We grab my things—three handfuls each. I stuff my headphones into my rucksack upside down, then jump up too. I keep my passport in hand.
“Wiley?” I ask, looking at her.
“Emma,” she says, pointing to the direction I’ve just come from. “And you?”
“Henry. Pleased to meet you.” I can only stutter out a few words because my lungs are on fire again. Or still. Either way. “Is it far?” I gasp, gradually dropping back behind her. Emma. The gray-eyed girl. Wow, she’s fast.
“Don’t know.” She glances back, gripping her rucksack straps firmly. “We have to speed up.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
Like hell I can. Unlike her.
She makes it look effortless.
“No, this way.” Just before the next moving walkway, she grabs my wrist and pulls me to the right.
Oh, yeah.Gates B35–B1, the sign reads. I must have run right past it before.
Emma mumbles very German- and apologetic-sounding words as we run past people with hand-luggage trolleys and dodge small children.
I’m embarrassingly out of breath, while Emma has no more than a clearly rising and falling chest and somewhat flushedcheeks. Can’t be more than a few hundred meters, but this airport corridor seems to be going on forever.
B31
B29
B27
They’ve already started boarding at gate B24, and there are people everywhere. Right in our way. I thank them from the bottom of my heart because I’m forced to walk a few paces. Emma vanishes into the crowd ahead of me, and I make myself run on.
Our gate is empty. It sticks out like a sore thumb amid the other waiting areas, which are full to bursting. I can see the plane through the window, but there’s nobody at the desk.
Fuck...I’ve got a stitch, and I press my hand to my side.
“Seriously?” murmurs Emma. Her voice sounds way too normal after the sprint we’ve just done. “They only just called us and...”
“LH962 to Edinburgh?” calls a man.
A flight attendant appears, and at that moment, I’d like to fling my arms around his neck.
“Yes!”
“Great. This way, please.”
I’m trying to suppress my wheezing as I pull my phone out of the kangaroo pocket on my hoodie. I bet my face is bright red. Emma looks almost fresh. How the hell is she even human?
I pull up my boarding pass on my phone and hand the flight attendant my passport. Once he’s given it back, I move away slightly to wait for her. Emma’s got her boarding pass printedout on paper, and something about that makes me smile. It’s kind of sweet.
She thanks him, and she’s blushing a little after all as she looks at me. I think she’s surprised that I waited. And at that moment it happens. Her eyes drop from my face to my chest. I see her stare at the white logo embroidered on the dark-blue sweat fabric of my hoodie: the entwined initials of Dunbridge Academy within a simple ivy-framed shield. Emma recognizes it. I can see it in her eyes. Before she can speak, I’ve scanned through every year group in my mind. No, it’s impossible. She has to be new, or I’d have seen her somewhere before. I might not know all 423 pupils at Dunbridge by name, but I know them by sight. And I never forget a face.
“You’re at Dunbridge Academy?” asks Emma, and her voice sounds so awestruck that I’m now absolutely certain.
She’s definitely new. You wouldn’t ask like that unless you only knew the school from the glowing reports on the web.
“Yes,” I say, and the flight attendant appears behind Emma.
