The Book of Firsts

Forty-One

Monday lunch hour brought me an elbow in the back just as I started down a flight of stairs. Someone had knocked into me, as if by accident, but then helped things along with a jab.

Since I’d been distracted thinking about my model, I tumbled into a head-first dive, but fortunately had just put a hand on the railing. Managing to cling to it, I still fell forward, twisting my wrist but stopping only a few stairs down.

"Whoa!" gasped a junior boy who’d been a step ahead of me—and who’d barely escaped being dominoed. "Oh, man, that was close!"

I ignored him, dashing back up to the stair and into the stream of just-released students heading along the cross-corridor toward the refectory. Quickly pulling my phone from my pocket, I double-pressed the power button to bring up my camera, set it to video and walked swiftly through the crowd, capturing as much of the mass as possible, not obnoxiously, but not hiding anything either. Reaching the refectory, I walked straight forward to a seat, sat down and turned my phone so it would catch everyone coming in behind me.

My initial flood of anger and adrenaline began to fade, and I became more aware of my racing heartbeat, and aching arm. I stayed filming until I no longer felt jumpy, and the stream of students had slowed to the occasional late arrival, but then took myself off to the school’s well-staffed medical office. After a brief examination, and much application of ice, they decided I should have an x-ray to be safe, and a nurse drove me to the nearest hospital. Fortunately, it was only a moderate sprain, nothing broken, though I would need a brace and sling.

Corascur of course had procedures they step through when a student is injured at school, and so my parents were called during all this, and my mother certainly recognised the neutrality of my tone when I explained that someone had jostled me when I was walking down some stairs. She told me she’d talk to me again when I got home, and I called her as soon as I’d had an early dinner delivered.

"What’s going on?" she asked, crisply.

"Pushed," I said. "I have a few suspects, but no evidence."

"You said you weren’t being bullied."

"Today’s a first. I think I might have been a bit too high-profile the last couple of weeks."

"Should I call Rachel and ask her to babysit you again?"

I wasn’t tempted to revisit my stay at the Nichols. I wanted quiet.

"No, I’m fine. I have a fun gel bandage that I can apply as a cold treatment at appropriate intervals, and I’m allowed to take my arm out of the brace to do ordinary things. I’ve a couple of days off school, and some relatively mild painkillers."

"Let me know if there’s any developments, then," my mother said.

"Will do," I said, and hung up after catching up on how they were going in Canada.

Transferring the video I’d recorded to my laptop, I settled back to eat and watch, and by the time I’d finished dinner, the day’s classes had ended. I opened the Cheshire app and sent a message: Call me when you’re free.

Since I knew they’d be going into a Student Council meeting, and the day was catching up with me, I had a quick shower, put a timer on my heater, and curled up in bed to read on my phone. My unknown caller ringtone woke me up perhaps a half hour later, and, recognising the number, I said: "Hi Dad."

There was a pause, which I knew would be Kyou wondering if I had an audience, so I converted the call to video and held up my injured arm.

"Meet my new friend Medical Brace. No wall climbing for me for a while."

This produced another pause, and then return video feed, showing me all three of them in the Student Council Executive’s office, frowning at the screen.

"What happened?" Rin asked, voice crisp.

"Elbowed down a flight of stairs. Must have been neatly done, because there were a lot of people around, and no-one seemed to notice. I don’t suppose you installed any hidden cameras on the upper walkway that leads from Sciences to the Refectory?"

"No." Bran was glowering, but probably not at me. "How badly are you hurt?"

"Just a sprain. No strenuous lifting for at least a week. I’ve been told to not do much at all with it for a couple of days, so won’t be in until Thursday. I’ve uploaded to that shared image folder a video I took after, trying to work out who it was. I admit I jumped to the conclusion that it was one of Carr’s fans, upset he’d been taking photos of me, but I didn’t spot any of my main suspects. I don’t know enough about the people in this school to be able to do more than say no-one was looking particularly guilty, so I’d be glad if you could have a look at it to see if there’s anything I missed."

Bran opened his phone and they watched the video while keeping the line open with me.

"Nothing immediately stands out," Kyou said. "We’ll go through it in more detail. I think this is the first time I’ve seen you truly annoyed, Cheshire."

"I can’t work on my model," I said. "And just when I’d reached the fun, easy stage. It’s going to itch at me terribly, especially if I’m expected to let it be displayed without being what I consider finished."

"Don’t push yourself to get back to it early," Bran said. "Festival isn’t until next Thursday."

"We’ll do our best to help you to achieve glorious revenge in the meantime," Rin promised.

I felt warm. For this year at least, these three people had my back, and I liked knowing they would be upset and angry on my behalf.

"Last request before we let you go, Cheshire," Kyou said.

"Mm?"

"Pan down."

I laughed, put down the phone briefly so I could push back my blankets, and then held the phone up high so they could get a good view of my long t-shirt decorated with chibi Star Wars characters.

"Sorry, I don’t have anything in the way of white and delicate nightwear."

"Works for me," Kyou said, doing something with his phone which I bet involved a screenshot. "Have a good rest."

He cut the connection, and I prepared to do as bid, but changed my mind and rang Lania.

"Do me a favour?"

"Sure, what’s up?"

"Can you borrow Rick or Carr or someone, and find a safer place to put my model? I’m going to be out of school a couple of days and I’m worried someone will mess with it."

"Why would—" Lania stopped, then said: "Will do."

"Thanks, Lania. See you on Thursday, probably."