Plan B

Chapter Twelve

There was a soft click as somebody tried to close the door quietly, but the damage was already done: Fran was awake.  She groaned loudly and rolled over, only to send pain lancing through her head.  Reaching up, she felt a tender bump on her left temple and winced.

“Sorry,” said a hushed voice.  “I didn’t realise you’d wake up.”

Fran grumbled something intelligible that might just have been something to do with wanting the boy to leave her in peace, but Brookie came over instead and crouched down at her head so that their eyes were level.  He looked absolutely exhausted.

“I brought you some breakfast.”  He placed a tray on her knees.

Touched, Fran sat up and inhaled deeply.  He appeared to have filched a tray with a full English from the cafeteria.  I feel so spoilt.  That bacon….  The school food in general might not be brilliant, but as soon as it came to fried foods, standards soared.

Brookie let out a huge yawn, too tired to bother covering his mouth.  “How’re you feeling today, anyway?”

Fran seized hold of her knife and fork.  “Like a truck ran over me.”

A brief smile graced Brookie’s features and he made an amused noise in the back of his throat.  “You did give yourself a nasty concussion.  It was touch and go as to whether or not we ought to send you to hospital for a bit.  Carson wanted you holed up in the infirmary, but Arthur and Rico insisted you’d be better off here.  He agreed provided I looked after you.”  Brookie stifled another yawn and stole half of the sausage that Fran was cutting up.

“Hey!”  Fran whacked him with the knife.  Brookie merely pushed it away.

“Oi.  No bullying.  I’ve been waking up every two hours to ice your head for twenty minutes and my girlfriend’s pissed because I cut short our conversation to look after you.  Be grateful.”  He popped the sausage into his mouth.  “Matron’ll come to check on you around break.  You’re not allowed up until then.”  He eyed the piece of bacon that Fran was rapidly shovelling into her mouth and settled for snaffling a piece of toast.  “I have a lesson cancellation and double morning free, so I’ll be around until lunch if you need anything.  It’s probably safer than the infirmary.  The thing with the rat might be funny, but I don’t think Kevin and Simon will leave you in one piece when they find you and none of us are going to be over in the sickbay.”

Fran paused with some of the bacon dangling out of her mouth.  “Where is Pythagoras?”

Brookie rubbed a tired eye.  “I gave her to Kit last night.  He was over the moon.  I told him it was our manly secret that she’s not actually a gerbil.  Carson’s not happy, but he couldn’t refuse.”

Fran slurped in the bacon and tilted her head back.  “D*mn.  I wanted to play more pranks with her.”

Brookie treated her to a disdainful look.  “Really?  Do you want another bruise like the one on your abs?”

Fran stiffened, eyes widening.  “You saw that?”  Cr*p.  Did he see the chest compressor?  Does he know I’m a girl?

“No, but Arthur described it in vivid detail when he was persuading me that I wanted to look after you myself rather than turn you over to the care of the matrons.”  Pushing himself to his feet, he blinked slowly.  “Really, you should leave Kevin and Simon to me and Arthur.  If they bother you, tell one of us and we’ll sort them out.  Don’t try to do it yourself.  They’ll just beat you to a pulp.”

“I have to handle it myself,” Fran objected stubbornly.  “They’ll think I’m a coward otherwise.”

Closing his eyes, Brookie let out a long breath.  “Arthur and Piers both said you’d say that.  Look, there’s nothing wrong with letting friends fight something for you if you can’t do it fully yourself.  Why don’t you just trust us to do the job?”