The Magpie Effect - The Magpie Chronicles Book 1 (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 3.1

The timetable that Mrs Temple had given me the day before brought with it a sombre epiphany: now that the summer was over and school was back in full swing, so were the compulsory weekly P.E. lessons that I'd spent pretty much the whole holidays trying to forget about. The first term, the timetable read, would be dedicated to hour-long sessions of cross-country, and it would be the last class of every Tuesday.

P.E. was my nemesis. I didn't look good in shorts; I felt all exposed and sausagey. My entire body tended to film over with what felt like a second-skin of sweat, and that was before the actual moving part had even started.

The moving part posed the biggest problem of all. Simply put, I didn't like it. I didn't like the effort involved, the gasping sensation in my chest during, nor the exhaustion and complete willingness to crawl into bed, never to re-emerge, that followed.

The course that Miss May set for us was lethal. It ran the whole length of the grounds, from the rugby fields to the netball pitches and around the forested perimeters. My poor legs buckled at the mere thought of it.

Surely enough, the trek was a killer. After about five minutes of heavy-footed running, when Miss May was a tiny dot against the grey tin of the gymnasium, I slowed down. I felt as though I was crossing the Atlantic Ocean itself, not the Atlantic High grounds.

"Already, Saffy?" Debbie padded next to me. "Come on, you must have a couple hundred metres left in you."

I glared at her. I'd slowed down to something that was just more than a walk, but barely qualified as a run. "Running is unnatural. It's bad for the joints."

"But it feels so good, so free-"

"You know what else feels good?"

"What?"

"Sitting down," I gasped.

Debbie rolled her eyes at the ground. "Man, I really need to take you jogging or something."

"Please, don't. Anyway, you go on ahead. I'll be fine."

Debbie glanced sideways at me. She looked hesitant. "Nah, I couldn't do that to you."

"I insist," I said, flapping my hands at her. "Go on. Spread your black, majestic wings and soar, oh mighty raven."

"Really?"

"Really."

Debbie bit her lip. "Ok. I'll see you at the finishing line, ok?"

I nodded at her and watched as she picked up the pace, getting smaller and smaller until she all but vanished out of sight completely. "If I don't get there in half an hour, call an ambulance," I puffed to myself, and then I trudged to a defeated walk.

Eventually, the sports shed came into view. I decided that, once I got to it, I'd commit myself to at least power-walking the rest of the way.

As I approached the shed, an unsightly hut of cement that housed various sporting equipment, my nose picked up a familiar and unpleasant scent: smoke, barbed and raking. It scratched the back of my throat and seemed to intensify as I drew up to the walls.

And that was when I heard the giggling.

I came to a stop, heart beating, and pressed myself flat against the side of the shed. The reek of smoke hung repulsively in the air and the sound of high-pitched laughter fluttered around the corner. I edged forward and peered around.

Carmen Vespin was leaning against the shed, her long, slender legs disappearing into a pair of flashy white trainers. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail behind her head. She didn't look like she'd done much running.