Head Over Heels ✓

11 / pinky promise

december, age thirteen

Fairy lights were strung up all around town, sparkling when the December sun dipped down below the horizon each afternoon. As much as Lucas hated the long dark nights and the short dreary days, he loved to watch Farnleigh transform into a winter wonderland as Christmas approached. In the centre of town was an enormous fir tree, at least thirty feet high with a silver star glittering at the very top. Metres of tinsel hung from the swaying branches, weighed down by baubles as big as a head.

Lucas loved the giant tree that went up every year in time for the Christmas lights to be switched on: he and Asher always went along to the ceremony, hanging back away from the buzz of the crowds. That was when he felt like Christmas was really on the way. He didn't care if it was cold or if snow fluttered down; he wasn't bothered about the Christmas films that his sisters had on a loop in the den. He just loved the tree that brightened the centre of town.

The last day of term was a half day. Students poured out of high school into town, bumping along the frosty streets to find somewhere to eat in their huge groups. Lucas didn't follow them, nor did he head outside to find Audrie and wait for his mother. She wasn't coming today: Audrie had arranged to go out with her friends and Lucas was waiting for Asher to meet him in his classroom before they headed back to his house together. He had been a little nervous about to whom the invitation had been extended until Adler had dropped into conversation that she would be going straight to the airport after school for a pre-Christmas holiday to the south of France.

Mika had been invited too but she had other plans, telling Lucas with a coy smile that she was going home with Tom after the whole school assembly that had ended the term. He had waved goodbye to the two of them and smiled at his grandfather when he had turned up to take them home, and he had walked back to his classroom to get his bag and wait. The place was eerily empty: even Mr Finney had headed straight home with his satchel over his shoulder and his coffee flask in his hand, wishing Lucas a merry Christmas as he had left.

When Year Eight had come to an end, Lucas had dreaded being put into a new class in September until Mr Finney had let it slip that he would be Lucas's teacher for the next three years – and Mika's too. Classes had chopped and changed and Lucas had been disappointed once more not to be put with Asher, but he got to keep his favourite teacher and thanks to choosing the same options without consulting each other, he and Mika shared every single class once more.

At ten past twelve, ten full minutes after the day had officially ended, Asher turned up at last with his bag hanging limply from one shoulder and his coat slung over his arm. He always looked a little dishevelled: his mother could get away with her lateness when she always looked immaculate in ironed shirts and important heels but Asher hadn't inherited that skill from her. His shirt was untucked, his hair scruffy; even his grin was wonky.

"Ready?" he asked, as though Lucas would ever not be ready before him. He nodded and stood, slipping his bag onto both shoulders.

"Is it raining?"

"Nope, you're good," Asher said. "It's a bit windy but Mum's here anyway so we won't be hanging around. Oh, and it's a bit slippery – Addie skidded on the quad and nearly went head over heels just now."

Lucas wished she had. Maybe that would knock some sense into her. He didn't say that though, aware that each snide comment he thought made him almost as bad as her. Asher didn't like it when he was rude about Adler so he kept the words inside, only ever spilling them to Audrie. He liked sharing his Adler-related grievances with her when she reflected everything he said with worse language and a more fiery temper. It was a side to her that had been well hidden until her little brother's feelings got involved: ordinarily she was a docile girl, an eco-enthusiastic vegetarian with a passion for space and sea, but she could just as easily switch to pit-bull mode when her family was crossed.