Chapter 2

Monday 1^st

Connor

I don't know where she came from, but once the vestibule was cleared, Kelly was there, red-faced and furious, hissing her attack... at the pillar, as it happened, but we knew who she meant.

"How dare you! You might be some tight-arsed neo-Victorian fucking puritan dick-head, but this is what I'm in it for. I want the crowds, I want to be noticed, I want someone to see me."

"Kel..." Alban managed — he even had the grace to reach out and turn her slightly so that she was facing him — but she just rolled on.

"Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? Alban fucking Darch, king of the world, just throwing his weight around because he's got a problem. You don't speak for the fucking world, alright."

"Would you excuse me, just for a moment." He asked, politely, and then he was gone, leaving her stood in the middle of the archway, reaching about for some sort of reference point. I held out a hand so she could reach.

"And... you're not Alban."

"No, it's me, Connor." I told her.

"Oh... I... I heard what Mitch Brenner said."

"I don't know him."

"He's in my English classes." She reached down — I still can't believe she did it — reached down and just grabbed me — gently, but a definite grab. "Don't put it away, put it to use." She giggled, and slowly began just... well... rubbing it. "You can join in, you know..." she began, then let go and half-turned, tilting her head. "Alban's being a hero, again."

We went back into the vestibule — I took her arm, but she quickly switched hands somehow so that she was holding mine. Her nails dragged on the back of my tricep gently, which was an intriguing feeling — I wondered why I hadn't felt them... you know... before.

"You're a lot firmer than I expected." She muttered, which I didn't know how to take, and then we were back in the vestibule. Alban and Marissa were squared off against Andrew McBride and a few of his associates. You know someone's trouble when they have 'associates' rather than friends. As much as if I tell you he came from the part of the town that has 'denizens'.

You see, I say that Alban's well-liked, but it's a sort of underground movement. He's not popular like... well, like Andrew McBride. He's the vice-captain of the football team, and he's in the rugby team, too. He's always well dressed, the girls just seem to fall over for him, which he seems to like. But he's... he's not nice. Alban'll talk to anyone, if they're polite. No-one's beneath Alban, but everone's beneath Andrew McBride. It was like... like Clash of the Titans, I guess, in some ways. The potential had always been there, Alban was a challenge to Andrew's sense of superiority, and Andrew was everything that Alban despised: arrogant, self-important and just about good enough to get away with it.

"I've read the leaflet, Darch, so fuck off out my way."

"You can read? Wow... the Lady said no, so go."

"It says..."

"I know what it says, I've read it too."

"Reasonable request."

"It's not a reasonable request."

"Other people think it is. Phil here thinks it is, don't you Phil." 'Phil' nodded.

"Then go do it to Phil." Alban told him, bluntly.

"She doesn't have the right to say no." Andrew pointed out, waving the leaflet in hand. "So her saying no doesn't make the slightest bit of difference." Phil and whoever the other associate was stepped up, looming. Neither of them had the presence Alban did, but it didn't look good.

"Would you excuse me for a minute?" I asked Kelly, feeling bad for leaving her on her own, but I could see I might be needed.

"Then she doesn't have to say no." Alban explained, squaring up to the three of them. "I'm saying no."

"I'm not asking you." McBride pointed out, and Phil moved, arms thrusting forward to try and pin Alban to the wall. He turned out the way easily, but it carried him towards the other one, and that's when I had to step in.

"What the fu... argh!!!" It wasn't a difficult wrist-lock to evade, if you knew what you were doing. He obviously didn't.

"I think you'd better stay out of it." I explained, as Alban sent Phil skidding across the floor on his backside.

"I said 'No'." Alban emphasised, and Andrew McBride and his expensive hair-gel suddenly seemed a lot smaller.

"Later, Marissa." He offered with a sneer, and turned away. His 'associates' went with him.

"I knew this was going to be trouble." Alban noted, with a weary sigh. "I just knew it..."

"Thank you." Marissa managed, after a second.

"You know you're going to have to go through it eventually." Kelly told her, quietly.

"Mabye... but... just not him."

"Andy McBride? I'd kill for some attention from the likes of him." Kelly marvelled.

"You wouldn't get it. He's not there for your benefit, you're there for his... everyone's there for his benefit."

"You know him?" Alban asked. She just shrugged.

"Don't think you're let off just for this little display of heroics either, Alban Darch." Kelly snapped, rounding on him. "You've no right to step in and stop me getting the attention."

"But you weren't, were you?"

Marissa

Alban Darch... it sounds almost Dickensian, doesn't it. Or maybe, maybe like someone from one of Terry Brooke's Shannarah Novels... I can just see him, stood in the Whorl Run, ready to face off against an army of trolls... yeah, I read those sort of things. If I can't live a real life at least I can enjoy a pretend one.

I don't think I've ever had someone step in and fight for me before, it's the strangest feeling. I like Alban — everybody likes Alban — but this felt different. I had just an inkling of how special he was. Not everyone would step in at a time like that, not many I guess. Or maybe they would, but the difference was he did. He wasn't someone who'd do it if he were there, he was the sort of guy that would be there... And he didn't so much as puff up about it. He just did it, and then moved on like it had never happened. Not that I could do anything about it, of course, but it was nice to dream when dreams were all you had.

And after all that, Kelly still wanted her pound of flesh, like it was his fault.

"But you weren't, were you?" I asked her, and she stopped. "He stopped them going for me, true, but he also stopped you standing on your own out there like a sore thumb."

"Marissa..." Alban tried to interject, but I waved him away, she shouldn't snap at him for everyone else's mistakes.

"We're going to split up in a minute, my first class is French, and I know you don't take French, so you've got to be in another building. Once you're on your own I hope you get what you're looking for, but... you weren't getting it here, and he stopped things before that became obvious to everyone."

She turned her nose up, screwed her whole face up trying to get out of that, but it was true and she knew it.

"Am I really that bad?" she asked, suddenly morose. "I mean, it's difficult to find any exercise I can do, so I'm at least a stone overweight, probably two... I didn't think it was that bad."

"I can help you with an exercise programme, if you'd like." Alban offered, quietly.

"I think you look great." Connor offered, and his equipment stood testament to that.

"Really?"

"You do." I confirmed. I'm not, you know, gay or anything, but you can sort of tell when someone's going to be thought of as attractive, and she was. Not everyone could pull off that body-shape, I know, but she could. "You've got plenty to shake in someone's face, that's for sure, and there's plenty out there that won't look any further than that."

"That's as far as I need them to look, for now." She smiled.

"Is that really all you're after? A quick feel-up from someone in the corridor."

"No." she admitted, after a moment's thought. "But it's all I'm likely to get, if that. I bet you've been asked out at least twice this term already." I had to nod — I'd felt bad turning Charlie Simmons down, he'd spent so much time building up the courage to ask.

"Yes... three, actually."

"Well that's three more than I've managed in the four years I've been here. People don't see me, they see the stick, and that's it. Like I'm not a normal person, like I don't want sex because I'm blind."

"I don't want sex."

"You... I don't just want sex, but... I'm sixteen, who's sixteen and doesn't want sex?"

"Me."

"Me too." Alban seconded. We both turned to Connor, Kelly just cocked her head a little.

"Um... I'm kind of with her." He admitted, blushing. "I... I think about it quite a bit."

"Thinking about it's one thing..." I tried to explain.

"... and thinking about it's all I'll ever get the chance to do unless I change something. You're only sixteen once, and if people aren't paying attention when they're this young and horny you can be damned sure they're not going to pay any attention when they get out into the big wide world." Kelly snapped

"Maybe they'll grow up and realise there's more to you than a disability?" Alban tried.

"Is it worth that risk?" she asked, and there wasn't really a good answer to that. "It's not like it used to be, where you ran the risk of being judged as a loose woman if you'd had sex before you got married, so... what've I got to lose?"

"Self-respect." Alban told her, bluntly, as the bell went.

Self-respect. Sometimes I feel that's all I've got left, and they're trying damned hard to strip that away. I know I've got my mum and Morgan at home, but... when you're out the house, left to fight or die in the melee of school, family can feel an awful long way away. Of course, for people like Alban and Connor, there isn't even that security. I wonder if that's why he's the way he is? Alban, I mean.

He looks out for people — Connor especially, but people in general. Kevin does it, too, I've heard, but I don't really know him that well. A lot of the time it's like they're just a little more grown up than the other kids our age, like they understand something about the world we don't. They're not as happy, though, there's a sadness about them, a weariness. Connor's different, he's just sort of... well, it's difficult to describe.

He's a tall boy — he's definitely still a boy, Kevin and Alban are young men, but Connor's still a boy — and lean but not thin. There's muscle there, but it's not bulky. Kevin's built like a weightlifter, Alban's just... sort of average, I suppose. It's all muscle, you can see that in the way he moves. He moves a lot like a gymnast, actually, smooth and controlled. Everything's controlled about Alban, it's like nothing surprises him. Connor, though, is like a little bird, darting this way and that. He tries to copy Alban's style, sometimes, but he forgets a lot. It's kind of cute, the way he suddenly gets lost in the middle of everything, wide-eyed and staring like everything's suddenly changed, just because he's worked out something new.

Morgan looks like that sometimes, she's three now. I don't know what that says about Connor, really. He's nice, but in the same way that eight year olds are nice...

Alban, though... Everyone likes Alban, just about, that's been said before, but... I really like Alban. If things were different I might actually try something — even if I were clothed. He's polite about it, and he doesn't make an issue, but I know he's been looking. He's looked like that before, a sort of 'what if' look, I guess, and then catches himself doing it and walks away.

It should hurt more than that, I suppose, but I'm used to it now. It's been three years, you get used to anything after a while. I wonder if I'll get used to being naked. I know they've done this before in other places, but... there's some things that just make it difficult here in Britain.

Most of the case samples we read about were American (maybe Canadian, I don't exactly recall) and things are different. People are people, sure, but the civilisation is different. American's are superficially warm and open in a way that we aren't over here, we're a reserved people. It's not quite the 'pip-pip' stiff-upper lip that it used to be characterised as, but letting it all hang out isn't treated quite the same way here, and... well, relief! That's going to be a shock when someone takes that offer up, I can promise you.

There's other things, though... it's late March here, Easter's only a few weeks away. It didn't finish snowing until three weeks ago — it's cold!!! Damned cold... Stiff nipples is one thing, but blue nipples! I feel like I'm walking in a fridge in these corridors. Thankfully most of the classroom's are actually quite warm, but you still get a shock when you first put your bum on the seat.

And when someone stops you in the corridor for a grope. I hadn't realised just how completely clueless some boys were — you'd think the amount of time they spend thinking, talking, wondering and daydreaming about sex that they'd have come to some conclusions about this, wouldn't you.

Here's another reason this is different from America — I don't know how the school system runs over there, but here you start secondary school at eleven and go through until you're sixteen. Then you do A-levels either at college or, as here, the school runs on and does a sixth form. I don't recall reading any of the kids in the American accounts getting accosted by twelve year olds trying to cop a feel. How the hell do you deal with that? "Go back to your game-boy and marbles kids?" is a bit harsh — it's not their fault some naked girl's wandering down the corridor.