Page 121 of You Float My Boat

‘And a hug for Magic. He was so cute as a puppy.’

‘Okay.’

God. I wished she’d stop talking. I was also pretty sure she’d never found Magic cute, especially after he’d chewed a pair of her favourite shoes.

‘I think I’ll be staying over the holidays too, my parents are away and I need to revise. I can take you out for a drink to thank you for helping me.’

The side door to the building was less than twenty-five metres away. My eyes had been trained on it ever since we’d turned the corner but if I didn’t know better I’d swear we were slowing down.

‘Can you hop a bit faster?’

‘Sorry,’ she puffed out, appeared to take a giant leap, though I think she’d just landed back on the same spot.

The clock struck the quarter hour. It had taken us fifteen minutes to walk less than a hundred metres. Upto this point, Evie had only been clinging onto me as I’d carried both her and my backpack, but fifteen minutes was ridiculously slow under any circumstances, and roping my arm around her waist and hoisting her the rest of the way was the price to pay for not having to spend the rest of the hour listening to Gordon complain about timekeeping.

‘We’re here,’ I announced as we crossed the threshold, and I almost dragged her halfway down the corridor to the first-aid room and knocked on the door. Dropping her bag on the floor, I managed a smile, ignored the fresh tears brimming in her eyes, and thumbed behind me. ‘I have to dash. Hope it heals quickly.’

‘Oh, Charlie, thank you. I’m so glad you were there to help. I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ she called after me, just as the nurse answered the door.

She would no doubt be thrilled at having to deal with the mundanity of a twisted ankle instead of electrocutions, or singed body parts, and whatever else usually went on in physics labs.

It was safer than the chemistry building though, that’s for sure.

I sprinted up the stairs, managing three at a time, and powered down the corridor fast enough that I was out of breath by the time I reached our study room.

I burst through the doors. ‘Sorry, I’m so sorry I’m late.’

All six of them turned to look at me. Gordon’s mouth opened, I knew I was about to get the telling off I’d been expecting since I’d found Evie. This guy was going to make a formidable professor one day.

I held my hand out before he could speak. ‘I wasn’tlate because I forgot. I was helping Evie, she’d fallen over,’ I explained, hoping it might cut down his lecture from ten to maybe two minutes. Three if I was lucky.

‘No she didn’t.’

‘Didn’t what?’ I asked dropping down in the nearest empty seat and removing my laptop.

‘Fall.’

‘What?’

‘Evie didn’t fall over.’

My eyes flicked away from my screen to find him staring at me intently, ‘What d’you mean? I just helped her up and took her to the nurse. It’s why I was late.’

‘But she didn’t fall. I was looking out of the window, and saw her sit down and scatter her books around on the ground. I thought it was a bit odd, but I don’t know girls very well.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, now you’re here can we get on with this session? It’s the final one and we have to hand our paper in to Professor Rivers tomorrow. We were just talking about –’

‘Hang on. Go back. What did you say about Evie?’

‘She didn’t fall over.’ He tutted loudly, pushing his glasses up his nose, and glanced out of the window. ‘Look, there she is.’

I stood up so quickly my chair fell over. But there, walking normally without any sign of a twisted ankle or the need for someone to cling on to, was Evie.

‘Now where are you going?’ cried Gordon as I threw open the door and sprinted back outside just as quickly as I’d arrived.

I ran quick enough to stand in front of her and block her path. ‘That healed quickly.’

Her eyes flared in surprise, but only for a second and to give her credit she didn’t even try to pretend she’d faked it.

‘What d’you expect me to do? You won’t talk to me.’

---