“Go down to the Little Library, please,” he says serenely. “Lower Student Council has booked this room for the next hour.”
“But, sir,” Donno whines from across the table, “we have practice! We need Brad. He’s our best striker!”
Mr. Taylor peers over his glasses, unimpressed. “Then I suppose he’d better work quickly.”
BRAD
We walk through the building in mutinous silence.
I want to say this entire thing is Celine’s fault, but let’s be honest: I just spent the last two hours behaving like a ten-year-old and, surprise, surprise, it instantly came back to bite me.
I’m still pissed at Celine, though.
God, she’s so full of it. Maybe I’m not my older sister Emily studying biomechanics, maybe I’m not my younger brother Mason on a path to play professional football, but I’m just as smart as Celine. And clearly just as childish, because I can’t resist murmuring, “Hope you weren’t expecting Taylor to write your Cambridge recommendation.”
She hugs her textbook tight against her Metallica T-shirt, her expression half boredom and half effortless arrogance. “Mr. Darling is a Cambridge alum, actually, so he’s writing mine.”
Of fucking course he is.
“Who’s writing your recommendation?” she asks innocently, as if she knows I haven’t gotten that far yet, knows I didn’t email any teachers over the summer to help with my application.
And, yeah, she does. I can tell by her face, by the barely there smirk waiting to spread.
God. If Mum doesn’t stop spilling all my business during Sunday tea with Neneh Bangura, I’m going to…well, I’m going to have very stern words with her about it.
“Haven’t decided,” I say flatly.
“You should get a move on,” Celine replies, all bossy and superior as we skirt around a noisy pack of year eights. “Or the teachers will be too busy—”
My back teeth click together. “I know.”
“And contrary to popular belief, they don’t all wait around for the school’s football stars to find time between super important training sessions to request a favor. They have actual jobs and a ton of students to write for, so—”
“Celine?”
She swings narrow eyes in my direction.
“Shut up.”
Her jaw tightens and those eyes get even sharper. I look away.
So, I haven’t got around to considering recommendations yet. It’s not a big deal. I want to go to uni in Leeds or Bristol—somewhere good but, like, normal, because I can’t imagine anything worse than memorizing tort case law in a class full of stuck-up Celine-a-likes. I’m not worried about my application: my grades are perfect, I can memorize almost anything, and I argue well enough to quiet Celine at least 50 percent of the time. Screw uni; they should call me to the bar right now.
I mean, it wouldn’t be my dream job but…it makes sense. What’s the alternative? I spend the rest of my life trying and failing to write a book, my parents finally kick me out by my thirty-fifth birthday because I’m still unemployed, and I die cold and lonely under a bridge like Mr. Darling’s always ranting about? No thanks. Practicing law is the sensible option.
Celine opens the door to the stairwell, and I scowl reflexively. The Little Library is a cramped, windowless room down in the basement filled with the books only Philosophy, History, and Latin nerds give a damn about. She goes down without hesitation, but my legs falter.
The stairs are made of concrete and they’re laughably uneven. My brain helpfully informs me that I could easily fall and crack my head open and die right now. (My brain, in case I failed to mention this before, is kind of a dick.)
Yeah, okay, thanks, I tell it. Then I kick away the mental image of my own unfortunate demise and finally head down.
The bannister is metal, painted a cheerful yellow, but overuse has left thirty-six tiny chips in the paint, and I count them as they pass under my hand. Celine’s waiting for me at the bottom, but she doesn’t say a word. Not until we reach the hallway that leads to the Little Library’s closed door, the fluorescent lights harsh and the blue-gray carpet threatening to unravel. “Do you think someone’s already in there?” she asks. “A class or something?”
“Why would there be a class in there?”
“Well, why’s the door shut?”
I don’t want to admit it, but that’s a good question. Rosewood Academy has an open-door policy, so either something serious is going down in the Little Library, or a group of year elevens is camped out in there doing homework, eating KitKats, and getting crumbs all over the Bible. There’s only one way to tell.
I step forward and put my ear to the door. Celine moves at the exact same time and I freeze—but I’m not about to jump away from her like I’m scared. Which is how we end up both pressed against the door, basically face to face. Straight away, I realize she’s…shorter than me.
What the hell? Celine Bangura is taller than me. She always has been. But now I’m close to her for the first time in almost four years and it turns out she stopped growing a few inches ago.
Weird.
“Move,” she mutters.
“You move.” I’m not usually this annoying, but she’s infectious. Like the flu.
Celine rolls her eyes. “Your grace and maturity continue to astound me.”
“Give me five synonyms for hypocrite, and yes, you’re allowed to use your own name.”
Watching this girl screw up her face before she insults me is like watching a striker run up to take a penalty. “Has anyone ever told you—” she begins with more acidity than the average lemon tree.
But she’s interrupted by a raised voice through the door. “I’m sorry,” someone says crisply, “but you can’t be serious right now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” a second voice demands. This one I recognize: it’s Coach, who is totally sweet and makes us Rocky Road on game days whether we win or lose. She’s also what Dad would call emotionally unyielding, and her biceps are so huge she could crush your skull like an egg, but I think that’s part of her charm.
“What, exactly, are you confused about?” the first voice asks, accent bobbing up and down like the actors on Derry Girls. “We can’t make the children do push-ups as a punishment—”
“Of course we can! They’re an able-bodied class! It’s motivational! Find your arsehole, Gallagher.” (There’s that unyielding thing I mentioned.)
“Mr. Gallagher’s my Economics teacher,” Celine whispers. “Is that Ms. Morgan with him?”
I blink. “Ms…. ? Do you mean Coach?”
Celine rolls her eyes so hard, her optic nerve’s in danger of snapping. “You don’t even know your football coach’s name?”
I swear she jumps on my every slipup like they contain her daily requirement of vitamins and minerals. “Obviously I know her name. It’s Coach.” (It’s Stacy.)
“You’re a parody of yourself, Bradley Graeme.”
“And you are so in love with the sound of your own voice—”
“Says you.” She snorts like a five-year-old.
“—I bet you fall asleep listening to your own TikToks as a lullaby!”
“Shhhh!” Celine hisses.
Maybe I was a bit loud there. Oops.
There’s the sound of a scraping chair, and before I can react, the door we’re leaning on swings open. We both fall in. Crap.
I grasp the door frame to stop myself going down, but Celine’s still holding her textbook with both hands. I catch her automatically—as in, I kind of don’t remember doing it? Suddenly, I’ve just got an arm around the soft width of her waist and she’s staring up at me, her brown eyes so wide she looks like a cartoon insect. Self-awareness hits me like an electric shock. I come back to my senses and let her go.
A split second later, my brain tells me letting go was the wrong thing to do. But it’s too late: she’s falling. I watch in horror as she lands on the floor with a yelp, her book slamming to the ground beside her.
There’s a moment of wintry silence.
Then she glares up at me with buckets of menace in her eyes and announces, “You absolute living demon!”
My mouth opens. “I—”
“You dropped me!”
Shit. “I didn’t mean to.” My voice creaks with uncertainty, which is annoying, because I’m serious: I didn’t mean to.
“Yeah, right,” Celine mutters as she goes to stand up—and hisses in pain.
Coach, who’s been frozen in confusion since opening the door, springs into action. “Hold on there, young lady,” she orders, kneeling and taking Celine’s wrist in her hand. “Oh dear.” She shakes her head, blond ponytail swinging.
My stomach drops. “What? What’s happened?”
Coach gently presses Celine’s wrist. “Does that hurt?”
Her reply is a stifled squeak.
“And this?”
A nod.
Mr. Gallagher, who is small and twitchy and pink, peers over Coach’s shoulder. “Hmm. I think a trip to Student Support may be in order.”