The School Run by Ali Lowe

Author:Ali Lowe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

CHAPTER

15

Bec

BEC TURNS BACK on herself and walks down the same dark corridor she has just come from after confronting the sports master. It is too stifling in the hall, and she needs to think about what she has just learned about Willow. There is also the not-so-small matter of how she will break the news to Tom. Willow has told her it is love, and so Tom will need to know. She cannot keep a secret like this from him.

She continues in the darkness in an area that is evidently out of bounds for parents and students alike.

Bec prides herself on being a liberal parent, but this takes the biscuit. What does he want with an eighteen-year-old girl? She passes the library, lit by a sliver of silver light. She feels a sudden urge to be somewhere illicit and quiet, where she is alone with her thoughts and can work through the muddle in her head, and so she turns the doorknob and pushes the heavy wooden door open. The room smells of mold and must and old textbooks that have dampened with time. She can make out walls of bookshelves, neatly stacked, their spines labeled with white, numbered stickers. The large clock on the wall dongs seven times.

She closes the door quietly behind her, something to do with needing to be silent in a library and because Bec is (mostly) a good girl. The yellow light from an adjoining classroom casts a thin triangle on the wooden parquetry flooring, crossed swords with the silver slice of moonlight.

A shadow steps out from behind a shelf.

“Oh my God,” squeals Bec. It’s the second time she’s come across someone lurking in the dark. What is going on with this school?

“Did I surprise you?” It is a man’s voice, and Bec can see when she gets a little closer that it is Felix Weaver, the school captain. He is in the school sports kit, despite no longer technically being a student, and his silhouette is immaculate, aside from what looks like ruffled hair. The screen of an iPhone glows in his hand.

Bec exhales. “Oh, hello.” She smiles. There is a vague question somewhere in her brain, a question about why this boy is in the library on his own in the dark, lit only by secondhand light. It is creepy. “I was just taking a breather.”

“Exploring.” It isn’t a question.

“Yes,” she says. “I’m here for the Gala Day. I mean, that’s obvious really, isn’t it?” She laughs. “My son, Cooper, is a prospective student.”

“Cooper Lloyd.” Another statement. The boy is confident, self-assured. At that age Bec would have apologized profusely for her ghostly presence in a dark room and scurried away.

“I’m sorry,” says Bec. “Were you working?”

“Ha! No.” It isn’t quite the level of politeness she was expecting from the school captain.

“Cooper is Willow’s brother,” Felix says, his face blank. Bec can’t read if it is a good thing or a bad thing that he knows her daughter.

“Yes.” Bec clears her throat. “Do you know Willow?”

There is a long pause as Felix studies his nail beds.

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