Rowan, Flo [e book reader online .txt] 📗

she was about thirty years older. One of her heels snapped off but she kept moving, disappearing round the corner, and I lost interest. Returning to my coffee, I flopped down in my spinny chair and leant back with loosely crossed legs.
At some point I went to have a shower in an attempt to get rid of my residual grogginess. I towel dried my hair afterwards, but because I was at home I didn’t bother to wax my hair up before flipping open the Fellowship of the Ring and returning to my chair.
The front door slammed as I was midway through sitting down. I tried to reverse the action so I could go and greet Gandalf, and ended up landing arse first on the floor, having confused my body.
“Afternoon. Why are you on the floor?” he said cheerily as the bedroom door creaked open a moment later.
“I fell.” I explained, and feeling slightly awkward just sitting there, got to my feet.
“Right. Have you seen that drunk guy in the middle of the road? He tried to hug me while I was unlocking the door, I had to push him into Agnes and Betty’s garden. I hope he didn’t crush any of their petunias- I’d never hear the end of it.” he moved to the window and I followed him.
“Yeah, there was a woman running away from him a few minutes ago.” I peered at a kicking pair of legs sticking out of the old ladies’ rose bush. It took him a while to untangle himself from the thorny stems, by which time Agnes was leaning out of her own window, bellowing at him as he stared mournfully up at her. I knew from experience that Betty was the hardcore one of the couple, so I hoped for his sake that he was gone by the time she got involved.
“We’d better leave them to it. Things will start getting ugly pretty soon. Ooh, your hair looks so sweet like that!” my uncle said, catching sight of me after closing the window.
“Weirdo.”
He giggled. The adults in my family were usually just as immature as the teenagers, though as far as I was concerned that was a good thing. I never saw the point in maturity- all it did was make the world a boring and crappy place.
“Gandalf? What’s your real name?” I asked, trailing after him as he left my room and descended the stairs.
“Gilbert. I always suspected you had forgotten.” he turned and winked at me in the way creepy teachers do if they catch you staring at them.
“Gilbert? But you’re not even in your seventies, how is that possible?” He laughed, though I hadn’t been trying to be funny.
“My parents let my grandparents pick my name. Anyway, next time, phrase it like ‘but you’re not even in your forties’, it’s more flattering. Well, I’m going to watch the news, then I have some work to do, so you’ll have to entertain yourself for a while. Watch tv or do your homework or whatever it is you kids get up to these days.”
“Sure.”
“That’s it! I’m calling the police! You’ll be lucky if I don’t bash your brains out before they arrive.” Betty’s voice floated through the walls, like petals drifting on a summer breeze.

Chapter Two

I walked through the school gates as slowly as I could without looking like an idiot. Gandalf made me leave the house about half an hour earlier than was necessary, and an hour earlier than when I usually left, which meant I had ages to kill before school started. I’d been late every day for the last month, which as it turned out had been a good thing for my health, for as soon as I turned the corner out of the locker room a group of about five or six jumped me, Joanna amidst them. Two of them pulled my hands behind me and dragged me back into the room. The rest followed, trying to look menacing.
“Uh…can I help you?” I asked, confused.
“You’re dead, Alwyn.” Joanna growled. My brain suddenly kicked in and I realised what was going on, half a second before her fist connected with the side of my face.
My instincts were second to kick in. I prayed that the two holding me were male, and kicked out hard in what I guessed to be their general crotch area with both feet, using their grip on my arms to support me. Fortunately, they both hit the ground retching. The rest of the group was caught by surprise and I easily dodged past them, sprinting to the relative safety of the girls’ toilets where at least I knew of an escape route.
Feeling a trickle of blood running down my face, I surveyed the damage in the half-shattered mirror that spanned the wall above the sinks. There was a small cut and slight bruising just below my right temple, which made me think she had been wearing a ring. But it was nothing on what I did to the two guys, so I felt victorious as I pressed a wad of toilet paper against my wound and washed away the blood, hoping my mutilation wasn’t too noticeable.

“Oh dear. Looks like they finally got you.” Lydia grinned as I sat in my place, no longer early.
“What’s got you so chipper?” I asked, perplexed.
“They’ve been so busy trying to figure out how to kill you that they haven’t even insulted me for the last two weeks. You’re their new target!” she almost sang her response.
“Thanks for the support.” I rolled my eyes.
“Way I see it, better you than me. No offence.” This earned her a punch to the arm, which in turn earned me a slap to the good side of my face. Rather than start a bitch fight, I spun around in my seat to see if Joanna had returned yet. She had indeed, and made a slicing gesture across her throat as I met her eyes. I resorted to a wink again and turned back to Lydia, who was laughing at my misfortune.
“Arse wipe.” I scowled, making a mental note to take up kickboxing again.
“Detention. Next Friday after school.” Miss Farrow called across the room, somehow having thrown herself into her office chair just in time to hear me.
I kicked Lydia under the desk.

“You need to see a doctor about that.” Gandalf said with some concern as he saw my face.
“It’s not that bad.”
“You could have brain damage! Have you seen your reflection?”
“It’s nowhere near my brain!” I went into the kitchen and stared at my reflection in the glass of the window. The bruise had darkened considerably and spread to cover about three inches square of the lower part of my face. “Okay, it does look pretty bad.” I admitted.
“How did it happen?” he asked, putting the kettle on to calm himself.
“Somebody caught me with their bag.” I lied.
“They must’ve been swinging it bloody hard. Are you sure you don’t want to get it checked out?” My uncle wasn’t the suspicious type.
“Yep. It doesn’t even hurt that much.”
“Okay. Coffee?”
“Get away from my gnomes!” Betty’s voice wafted through the open window. I stuck my head out and saw yet another drunk, though this time it was a woman. She had her hands pressed against the old women’s immaculate green door, and appeared to be trying to make out with it.
“I’d better call the police.” Gandalf sighed down my neck, making me jump.
“Yeah, Betty’ll have her head off any minute.”
“That’s not what I- never mind.” he grinned, picking up the handset. He had just begun dialling 999 when it started ringing. “Hello? Yep, I’ll hand you over.”
I took the receiver from him gingerly, wondering who was on the other end.
“Hello?” I frowned.
“Hey there!” It was Shawn.
“What’s up?”
“I feel like boarding. I’m at the end of your road.” He hung up.
“Did he ask you out?” Gandalf sang across the room.
“What? No, you creep. We’re going to the skate park.”
“Oh.” he sounded disappointed. “Your hobo gloves are on the table.”
“Thanks.” I pulled the black material over my hands. Gandalf hated fingerless gloves, for reasons undisclosed.
“Make sure you aren’t back too early. Ellen’s coming over for dinner and if she sees you looking like that, she’ll have a heart attack.”
I caught my reflection in the mirror and immediately understood what he meant. The tartan trousers, studded jacket, Wednesday 13 shirt and the Mohawk were enough on their own, combine that with the bruise on my face and the skateboard tucked under my arm- forget the heart attack, she’d summon a bloody exorcist.
“What time is she leaving?”
“Should be gone by eleven thirty.”
“I’ll aim for midnight.” I grimaced.

“How are you holding up? You know, after…” Shawn trailed off, taking a sip of water. We were sitting on a grassy hillside, our backs against the chain-link fence of the skate park. The trees were spread thin here, allowing us a perfect view of the town and most of the surrounding farmland. It was small enough that the light pollution was too weak to block out the stars, so at night it blazed like an amber reflection of the sky above.
“I’m alright, I guess.” I shifted uncomfortably, twisting the cuffs of my jacket between my fingers. I should have seen the questions coming- the hillside was always the place we shared, even before we started skateboarding.
He turned and raised an eyebrow at me. “Honestly?”
I smiled reluctantly. “Okay, I feel like crap. But I’m coping. What about you? You know, with the whole Allie thing? You’ve been going on about her nonstop since you broke up.”
“To be honest, I’m just confused about it. She was kind of crazy and kind of a dick, but I really liked her.” he sighed.
It took me half a minute to summon the courage to say the words I knew he wanted to hear.
“I think you should try to get back together.”
“Really? Me too! I’m gonna call her!” he whipped out his phone, grinning like a maniac.
“Dude! If you call her at half eleven you’ll be doing more harm than good. Leave it ‘til tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah. Oh crap! I told my parents I’d be back for eleven.”
“We’d better get going then.”
I hauled myself to my feet via the fence and gave Shawn a hand up before picking up my board.
We walked down the hill in silence for several minutes before a smile broke across his face. “Do you think she’ll say yes? I think she’ll say yes. I mean, I feel like we’re, like, supposed to be together, y’know? I can’t wait to call her!”
Well, as long as he was happy. I held back my sigh.

“Ooh, that’s a smart jacket you’re wearing, dear.”
“Um…thank you, Betty. I like your blanket. And your hair, Agnes.”
Betty often nipped out for a spot of midnight gardening when she