Troublemakers

Chapter five

As I sat on my bed, I twiddled my thumbs. My mind was running back and forth on my predicament with Nathan. I wouldn't have thought it was him but the scar proves it. But why? How? What are his reasons for doing it? And why did he want to talk to me? Why did he have a surprise?

I know there's three of them and Nathan is one of them. One down, two to go. That's why I asked how long Derek knew him. There's a possibilty he is one of them. However, he spoke of them as if he didn't know them. So surely it can't be him.

But who knows? I didn't know it was Nathan. Though, I should've known - he did speak to me in the car. I also know one of them is a girl. I've only met one girl and that's Sophia. She's too young to be involved in this. Although she may be too young, who's to say I'm not too young?

I just can't believe Nathan is Bob.

Sighing, I rubbed my hands over my face. He doesn't know that I know; therefore, I'm going to act perfectly normal. or as normal as I can be.

I stretched as I stood up and rubbed a hand over my eyes. Yesterday was Monday - when we went to the diner and when I found out Nathan's secret. As I realised it was Tuesday, I let out a moan.

"Julia! What are you doing up there?" Dad called out as he was the only one up - mum was going to the care home later today.

"Getting up." I called back.

"Are you sure? Do you have a boy up there?"

Flabagasted, my voice was shrill as I replied, "What makes you think that?!"

"Well- I... I err- I heard you moan..."

As my mouth dropped open, I facepalmed and shook my head. Fathers.

In about half an hour I was out of the door and on my way to school. I was wearing a coat over my clothes but unfortunately I hadn't brought an umbrella with me. I regret that because it was absolutely tipping it down.

As I got caught up in my thoughts, a body huddled next to mine and the rain stopped. I looked up to see someone was holding a coat over my head. I gasped as I realised who it was.

"Nathan!" I jumped and placed a hand over my beating heart, "Don't do that, you frightened me!"

"Sozzles, juls." He replied with a cheeky grin.

Sozzles? "Sozzles?"

"Yeah, it's like 'soz' but it has more swag."

Did he actually just say that? I think he did. Slowly, I reached over and pinched my arm.

"Yep, that did just happen." Nathan said.

I sighed and rolled my eyes at him. I don't know what I was worried about. It's not like he knows I know. And he'd still act the same if he did, right? He's definitely not going to go big bad wolf and eat me up... I hope.

While we had talked, we had made it up to the school gate. I had two double periods of art to get through. I had made friends with a girl in my art class called Anna. As I walked into the class I grinned at her and noticed she'd already had her paints out. When I looked over at her canvas, I grimaced.

"You shut up." She pointed and glared at me.

"What did you do?!" I looked at her ruined canvas which had black paint running over the face of it.

"I swear it wasn't me this time!" She sighed, "I came in this morning and saw Jeremy, I said 'hi' and he jumped and knocked black paint over my work."

My eyes narrowed. "Did he apologise? Did he help clean it up? Did he-"

"Yes, yes, yes!" She threw her hands up, "Stop terrorising him through me will you?!"