find him. Ben always comes here at lunch. Is he here?

I scan the track. There are a few runners scattered along it today, now the rain has stopped. Most I recognise from training, but not the one I am looking for. I hug my arms around myself, watch them a few moments. Trying not to think. Where could he be?

I turn to go, and crash straight into Ben.

‘Careful,’ he says, and puts out both hands, one on each of my shoulders, to steady me.

‘Where’ve you been?’ I demand.

He shrugs. ‘Here. Where else?’

‘You weren’t in biology.’

‘No, I was late. Had a doctor’s appointment, then Mum got a flat tyre on the way back,’ he says, his eyebrows raised in a puzzle.

‘You could have told me!’ I say, and push my hands into his chest to shove him away, then start to walk off. I’d been so worried and he just had a stupid appointment.

‘Well, I hardly knew we were going to get a flat tyre,’ he says, in a reasonable tone that just makes me madder. He follows and catches my hand, hooks his little finger in with mine and holds it tight. ‘What’s wrong?’

The anger fizzes out and my eyes are filling. I blink. ‘I thought something happened to you.’

‘You were worried about me?’ And he smiles, looking very pleased about it. But before I can decide whether I want to punch him or hug him, it happens.

Bzzzz
: on my wrist. I sigh in exasperation.

He grabs my hand, and we look at it together: 3.9. ‘Come on.’ He pulls me back towards the track. ‘See if you can keep up today. You were a bit slow yesterday.’

Slow?! I hit the track before Ben, pour everything into my legs, my feet. Again and again. Ben gradually catches but doesn’t pass me. Though maybe he holds back? I go faster, until there is nothing left. Bit by bit I pull ahead, and I feel a cold sense of satisfaction.
This is the way it should be
…

As the running takes over, some small part of me is amused. Why did I get so angry with Ben? It wasn’t reasonable, was it. I was confused about yesterday – about why he took off when I told him about Lucy, and wouldn’t talk about it afterwards – but if he is anything like me, he needed time to take it in. And he expected to make it back in time for biology, so there was no reason to tell me he wouldn’t be there. I can almost laugh at myself.

But I can’t. Because the problem, here, is a serious one. One I don’t want to face.

What is Ben to me?

When we stop I see Ferguson. Standing by the gym, stopwatch in hand, shaking his head a little. We walk past him as we leave.

‘Flipping record. What a shame,’ he mutters to himself, shaking his head.

‘What does he mean?’ I say, stalling, before Ben can ask me, well, anything.

‘Not sure, but I’m guessing we broke the track record.’

‘But that’s good, right?’ No matter the motivation for running like that, no matter that it might be difficult to repeat the frame of mind that made me do it.

Ben shrugs. ‘Sure. If you like breaking records.’

‘But he said it was a shame.’

‘Of course. Since we can’t compete.’

I stop short. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Slateds can’t be on school teams; you know that.’

And as he says the words, I realise: I do know. I’ve been told some variant of it, anyhow. But I hadn’t connected the dots together to apply it to cross-country running.

‘But why let us train, then? What is the point?’ Anger courses through me, but my levels are still safely up from running.

Ben shrugs. ‘I asked last year if I could train with them. Once he saw how I can run he said yes; suppose same applied to letting you come along. I train with the team, helps spur them on to do better, I suppose.’

‘Doesn’t that make you angry? You are the best – or maybe, I am – and we can’t compete. That isn’t fair.’

‘Maybe I am, maybe you are; maybe I just let you beat me, today,’ Ben teases. He’s not really bothered by any of this, I see.

But instead of getting more angry I crumple inside myself. I feel like Phoebe in Gianelli’s drawing: isolated, and alone. Even Ben, for all his wanting to find out what happened to Tori, doesn’t seem to notice how things are run, how unfair it all is.

Ben asks if I want to train before Group again on Thursday: train for what? But I say yes just as the bell rings for next class. I’m a sight: my hair is soaked to my head, my clothes stuck to my back, and no time to use the gym showers. No one will want to sit next to me in English.

No change there, then.

Mrs Ali corners me at the end of day.

She smiles her gentle smile, her eyes are warm. A cold shiver goes up my spine.

‘Kyla, dear, we need to have a talk.’ We stay in the classroom after the other students leave. My English teacher spots Mrs Ali and, muttering something about a cup of tea, makes an exit.

‘How are things, dear?’

‘Fine,’ I say, shifting miserably in my damp clothes, cold now that the warmth of the run is long gone.

‘I see. Are you having problems coping with anything?’

‘No,’ I lie.

‘Well, listen a moment. I see a potential problem. That is you, and your friend Ben.’

I shift, uncomfortable in my seat. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Now dear, you’ve only been out of hospital, for what: three weeks?’

‘Twenty-two days.’

‘Just over three weeks, then. Now, I know Ben is a good looking boy, and a decent one, too, by all accounts.’

I flush, beginning to see where this is going.

‘But you know, dear, that you need to concentrate on school, on your family, on integrating into your community. Not on a boy.’

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Can I go now?’

She sighs. ‘Kyla, I am also well aware that excessive exercise is a way to overcome the monitoring effects of your Levo. In future, you are not to run the school track with Ben at lunch. Is that clear?’