Take some fresh air

Fresh air should do. You’re walking home anyway, so you head off, not along the roads but towards the shortcut and the park. That route takes you past the school’s sports ground.

It’s surprisingly busy, a gaggle of girls busy with hockey practice. You recognise several of the girls from your classes. They’re wearing dark tops and short skirts, shorter even than the school uniform. You also recognise Blair, shouting her instructions. She’s looking mighty fine in her tight training top, and her tight training shorts, her fair hair in a ponytail. You stop for a moment to watch.

Blair and several of the girls notice you watching. “Girls, gather up,” Blair shouts, and the girls congregate in the middle of field. “Striking practice.” Blair gets the girls into groups of 3, lines them up, then drops a set of balls in front of each group. One girl gets to strike all the balls towards the goal at the far end. Once all the balls have been struck the striker has to fetch the balls back, and one of her companions switches to striking. Blair watches a couple of rounds and then meanders over towards you.

“Like what you see?” Does she mean the way her sports bra struggles to keep her prodigious breasts in check? Or does she mean the girls training? Whatever the question, you know it’s a trick.

“Some of the girls take training very seriously.”

“You think they take hockey training seriously. You should watch the football training on Thursday. Then you’ll see serious. We struggle to field enough for the hockey team these days. And we struggle to find opposition. You ever into sports, John?”

“No. Wasn’t my thing. I follow a bit of football, that’s it, but I don’t really support a team.”

“No, exercise? You look like the kind of guy who’s goes to the gym regularly but doesn’t know what to do.”

“No. I don’t go to gyms. As you say, I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“If you need any guidance, I’m willing to show you. You can use the school gym, just not in school hours.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

For a while you talk about how you’re fitting in at the school. You can’t help remember others calling Blair a maneater. Then again it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you were eaten by her.

Your conversation is broken by screams. Screams that summon both Blair and yourself to a clot of gathering girls. They’re gathering around a fallen comrade. A gathering that parts when Blair demands.

There’s a girl on the floor, blood, and several girls looking crestfallen. Both you and Blair push the last few away to squat down to the **** girl. You recognise her. It’s Brianna, {if Brianna= 1} your next-door neighbour {else} the redheaded girl from the Upper Sixth ‘B’ Stream {endif}.

“What happened?” Blair demands. There’s already a bump rising on Brianna’s temple, and blood oozing from the crack.

“I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean to,” one of the girls is weeping, already in tears.

Blair turns to one of the other girls and directs her to find out if nurse Karlee is still in. The girl runs off. You squat down and Blair looks at you.

“Look at the left hand,” someone says. Brianna’s left hand is a wreck. The skin in puckered and bleeding. Her fingers and disjointed, pointing the wrong way.

“She’s breathing. It looks ok. We’ll wait until Nurse Karlee gets here. Can you keep her company, if she comes round keep her still. Especially keep that hand still. I’ll calm the others down.”

You take Brianna’s right hand while Blair rises to deal with the girls. Brianna is not much smaller than you, and your hands are about the same size. You put your other hand on her shoulder, hoping that she can feel that. You can see her breasts rising and falling.

Meanwhile, behind you, you can hear Blair finding out what happened. It sounds like a simple accident. One of the girls hit the ball harder than she expected. It rose up. Brianna was in the wrong position and got hit. The girl who did the hit is inconsolable. Blair orders her friends to take her away and then dismisses most of the rest. Most of them are slow to go.

But you’re distracted by the stirring of Brianna. You can see her eyelids flitter. She starts to shift. You place your hand on her shoulder and tell her to lie still. She groans in response. Then she starts moving her left arm. You reach down and hold the upper arm to keep it still.

“Don’t move that,” you tell her. You see one of the fingers twitch. She’s clearly trying to move the others. You need to stop her. You don’t know how.

Nurse Karlee rescues you. She’s out of uniform, in a black and white t-shirt and jeans. She’s panting and flushed, clearly having run all the way. She almost drops her nurse’s bag as she squats down. She spends a second looking at you and smiling a thanks, then she turns her attention back to the injured girl. She’s full of soothing words as she starts her professional examination. It’s the second time you’ve seen her bedside manner today, and it’s the second time you’re impressed.