Page 16 of The Grumpy Doc's Surprise Delivery

A couple of times she does take it fleetingly as we navigate through some of the trickier parts of the forest, down some steep hills or over gravel sections. But every time she is careful to extract herself. It’s like she’s trying not to give me any impressions.

Not that I would get any. Of course.

We don’t say much as we go. I don’t think there is much to say.

It’s a battle with Bruno — who, as far as I can see, has been playing on his phone for the last two hours — to allow us to get onto the bus to go back to the hotel. He looks us up and down and grins. “That was fast!”

I shake my head to stop his assumption that we won. “Emma had a fall,” I say.

“Oh, no! Are you okay?” he says in that kind of voice that people use when they have to pretend that they care but they don’t really, or maybe he just sounds insincere because he’s so happy all the time; I can’t tell. Either way, it’s annoying.

“She’ll be okay,” I say, and then she interrupts me, clearly grumpy that I’m speaking on her behalf when she’s perfectly capable of speaking all by herself.

“I’m fine,” Emma says forcefully. “I just sprained my ankle and I…” she glances at me, then continues, “wedecided that it probably wasn’t a good idea to be taking the forest terrain with an ankle that won’t take my weight.”

Bruno hums as if he’s being thoughtful. “Yes, probably for the best. Did you get anywhere with the treasure hunt?”

We shake our heads. “Guess this is going to put us at the bottom of the leaderboard,” I say bitterly. It doesn’t matter — shouldn’t matter — but I can’t help but want to do better.

“Unfortunately, I can’t bend the rules just because of an injury,” Bruno says with that air of mock sympathy. “But I will give you a fat round zero rather than taking any points off.”

“Wait, you’ve been taking points off?” gasps Emma, prickling at the idea of us going negative.

“Not you. But there are some other pairs who have quite the interesting idea about what it means when it comes to playing fair.”

“People are cheating. Why?” Emma’s wide-eyed disbelief is almost enough to soften my cynical heart.

“Same reason as you would,” Bruno says like it’s obvious, clearly just as baffled by her belief in the goodness of people as me. “They want to win.”

“The prize isn’t even that good,” I mumble. I’m either so quiet that Bruno doesn’t hear me, or he simply doesn’t care because he steamrolls right on with his script.

“Well, this is the big activity for the day, so I suppose you two should go make yourselves comfortable. I’ll get the driver to take you back down the hill.”

The bus ride seems to take much longer than on the way there. The sun streams through the windows and I wonder how the driver isn’t getting totally blinded by the light. He isn’t even wearing sunglasses. He’s just letting the light shine in and squinting at it.

It doesn’t fill me with confidence.

But the light does shine golden over Emma, catching her dark hair and giving her what seems to be an aura. It makes her glow. It dances over her cheeks, makes her eyes glitter like gems, but with a depth more beautiful than I’ve ever seen.

I force myself to look out of the window because if I don’t, I’m just going to stare at her. Somehow, I don’t think she’d appreciate that too much. She doesn’t really say much, and neither do I, but every now and then I catch her looking at me out of the corner of my eye.

What is she thinking, I wonder? But I don’t ask. I can’t handle any more revelations today.

By the time we get back to the hotel, the afternoon is sinking its way into evening. The sun isn’t setting just yet, but I’m definitelyready for something to eat. I help Emma off the bus and into the hotel.

We linger in the lobby, and I decide to cut to the chase. “Want to grab dinner?”

She wavers, then frowns apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I’m feeling tired. Maybe tomorrow, though?”

“Sounds good.” Though I smile at her, I can’t pretend not to be more than a little disappointed. Still, I insist on seeing her up to her room.

“I am fine, you know,” she says as we get into the elevator.

“Humor me,” I tell her because I don’t want to tell her in so many words that I feel a responsibility for her. I have a desire to see that she at least gets home okay.

Not that this is home and not that there wouldn’t be plenty of people around to look after her if she did fall over again, but we shared something today. I don’t want to say it was something real because that makes it sound more severe than it was, but there was something there.

For the first time, I think I actually saw her as a real person rather than someone who exists to irritate me.

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