Page 68 of The Reunion

‘Is it far?’ she asks, not daring to look down.

‘You got this. Bend your knees when you drop, okay?’

She does, but lands right on her shoes and tumbles over when she hits the ground anyway, rolling on the path with an ‘Oomph!’ There’s the sound of fabric tearing, and she has to untangle the heel of one of her shoes from her now-ripped dress.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Yeah.’ She winces again as she stands, though, rubbing her bum. ‘Little bit of a bruise, probably, but I’m okay.’

I follow her over, wondering if she’s not just watching but looking, and I wish I spent a little more time in the gym. I bet guys like Ryan and Freddie and Tommy could hurl themselves over this thing without even batting an eyelid. It’s not as easy as it looks and I end up scrambling to get to the top and then flop over with my legs dangling behind me, winding myself in the process.

Steph hisses. This time it’s her turn to ask, ‘Are you okay? That looked painful!’

‘Yeah, fine,’ I manage, and decide to do the rest as quickly as I can to hopefully make up for the flailing, decidedly un-sexy display she just witnessed. If anything was going to give her the ick …

I’m just glad the boys aren’t here to film it; they’d have a great time taking the piss out of me, even if they’d be just as crap at trying to scale this bloody gate.

When I fling my legs over the top and drop down, though, I end up falling into the hedge. Right into it, too, crashing through the leaves, branches snapping under my weight, and landing with a thump on my back in the dirt.

Steph yelps and darts forward to offer me a hand and pull me up, and I’m already laughing at myself for managing to fail at that so spectacularly. I almost wish someone had caught it on film now; I couldn’t have done it so badly if I tried.

I clamber out of the hedge with Steph’s help. She’s giggling too now that she sees I’m not hurt, and I dust some of the leaves and twigs off myself. She’s in a bit of a state, too, with her hair out of place and her face pink and a bit sweaty, her dress so dishevelled.

I strike a pose. ‘How bad is it?’

‘Quite bad,’ she says, but reaches to pull another leaf out of my hair. The fire alarm is still going off, though, so she nods in the direction of the front of the school. ‘Come on, we’d better go. I’m starting to worry this isn’t just some silly prank …’

There’s a commotion as we round the school; on the other side of the new languages building that I know I’m about to see but still makes my stomach jolt with the unfamiliarity, there’s a huge crowd of people, some of whom have the torches on their phones turned on, which is when I realise the floodlights that were illuminating the outside of the school earlier are turned off. Everyone looks like they’ve been corralled together by one very sparkly sheepdog.

Bryony is shouting at the group and I glance at Steph, trying to work out what’s going on. I watch her eyes widen as she takes in the scene, the tinge of panic there – because, shit, she’s right. There’s no slipping back into the party undetected now, especially with the way we look after climbing over that stupid gate. Everybody must’ve come outside when the fire alarm went off, like an old-school (literally) fire drill. Shit, maybe it is a real fire.

There’s something about the regular fire drills and false alarms from my schooldays that’s made me immune to any kind of real reaction now, like deep down, I don’t really believe this place could ever go up in flames.

Before I can wonder if I should be panicking – and, dammit, Aisha, is she okay? – Bryony’s voice carries towards us.

‘Has anybody,’ she yells, projecting her voice like she’s being Dorothy on stage again, ‘seen Stephanie O’Connell or Shaun Michaels?’

There are mumbles, grumbles, shrugged shoulders.

Priya, I notice, is biting the inside of her cheek and looking supremely uncomfortable. She opens her mouth, but never gets to say anything because Steph is already running forward, heels clacking and an arm waving above her head. ‘Hi! Hello! We’re over here! We got locked out of the back door and had to go the long way round!’

Bryony turns and someone’s phone torch illuminates her face enough for me to see the relief that floods it, and how pale she looks. I pick up my pace, jogging to catch up with Steph and join everybody else.

Then Bryony’s face hardens and she tosses her ponytail over her shoulder, thrusts one hip to the side and plants a manicured hand on it, fingers drumming against her sequin jumpsuit. ‘And just what were you doing at the back of the school? Look at the state of you both!’

Someone wolf-whistles and Freddie Loughton shouts, ‘Yeah, Shaun, get in there!’ and then him and some of the rugby lads and their lot are singing, ‘Steph and Shaun, sitting in a tree …!’

I’m about to laugh and join in when Steph flinches, looking horrified and humiliated.

Bryony, for once, is paying the crowd no mind, too busy scowling at us. ‘I explicitly said, no wandering around. I expected better from you two, I really did.’

There’s such a stern edge to her voice that I wouldn’t recognise it as coming from Bryony if I weren’t watching her speak.

‘We were just catching up,’ Steph says meekly, and now her shoulders hunch and it looks like she’s fifteen and being berated by a teacher. Sounds like it, too, the way Bryony’s talking.

I can’t help but laugh now, and grin when Bryony levels me with a Very Disappointed In Me sort of look. ‘Sorry, miss, I promise it won’t happen again. What’s going on? We heard the fire alarm go off.’

She huffs and flips open a thick book nestled in the crook of her right arm. It’s the guestbook from the hall she made us all sign, I recognise. ‘Yes, and now I’ve been making sure everybody is alright and we haven’t lost anyone – namely, you two. Maybe if you hadn’t been sneaking off like lovestruck teenagers wanting to cop a feel behind the bike sheds, you would’ve noticed we’ve had a power cut and it’s triggered the fire alarm.’

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