Free Big and Clever by Dan Tunstall Page B

go.”
    Zoe stands on tiptoes and gives me a peck on the lips.
    â€œSee you then.” She pulls a strand of hair out of her eyes. “And sorry about tonight. It’ll be hard this next few weeks, but I’ll make it up to you, yeah?”
    â€œYeah,” I say.
    The bus stops and the doors swing open. I climb on board and follow Raks along the aisle. I wave to Zoe, she waves back and then the bus pulls away.
    We sit down. We’re behind the Dalton twins. Matching blue parkas, matching telephone-directory-thickness sci-fi novels. I put my bag at my feet and fish out Super Goals , flicking through to page 27 again.
    â€œIs it still there?” Raks asks, grinning.
    I laugh.
    â€œIt’s still there.”
    We don’t say much for the next ten minutes. The Tobemeister’s playing Three From The Eighties on Letchford Sound but I’m not really listening. I scroll up and down the menu on my phone and think about the History assignment I was supposed to be working on yesterday. Raks is staring out of the window, at the leaves swirling in the breeze and the rubbish rattling in the hedgerows. As we turn onto the Medstone road he takes a deep breath and puffs out his cheeks.
    â€œSo what did your dad say when you got back on Saturday evening?”
    I wrinkle my forehead.
    â€œNot a lot. Asked how it was. Said he might come to a game one time.”
    Raks laughs.
    â€œWhat did you say to that?”
    I shrug.
    â€œJust said I didn’t think it would be his cup of tea.”
    We watch the countryside flashing past for another couple of minutes. Every now and again Raks is shaking his head, the way he does when he’s trying to get something straightened out in his mind.
    â€œIt was one hell of a day, wasn’t it?” he says eventually.
    I push my tongue into the ripped inside of my mouth.
    â€œYou could say that.”
    â€œI couldn’t sleep,” Raks says. “Saturday night, I just lay there, thinking about everything that happened. I don’t mean the match. I mean what happened afterwards. It was going over and over in my head.”
    I nod.
    â€œYeah. I didn’t get a wink on Saturday night either. Yesterday morning, playing for Dynamo, I was like a zombie. I spent ninety minutes trundling up and down the right wing, but I hardly touched the ball. I wasn’t into the game at all. Same as you, things were just going round and round my brain.”
    The bus stops outside the chip shop in Medstone and two girls get on. Year Elevens. Good-looking and self-confident. Our eyes follow them as they pass by, heading towards the back, but they don’t notice us.
    â€œThe whole thing was weird though, wasn’t it?”
    Raks says, as the bus draws away from the kerb again. “When it all kicked off, something came over me. I was punching and kicking people, but it didn’t seem like it was me who was doing the punching and kicking. I just didn’t feel guilty about it at all. It’s like because I was part of a crowd I wasn’t responsible for what I was doing.”
    â€œYeah,” I say. “I know what you mean.”
    Raks has got a faraway look in his eyes now.
    â€œAnd I felt like I had all this power, like there was danger all around but nothing could hurt me. It was this amazing buzz. It was…” his voice trails off, and he shakes his head again.
    I just nod. I know that he probably wants me to help him put things into words, but there’s no point. I couldn’t do it on Saturday, and I still can’t. It was a complete overload. Too intense. But brilliant.
    The rest of the journey into Letchford seems to pass more quickly than normal. It only feels like a couple of minutes since we left Medstone, but already my watch is saying it’s quarter past eight and we’re heading along towards the Parkway all-weather football pitches. I’m just thinking about getting my bits and pieces together when someone