The Big Mistake
I never thought an ordinary trip would turn into such a disaster…
It was our last weekend of freedom. Starting from Monday, the half-term holidays would be over and we'll all be back in boring old school.
I'm Nimzie by the way, Nimzie Richards, but just call me Nim. I have short wavy black hair with red ends, dark brown eyes and I'm 5ft 6in tall. I'm 16 years old and the oldest in my whole year. No, it's not because that my birthday is in September.
I'm actually a year older than everyone. Trust me; it's a nightmare being a whole year older than all the boys in your class. Anyway, it's not like I would go out with any one of them. Have you seen what they look like? Talk about major use of hair gel for one head! Okay fine, there is this one guy that I really like, but I would never ask him out. Why you ask? It's because he also happens to be one of my two best friends. Anyway, forget about what I said about him and let's move on with the story.
Oh, I totally forgot to tell you all about my two best friends. Well first there's Enya Grin. Me and Enya have been friends since year 7. She's funny, quite shy and she's really pretty. She can also get pretty aggressive if someone tries to mess with her or her friends. She's 15 and half years old with shoulder length golden brown hair and green eyes. She's only 5ft 3in tall.
Then you have my friend Max Turner. He's what you call the total popular jock of high school. He's tall and I mean immensely tall, you know like 6ft 1in. He has short strawberry blonde hair and the most amazing blue eyes. He's also really clever and he knows that there's no one who's smarter than him. He's also funny, in a sarcastic way and very sporty. He plays rugby, football, basketball, athletics, you name it – he can do it. I really do wonder how the hell we became friends.
Me and my two best friends; Enya and Max, were planning to go to London for the whole weekend. Max had gotten up to get all three of us some drinks, whilst me and Emily continued on our plan for London.
"I think we should go on the London Eye before we go shopping," I was the only person who hadn't gone on the London Eye.
"I'm cool with us going on the London Eye, but if we are going shopping, then I want to go to GAME!" Max shouted from the kitchen.
"FINE!" I shouted back.
"For god's sake, keep it down! I'm trying to finish my coursework up here!" my stupid older brother, Oddy screamed at us. Oddy is my older brother, who's currently in his last year of high school. According to my parents I'm a spitting image of him, except for the fact that I'm a girl and he's a dude. I don't think we look anything alike. He also happens to be the biggest Chelsea supporter that I know, whilst I support Man Utd.
"I'll go apologise to him," Enya said as she got up.
"Have you seriously lost your mind? This is my brother. Out of all the hot guys in the world, you go and crush on my idiotically odd brother," I was really getting annoyed by her.
Since the first day Enya visited my house, she's had a massive crush on my brother; Oddy. He's lanky, has a mop head for hair, he's also covered in freckles and he has spots. We look nothing alike no matter what my parents say, well apart from the fact that we both have dark brown eyes, but that's it.
I heard footsteps coming downstairs and next thing I knew, Oddy was standing by the living room door.
"What do you want freak?" I glared at him.
"Mum and dad said that I have to come with you to London," he rolled his eyes.
Great, now my parents thought I was irresponsible and untrustworthy. I sighed and got up.
"Fine. By the way, Max and Enya are staying over tonight so Max has to bunk in your room," I started to make my way upstairs to my bedroom.
"That's cool with me," Oddy and the others had also started to make their ways to bed.
It was 8 o'clock in the morning, the next day and Max, Enya, Oddy and I were getting everything into Oddy's car for the London trip. Oddy was 18, so he had his own car.
After an antagonising two and half hours, we finally arrived in London.
It was really busy as usual. So we decided to go on the London Eye first. The waiting line was fairly short, so we only had to wait in line for 15 minutes. As we rose higher and higher, we could see everything that was in London. We could see the Big Ben, the River Thames, Tower Bridge and everyone looked like tiny specs from where we were standing.
We stepped off the London Eye and headed for all the shops next. Max and I wanted to go to GAME, but Enya wanted to do actual shopping. Oddy really didn't care, as long as we didn't take too much time. In the end we decided to split into two groups; me and Max went to GAME, whilst Enya and Oddy went to the shoe shop a few block ahead.
"Enya must be over the moon right now," I smirked.
Max raised his right eyebrow and asked, "Why would she be over the moon?"
"Because she's with the love of her life; Oddy," I replied.
We looked at each other and started giggling. I saw a really cool game on one of the top shelves in the shop. I stretched my hand to try and get the game, but I just couldn't reach. I was still trying, when I noticed Max's hand reach at the game from behind me. He grabbed the game and handed it to me. As I turned around to face Max, I finally noticed how close we were standing. If I leaned my head forward by only a centimeter, my nose would be touching his chest. I quickly looked down at the game in my hand, whilst Max moved away from me. When I looked up, I saw Max rubbing the back of his neck.
"I'll go and buy this game, while you go and buy one for yourself," I walked passed him to the paying counter.
A few minutes later, Max had also bought a game and we were on our way to the shoe shop that Oddy and Enya had gone to.
Whilst Max and I were having our awkward moment, Enya and Oddy were having much better luck.
The whole way to the shoe shop, Oddy and Enya talked about their favorite colour, to what they really wanted to do in the future. They entered the shoe shop and Oddy helped Enya buy the "perfect" shoes.
When Max and I reached the shoe shop, we noticed that the other two weren't there. I took out my mobile and called Enya. She told me to meet them at the Underground station closest to the shoe shop. Enya sounded really worried and scared, but I thought it would be best if I didn't ask her right away. I ended the call and told Max that we had to go to the Underground station.
When we arrived at the Underground station, I noticed that there were way too many policemen standing outside. That's when the realization hit me. This was the same Underground station where the bombing had happened a few days ago.
We quickly walked inside and started to look around for Enya and Oddy. Max and I saw Enya from a distance, but Oddy was nowhere to be found. That was when I noticed a body covered in blood, lying on the floor in the middle of the station surrounded by about 30 policemen and policewomen. The body was of a young man. He looked quite lanky with a mop head for hair and he was wearing the exact same clothes as…
"NO!" I screamed, whilst I ran towards the blood covered body, that happened to belong to my own brother.
Before I could reach Oddy, two policemen had grabbed both of my arms.
"He is a prime suspect in the bomb attack that occurred a few days ago," one of the policemen said.
Oddy was lying there, completely pale and helpless. I noticed as I scanned his body with my eyes, that he had been shot on the right side of his torso. I fell to my knees with no idea of what to do. I could hear a girl screaming. Maybe it was Enya, but I couldn't dare to look away from my only brother to find out who it was. I started to feel light-headed and dizzy. All of a sudden everything around me went pitch black.
When I finally woke up, the first thing I saw was Max.
"What happened?" my head was still hurting.
"You passed out after seeing Oddy…" Max tried to explain.
"Oh my gosh! Where is he now? Where the hell are we anyways? Is he okay?" the worst things were cropping into my mind at that point and I hoped beyond hope that they were all not true.
"Nim calm down. We're in the central hospital. Oddy is in the operation theater at the moment," Max squeezed my hand.
"How long was I passed out for?" the pain in my head was slowly going away.
"Only 20 minutes. By the way, we still need to tell your parents about all of this," Max told me.
"I'll do it right now," I searched for my mobile and found it in my jeans pocket. I quickly dialed my dad's number. The phone was still ringing as I took a deep breath to calm myself down.
"Hello?" I could hear the cheerfulness in my dad's voice.
"Hey dad," I tried to make my voice sound normal, but I knew that I was failing miserably.
"How's the trip going so far?" my dad always wants to know everything.
"Dad, I need you and mum to come to London as quickly as possible. We're in the central hospital at the moment. It's really important that you come here urgently," my voice was about to crack.
"What's wrong?" my dad sounded really worried all of a sudden.
"I'll tell you when you get here. I've got to go. Bye dad," I ended the call before my dad could say anything.
I finally let the tears fall down my face as I cried. I had never felt so vulnerable in my entire life and I had no idea what was going to happen next. I suddenly felt Max wrap his arms around me.
"It's going to be okay Nim. Just wait and see," he sounded just as scared as I was.
"Max you should probably go back to Cardiff. I know that Enya would definitely stay here with Oddy, but that doesn't mean that you have to stay as well and watch me crumble to my feet like this," I covered my face with my hands.
"Hey, look at me Nim," Max placed his fingers under my chin and pulled my face to look in his direction.
"I'm not going to leave you here when you need someone by your side the most. I need to stay here with you, so I know that you're okay and safe. Yes, I admit that I'm scared that if I leave then you'll do something drastic and hurt yourself and I can never let that happen because I care about you way too much then a friend should," he started to lean towards me and before I knew what was happening, his lips were on mine.
"I love you," he whispered and kissed me again.
"I love you too Max," I said barely above a whisper.
Max and I got up to see how Enya was doing. Oddy had been moved to a private ward. As we reached Oddy's ward, we saw Enya holding his hand and talking to him even though he was not awake. We opened the door and went inside as quietly as we could. We sat down on the chairs that were closest to the door, so Enya could have as much time sitting next to Oddy on her own.
A few minutes later, the doctor came into the ward and asked to speak with me and Max outside.
"Well I have some good news and some bad news. Good news is that the bullet was removed successfully. However, the bad news is that the internal bleeding caused by the bullet has made your brother Oddy go into a coma. Now we don't know how long your brother will be in a coma, but if he doesn't wake up in 7 days, then I'm afraid that it will be too late," after that the doctor left.
I started to slide slowly down the wall as tears sprang into my eyes, when suddenly Max pulled me into his arms.
"What am I going to do?" I cried.
"Shh, it's going to be okay," Max said over and over again, whilst I stood there in his arms for who knows how long.
All of our parents had arrived to London later that very same day. They were all trying their best to keep our hopes up.
It had been 3 days since the incident and Oddy was still in a coma. We were all sitting around Oddy's bed praying for him to wake up. Enya hadn't let go of his hand even once after the operation. She truly did love him. Max never left my side either and I was glad.
All of a sudden the door opened and in came the doctor, telling us there were two policemen who wanted to speak to all of us. The policemen came in.
"We were told to inform you that the investigation is over and Mr. Oddy Richards is innocent. We are extremely sorry for all of this," with that, they both started to leave.
"Wait a second. You are telling us that you wrongly accused my son of being involved in a bomb attack and then shot him, later realizing that you were completely wrong and all you have to say about it is sorry? How dare you even think that a mere sorry can fix the mess that you policemen have made here. Let me make this perfectly clear, if my son doesn't wake up in the next 3 days then you'll all be extremely sorry," my dad looked furious. After that both policemen left leaving us even more ticked off by the whole thing.
Now all that was left was for Oddy to wake up…
