Free Paradise City by C.J. Duggan

should’ve come with a warning label, like when your parents told you never to look directly at the sun; well, it was too late for that.
    I blinked. ‘Yes?’
    Does he want me to hold his hand?
    ‘My change?’
    Lexie, you are an idiot!
    ‘Oh God, sorry!’ I delved into my pockets so quickly, reaching and pulling so frantically I spilled coins all over the asphalt, much like Boon had done, except there was nothing graceful or cool about the way I did it. These boys could open milk cartons and chip packets and make it look cool; hell, they just had to exist to be known. If Gilmore were the brainiacs, Chisholm were the misfits, then Kirkland were most certainly the cool kids; let’s put all the rotten eggs into the one basket. No doubt a genius ploy from our industrious leader¸ Mr Fitzgibbons.
    I ducked and weaved for the coins, pushing past the boys, excusing myself as I retrieved them from all corners. I could hear Laura openly sigh as she watched on. The rest of the boys cast me weary looks or stared at me like I was some creature from outer space – a look I was most certainly getting used to. But above all that there was one thing that struck me, one clear defined sound that cut through all of the chaos as I picked up the last of the rolling coins. I pushed the wisps of hair that had fallen into my eyes from my ponytail as my eyes came to rest on Ballantine, who was laughing at my money chasing. Oh, yeah, so funny, I thought. I walked back to him and held my hand out, motioning for him to take his bloody change.
    Ballantine reached out, scooping up the coins, his fingers ghosting across my palm, sending a tingling sensation right up my arm. My eyes flicked up in surprise, wondering if the same feeling had hit him, or if I was just being sensitive. It was hard to tell, the one thing that was certain was that the laughter had disappeared, and was instead replaced by a sobering look of interest. No smile, no dimple, just a curt head nod right as the recess bell sounded, snapping us into action and moving us away from each other.
    •
    For the rest of the day, I was very much in the right class after double then triple checking the timetable. At lunchtime I wasn’t coerced into any canteen-line antics. In fact, Ballantine, Boon and co. were noticeably absent and, for me at least, it kind of left a huge hole in the schoolyard.
    ‘Where have the boys from Kirkland gone?’ I asked Laura, innocently enough.
    ‘Seniors are allowed to leave the school grounds if they have permission from their parents; you’ll probably find them getting a gutful of hot chips down the arcade,’ she said, as if bored by the subject.
    ‘So, what, no surfing?’
    ‘Oh, they’ll be surfing all right: morning, noon and night. Note the perpetual damp collars they have.’
    It hadn’t gone unnoticed; the boys did have that wet, dishevelled look about them.
    We walked across the long stretch of concreted schoolyard, making sure to dodge a basketball that sailed passed us.
    ‘Hey, Laura, can I ask you something?’
    ‘Shoot!’
    ‘Is my cousin Amanda the resident mean girl or does she just hate . . . me?’ I winced. Laura was proving to be a rather helpful source of information, and although she hadn’t provided me with the same essence of cool school domination I had hoped to possess walking around with Amanda, she was still one degree of separation from Ballantine and that intrigued me more than I cared to admit.
    Laura took a deep draw of her Prima box, thoughtful. ‘She’s always nice to me,’ she said. ‘Mind you, I am Boon’s sister, so of course she would be.’
    I stopped, looking down at Laura, who was five foot nothing next to me. ‘Why should that matter?’ I asked, with an air of excitement in my voice. My mind flashed back to Boon and Ballantine helping her escape from my bedroom window.
    ‘Because she is completely in love with Boon,’ she said, as if it was the most obvious answer in