Chapter 18 and up

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Chapter 17

‘We have to find Emma,’ Eric said for the hundredth time in the cabin’s lodge. He checked his phone for reception, once again there was none. As Eric was jittering with worry, the rest of the students were lounging by the fireplace.

‘Dude, take a chill pill. She and Tom probably went somewhere to make out,’ said Jeremy

‘Or do…other things.’ His friend added. They laughed.

Eric gave them a look which made them stop laughing instantly.

 ‘Since they’re not sending out a search team until dawn I’m going to find her-them,’ said Eric. He draped on a scarf and left with his backpack and torch.

‘What’s up with him?’ Jeremy asked his friend after Eric had left into the wilderness.

‘That’s Eric being Eric. The kind of hero that would respond to a distress call of a cat in the middle of the night.’

‘I bet he just wants his cabin mate with him tonight so Miss Cam doesn’t sneak into his bed and ‘have her way’ with him.’

*

‘Itch,’ said Emma

‘Another one?’

‘Yeah, my arm.’ Tom and Emma had been waiting under the same tree for hours, rationing food and water from their backpacks between them. As Emma’s left arm was holding pressure onto her leg Tom was helping her with every itch and task she couldn’t reach or do one armed. It was dark in the bush now and the sound of crickets and unexplained noises were playing in the background.

‘Um, Tom? That’s not my arm you’re scratching.’

‘Oh right…sorry.’ Realising what he was actually touching, Tom shied away glad that it was too dark to see him blush.

‘They’re not going to find us tonight are they?’

‘Well if it comes to cannibalism, that leg’s ready to go,’ said Tom. Emma punched him with her available arm. Tom laughed and blanketed his jacket on her after feeling her shiver from the cold. He inched in closer to share some of his body heat knowing how easily Emma got cold.

‘I think I’m losing a lot of blood,’ she said to Tom. She could feel herself getting dizzy and her stomach making annoying somersaults. She looked up at Tom, to see him looking at her. A look that they had never in all their years of knowing each other had never shared before.

‘I found you! I was sure I heard talking. Oh God, Emma are you okay?’ Eric shone his flashlight into their faces. Emma and Tom broke their gaze and squinted their eyes at Eric who was still beaming his bright light into their eyes. Tom stood up and brushed the dirt off his shorts.

‘She’s getting weak. We better hurry.’

Eric pulled out his walkie talkie, okay more like the walkie talkie he ‘borrowed’ from the ranger’s office.

‘Get into my backpack for the first aid kit, I’ll take care of the help.’ Eric backed away to communicate with the ranger while Tom was sterilising Emma’s wound.

‘They’re sending out a helicopter,’ he said. Eric leaned over Emma who was halfway to passing out. Eric brushed her fringe away from her face.

‘Everything’s going to be okay now Emma, I’m here now.’

Tom turned away feeling an uneasiness at the pit of his stomach. 

Chapter 16

‘Along this four kilometre trek you will have to classify and record all the plants you see on the way. Now if you open your booklets on page…’

As the camp leaders were going on about the tasks and safety issues Tom tuned out and into his own train of thought. This blows. He thought. The only reason why he took biology was because he thought the curriculum loosely included sex and for the time it wasted watching documentaries in class…and also because Emma was taking the subject. Not that it mattered anymore since they were ignoring each other for a reason he couldn’t even remember. The weather had become much hotter when the students of Oaklea High stepped off the bus and left all the extra clothing for warmth on the bus.

‘Okay venturers, are you ready to classify some native plants?’ called out the enthusiastic camp leader.

The group mumbled. The camp leader cupped his ear.

‘I can’t hear you!’

The group mumbled again.

‘Alright! Grab your partner and let’s go!’ he yelled, beckoning the group to follow him. The group moved in two straight lines along the narrow pathway that led into the mountains. Eric was shoved all the way towards the front of the line with Miss Cameron whilst naturally Emma and Tom were loitering about at the back. Tom was practicing his soccer techniques by dribbling a stone along the way. Emma was having trouble keeping up, mostly because the person in front of her found it funny to pull back the branches and let go.

‘I swear Jeremy if you flick another branch at me I will happily open a can of whoop ass and offer you a generous helping of it,’ she said. I think I’ve been hanging around Shah too much. She thought. Emma turned to her left only to see Tom taking a detour from the trail and into the forest. She had no choice but to break the long silence.

‘Tom! Where are you going?’

Tom was too far away to hear Emma’s call. Reluctantly, she followed him. ‘What are doing? Where are you going?’

Tom answered her casually, as if they had not had been ignoring each other for weeks. He opened his map pointing on it for Emma ‘According to this map there’s a waterfall up this way but the path’s been blocked by some valley that I reckon we can easily climb. What do you think?’

‘I think we should go back before Miss Cameron realises we’re missing.’

‘Afraid of a little adventure are we Em?’

Emma grabbed the map from Tom’s hands. ‘North is this way doofus,’ she said, leading them into the correct direction of the waterfall marked on the map. Unbeknownst to her a big black hairy spider was crawling into her hair.

After what felt like hours had past they had reached the waterfall. At least, that’s what the map told them.

‘Tom, where’s the waterfall?’

Tom turned around in a circle like a dog chasing its tail. He smiled and shook his head.

‘Well, we had fun along the way didn’t we?’ He said and scuffed Emma’s hair. Emma was ready to give him a punch on the arm but a sound had stopped her.

‘Tom, do you hear that?’ she asked. They both paused listening to the gentle sound of trickling water. Tom followed the sound and moved aside a few branches. There behind the bushes and trees was a river. He turned to Emma ‘I guess we follow the river now.’

‘So how’re things with Cali girl?’ She asked in conversation as they were walking.

‘Oh. Alright I guess. Hey look!’ Tom pointed into the distance. From where they were standing the river seemed to have ended not too far away.

It was like they were looking at the front of a postcard. They peered down at the edge of the cliff, watching the fast-moving river crashing down to the white foam.

‘That. Is. So. Awesome.’ Said Tom in complete awe. Emma couldn’t hear him over roar of the waterfall.

‘You jumping?’ he yelled. Emma looked at him like he had just announced that he was joining the priesthood. She shook her head and pointed to the stiches on her leg. Tom shrugged.  He took off his shirt and stripped down to his board shorts. ‘Hold onto these,’ he said.

‘Er, um what er-’ she spluttered

He turned his head. ‘I’ll come back up. Don’t miss me too much,’ he said. He ran hands down his face and dived, disappearing into the white mist. Since when did Tom start working out? Not that I noticed- okay yeah I noticed I’m only human, she thought and jostled her head around to rid herself of such thoughts. As she searched for Tom from the edge of the waterfall, she felt an itch at the top of her scalp. Tom eventually returned to the top cheering like a mad man.

‘Woo! Did you see that Emma? Man what a rush! I was-’

Emma turned around to see dripping wet Tom’s fixated on something above her, his eyes widening in complete fear.

‘What?’ she asked. Even though his mouth was gaping, Tom was unable to speak and merely pointed to the top of Emma’s head. Now that he pointed it out, she could feel something crawling on her head…something with several legs. Emma shrieked. She shook her hair in every direction whilst running around in circles determined to get it off or get as far away from the thing on her head as possible. She was unable to see with the head of hair in her face and fell over, skidding onto the rocks in front of her.

Emma shrieked in pain as the stiches on her leg came undone. Blood rushed towards the opening and travelled down her leg. Tom ran to her aid.

‘Oh God! Ok, um put pressure on it. The blood flow will slow down, I think,’ he said. Emma dragged herself to the closest tree to lean on.

‘Go get help,’ she said.

‘What? No, I’m not leaving you here by yourself.’

‘I guess we’re going to be here until they find us,’

He shrugged and sat next to her against the tree.

‘Could take all night,’ she said

‘That’s fine with me.’

‘Fine,’ she huffed

‘Fine,’ he replied in an equally disgruntled tone and sat against the tree next to her.  They sat in silence for a moment.

‘Is the spider out of my hair at least?’

‘Actually it flew out of your hair a while ago. I was going to say something but watching you have a spaz attack was just too funny that I didn’t have it in me to tell you.’

Chapter 15

A week or two had passed and still Emma and Tom had not said a word to one another. Tom stopped waiting for Emma in the morning; it didn’t matter anyway because Eric picked her up in his silver Audi. Funny how as Emma and Tom’s friendship was facing rocky ground Emma and Eric’s whatever-it-was was progressing. Maybe Eric’s initial theory about the sort-of kiss relieving them of their awkward tension had merit after all. The only thing preventing Emma from getting any closer was the nagging voice at the back of her head yelling ‘GEMMA GEMMA GEMMA.’ Speaking of which Eric still had not mentioned at all.

It was now five am in the morning and the senior biology students of Oaklea High were waiting in the car park to be seated into the bus that would take them to their three-day camp in the ranges. Everyone was dressed appropriately for the cold weather. Emma was wearing her grey beanie and three thick jackets that made arm movement difficult.

Eric laughed ‘Emma what are these?’ He asked, lifting Emma’s hand.

‘Gloves,’ Emma replied

‘I can see that but some of it appears to be missing,’

‘They’re fingerless gloves…they’re cool,’ she said defensively. Although she frowned when she saw her fingers beginning to turn a shade of purple.

‘As ‘cool’ as they may be, they’re not exactly practical. I’ve got an extra pair in the car. I’ll go and get them.’

‘No Eric it’s not-’

But she could already see his back, making his way to the student car park on the other side of the school.

‘-necessary.’ She continued weakly, knowing no one was listening to her.

‘Alright everyone grab a partner and get on the bus,’

The students flocked frantically towards the bus determined not to become the last ones left to get the second row seat behind the teacher.

‘Eric hurry up!’ Emma called out to Eric who was running back to the bus with the pair of gloves in his hand.  The teacher, Miss Cameron, who was watching behind her said ‘Sorry Emma, due to safety regulations we can’t have you sitting next to Eric.’

‘Miss Cameron are you serious? Why not?’

‘It’s a security risk to call out your partner’s name.’

‘That makes no sense!’

‘Emma, I don’t make the rules okay? Now I know you and Tom are practically joined at the hip so I’ll just seat you two together.’

‘But er miss-’

‘See? It’s not so bad.’

Oh God, four more hours of this? Thought Emma. The ‘this’ she was referring to was the bus ride where she was sitting next to Tom who was playing tetris whilst listening to music on his ipod. Emma looked out the window. It was pouring outside and the rain pounding on the window was blocking the view. The phone in her pocket vibrated which startled Emma. She yelped.

Eric

30-Mar-09 5:35am

I have nothing against Miss C

But why did she have to move me next to her? She

won’t stop talking about her porcelain cat

collection. How’re things doing back there?

Emma smiled as she read Eric’s text grateful for any form of human communication. At the corner of his eye Tom was watching Emma. He was aching to talk to his best friend. The last time they had gone this long without talking to one another was after the famous Cornstarch Incident of ’05. Oh shit she’s looking at me staring at her with the corner of my eye with the corner of her eye. As soon as they had made eye contact Tom turned back to his game of Tetris and Emma went back to the raindrops.

Emma

30-Mar-09 5:36am

I left my ipod in your car. GREAT.

She planned this.  Everyone

knows Miss Cam has a crush on you

Less than a second later after pressing OK Emma heard Eric’s phone beep from the front of the bus.

Emma was getting restless waiting for a reply text. Moments passed when Jeremy, who was sitting in the seat in front of Tom, turned around in his seat ‘Hey Emma?’

‘What?’

Jeremy handed over a piece of paper over to Emma through the gap between the chairs. Emma opened the piece of paper.

It was either I had to turn my phone off or show her the text message. She was really determined to find out who it was from. Sorry Emma I’ll see you at the camp.

-Eric

After Emma read the note from Eric she folded it up and placed it in her jeans pocket. She sighed. It was going to be a long ride.

Chapter 14

 ‘What did I do wrong?’ he asked. His dark brown eyes looked at her with worry.

‘Er, what?’

‘You didn’t call me all weekend. And you’re avoiding me. I just need to know what I did to upset you. And then I’ll leave you alone.’

Emma unconvincingly laughed. ‘Avoiding? Ha ha What? Ha ha What are you talking about?’

‘Well, for one, this morning when you saw me in the hall you turned the other way and ran into the girls’ bathroom.’ More like ran into the door, thought Emma.

 ‘I had to really go. I had a bad breakfast burrito-’ she stopped herself as soon as she realised what she was saying.

‘There I go again’, she mumbled.

Now it was Eric’s turn to say ‘What?’

Emma closed her eyes to collect herself. ‘Okay, here goes...you have this…affect on people.’

Eric lifted his left eyebrow. Emma could feel herself rise a few degrees.

‘See? You’re doing it right now! You have this aura of perfectness that intimidates everyone and makes me say stupid things. Like, like when you drove me home last week,’ she accused. Emma took a deep breath.

‘Wait is this what all this avoiding me stuff is about?’

‘Yeah. Wait…no yeah I’m pretty sure that’s it.’

Eric placed his hands on Emma’s shoulders gently moving them towards her to corner of the room.

His voice deepened ‘Can you do me a favour?’

Emma didn’t reply, finding it very hard to find her voice. And breath.

‘Tell everyone I’m kind of far from perfect.’

He leaned down to brushed his lips lightly against hers. He lifted his head up and paused for a moment.

 ‘Sorry, I thought if I did that it’d get the awkwardness between us out of the way,’

He timidly scratched his head. ‘I guess it didn’t work. I’m gonna…I’m gonna go now,’ he stammered and stumbled over a chair as he made his way out of the classroom. 

Chapter 13

‘What is the probability that I will use Mr Reynolds’ ugly ass tie to hang myself right now given that I’ve taken methods as a subject?’ complained Shah

‘Shah pay attention! This is some pretty tricky stuff,’

‘You know all that I’ve achieved today?’ She showed Emma the piece of loose-leaf paper she was working on, which was a bell shaped curve transformed into a detailed sketch of a phallus.

Emma dropped the paper as if it was infected with herpes. ‘Ewww, Shah!’

‘I’m sorry girls am I interrupting your chit chat?’ said Mr Reynolds in an annoyed tone.

‘No sir,’ they said in unison.

‘No, no do carry on. I’m sure your petty little lives is much more important than mathematics, which will take you so far in life. I’m sure boys and Brittany Spears and the pathetic rate of which your test scores have been plummeting is going well for you. Please do share it to the class.’

The two girls did not say a word. Emma sunk lower into her chair and her face was profusely heating up.

‘Well, I guess it didn’t work out for you Mr Reynolds,’ said Eric, who was sitting a row behind Emma.

‘Math I mean. All it did was take you here. Teaching math. At this school,’

The entire class ooo-ed. Mr Reynolds opened his mouth and then closed it. He then proceeded to teach the class probability as if the last thirty seconds never happened.

The bell that concluded the last period rang.

‘I am so freaking out of here before Eric’s alpha male freaky voodoo shit powers wear off on Reynolds and he decides to whoop my ass, ’ quivered Shah

‘Me too,’ agreed Emma. Just as she was saying those words her books and things had slid off the table and onto the floor. He books and papers her tin pencil case had burst open letting pencils, pens and rubbers fall out.

‘Sorry sister you’re on your own,’ said Shah and bolted.

Emma rolled her eyes and bent over to pick up her books. Eric walked over to help. By the time they were done, the class was empty. They were alone.

‘Hey um, thanks for saving my butt back there.’

‘No problem, Reynolds just needs to get a reality check from time to time,’ he shrugged and gave her a half smile.

‘Yeah well I’ve got to go. That English essay due tomorrow isn’t going to write itself. I mean gosh Romulus my Father, what a bore. See you around.’

Emma swivelled around to leave but a hand held onto her forearm preventing her from leaving.

Chapter 12

‘Why is White Boy sitting over at the Hotties table?’ asked Shah, nodding over to Tom on the soccer team’s table. She dumped her food tray next to Emma’s and slid into her seat. Emma tiredly continued to spoon through her sloppy pudding cup.

‘We sort of had a fight,’ she sighed

‘Was he all moody for you getting some booty? ‘Cause dayum you know he had his chance I mean you hit puberty at like what? Thirte-. Uh Eric! Hi. Hello.’

Emma jerked her head up, the impact knocking over her chocolate pudding. If Eric Carter wasn’t standing across her table she would have probably noticed it all over her hands.

‘Hi Shamiqua,’ he said and smiled. He turned his attention to Emma. ‘Emma, do you have the homework Miss Jones set for us?’

‘Um. No, sorry,’ she replied and went back to her pudding…which she just realised was spilled over the table.

Eric stared at her as if he was waiting for her to say something more and when she didn’t, he turned around and went back to his usual table by the window with Tom and the other soccer players.  Shah shook her head in disappointment once he left.

‘Sister, that was cold,’

‘What are you talking about? I said sorry didn’t I?’

 ‘I don’t know how you could brush him over your shoulder like that.’ Shah fanned herself. ‘He’s the only white boy that can make me talk funny like I forget what I’m saying.’

‘What are you talking about? He was just asking me a simple question.’

‘Everyone knows you don’t give a damn about environmental science. He obviously wanted you to make a move. Real talk, what’s wrong with chu girl?’

She’d been avoiding Eric ever since the party incident where she probably drooled onto his car seat. One look at him was a reminder of the humiliation she experienced that night where he must have thought she was the biggest drunken loser in the history of drunken losers. She wiped off the chocolate pudding with a serviette and flicked it onto her tray.

‘Hey Shah I gotta go and er, set up early for class. See you at later in math.’

‘Don’t you go changing the subject. Tell me what happened at the party! Hey no don’t you walk away from me girl!’ She called after Emma.

*

‘Wilkinson, what are you doing here?’ asked Damon, sitting with Tom on the table. Tom whose arm was draped around his new found beau, Lacey, shrugged.

‘Geez Damo can’t a guy hang out with his mates every once in a while with his chick?’ Tom winced at how that sentence had sounded. He wasn't very good at this guy-talk thing. 

Damon turned around to look at Emma spooning her pudding at the other table. ‘What’d you do this time?’

‘Who says it has to be my fault?’

 ‘I never realised until now but Emma ain’t that bad. Did you see her at my party last night? Mmm. I’d do her.’

‘You’d do anything that moves and doesn’t have chest hair,’ joked Russell. 

 ‘Lay off it Damon. Don’t talk about Emma like that,’ the voice behind him snapped. It was Eric, who had just come from Emma’s table where he figured she was still avoiding him for some mysterious reason.

Tom laughed. ‘As if she’d even let you come within 2 feet of her,’ he said. Damon frowned.

Eric looked at his watch ‘Yeah I have a biology experiment to set up. Just came to tell you guys that practice is cancelled tonight. Coach is sick and they just planted some grass seeds on our oval or something. Catch you guys later,’ he said and left.

Lacey yawned and rested her head on Tom’s shoulder. ‘Tom-Tom, can we go? I’m bored.’ She whispered something into his ear, inaudible to everyone else sitting on the table.

Tom’s eyes lit up and a grin spread across his face. ‘Alright fellers, see you later,’ he said and left the cafeteria with Lacey.

As soon as he left one of the boys leaned in closer.

‘So, is the bet still on?’ he said discretely

Damon smirked. ‘Please, you guys will be handing over the cash me by the end of the month.’

‘I’m not so sure man, Carter’s a pretty smooth operator,’

‘Write this in ink if you have to: Emma Matthews will be mine before Carter gets his hands on her.’