The Twelve

Chapter Six

We were sitting in the grass, all twelve of us. Demi, Margo and nearly all of the girls were sitting under the shade of a tree, all of them were eyeing me and Duncan jealously, while seemingly carefree braiding each others hair or chatting. Duncan and I were in the middle of a personal little battle of ours.

“I’m gonna get in this time!” Duncan shouted and I snarled back, for fun. I was the goalie and he wanted to shoot the ball into the goal and score for a change.

“3,2,1…GO!” I shouted and he kicked it with all the strength of a little boy and missed, but only because of a shriek by the girls.

“Ew, a spider!”, it had been Ashley.

 “C’mon, let’s try again ok? This try didn’t count.” I suggested to Duncan, he nodded and we both started looking for the ball.

“I can’t find it!” I came over to Duncan after a minute, frustrated.

“But we have to! It’s new!” he looked worried and brushed his hand through his hair.

“What about…back there?” I suggested and pointed towards the edge of the ground.

“Um, yeah ok. But doesn’t it go down really steeply?”

“We’ll just have to be careful!” I laughed: “Scaredy cat!” and boxed his arm playfully.

“Me?” he laughed boxing me back and started to run towards the ball. I ran after him and tried to overtake him.

“Ha! Beat you!” I exclaimed and then suddenly the whole world turned over. My whole view was turned upside down. I felt a pain, not sharp but far away.

“Rae? Rae? Everything ok?” Duncan sat down swiftly beside me. “You ok? Oh God, no, no you’re not. Your arm is pointing in the wrong direction and your bleeding. Oh Rae, my silly little Klutz.” He looked horrified, but he kept on speaking to me in his calm voice.

The fact that he was here with me, made me feel better already.

“Please just hold me. Don’t let me fall.” I cried quietly as I realised how strong the pain actually was.

“Sure.” He wrapped his arms around me, carefully as to not touch me where it might hurt.

“You’re like a little mouse, you know that?” Duncan said, his cheek resting against my head. I didn’t answer but smiled through my tears.

“So, are you my PJ then?” I asked quietly.

“PJ what’s that?”

“I dunno, it just reminds me of you” I smiled up at him, weakly. (Please don’t forget that I was a bit woozy when I said this and I was really young.)

He grinned, “ok mousy, you can call me PJ, but only if I get to do this.” And he planted a kiss on my cheek. “Promise me, that you’ll always be with me ok? Let me be the one for these kind of situations, please?”

He whispered into my ear, my cheek tingled and I whispered back: “I promise if you promise PJ.” He smiled, nodded and then…everything went black.