{ELEMENTISTS OF WILLOW FOREST BOOK V} The Journey Across Water

This Chapter Has a Name

21: This Chapter Has a Name

Did I mention how I originally decided my night of freedom would be just One Night?

Yeah. I didn't exactly stick to that fillossohfee.

You see, at the end of the pizza, when Tom, Nina AND I were climbing out the window in the loos so no-one realised we didn't actually have any money, then we ran for it and laughed and laughed and laughed, they maybe asked me what I was doing the next night, and the next night, and the next night, and it sort of became a daily (or, rather nightly) thing.

Oh, I lived for my nights with Thomas and Nina.

Quite literally.

I became virtually nocturnal. My tutor never actually turned up, so I took food out of the Care Home fridge during the day when the others were at school so they couldn't fight me, then I'd go to my room, lock myself in and sleep, so I could dance the whole night away with Thomas and Nina. I don't know if the two of them had a similar routine, but soon I felt like I was as much one of them as they were one of each other, even though they'd known each other for way longer and actually lived together on the street (as they thought I did).

One time, we went to a bowling alley, and Thomas hacked into the computer so we got unlimited goes, and could keep whacking at the pins until we knocked them all down every go before moving onto the next batch, which was great, until we realised that we were all getting either spares or strikes the whole time. As there wasn't much of a winner, we abandoned the alley, and set to work rigging the slot machines (Thomas was really useful) so we made enough money to buy (not steal!!!) a round of chicken nuggets and fries.

A few days later, we were in a kind of nasty scrape to do with the person whose property we were trespassing on, and I looked to Nina, 'cause neither me nor Thomas could do much about it with fire or technology. Nina managed to burst us right out.

Then, a week after that, I stole a bunch of food for a barbecue, and grilled it with my hands, and we had a proper barbey in the street.

Food had never tasted so good.

"Aw, come on." I whined to Thomas as Nina showed us the way to a bookshop selling a prequel she fancied me stealing for her. "Your name is the longest. It needs abbreviating. If it's not the beginning bit, the Thom bit, then it's the ending, and on its own that makes us all sound really sluttly."

"Actually," Nina pointed out, "'Thomas' is only one letter longer than 'Sasha'. Plus, we've all got two syllables, which has a nice ring to it."

"You just want your name to stand out." Thomas noted.

I sighed. "Doesn't everybody?"

Sensing the tension, Nina put in, "How about we all have new nicknames? One syllable ones."

"Yes!" I shouted, maybe slightly too loudly. "Cool ones, that make us seem all awesome and badass."

Nina smiled. "All Thom-as."

And, ergo, (yes, Olivia, I did learn that word from Ash (yes, I know, can you shut up now?)) we became Flame, Bolt and Blast.

Then we decided we should totally go roof running sometime.

Maybe this was it. Maybe my place where I could be happy, my place where I could be normal again, where no-one cared about the past and only the present mattered was with Thomas and Nina.