said Jessica grimly. “I guess if you don’t want to compete—”
“Tell you what,” said Felicity. “We’ll come across with you, but we’ll leave you alone with him when you’re ready to get things moving, ‘kay?”
There was a silence, and I could imagine the girls all staring at Natalie.
“What should we do?” asked James. “Have you worked out what you want to do with her?”
I was completely torn in at least two different directions. Everything I’d ever wanted could be mine if I disregarded Lena, and to a lesser degree Stella; I still wasn’t entirely sure my friendship with her was of that kind, so I didn’t mind that as much. I knew I didn’t want Lena, not in the same way I wanted Natalie.
But if I got with Natalie today, I probably wouldn’t get the chance to see things out with Lena the way I’d like to. I wasn’t entirely sure what that would be, but after what George had said, I wanted to be as gentle in rejection as I could. If Natalie was serious about wanting me, that meant that I wouldn’t have to compete with Tommy after all, which was a huge relief. So reluctantly, I shook my head, only understanding days later that I had made a huge mistake in not taking the chance that presented itself to me. Nicole’s joke about me being gutless was clearly truer than I had realised.
“Whataya think, Nat?” asked Lisa when Natalie didn’t answer.
There was another silence and then, as though she wanted to spill the word before she lost her nerve, Natalie blurted out, “Okay.”
James stood up quickly as Jessica said, “Good on ya, Nat. You’ll be so proud of yourself after this, whatever happens over there.”
“I won’t feel so proud if I’m sprinting home in tears,” Natalie replied, but now I could hear a nervous excitement in her voice.
“I’ll go head ’em off,” said James, hurrying to the door. “Perhaps you should pretend you're sleeping, just in case they get up here anyway. For the record, though, I reckon you should grab Nat sometime tomorrow and take the matter out of her hands—she’d love you for it.”
I nodded, unsure if this would work, but thinking that at least I’d get a bit more time to consider it while I waited. I unplugged the microphones from the computer so that they wouldn’t know we’d been listening (not that much sound would come through from their rooms with nobody in them), then got up and crossed to my bed as James shut the door behind him. I lay down on my bed and allowed my body to relax, wondering if I would actually fall asleep. I didn’t think I could; my heart was thumping so hard that it alone could have kept me awake, not to mention James’s use of the word ‘love’ clanging around in my head.
I wasn’t sure if James’s plan was to delay the girls in getting up to my room, or attempt to prevent them from coming up at all. I only hoped he didn’t do anything to change Natalie’s mind altogether about me. I felt rather pathetic about having to do this, and when I thought about it, I didn’t even know why I was doing it. All I knew was that I was going to have to make my own mind up about what I wanted to do, before someone else did it for me. There were too many people around who had ideas about what they wanted me to do. Gutless, John; you’ve got a hell of a lot of growing up to do. If Natalie knew what was going on in your head, she’d be turned off so damn fast…
I lay there listening to the silence around me, waiting for some sort of sound outside the room; footsteps or talking or anything to let me know when to screw up my courage. I could hear talking downstairs; James was talking, and I thought I could hear Mum and Marge talking as well, plus a few of the girls’ voices. No one sounded like they were arguing, which was a good thing. But minutes passed, and no one came upstairs.
I was burning with curiosity to know what they were talking about, but knew I couldn’t go and listen. I’d already made my choice, and that meant staying up here and hiding. I sat up though, giving up on the idea of getting any sleep, and simply leaned back against the wall, trying hard not to let my thoughts stray to what I could be doing with either Natalie or Lena in a matter of weeks; perhaps days. Then, without warning, I heard soft footsteps outside the door. A moment later there was a knock.
“Yeah,” I said, amazed at how croaky my voice was. If I hadn’t known better, even I would have mistaken that nervousness for tiredness.
It opened a crack and to my surprise, Peter stuck his head in. “You okay?” he said, pushing it open and slipping in. “James said he found you asleep at the computer when he came in.”
I had the distinct impression that James, perhaps for authenticity, had tried to stop Peter coming up here too. But my brother had managed to slip up anyway, probably to drop off his things, which he did as I watched him.
“Yeah,” I said, preferring to be honest, or at least partly honest until I knew the coast was clear to tell him what James and I had overheard. “I had a weird detention.”
“Yeah? What did he make you do?” he asked curiously.
I hesitated, but I hadn’t told James alone and I couldn’t see why Peter should be any different. “Wait ‘til James is here—”
The door opened again, interrupting me, and James entered with impeccable timing. His fabrications had clearly not worked, because Nicole, Felicity and Jessica came in as well. Natalie and Lisa weren’t with them; perhaps Mum and Marge had made them go home. It was half past 5, after all.
“I said not to come up here, man,” said James, glancing at me and then glaring back at Peter.
“It’s my room too,” snapped Peter. “And besides, he was awake; well, kind of—”
“I’m okay,” I said, because the girls were looking at me with concern. “You’re early anyway, Pete. Did Hall let you out early or something?”
“Yeah,” said Peter, still sounding amazed at the idea. “He let us all out early. He just said he had important business to attend to. Looked rather excited about it, really.”
“What business could he possibly have that’s more important than dishing out detentions?” Nicole asked scornfully.
My thoughts drifted from the conversation as I watched the girls settle down. I wanted to tell James and Peter about my detention, but I didn’t want to have to go into details about Natalie and Lena in front of the girls, particularly after what they had been talking about only minutes earlier.
Once again, however, the matter was taken out of my hands when Peter said, “So John, what did he make you do?”
I hesitated, but I couldn’t exactly tell the girls they weren’t allowed to know. “Well, Hall had this magical game that was supposed to test my powers of resistance,” I said shortly, preferring to just answer their questions, as it was rather hard to explain. “I have no idea why he would make me do something like that.”
“You mean like a video game?” said Peter. “That’d be cool.”
“It certainly wasn’t cool,” I said. “Do you think Hall would ever give me a cool detention? Nah, I actually went inside it.”
“Wow,” said James. “No wonder you were so tired.”
“So how were your powers of resistance tested?” asked Jessica.
“Did you pass?” asked Felicity.
“Well I passed in the end,” I said, trying to think of an answer Jessica’s question. “’Cause Hall said I could have been killed if I didn’t pass. He said I would suffer more the more I gave in.”
“Blimey,” said Peter in a low voice.
“So you did okay, then,” said Nicole.
“Eventually,” I said, “but I got hurt a lot. There were about twenty Tommys chasing me, and they beat the crap out of me, and Wilwog was there trying to make trouble. Even Moran and his