VERY MILD SPOILER ALERT FOR A FOX OF STORMS AND STARLIGHT. It’s a minor explanatory thing that comes out in chapter 9 of Fox Book, which provides motivation for a major plot point that happens in chapter 12 (there are 49 chapters).
CONTENT NOTIFICATION: Kevin’s point-of-view scenes have a lot of swearing. Sorry-not-sorry. But maybe don’t read if the f-word offends you.
Also, this is an unedited draft. Feel free to let me know in the comments if you spot typos etc, but yo: unedited draft, so read accordingly.
Catch up on Chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3.
4: Sunny
I have no idea what he wants from me.
But I know what I want from him.
It’s why I’m clutching my books so tightly in front of me, something to keep my hands busy, occupied, so I don’t reach out and grab him right here and now in front of the whole school and snog his brains out.
I’m trembling and I’m terrified because I don’t understand where this feeling’s coming from of why it’s suddenly reared its head—yes, five weeks is suddenly, it is when it take you five solid minutes just to choose what to eat for breakfast and a good three months to make up your mind on elective subjects for school and one of the many, many catch phrases your family directs at you directly relates your decision-making capabilities to the speed of a tree’s nerve impulses (one inch per second, in case you were wondering).
Five weeks? It’s a blink of an eye, and yet here I am, won over by scrap paper and smiles, and I can hardly breathe as I stare into Kevin’s deep, dark eyes that catch the afternoon light like gems, like obsidian. The air is warm with the scent of eucalyptus and I’m hot and sweat and all of a sudden all I can think about is how it’d be cooler if I took my shirt off and oh my God, now I’m blushing and it’s just making my cheeks even hotter.
He asked me a question.
Flowers.
Right.
Flowers.
“Yes,” I say, breaking the lock of our gaze before it runs me through. In the shade of the trees, long tussock grass waves invitingly. There’s a trail of ants, little teeny black ones—picnic ants, Mina and I called them, because they always used to appear when we’d have picnics in the backyard when we were kids—and the ants are scurrying up the smooth, grey-and-tan bark of the closest eucalypt tree.
I dare another glance at Kevin’s dark eyes. “Thanks.”
His eyes shine, and it’s the closest thing I’ve seen to a smile on his face. “Come on.”
He turns abruptly, crunching his way over fallen strips of back and dried, olive-toned leaves, into the bush and away from the school, away from the road… away from safety.
I lick my lips.
I’ve never kissed anyone before.
“Where are we going?” I ask as I step over a fallen branch, creamy pale and about as thick as my wrist. Our footsteps scrunch through the detritus on the ground, and even though we’re in the shade, it’s not much cooler than it was in the sun. My hands are getting damp holding onto my books, and I should have put them in my bag—I should stop and do it now, but I don’t want to stop in case he gets the wrong idea, like I want to go back or something, but the pages are getting damp under my palms and I’m going to wreck my books.
“I want to show you something.” The look he shoots me is fierce, as though daring me to disagree—and it fires liquid courage through my veins.
“Just a sec,” I said. “Let me put my stuff in my bag.”
I slide my heavy black schoolbag to the ground, unzip it with a whirr, and shove my books inside. Sweat slides down my temple—I can taste it, salty on my lips, and it’s making my underarms hot and I can feel it under the band of my bra and where my thighs touch—and once again, the desire to strip everything off sweeps over me, and I’m so horrified that I actually bend over and put my face to the opening of my bag—old banana envelops me, I didn’t throw away the peel from my lunch—and I’m hyperventilating, almost, because what on earth is wrong with me?
“Hey, are you okay?”
I freeze.
“Sunny?”
Oh my God, it’s the first time he’s said my name.
He said. My name.
I’m going to die.
And then his hand touches my shoulder, and it’s light, and fragile, like a swan’s feather, and I close my eyes and suddenly everything is alright, because he said my name and he asked me here and he’s touching my shoulder and I haven’t died yet, and after all, I’m here by choice, and it’s not like he’s tried to make a move or anything, I’m the idiot crouching here obsessing about nudity.
I sit up properly. Smile at him—a kind of fake thing, initially, but the second I catch his gaze it softens into something real, and I smile—really smile—back at him. “Yeah,” I say. “I’m great.”
“Here.” He grabs my bag, slings it up on one shoulder. “Let me take that for you.”
“Thanks,” I say, and scramble back to my feet like a new-born fawn.
Fawns are cute though, right? Fawns are cute. And the look in his eyes says he’s not judging me for my inelegance at least, and once again, it fires me with confidence, because he’s looking at me like I’m his goddess, and I could do anything in the light of that gaze.
I follow him through the bush in silence—my trademark, after all, and clearly he either doesn’t mind or didn’t think through his choice of target for his little roses, because it’s entirely likely he’s only heard me speak once or twice in his life before now anyway—and the only things I can hear is the puffing of our breaths, the swish-crackle-thump of our footsteps, and the scuff-squeak of my schoolbag on his back. It sways a little in time with his footsteps. My ponytail does too, swishing back and forth across the back of my neck. It doesn’t quite tickle—it’s too expected for that—but it’s a comforting sort of feeling, and I imagine what it would be like to have Kevin’s fingers brushing over the back of my neck like that.
Probably not quite as soft.
Probably a lot more comforting.
A magpie warbles in a nearby gum—the gums with the grey and cream trunk with hints of olive green—then launches itself into the air, a black-and-white arrow streaking ahead of us before getting lost in the trees.
We follow it.
Surely if he just wanted to… you know. Kiss me or something. If he only wanted to do that away from prying eyes, we’d have stopped by now. Which means that he actually has something he wants to show me, and it’s out here in the bush somewhere, and I have no idea how to feel about that. I know he used to be a dickhead back in Years 7 and 8. Back then, I’d have believed in an instant that he was only luring me out here to prank me at best, maybe murder me at worst.
Okay that’s unkind, I never pictured him as the kind of guy who could murder someone—that’s just my imagination running away with me because I read too much—even Mina says so—and when I’m not reading, I’m writing, and the whole point of a good story is to make it about conflict, you know? So it’s a bad habit I’m developing to automatically jump to the worst-case scenario anytime something unfamiliar happens, and getting murdered in the bush, or kidnapped, or heck, even just lost in the bush is definitely a worse-case scenario.
Plus it’s totally implausible. Not only was Kevin never the kind of guy who’d murder someone in the bush—oh God, stop thinking about Kevin and murder!!—he’s not even the kind of guy to get lost in the bush, and although I don’t know my way through this particular area, I’ve been wandering around through the eucalypts and tea tree, the wattles and the sedge grasses since I was old enough to be let out of the backyard with Mina. The taste of the baked-eucalypt air, the dry dust in the back of your throat, the hot sun beating down on your skin and sweat trickling down your neck, your knees, dampening your hair, your upper lip… All this is intimately familiar to me.
I’ve never been lost in the bush yet.
I don’t intend to start now.
Kevin draws to a halt in front of me at an old fallen tree, silvered with age, the trunk wide enough that I’d need a hand up to step up onto it. To our right, the roots are still dangling in the air, partially decayed but still there, like the waving fronds of an anemone or something.
Kevin walks around to the shade of the roots, slings my bag to the ground amid the yellow-flowering weeds and long, needle-spiked grass clumps, motions me closer.
I take the invitation for everything it’s worth, stepping close to his side. It’s disgustingly hot, but I don’t care: I let my arm brush against his anyway, because I can’t not, because I want to see how he responds.
He doesn’t draw away.
My heart is hammering in my chest and I’m hyper aware of every inch of my skin right now as the sun beats down overhead—the fallen tree has created a clearing of sorts, and while the baby trees race to fill the gap and gorge themselves on sunlight, they haven’t managed it yet. There’s precious little shade except for what the root ball throws over our legs, and it’s hot, hot, hot, and I’m slick with sweat, and if there was so much as a puddle nearby I’d throw myself into it without consideration.
“Look,” Kevin says, nodding toward the root ball.
Dutifully, I tear my attention away from him—I can still feel his shirt sleeve brushing against my arm—and scrutinise the scene in front of me.
There’s a hole, a burrow, underneath the root ball—I don’t notice it right away because it’s at the deepest part of the hole formed when the tree uprooted, and the crooks and crevices in the reddish dirt look entirely natural—until you squint right and realise that that darker, deeper part, right there on the left… that’s a burrow.
“What’s in there?” I ask.
“Echidna,” he says, and he lets his arms drop—the back of his hand brushes my arm—it’s like an electric current, sparking adrenalin through my whole body.
“Oh,” I say carefully, straining to keep my emotions from my voice. “That’s really cool. You’ve seen it?”
Kevin nods, staring at the burrow. “If… If you’ve got time… I mean, I come past here on the way home most days. If you’re not… in a hurry, if we wait, we’ll probably find it somewhere around here.”
His whole body has gone tense, taut, waiting for my answer.
“I asked if I could go to Ellie’s house,” I say. “She’ll cover for me for a bit, but I have to be home by six.”
Something in him dissolves, and for the first time since I walked toward him across the edge of the school grounds, he turns directly to me. He grins, a fierce, delighted thing, and my heart kicks, because I did that.
Without thinking, I reach out. Grab his hand in mine. Lace my fingers through his, and my heart’s pounding so hard I feel like I’m going to pop a vein in my temple.
Oh, God. What if he pulls away?
Kevin stares at our linked hands. Swallows hard enough to visibly move his throat. “Not… Not at school yet, okay?” The request is hoarse, and for a moment I tighten my grip involuntarily, offended—Is he ashamed to be seen with me? Am I not good enough for his mates?—but he doesn’t really have mates, not properly, he’s kind of floating through school, dislocated and disconnected, and then I see his face and realise he’s not ashamed.
He’s terrified.
I, the quiet, nearly-mute baby of the family whom everyone is afraid will break… I have made someone terrified. I straighten. Stand tall. I turn back to the burrow with the barest sliver of a smile softening my lips. And this time, I squeeze his hand carefully, with deliberation. “Not at school,” I agree. “Not yet.”
Keep reading: Chapter 5