Free Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray Page B

about that.”
    Kenny said, “I reckon all that stuff because of her with his notebook and poems was why Nina finished with him. I’m telling you: that was definitely the start of it.”
    I remembered this morning, the way Caroline had hid her face from me when Mr. Fell was asking if Ross had any big problems. I was being truthful when I said no, but I knew Ross and Caroline weren’t talking.
    Ross had had this little notebook he always carried around with him, where he wrote down his story ideas and stuff like that. He’d also been writing love poems to Nina. And last week Caroline had stolen his notebook and read the poems out to everyone at lunchtime. There’d been a load of us on the grass behind the dining hall and she’d really gone to town with the amateur dramatics. I think it was meant to be a joke at first, but the way people started ripping into Ross and taking the piss had been vicious. I hate to say it, but I’d been glad I wasn’t him right then. Or Nina. Talk about having to crawl under a rock somewhere …
    But when I’d spoken to Ross afterwards he seemed all right about it. He said his sister was just jealous—which was true. She was older, cleverer, much more popular, but he alwaysgot loads of attention because of his stories. He’d just won that big story competition too. Most of the teachers thought he was greater than great because of that; the head made everybody give him a round of applause in assembly. So I could believe Caroline was jealous—she never received that kind of attention when she got yet another A-star in some exam. But I also saw Ross tear up his notebook and throw it away when he thought nobody was watching.
    Kenny and Sim were waiting for me to say something. “It was just an idea.”
    Sim snorted his derision. “Yeah. A stupid one.” He scanned the queue again; but with a click of his tongue seemed to have an idea of his own.
    He took off his sunglasses and tapped the shoulder of the elderly woman in front of us. She was wearing a heavy brown coat despite the June sun outside and seemed squashed with old age. She smiled at us and all her wrinkles bunched up at the corners of her eyes.
    “Hi, excuse me. Sorry to bother you, but we’re in a really big hurry.” Sim was using the same voice he used for teachers when he hadn’t done his homework. “We’ve only got a couple of minutes before our train and if we don’t get it we’re gonna be really stuck.”
    The woman looked from Sim to me and Kenny. We both smiled our best, politest smiles. Luckily Kenny’s T-shirt didn’t scare her and she was kind enough to let the three of us push in front. We thanked her several times too many.
    Sim tried it on the next people in line, a young guy and his girlfriend. But the guy didn’t even look at Sim when he said, “You’re not the only ones in a hurry, mate.” He couldn’t have been that much older than us, was even a bit shorter than Sim, and for a second I thought Sim was going to square up to him. I saw Sim’s eyes harden and thought, Oh God, here we go. I got ready to stand at his shoulder—whatever happened. I was never much good in a fight; it was just that my bulk sometimes put people off.
    But Sim took a step back, saying, “Thanks for nothing,
mate
.” He stood to one side, weighing up the whole queue. And I was thinking, Is he going to fight them all?
    “Excuse me!” he shouted. “Excuse me! Hello!” When they were all looking his way he said, “I know you’re all in a rush and fed up of queuing and everything, but my friends and I really are in a big hurry. If we don’t get the next train to Newcastle we’re gonna be in trouble—big-time. If you’d just let us get served next it’d be fantastic. We’d really appreciate it; you’d be doing us a massive favor.” He stood there with his face half needy, half demanding.
    There was a bit of shuffling and bustle in the queue, shrugs and murmurs. There were still twenty-odd people in front of us,