Reckless

Reckless - Chapter Twenty-Seven

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R E C K L E S S . . .

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:

“And your time begins…” Mr Laurel examined the clock on the wall, judging the tiny hand that counted the seconds down. “…now.”

The sounds of papers being turned over echoed round the History classroom as we all opened our test papers. I looked to the side and saw Claire already bent over the paper and scribbling furiously.

I sighed and opened the test paper resignedly. I didn’t much see the point in practice papers, especially when they were first thing on a Monday morning.

A row of sources faced me – pictures and written accounts about Britain during the First World War. British Depth Study had never been my favourite topic in History, but now that we’d finished Russia and done our coursework on it there was only that, International Relations and German Depth Study left to do.

As I looked at the paper I tried not to think of how Chris had been changed during the First World War. How easy the paper would’ve been for him. I dispelled all thoughts of Chris from my mind – our meeting the week before had unnerved me and every time I’d seen him in the corridors I’d run away, terrified of talking to him again because I’d actually felt a twinge of pity as I’d talked to him.

Focus, I told myself.                                                                                             

Slowly, I started to scribble the answer to the first question, dreading the next two hours of silent writing.

When the bell rang for the first time, signalling the end of first period, I yearned to jump out of my seat and run for the door. The rays of sunlight that flooded through the windows and into the room taunted me – today had been one of the first days with a cloudless, sunny sky that year and I was sat in a classroom missing it.

I looked to my side and saw Claire still writing as feverishly as she had the first time I’d looked. My spirit dropped further when I saw the five pages full of her writing on the desk in front of her. I wondered fleetingly if I could stage a big enough distraction to swap our answers.

Maybe I could set fire to something and set off the fire alarm…

Then my eyes drifted to the desk behind Claire – or more precisely, the werewolf sat on the chair behind the desk – and my mood dropped to the lowest point possible. Just seeing him sat there evoked all sort of emotions; terror, hatred, sympathy, confusion.

I couldn’t understand how Claire could cope being in a class with him. Especially now she knew his secret for definite. I could barely spend a second in a corridor with Chris, though I guessed that our situations were different – Claire had loved Darren, I certainly hadn’t loved Chris.

Darren stopped writing as if he could tell that I was looking at him and his eyes slowly rose up to meet mine. They were just as shocking as they had been the first time I’d met him – that golden yellow colour that so much resembled a wolf’s. Of course, now I knew that they didn’t just resemble a wolf’s eyes… they werethe eyes of a wolf.

I turned away from him quickly and switched to looking intensely at the paper in front of me. I could still feel his gaze on my back but I didn’t dare turn back to look at him in fear that he might relate it back to Chris or use it as yet another excuse for the supernaturals to target me.

My thoughts were completely irrational, but I’d experienced far too much in the past few months to overlook anything that they did.

“You have forty five minutes left,” Mr Laurel called in his croaky voice. “Remember that anyone who scores less than a B in this paper will be facing extra revision sessions with me.” We all knew that ‘extra revision sessions’ was just Mr Laurel’s way of saying detention.