Chapter One 'You're not listening to me Jack.' She stood up, hitched up her jeans, looked to the west and turned back, eyes all fire - 'We'll get caught in the storm, there's no shelter between here and...' I laughed, action Annie, that's what I called her. No, that's what we called her; me and the crowd she hung out with - she actually seemed bothered, no frightened, and that was a first. 'Take that look from your face before I do it for you...' I felt her hand clasp my wrist, tight, as she hauled me to my feet, expected a slap at least for my insolence, but she'd already turned her attention to Tom, where it lingered. It always seemed to linger on Tom, and I felt my first stab of jealousy that day - or at least the first I can recall. She was beautiful you see. Standing there in her multi-coloured T-shirt and jeans, wisps of long auburn hair around her face. Tough but beautiful, and I was an envious fourteen year old, envious of Tom's attraction to her. 'Yeah,' Tom got to his feet, his eyes seemed locked on hers, 'Annie's right, storm's coming quickly,' he tried to swat away the swarm of flies that had descended as though released from a giant fist. 'We'd better make tracks.' 'Yeah, Annie's always right,' I muttered, reddening, aware of her steely gaze on me. We scooped up the blanket we'd used to cover the bare patch of earth, slipped the remnants of our sandwiches into the holdall we'd brought along with the half dozen or so cans of consumed cider, illegally purchased from the corner shop by Annie, because she was tall, had a great figure and everyone said she looked eighteen at least. 'Shift yourself,' I felt the palm of one of Annie's hands on the flat of my back, even a push from her was enough to send you a yard. I was in front of the pair of them as we trod our way through the path in the corn, a path that two people could tread together, but not three. So that didn't include me. There was a five bar gate at the end of the first field, my uncle kept it locked. I scrambled over it ahead of the other two, conscious that if I wasn't quick enough Annie's arms would wrap around me, heave me over. I wouldn't have minded her arms around me of course, but I wasn't being made to look pathetic in front of Tom. And it was Tom her eyes always fell on the longest. We were headed west, where the sky got darker, and the rumbling heavier; the flies itched our eyes, our noses, and our mouths. 'Leg it,' I heard Annie say to Tom. They were behind me, still side by side, but her message meant me as well, and that was tough; tough because it was hot and sticky, the air burned my lungs like an invisible furnace - and of course there was another thing - Annie was quick - greased lightning quick - the fastest girl in our school, but no way was she leaving me behind. In fact it was Tom who got left behind, and I recall feeling elation at that. Because we were now side by side and Tom was falling back. Yes I felt elation. But that elation was short lived...                                                                                                            CHAPTER TWO I hadn't realised that Tom wasn't well, and if Annie knew, she never said. Tom was a good-looking guy, with his fair hair and acne free complexion. It all suggested health to my ignorant mind. My lungs felt like they were bursting as I tried to match Annie stride for stride, and hers were so long, but I was doing it too, with the help of a whacking surge of adrenaline - until I heard Tom's stifled shout. He was clutching his chest, and then suddenly down on his knees, head hung towards the ground. Annie heard it too; barely out of breath she turned in annoyance, hands on hips, 'Tom, for heaven's sake we'll never make it if you don't buck up. All this crap about girls being the weaker...' 'I think it's serious,' I think I snapped at her, I can't remember having done that before, but he was wheezing, the sound was awful, like he was dragging the lining of his lungs into his throat. 'Tom?' Annie frowned, her expression turned from anger to confusion, to concern. She hurried back, stooped beside him. He was struggling for breath, he couldn't speak. The wind had risen in advance of the impending storm. She turned to me, I don't think she really saw me, 'I think it's asthma, I've seen this kind of thing before - that right?' Tom managed a nod, I'd never seen him so red, 'Where's your medication?' I cut in. He shook his head, 'Inhaler indoors,' he croaked. 'Christ...' Annie slapped her hand on her brow, blew enough wind to inflate a sail, 'fat lot of good it'll do there! He comes out here, into the middle of a cornfield in what might be the hottest day of the year, a mile and half from home without his inhaler - and now the wind - and soon the storm...' she chewed her lip, in the darkening sky her eyes seemed like lanterns, 'we'll never get him back in this state, anything could happen, we need shelter.' I remember the question of shelter seemed absurd, because it was all open land. 'There isn't any,' I said flatly. 'Off course there is; Norton Manor,' those lantern-like eyes burned into me, I will always remember their intensity. 'Huh!' I ridiculed her. 'The de Vere estate, you must be joking. Like they live in the nineteenth century, we won't get past the housekeeper. Tom might be ill, but they'll turn us out on our ear.' 'I wasn't thinking of that, everybody knows what they're like,' Annie looked at me as though I was stupid, 'just somewhere to keep him dry while I go for help, you creep.' "You creep," those words smashed into my chest with the force of a blacksmith's blow. Was that what she really thought of me? I swallowed, tried to look unconcerned, when I should have been concerned for Tom, 'There's a ten foot wall around the stable block and a bloody big locked gate.' She scowled at that when all I'd told her was the truth. 'I can scale the wall and unlock the gate from the inside. I've done it before when I was a kid wanting to see the gee-gees. Now are you with me or do I have to carry him there myself?' I couldn't have scaled the wall, but my indignation might have done. Yet another thing she could do, but of course, I might have known. A quarter mile to the east, Norton Manor lay, its extensive grounds bordering my uncle's small farm. I doubt that even she could have carried him that far,but I do know she would have tried, and I was having none of it. So we hoisted Tom between us and began our journey to the stable-block of Norton Manor, just as the first big drops of rain began to fall. Return to home page.