Chapter 2
Henry
I hate running.
Hate it, hate it, hate it.
It’s stressful enough even when you’re not trying to race from one end of this gigantic airport to the other after a delayed ten-hour flight.
Now I remember why I normally avoid having to transfer in Frankfurt: an hour and a half’s transit time is never long enough.
Least of all if your flight gets delayed.
I ought to write it out somewhere in big fat letters as a reminder next time I book my return flight from Nairobi to Edinburgh.
“Excuse me, sorry . . .” For fuck’s sake, why’s it so hard to stick to the stand-on-the-right-and-walk-on-the-left rule on these endless conveyor belts? “Connecting flight, sorry.”
I barge into elbows and ignore the tightness in my chest. It’s so embarrassing that I can’t run even for five minutes without feeling like I’m about to have an asthma attack.
The rucksack on my back suddenly weighs a ton, and my hoodie is way too thick, but obviously I didn’t realize that until earlier when I was jammed in with all the other passengers in the cramped aisle of the Boeing, waiting to disembark.
I wish I could stop and pull it off, but one, I haven’t got time, and two, I’m past caring.
I stumble as I set foot on solid ground at the end of the moving walkway.
My body wants to carry on, my muscles are barely capable of absorbing the sudden deceleration, and God, I have to start running more often—I’m so unfit!
Maybe I ought to follow Theo’s example. My older brother used to do his revision on the treadmills in the school gym.
The brain takes in new information much quicker when you’re moving, Henry; it’s scientifically proven.
And it’s scientifically proven that my heart is going to jump out of my chest any moment if I don’t slow down and . . .
Hang on. Gate B20. B.
I stop so abruptly that a wave of German-sounding swear words washes over me. My pulse is pounding in my ears again as I stare at the sign above me. Maybe my brain isn’t getting enough blood and I’m hallucinating. Or maybe that actually says “Gates C–D.”
Fuck. Where did I go wrong? Why is my connecting gate always at the far end of the airport, wherever I’m transferring, and why—
The second I turn around—without looking—there’s a dull thud.
That doesn’t sound good. And it doesn’t feel good either.
I’d forgotten the way all the air gets crushed out of your lungs when someone runs into you with their full weight.
I land on the slippery tiles between a girl’s knees.
One of my rucksack straps flies open and the contents scatter over the floor in front of us.
Water bottle, headphones, chewing gum, the bag of mini pretzels from the other plane, phone charger, my passport.
But I don’t see any of that. All I see is pale-blond chin-length hair and very gray-blue eyes.
“Sorry, sorry . . .” she begins, and she keeps talking. I can’t understand her, and I hope that’s not because I got a bang on the head when we fell. The words sound like German, but from her mouth, they’re not as harsh.
“Are you OK?” I ask in reply. I’m expecting her to pause as she realizes she’ll need to answer in English for me to understand her. But she switches languages without a moment’s hesitation, and oh, God, why’s that so attractive?
“Yeah, I think so,” she says. “How about you? Sorry, I shouldn’t have been running like that, but—”
“No, it’s fine. I wasn’t paying attention.
” My brain fires up again. I bend instinctively to rescue my bottle, which is rolling perilously toward the people hurrying past. As I reach for it, her eyes flit over my things.
Almost as if she were silently weighing up whether or not she should help me collect them.
“Sorry, I . . .” She pauses as I look at her again. “I’m so late, my flight’s leaving and—”
The leaden voice of the airport announcement system interrupts her. She jumps up wildly as the German words echo from the loudspeaker. Then I hold my breath as they’re repeated in English.
“Last call for passengers Bennington and Wiley. Please go immediately to Gate B20. Last call.”
“I’m sorry.” The girl’s look is as apologetic as it is desperate.
“Is that you?” I ask, and she nods. “Edinburgh?”
“You too?”
“Yes,” I reply.
She hesitates, then reaches for my stuff. “Fine, we have to hurry.”
We grab my things—three handfuls each. I stuff my headphones into my rucksack upside down, then jump up too. I keep my passport in hand.
“Wiley?” I ask, looking at her.
“Emma,” she says, pointing to the direction I’ve just come from. “And you?”
“Henry. Pleased to meet you.” I can only stutter out a few words because my lungs are on fire again. Or still. Either way. “Is it far?” I gasp, gradually dropping back behind her. Emma. The gray-eyed girl. Wow, she’s fast.
“Don’t know.” She glances back, gripping her rucksack straps firmly. “We have to speed up.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
Like hell I can. Unlike her.
She makes it look effortless.
“No, this way.” Just before the next moving walkway, she grabs my wrist and pulls me to the right.
Oh, yeah. Gates B35–B1, the sign reads. I must have run right past it before.
Emma mumbles very German- and apologetic-sounding words as we run past people with hand-luggage trolleys and dodge small children.
I’m embarrassingly out of breath, while Emma has no more than a clearly rising and falling chest and somewhat flushed cheeks. Can’t be more than a few hundred meters, but this airport corridor seems to be going on forever.
B31
B29
B27
They’ve already started boarding at gate B24, and there are people everywhere. Right in our way. I thank them from the bottom of my heart because I’m forced to walk a few paces. Emma vanishes into the crowd ahead of me, and I make myself run on.
Our gate is empty. It sticks out like a sore thumb amid the other waiting areas, which are full to bursting. I can see the plane through the window, but there’s nobody at the desk.
Fuck . . . I’ve got a stitch, and I press my hand to my side.
“Seriously?” murmurs Emma. Her voice sounds way too normal after the sprint we’ve just done. “They only just called us and . . .”
“LH962 to Edinburgh?” calls a man.
A flight attendant appears, and at that moment, I’d like to fling my arms around his neck.
“Yes!”
“Great. This way, please.”
I’m trying to suppress my wheezing as I pull my phone out of the kangaroo pocket on my hoodie. I bet my face is bright red. Emma looks almost fresh. How the hell is she even human?
I pull up my boarding pass on my phone and hand the flight attendant my passport. Once he’s given it back, I move away slightly to wait for her. Emma’s got her boarding pass printed out on paper, and something about that makes me smile. It’s kind of sweet.
She thanks him, and she’s blushing a little after all as she looks at me.
I think she’s surprised that I waited. And at that moment it happens.
Her eyes drop from my face to my chest. I see her stare at the white logo embroidered on the dark-blue sweat fabric of my hoodie: the entwined initials of Dunbridge Academy within a simple ivy-framed shield.
Emma recognizes it. I can see it in her eyes.
Before she can speak, I’ve scanned through every year group in my mind.
No, it’s impossible. She has to be new, or I’d have seen her somewhere before.
I might not know all 423 pupils at Dunbridge by name, but I know them by sight. And I never forget a face.
“You’re at Dunbridge Academy?” asks Emma, and her voice sounds so awestruck that I’m now absolutely certain.
She’s definitely new. You wouldn’t ask like that unless you only knew the school from the glowing reports on the web.
“Yes,” I say, and the flight attendant appears behind Emma.
“Quickly, please!” He’s all smiles and gleaming white teeth, but his insistent yet friendly manner gets us both moving again. Emma’s eyes are still fixed on me. I don’t like the way she suddenly seems so abashed.
“Is this your first year?”
“Yes.” Emma gives a thin smile, and suddenly I want to hug her.
Or I would if I wasn’t dripping with sweat.
And, actually, not even then. We’ve only just met.
But why is she alone here? Newbies are usually brought by their parents.
Even when they’re from Saudi Arabia or Mexico.
Germany is hardly far-flung by the standards of our school.
“I’m just on a year abroad,” she says as we hurry down the long corridor. The walls are close, and the carpet swallows our footsteps. I don’t like the way she stares at the floor as she speaks. She seems kind of . . . unhappy.
“Cool. Your English is great.”
I immediately sense I’ve said something wrong.
“Thanks,” she mumbles as she raises her eyes.
I want to ask her so many questions—where exactly she’s from, if she’s excited, all that stuff—but I can’t because we’ve now reached the plane door. Another flight attendant is waiting for us.
“Welcome on board,” she greets us, but her smile is impatient.
“Where are you sitting?” I ask Emma. All the other passengers have their seat belts fastened. They’re staring at phones already in airplane mode or looking toward us in annoyance.
“Twenty-seven D,” says Emma, glancing over her shoulder at me. “How about you?”
Blast . . . For a moment I seriously wonder how cheeky it would be to ask someone to change places.
“Here,” I reply as we reach 22C. The aisle seat, and obviously there’s nothing free anywhere nearby. The woman in the middle has already got chunky noise-canceling headphones on and doesn’t look like she wants to be spoken to.
“Oh, OK.” Emma doesn’t stop. “Enjoy the flight. See you later, Henry.”
“Yeah.” I gulp. “You too.”
Emma
The middle seat in my row is free. Of course it is. It’s booked in Mum’s name, but Mum’s stuck somewhere in Nice, not here beside me.