Chapter 7: Hello!

The four members of the gang each rode into school the next morning with different things on their minds.

Mo nearly didn’t go into school at all. In fact he nearly didn’t even get out of bed, he felt so bad. But he had to get up or his mother would tell everybody and that would make everything even worse. He kept replaying his imam’s words in his head: ‘Learn from being used’; ‘Why did she do it’?

Being used was certainly the worst feeling ever. It made him feel like ... worthless. But what was there to learn? She’d done it because he’d accidentally scared Grace and she wanted Grace for herself. Also she was an unbeliever and resented the Islamic way, and was looking for sneaky pervert tricks to stop him being in charge.

He realised Mia had plotted it from the moment she’d found out about the kiss. Played him along with her slut body and then humiliated him to a whole new level, to punish him. Called him selfish and racist and a hypocrite and anything else she could scream at him. Killing girls’ childhoods and ruining things forever...

Now she probably thought she’d got rid of him, so she could have Grace to herself - quite likely being a dyke on top of everything else! And that she’d got him out of this Group A mystery adventure too. Well he’d show her. If she thought he was going to run away she was in for a disappointment. Anyway Grace would be going. He’d text her and she’d be too sweet not to tell him what the plan was.

Paul had spent the night cursing himself for revealing his feelings to Grace. What a clown! Of course she wasn’t ready for that kind of intense relationship, even if it was platonic. She was so young, so vulnerable, and a late developer. She’d be reserved towards him now, he just knew. He must take care to reassure her that he’d never be pushy or make things awkward. He could wait, as long as there was hope. She was just so pure, and so protectable. He ached to stroke and cuddle her and do things for her.

Well he was a touch lonely just now, maybe that was clouding his judgment. He had to stay cool and hang in there.

Meanwhile he had a bad feeling about Mia and Mo ... that outfit wow! That had been a honey trap with bells on, or he was Father Christmas. Something would’ve gone down. Though why Mia was bothering with that guy at all was a bit of a mystery. Anyway it was probably good that the weather was cooler today, so everyone would be in pants.

Grace whizzed along on her nice new bike. It was just a steel frame, but a decent niobium alloy and the right size with good wheels and chainset so it was pretty light anyway. It was pearlescent lilac and she loved it. She was fit enough to cycle a long way on it. Her legs might be small but they weren’t skinny. Not that they were too big either. They were not bad, in fact, just a bit short. But in proportion, at least.

Things were going to be a bit awkward today, what with Paul and her, Mo and her, and Mia and Mo, but they could still achieve their objective, which was to try and find where Claude Simon was going after work. They had to focus. Once they’d found the animals she could talk to her mum about them without any risk of her mum trying to lie to her about it.

Mia and Mohammad though. My God. She’d actually done it with him to make him feel what it was like to have someone push sex on you? Because that was what Mohammad had been planning on doing to Grace herself? Could that be true he had? How awful! Well he had grabbed her; but then he’d let her go again and been sorry.

There again ‘pushy’ had been her very first impression of him, though he didn’t seem really bad, inside ... well ... most likely he’d just had like this abstract idea about how he could start with girls, with not really knowing. He’d looked so devastated when she’d cried - he must have empathy, and that was the main thing. If you had empathy then you wouldn’t hurt someone, would you?

Mia rode in thinking about Grace, and Mohammad. If Mohammad turned up, Mia would have to grin and bear him, rather than create an awkward atmosphere that Grace would find hard to deal with. As long as the asshole didn’t give her any shit, in which case she knew how to kick a derailleur mech so that the chain would never line up again without an hour in a workshop.

Well she knew how to kick a guy too, come to that, with the taekwondo classes she’d done. Pow! It was tempting, but she didn’t think it would come to that: for all his many faults she didn’t think Mo would try to hit her, even though no doubt there was a verse in his freaking Qur’an somewhere saying he should! In fact she had a memory of her papa telling her there was a line saying men should avoid hitting their wives in the face! Jesus Christ.

She’d see how he was. To be honest she was feeling a little bit more tolerant after letting her feelings out, and busting his disgusting ideas about Grace. And after watching his pert ass running off down the track confirming he wasn’t exactly as badass dangerous as he liked to make out! Plus the fact was, he did have a bod.

In the afternoon the gang met up in the car park, and Grace was relieved to find everyone was being polite to each other. They cycled out to the lane that Claude Simon had to have gone down. The only downer really was hearing that Paul was religious, as he tried to cheer up Mo - which seemed to be short for Morose today.

“Okay this is it,” Paul said as he pulled up at the turn-off on the left. The lane was rough and gravelly, and seemed to lead into an area with a lot of piles of earth and rubble. It had an abandoned air about it. “What do you reckon?” He looked at Grace. He was being super careful to act the right way with her. Respectful, and not expecting anything from her.

Grace looked at Mia.

“We’re quite early,” said Mia, “we could go down it a little way?” She looked at Mohammad, who’d been subdued the whole time, though Paul had been trying to cheer him up. Mo didn’t have any option other than to agree about trying the track, really, so it wouldn’t hurt to include him.

“Okay,” Mo nodded. They were all being okay with him. So many thoughts had been running through his head, he just didn’t know any more. How could he be a racist when Islam wasn’t a race? His imam hadn’t actually disagreed with one single thing Mia had accused him of, had he? Why hadn’t Mia continued her attack on him? Why wasn’t Grace looking scornful, when Mia must have told her about the ghastly fail at sex and running away with his tail between his legs? Now Grace was giving him that smile, which looked quite genuine.

Paul had been chatting with him, pointing out that Christianity and Islam are both Abrahamic religions with a lot in common. Mo hadn’t thought about it like that.

The four rode slowly along the lane, which gradually became a wide, bumpy track. After a few hundred metres an old house appeared on the right, kind of set in amongst all the huge piles of earth. It was made of stone, and was long and low and gloomy, with small windows. There were more earthworks as the track continued for another hundred metres, until it looped round to the left where there was a huge kind of yard full of old machines and steel containers. The track didn’t go on anywhere.

They turned round, and at the same moment there came the sound of a car scrunching down the gravel track!

“Quick!” Mia pointed, “behind here.” They rode behind a rusty old container and dismounted, listening to the car approaching, quite loud in the quiet of the derelict site that was out here, isolated in the middle of the countryside.

The car stopped and everything was quiet again. They heard a car door clunk shut, then a few seconds later a wooden house door close.

“They’ve gone into the house!” whispered Grace. She didn’t need to whisper, the house was a hundred yards away, it was just all so secret! She peeped round the end of the container. Parked outside the house was a blue two-seater BMW sports car - the one her mum drove like a lunatic! She whipped her head back in. “That’s my mum’s car!” she gasped.

“God! What do you want to do?” asked Mia.

“I don’t know!” Grace tried to work out the pros and cons of confronting her mother with the evidence right there. Assuming the animals were in the house.