Stormfly, Chapter Two (standard:adventure, 648 words) [2/3] show all parts
Author: Brian Cross	Added: Sep 18 2005	Views/Reads: 2880/3	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Continuation of a childhood drama set in Suffolk, UK

CHAPTER TWO 

I hadn't realised that Tom wasn't well, and if Annie knew, she never
said. Tom was a good-looking guy, with his fair hair and acne free 
complexion. It all suggested health to my own ignorant mind. 

My lungs felt like they were bursting as I tried to match Annie stride
for stride, and hers were so long, but I was doing it too, with the 
help of a whacking surge of adrenaline – until I heard Tom's stifled 
shout. He was clutching his chest, and then suddenly down on his knees, 
head hung towards the ground. 

Annie heard it too; barely out of breath, she turned in annoyance, hands
on hips, ‘Tom, for heaven's sake we'll never make it if you don't buck 
up. All this crap about girls being the weaker...' 

‘I think it's serious,' I think I snapped at her, I can't remember
having done that before; but he was wheezing, the sound was awful, like 
he was dragging the lining of his lungs into his throat. 

‘Tom?' Annie frowned, her expression turned from anger to confusion, to
concern. She hurried back, stooped beside him. He was struggling for 
breath; he couldn't speak. The wind had risen in advance of the 
impending storm. 

She turned to me, I don't think she really saw me, ‘I think it's asthma,
I've seen this kind of thing before – that right?' 

Tom managed a nod, I'd never seen him so red, ‘Where's your medication?'
I cut in. 

He shook his head, ‘Inhaler indoors,' he croaked. 

‘Christ...' Annie slapped a hand on her brow, blew enough wind to
inflate a sail, ‘fat lot of good it'll do there! He comes out here, 
into the middle of a cornfield in what might be the hottest day of the 
year, a mile and a half from home without his inhaler – and now the 
wind – and soon the storm...' she chewed her lip, in the darkening sky 
her eyes seemed like lanterns, ‘we'll never get him back in his state, 
anything could happen, we need shelter.' 

I remember the question of shelter sounded absurd, because it was all
open land. ‘There isn't any,' I said flatly. 

‘Of course there is; Norton Manor,' those lantern-like eyes burned into
me, I will always remember their intensity. 

‘Huh!' I ridiculed her. ‘The de Vere estate, you must be joking. Like
they live in the nineteenth century, we won't get past the housekeeper. 
Tom might be ill, but they'll still turn us out on our ear.' 

‘I wasn't thinking of that, everybody knows what they're like,' Annie
looked at me as though I was stupid, ‘just somewhere to keep him dry 
while I go for help, you creep.' 

“You creep,” those words smashed into my chest with the force of a
blacksmith's blow. Was that what she really thought of me? 

I swallowed, tried to look unconcerned, when I should have been
concerned for Tom, ‘There's a ten foot wall around the stable block and 
a bloody big locked gate.' 

She scowled at that when all I'd told her was the truth. ‘I can scale
the wall and unlock the gate from the inside. I've done it before when 
I was a kid wanting to see the gee-gees. Now are you with me or do I 
have to carry him there myself?' 

I couldn't have scaled the wall, but my indignation might have done. Yet
another thing she could do, but of course, I might have known. 

A quarter mile to the east, Norton Manor lay, its extensive grounds
bordering my Uncle's small farm. I doubt that even she could have 
carried him that far, but I do know she would have tried, and I was 
having none of it. 

So we hoisted Tom between us and began our journey to the stable-block
of Norton Manor, just as the first big drops of rain began to fall. 


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