A black cloud formed over Caspian’s head. “But it’s the holidays.”
“It’s for your own good. He’ll work with you until we go away to France.”
I hate you. Caspian put his cutlery neatly on his plate. “Please may I be excused?”
“You don’t want dessert?” his mother asked.
“No thank you.” I want to run away.
“It’s Eton mess.” She smiled at him.
It was his favourite. “No thank you.”
“You may leave the table,” she said.
Caspian made sure he didn’t scrape the chair legs on the wooden floor though he really wanted to. Once he was in his room, he threw himself on his bed. He didn’t want to spend weeks on more schoolwork. There was no point. He wasn’t going to get better at it. He wanted to spend time with Zed.
The next morning, when Caspian climbed into the treehouse, Zed was already there, sitting on the mattress with a book on his lap and a pencil in his mouth. He looked up, took out the pencil and smiled, and suddenly Caspian’s heart seemed too big for his chest. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so glad to see anyone or when anyone had been glad to see him.
Zed set aside whatever he was working on. “Where’ve you been?”
“Escaping from sadistic flamingos. Family dinner last night. Family breakfast this morning.” Caspian dropped down next to him and looked at the book Zed had been holding. “Physics? Why are you doing school stuff?” He gave an exaggerated gasp of horror and held up crossed index fingers. “Are you a swot?”
Zed raised his eyebrows. “Yes, but not voluntarily. My father says I have to do a section of maths and physics every day. I’m catching up on what I should have done yesterday. I did all the maths last night and the first section of the physics, but I have to finish this by the time he gets home. I thought I’d do it while I was waiting for you.”
Caspian picked up the book and looked at it. “GCSE level?”
“I know. It’s hard. Are you any good at physics?”
“I’m not good at anything.”
“What? That’s not true. Your inventions are brilliant. I could never come up with anything like that.”
“I…” Caspian hesitated. He didn’t tell people he was dyslexic but… “I’m dyslexic.”
Zed blinked. “Okay. So reading and writing are difficult?”
“And other stuff. I can read, but I’m slow.”
“I read too fast. I don’t remember half of what I’ve read.”
“Reading slow doesn’t mean I remember it.”
They looked at each other and smiled.
“By the time I was eleven, teachers didn’t know what to do with me apart from give me word puzzles or stick me in front of a computer.” Caspian sighed. “That was another thing I got expelled for, looking at porn when I was supposed to be working on a history project.”
Zed clapped a hand over his mouth as he laughed. “They didn’t have a way to stop pupils doing that?”
“I bypassed it.”
Zed grinned. “See, there is stuff you’re really good at. I’ve never even had the chance to look at porn.”
“They ought to show it in sex ed lessons. I’ve learnt more from watching sex on the internet than from listening to a teacher.”
“Now you’re making me jealous.”
Caspian’s heart gave a loud thump but he shied away from saying more. He didn’t want to frighten Zed off.
Zed shoved the physics book to one side. “I had to thank my father for giving me the workbooks and I wanted to shove them up his…”
“Arse.”
Zed’s face lit up and a wave of joy crashed over Caspian. “Yeah, arse.”
“You’re not the only one whose father thinks holidays are perfect for catching up on schoolwork. Mine’s hired a tutor to come Monday to Thursday, nine to five.”
“Well that sucks.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“In our final school assembly, the head told us we should focus on ourselves in the summer, relaxing and having fun. That if we did more studying, it’d turn into a monotonous grind of having to get stuff done, and when we came back next term, we wouldn’t have our minds in the right place.” Zed sighed. “I can’t think of anyone who’d want to study in the holidays. Most of the school were sniggering at the thought of it. I was too. Until last night.”
“My father thinks having a tutor will help me catch up. It won’t. Unless the guy brings an actual magic wand, it isn’t going to make much difference.”
“I thought there were things that could help if you’re dyslexic.”
Caspian shrugged. “The tutor will probably suggest working on phonics. Sounding out the words. And lots of handwriting practice which is fucking torture. Maybe I should call Childline.” He wished Zed had been facing him when he’d said that because it had reminded him about those marks on his back.
“I think their definition of torture might be a bit different,” Zed said.
“Yeah.” He bit his lip. “It isn’t that I don’t understand stuff at school, it’s more that I can’t write quickly or clearly enough and by the time I’ve copied things down, the teacher is talking about something entirely different. Certain types of information doesn’t stick in my head for long. People think I’m dumb, but I’m not.”
“No, you’re not.”
“It’s as though as soon as I work out what I want to say, my brain shuts off at the thought of moving a pen across a sheet of paper.”
“You labelled your plans okay.”
“A few words. That’s easy and I know it’s barely legible. The prospect of writing an essay on Who is more evil? Macbeth or his wife? makes me want to throw up. Even using the computer is hard because I still have to look at the keys and I get muddled.”
“Maybe you could invent your own shorthand.”
“If I could remember it. I’ve got a voice programme too, but I speak too fast because I have to get everything out before I lose track so it doesn’t show exactly what I say and then I have to go back and correct it.” He flung himself on his back. “It’s not fair. The only thing I wanted to do this summer with paper and pencils was invent things. Now I’m going to be made to sit for hours practising joined-up writing like a seven-year-old. It’s going to be shit.”
“I have to do that course in Canterbury on Tuesdays and Wednesdays but compared to you, I’ve got off lightly.”
“It might not be so bad.”
“Study of the Quran, the history of Islam and Arabic writing. It’ll be shit.”
“Fucking shit.”
Zed looked at him.
“Say it.” Caspian grinned. “Fucking shit.”
“Fucking shit.”
They both laughed.
“Being dyslexic won’t stop you being a great inventor. One day people will be lining up to buy things you’ve created. I’ll be one of them. I mean I’ll be lining up, not that I’ll be one of the things you created. I’ll say—I knew him when he was a flamingo.”
There was a tinge of colour in Zed’s cheeks and warmth spread through Caspian’s body. You have to be gay. Please be gay.
“The bad news is we’re not going to be able to get together as much as I’d hoped,” Caspian said. “But we can meet on Fridays.”
“No we can’t. I’m going to be made to go to Maidstone with my father and work for nothing all day in his pharmacy, then go to the mosque afterwards for prayers.”
Zed’s obvious disappointment made Caspian happy and sad at the same time.
“We can meet at the weekend if you’re not busy?” Caspian said. “Or in the evenings? We should have some sort of system for letting each other know.” He bit his nail. “Leave a message in here? On the bookshelf?”
“Yep, we can do that. Or…” Zed released a shaky breath, “do you want to run away with me right now?”
Caspian knew Zed wasn’t joking. But much as the idea had appealed last night, the will to do it was weaker this morning. How far
could they get? Where could they go? How would they survive? All Caspian would do was piss off his father even more. Same for Zed who was staring straight at him.
But Caspian didn’t want to make light of the idea of running, not when his heart was yelling at him to say yes. “We’d not get very far. We’re tall but we look fourteen. Or fifteen in my case. We’d be picked up, brought home and not allowed out at all then. Probably not allowed to see each other anymore. I don’t want that to happen.”
Zed opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, then closed it.
Caspian pulled at a thread on one of the cushions. “I remember when I was little and jealous of the twins, I packed my teddy and PJs in a bag and walked away from the house. I’d gone about 200 metres before I felt hungry and went back. I should have taken biscuits. I’d have got further. Maybe another 100 metres. Not sure Teddy ever forgave me for going home.”
“If we were sixteen,” Zed whispered.
Caspian stared straight at him. “If we were sixteen I’d pack right now.”
He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “My list of fun things to do, not all bad but I have nothing to be good for so why not be bad? It’s more fun. So do you want to be bad with me? Yes or no?”
“Before I look at this piece of paper?”
Caspian grinned. “Be brave. Decide before you look.”
“Okay. I’ll be bad with you. Maybe we’d better try and fit in as many bad things as we can.” He read the list. “Dye our hair red, green or blue. Or all three.” Zed gaped at him. “My father would explode.”
“I should have put that first on the list. Make our fathers explode. Life would be so much simpler. Want to dye your hair or not?”
“Definitely. Er…as long as it washes out because if my father does explode, I’d get caught in the blast.”
“It said it washes out on the can. Mum bought them for the twins to use last Halloween, but they decided to dress as angels. The irony.”
Zed looked back at the paper. “I like the idea of making a crop circle, but we’d have to do that at night, wouldn’t we?”
“Can you sneak out?”
Zed chewed his lip. “I can try. Tonight?”
“Here at midnight.”
“Deal.” They bumped fists.
“We’ll wait for my mother to take the Terrible Twins out shopping and then we can go my house and use the hair dye.”
“Okay.” Zed checked the list again. “Bike ride? Did you ask your brother?”
“He said no, but he’s out all day. He won’t know. I’ll wear his helmet and you can have mine. You can ride a bike?”
“Yep.” Zed ran his finger down the sheet. “Make a zip line. Go grass sledging. Do a treasure hunt. That sounds good, but it would take a bit of organising. If we’re doing one for each other, we’d have to set them up separately.”
“Next weekend?”
“Okay.”
“Want me to help you with the physics while we’re waiting for my family to leave the house?”
He thought Zed would say no but he budged up on the mattress to let Caspian sit closer. Caspian wished he was brave enough to press right up against Zed, allow their legs touch, but he wasn’t.
As Zed read, he ran his finger under the words. For my benefit? “An object dropped near the Earth's surface will accelerate downwards at 9.8 metres per second squared due to the force of gravity, and regardless of size, if air resistance is minimal.”
“What does near the earth’s surface mean?”
“I guess it means from a point where gravity is normal. I remember my mum showing me that if you simultaneously drop a cricket ball and a scrunched up ball of paper, they’ll hit the ground at the same time. We tried with lots of things. A book and a packet of rice. A toy car and a bag of sugar.”
“If I dropped my brother and sisters from a skyscraper?”
Zed chuckled. “So you are the murderous flamingo? They’d hit the ground at the same time, assuming minimal air resistance. If your sisters wore very floaty dresses that acted a bit like parachutes, they might be slightly slower to reach the ground, but it wouldn’t be enough to save them.”
Zed read on. “If you throw a rock downward from Mount Everest with negligible air resistance, after it leaves your hand, the rock accelerates at a. less than 9.8 ms2 b. 9.8 ms2 c. more than 9.8 ms2 d. depends on the speed of the rock.” He turned to Caspian. “What do you think?”
“Is it a trick question?”
Zed grinned. “Sort of.”
“9.8 ms2 ?”
“Yay! Negligible air resistance was the clue. All objects fall at the same velocity until the lighter object reaches its terminal velocity. The trick was the word throw because that implied it’d go faster but it will only travel at 9.8 ms2 .”
Caspian felt a small thrill in getting it right. “So what’s terminal velocity?”
“That’s the next bit in the book. Objects fall at the same rate, depending on wind resistance, until the moment the lighter object reaches its terminal velocity. A person would reach terminal velocity after falling around two thousand feet. They’d be travelling around 53 metres a second or 122 miles per hour before splat.”
“Is says splat in the book?”
Zed nodded and grinned.
“Some people have survived falling without a parachute.”
“They have. They were lucky. Hitting the ground at 122 miles an hour? Even if they landed in the sea, it’d be like hitting concrete.”
“I’ll stop interrupting. You’ll work faster.” Caspian lay on his side and watched Zed. While Zed was concentrating, it gave him chance to stare.
I’m falling for you.
What happens if I reach terminal velocity?
Will I survive?
Chapter Four
When Zed saw Caspian’s house, he stopped in his tracks. “Whoa. You live here?”
“No, in a stable at the back. Of course, here.”
The house was huge and old and…awesome. “Was it built by the Romans?” Zed widened his eyes.
“Ha ha. It was constructed in the 18th century, but bits have been added.”
“Electricity and indoor plumbing?”
Caspian grinned. “No, we still use candles and crap in a shed at the bottom of the garden.”
“Your house looks like the sort people pay to come and visit.”
“They do, a few times a year. They can tour some rooms, visit the gardens, crap in the shed. I think my father gets money to help with the upkeep if he opens the place to the public.”
Caspian used a key to unlock the front door and Zed followed him in. It was as impressive inside, and a world away from his own modern, sleek-lined, sterile home. The touches his mother had added were long gone. His father didn’t like clutter, didn’t like anything that had no purpose. No flatpack Ikea products had ever been assembled in this place. The furniture was hundreds of years old. The chairs didn’t look safe to sit on.
All sorts of stuff just waited to get broken—vases, clocks, ornaments. The walls were covered with oil paintings of animals, landscapes, flowers and stern-looking people. Persian rugs covered an old wooden floor. Real ones. It was more like a museum than a home and yet more of a home than Zed’s house. There were shoes piled up near the door, mail thrown onto a table, an empty wine glass sitting on the stairs next to a pair of high-heeled sparkly shoes.
Zed followed Caspian up a curving staircase to a bedroom three times the size of his, equipped with everything Zed didn’t have—an electric guitar, computer, TV, telescope, stacks of films and a games console. Oh and a—
Caspian dived onto the bed and stuffed a battered looking teddy under the duvet. Zed felt a pang in his chest at the thought of Caspian keeping his bear close.
“Tell me you didn’t see that.” Caspian’s face flushed.
“I have a bear too.” Zed hesitated, then continued. “I feel too guilty to put him aside. A friend who’s listened to everything I had to say without a wo
rd of complaint or criticism? A friend who’s never let me down? I can’t not have him near me.”
Caspian let out a shaky breath. “Does yours have a name?”
“Teddy Robinson.”
“Mine’s Charlie Bear.”
They smiled at each other.
“We never tell anyone, right?” Caspian said.
“No. Is that an iPod?” Zed changed the subject.
“Yep. I like my MP3 player though.”
Zed’s walls were blank, Caspian’s were covered with sketches, more of his inventions. Caspian’s duvet was plain grey, the only thing that looked like Zed’s. The long dark blue curtains were covered in constellations and planets.
“Is your room like this?”
“No. Well, it has a bed and curtains.”
Caspian sighed. “I’ll get the hair dye.”
When he’d gone, Zed pulled the bear from down the side of the bed and brushed his fingers against its face. “Nice to meet you, Charlie Bear.”
Caspian came back with three cans. “Red, green or blue? Or all three?”
“Surprise me.”
“Shall I do you first? Let’s go into the bathroom.”
The bathroom was three times the size of Zed’s with a bath and a shower.
“Take your T-shirt off,” Caspian said.
I can’t. “It’s an old one. It doesn’t matter if it gets spoiled.” Except it did.
“Then put this round your shoulders.” Caspian handed him a dark blue towel. “Sit on the edge of the bath and close your eyes.”
The sensation of Caspian running his fingers through his hair as he sprayed it, sent Zed’s cock hard. Shit. He crossed his legs and clutched the towel to his stomach.
When the spraying stopped, and Caspian was no longer touching him, he opened his eyes.
“Wow,” Caspian whispered. “You look great.”
Zed pushed to his feet, but Caspian stepped between him and the mirror.
“Do mine first and we’ll look together. Blue.” He held out the can, then grabbed Zed’s towel and draped it around his own shoulders.
Zed scuttled behind him and sprayed the bright blue dye all over Caspian’s head, threading his fingers through his hair to spread it, just as Caspian had done to him, which made his cock even harder. Fortunately, it was hidden by his cargo shorts and baggy T-shirt.
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