Boys Don't Ride

Boys Don’t Ride

  By

  Katharina Marcus

  Copyright © Katharina Marcus 2014

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Original cover art by Barbara Marcus

  Cover by bluemoondesign

  ISBN 9781311664648

  Also by Katharina Marcus

  Eleanor McGraw, a pony named Mouse and a boy called Fire (2013)

  The Boy with the Amber Eyes (2015)

  Tull was starving.

  Thunder had been rolling quietly around his stomach for the last hour or so.

  Now, staring at the pulled down shutters of the school’s canteen over the heads of five other students, he could actually hear the rumbling clearly above the noise the cluster of Year 12 boys at the front was making. He wondered whether the girl that stood between them and him could hear it, too.

  She was half a head shorter than him, ergo half a head closer to his gargling intestines, but if she had noticed she was polite enough not to show it. Or maybe she was just too absorbed in balancing her various belongings. She was carrying an art folder as well as her PE bag in her right hand, while holding some kind of shoebox object in her left. He wondered how she was going to pick up her tray but another loud noise from his midriff interrupted his musings. It sent his cheeks blushing and he turned to look out of the window into the drab November grey.

  The world outside had been doused in cold, slushy sleet that morning and he focused his attention on the starbursts of spray on the pane, trying hard not to be too aware of the girl’s proximity, but even with his nose turned away he could still smell her.

  She smelled good.

  Not like most of the other six form girls who were followed around the corridors by wafts of obnoxious perfume but like a person who had showered that morning. Her short, very fair hair exuded the faint scent of apple, vanilla and cinnamon - like his mum’s Christmas crumble. There was also something else, something more permanent, more fundamental, something he knew he should know but couldn’t quite grasp that came with an almost unbearable yearning. Frustrated with not being able to identify it, he concentrated on the crumble aspect and his body promptly emitted another loud growl.

  He turned back to see if she was looking at him yet. As he did he caught a glimpse of one of the boys in front who was stumbling backward that instant, threatening to crush her.

  Just in time, Tull managed to put a protective arm around her personal space. He propped the intruder up with a flat palm between the shoulder blades and gave him a nudge forward.

  “Careful, man, there are other people here,” he heard himself say sternly.

  He kept his arm up a while longer, hugging the air around her and suddenly became acutely aware of the force field that seemed to surround her. It was pushing against his skin, like the north of one magnet pushing the north of another. Bewildered he let his hand sink back to his side.

  While the boy in front uttered a series of half hearted ‘sorries’, already heading into the canteen that had finally opened its gates, the girl glanced at Tull over her shoulder and mouthed a ‘thank you’.

  He could tell that surprise mixed itself into her gratitude once she’d laid eyes on him.

  He knew that look.

  It said that faces like his were not supposed to be nice or caring. They were supposed to be arrogant and condescending.

  Though once thought that idea itself seemed so vain it made his cheeks burn with shame.

  A second later they were swept along by the ravenous queue that had formed behind them and he immediately lost her in the hustle and bustle. For the fraction of a second, before he turned his attention to the business of selecting food, he contemplated her weird looks.

  Her ever so slightly slanted green eyes that he would have expected to be blue to go with her almost white hair had sat left and right of a bridgeless, flattish and slightly lopsided nose, giving her an overall feline appearance. Two telltale scars running into the ill defined cupid’s bow of her ragged lips had whispered cleft palate baby at him. In a weirdly raffish way she had still been quite pretty though.

  Scrappy cat pretty.

  Some kid bumped into him and he shook himself out of the reverie to begin inwardly debating meal choices in earnest. The hot food counter lured with offerings that warmed the stomach but hot lunches were almost twice the price of a baguette and it was the beginning of the month. Tull could never be sure whether his dad would already have topped up his school meals account or not and his own wallet was sitting on his desk at home. Having to leave a baguette at the till was infinitely less embarrassing than having to take a hot lunch plate, complete with extra gravy, back to the dinner ladies behind the counter, so at last a rubber bread stick filled with tuna glue and limp salad won the debate. He made his way to one of the tills with trepidation. His inkling proved right when the cashier shook her head as soon as Tull put his index finger onto the cashless payment scanner.

  “Not enough credit, darling, you need to go to the machine and top up,” she stated flatly.

  He shrugged and grabbed the baguette.

  “I’ll take it back,” he mumbled dejectedly.

  Suddenly a pale hand touched him just below the elbow, exerting the lightest of pressure. It was dry, warm, a little calloused with short, ragged nails and bore serious strength underneath the mere brush of a touch. His skin appeared to be suckered towards it, nestling itself firmly into the rough palm.

  “I’ll put it on mine,” the girl said quietly, “You can pay me back another time.”

  She detached and he found her face to see her smiling at him.

  A tiny, close-lipped smile.

  Their eyes made contact and in that shortest of moments he could see the kindred soul.

  She’d been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

  She knew what it was like being this hungry and not having a penny to one’s name.

  She knew about absent fathers that sometimes paid and sometimes didn’t. And about mothers who were present but refused to get involved once an agreement had been struck.

  She knew.

  *****

  Days later he was lying on his bed, watching a hairline crack in the ceiling slowly grow fainter as dusk advanced outside and thinking about her again.

  She had paid, nodded at him curtly and then disappeared with her tray and all her belongings into the dinner hall, hardly giving him time to thank her or ask her name.

  He’d managed to find her the next day to give back what he owed her. It had earned him another minimalist smile, another sharp nod, another missed opportunity to ask who she was. And that had been the end of the story.

  Only it hadn’t been.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t help but look out for her every day.

  That random act of kindness, such a rarity in the jungle of an educational establishment, had humbled him. He wanted to know what kind of person would do that, what kind of person could be both so guarded and generous at the same time, what kind of person was behind those eyes that had understood so much so quickly. He wanted to know what the shoebox had been about, why her hands were so calloused, what shampoo she used to make her hair smell of Christmas, what that scent underneath had been and whether the scars to her lip itched sometimes when the weather was hot, the way his appendicitis one did. There was also the part of him that kept imagining what it would be like to kiss those jagged edged lips, whether it would change the feel of kissing significantly or not.

  Those lips.

  Mouthing ‘thank you’ at him.

  He’d l
iked that.

  He wanted them to do that again.

  He dragged himself out of the daydream when he heard the faint clip clop of hooves through the shut window. He listened to their rhythm and tried to determine how many sets, how many horses there were in the road. Three, he reckoned, and they were hurrying at a fast walk, undoubtedly trying to get home before the light in the sky would fade completely.

  He didn’t get up to check though.

  When they had first moved out to the edge of the city, years ago, after his parents had split, he had got properly excited every time riders went past the house. Rain or shine, he had run out of the front door and stood by the edge of the road to watch them go by. While other boys in his class had known every type of dinosaur, Tull had been able to recite all the horse colours by heart and would tell anyone who was prepared to listen the difference between a dark and a bright bay, between the chestnuts – golden, ginger and liver - between a piebald and a skewbald, a palomino and a cremello and between the many different types of grey.

  Sometimes the riders had stopped and let him stroke a horse’s soft nostril or pat it on the neck. Afterwards Tull would pester his mum for days to buy him a pony and later, when he understood better, to at least let him have lessons at the local riding school, just up the road. His mum would explain patiently time and time again that there was no money for such expensive activities and when Tull had finally plucked up the courage to ask his father he’d got the cliché answer his then ten-year-old self had already expected.

  Riding, his father had stated categorically, was for girls. Little girls with rich parents and ponies called Jemima.

  Undeterred, Tull had started saving up what little pocket money he received but by the time he’d finally managed to save up enough for one lesson, the riding school had shut down. The place had been a private yard ever since, riders still rode past his house but joining them one day had become even more unattainable than ever.

  Little Tull had cried himself to sleep when he’d heard about the closure, taken his Equine Colour Chart off the wall, packed up his horse fact books and resigned himself to his fate as a non-rider. To this day, he still stopped at every horse field he came across and fed any occupant interested a handful of grass from the wayside but he had long given up on running out of the house to catch a glimpse.

  As the sound of the riders ebbed away, a creak from the door hinges told him that the cat had pushed her head into the room. He turned to watch her pad stealthily across to the bed only to jump onto the mattress next to him with a loud, self announcing meow. She butted his hip with her forehead but Tull knew better than to pet her. The bundle of black and white fur he had rescued out of a bin years ago did not take kindly to being stroked. No matter how friendly her rubbing against him seemed he knew that upon the merest touch she’d pounce on his hand and dig her claws far enough into his flesh to draw blood. Her rules of engagement had always been clear. She could love him but under no circumstances was he to love her back. Tull took a deep breath and suppressed the urge to stroke her anyway.

  Unattainable beings. Story of his life.

  He swallowed hard and got up to see what the kitchen cupboard would yield for dinner.

  *****

  “Right, I give up,” Sue pushed her plate away and folded her arms on the table, “You haven’t said more than two words to me in days. I am fully aware that I didn’t give birth to a potential chat show host but this is ridiculous. Out with it. What are you moping about?”

  “Boys don’t mope, mum, boys brood.”

  Tull chased the last two pasta shells around his plate listening to his mum chuckle. It didn’t last long though.

  “Come on, Tull,” she pleaded, “Don’t shut me out. What’s up?”

  “There is this girl,” he began answering half-heartedly while he carried on playing with his food.

  “Uh-huh,” his mum made one of her counsellor noises and Tull could feel himself getting annoyed already.

  “Don’t try and counsel me, mum.”

  “I’m not. I’m listening.”

  “I rest my case.”

  “Clever clogs.”

  “Now we’re talking,” Tull grinned sarcastically.

  “Okay, so there is a girl,” Sue stated with an ill disguised smile, “and you like her?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t really know her. - She bought me lunch.”

  “Well, I like her already. So what did you talk about?”

  “We didn’t. That’s all she did. Literally. I was…” he stopped himself before he would inadvertently rouse another discussion about his dad and the continuously erratic side of the lunch money arrangements and waved his fork dismissively, “It doesn’t matter. Forget it. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  He skewered the last two conchiglie onto the prongs, put them in his mouth and got up to collect the dishes, still chewing.

  “Leave it,” his mum said taking the plates from his hands, “you did the cooking - and delicious it was, too, thank you very much - I’ll do the washing up.”

  Tull nodded and made to leave the front room.

  “And Tull?”

  He turned to face her again. In the dim light of the single, chrome skirted bulb that hung over their little dining table she looked tired and old. Her silver streaked frizzy brown curls framed a heart shaped face with delicate features that normally looked a decade younger than she actually was but tonight she seemed to be made exclusively of hollow cheeks and sunken eye sockets.

  “You’re an exceptionally good-looking boy,” she sighed, “And kind, too. If she’s worth her salt she’ll notice.”

  He smiled at his mother then, knowing that she would never understand if he told her that his stupid good looks were exactly the problem. He took a step towards her and retrieved the plates she was still clutching.

  She looked down, frowning at her suddenly empty hands.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked thinly.

  “Tidying up,” Tull jerked his head in direction of the settee, “You. Sofa. Now.”

  She didn’t fight it and when Tull came back fifteen minutes later to wipe the table down, she was already fast asleep in front of the TV.

  He put a blanket over her, switched the telly over to a programme he knew she’d watch if she was awake and left the room.

  *****

  “Hey, stop staring at Lips, will ya? It’s bordering on rude,” Amelia nudged him hard in the ribs.

  Tull jerked and took his eyes off the girl sitting on her own at the far corner table of the dinner hall, ear phones stuck in her ears, music player in hand, which she appeared to stop and start at regular intervals in between jotting something down on a piece of paper.

  He looked around his own table, slightly disorientated.

  There were eight of them. Amelia, Karla, Ben, Rosie, Nathan, Ed, Connor and Roland. Names and faces he’d known for years, saw every day, listened to endlessly, might even consider friends but, really, they were just other people.

  People he didn’t know and who didn’t know him.

  “What’s going on?” Amelia’s elbow made impact with his side once more and a broad grin spread across her overly made up face.

  Tull turned to her, frowning deeply.

  “What did you call her?”

  “What? Lips?”

  “That’s really nasty,” he scowled.

  Amelia looked taken aback, pushing her lower lip out into a semi-pout that once upon a time had driven him crazy with lust. These days it just looked childish to him. Although no less kissable than before, he had to admit.

  She was a good kisser, Amelia.

  He’d shamelessly sampled her aptitude for tongue gymnastics at every opportunity for most of Year 12 but somehow, over the summer holidays they’d slowly stopped seeing each other. There had been no big break up scene, the same way there had never been an eligibly romantic getting-together-story. The previous Halloween Amelia, dressed as
The Corpse Bride, had insisted that Tull’s scraped-together, vaguely Victorian zombie outfit could be easily mistaken for a passable love interest and had simply pounced on him. It had been nice, so they’d kept it going but without much interaction aside from rolling tongues around in each other’s mouths they’d both become increasingly bored over the months. Eventually, it had simply ended in a trickling demise of interest on both sides, culminating in a party at Ben’s house where she’d gone to lavish her talents on the host instead. She had been doing so ever since.

  “No it’s not,” she stated defensively, “That’s her name. That’s what everyone at mum’s yard calls her. She don’t mind. ”

  At the mentioning of the fact that Amelia’s mother possessed a horse Tull felt a familiar stab of envy in his gut. While they’d been sort of going out he’d asked her a couple of times if they could go and see it one day. She had said ‘sure’ but nothing had ever come of it. Amelia didn’t really do horses outside of bragging about her family owning one.

  As if his comprehension was on time delay this morning, he suddenly understood what she’d just said and felt a smile spread across his face as the realisation hit him with all the force of a lightening bolt.

  Horse. The smell. Underneath the crumble. It had been horse.

  His eyes wandered back to the lone figure across the hall.

  “Doesn’t,” he corrected Amelia with a distracted sigh, “She doesn’t mind. – And I doubt it. What’s her real name?”

  “Liberty,” Amelia answered sullenly, “You fancy her?”

  He wanted to throttle her for the disbelief in her voice but instead he got up and smiled down at her.

  “I don’t know, yet. But I’m going to find out.”

  As he left their table he put himself in their shoes for a moment, observed himself swagger off confidently through their eyes. He wished it was real. He wished his mouth hadn’t dried to Sahara level and that he wouldn’t be able to hear all the seven oceans rushing in his ears.

  What was it about this girl that intimidated him this much?

  Why did she make him this nervous?

  While he approached he watched her absentmindedly pick up the Styrofoam cup she’d been sipping from, put it to her lips and then set it down without swallowing any liquid. Evidently it had run empty. His heart rate normalised a little then and he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. At the very least he had a way in. He could offer to buy her another coffee. He had credit today.