Leo blinked. Lost in his morbid imagination, he’d missed Wayne clearing the fence.
Get on with it, dickhead.
He took a few steps back and braced himself for the run up. His footsteps pounded the tarmac, the metal links of the fence bit into his hands, and then he was flying over the top, the wind in his ears, and he hardly felt the tearing burn in his left arm.
He hit the ground. Shockwaves travelled up his legs from the balls of his feet, but he remained upright. Breathless, but upright. For a moment he wanted to cry, mourning the loss of his imagined fall, then exhilaration hit him and he wanted to jump all over again.
Then he met Wayne’s bored gaze and reality seeped into him.Chips, remember?
Leo sloped to the bush and retrieved his bag. Wayne offered him another smoke. He took it and followed Wayne to the local chippie, a place that looked and smelled like arse.
No, thanks.Leo waited outside and took in Heyton’s high street. Manky chip shop aside, the town was far more glamorous than the grey streets of Swindon—posher people, flashier cars. He watched the world go by and pretended he was waiting for Wendy to emerge from one of the poncy coffee shops across the road, the one with the vintage cake stands, and the grand piano in the window. Then his fantasy faltered. Eyes closed to the world, he could picture Kate in a place like that, with her flowing skirts and dangly earrings, but not Wendy. Life with Dennis had hardened her, and pretty things had often passed her by.
Wayne emerged from the chip shop with a grunt. He offered Leo his soggy bag of chips, but Leo looked away. “Nah, mate. You have ’em.”
“Suit yourself.” Wayne turned back the way they’d come. “So where are you from, anyway? You sound Irish or some shit.”
“Irish? Piss off. I’m from Swindon.”
Wayne was apparently mystified, like he’d never ventured beyond his own back garden. Perhaps he hadn’t. “What did you come here for? Did you move house?”
“Something like that.”
Wayne let it go, apparently not one for small talk, which suited Leo. He’d argued his case to come to school in order to escape the searching conversations every fucker at home seemed to want.
They drifted the rest of the way back in silence. Leo relieved Wayne of a few more fags, but the jaunt remained unremarkable, save the vexed teacher waiting for them at the gate.
The teacher let them in, and then fixed Wayne with a frown Leo had seen from just about every teacher he’d ever known. “Been somewhere nice, Mr. Murphy?”
Wayne shrugged and tossed his chip paper into a nearby bin. “Showing the new kid where the good grub was, weren’t I?”
“Very funny. You know you’re not allowed off school property at lunchtime anymore. We stopped that last term.”
“Did you? Sorry, miss. I forgot.”
For a moment, Leo thought the teacher would let them go, but then her gaze flickered briefly to Leo and something clicked in her expression. “Leaving school property without permission counts as truanting. Go and wait for me in my office. I’m sure your mother will be over the moon to have you suspended again.”
Wayne shuffled off with an insolent roll of his eyes, and Leo wondered if Wayne’s record was as blighted as his own.
“I’ve never seen you before. You must be new,” the teacher said. “First day?”
Leo shrugged. Stuff talking to teachers. Nosy bastards, all of them.
“Well, even so, young man, I know you were told this morning that students aren’t allowed off-site. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Nothing that wouldn’t get him in more trouble, and it turned out not to matter.
“Um, Mrs. Parkin? This is Leo, my new foster brother.”
The teacher—Mrs. Parkin, apparently—and Leo both looked around to find Charlie behind him, hair a mess, and a dark-blue hoodie over his school-issue blazer. Charlie met Leo’s gaze briefly, then focussed on the teacher again.
“Leo came in with me this morning. He didn’t have an induction.”
That wasn’t strictly true. Leo had been spared the student-led orientation Charlie had warned him about on the way to school, but he’d still endured an hour-long lecture from Mr. Donnelly, head of year ten. Did Charlie know, or care, that he’d known perfectly well that leaving school at lunchtime was against the rules?
Mrs. Parkin eyed Charlie. Her expression softened, like she was fond of him, and then it changed, like she’d remembered something long forgotten.
She knows.
