I sat at my desk in my room, my maths book was open and I'd done the first equation but I couldn't concentrate. How could I with Phil and Dil out there? Plus, by the sounds of it I was the only one to know. Maybe this is a good thing as I could get them back. But that'd probably mean Phil would hate me. Except what if he doesn't want to be out there? Maybe he'd thank me for it.
"If 9 equals 'a' and 16 equals 'b' and 'c' equals the squared root of 'a squared' plus 'b squared,'" I muttered under my breath going over the revision exercise.
Surely being the only one to know about where Phil and Dil are can be of use to me. I could drop Dil in it, but Phil wouldn't forgive me. I looked at the clock, ten past eight. Someone would be noticing something was wrong soon.
Just then the phone rang. I pushed my chair back and listened as my Dad rose from his seat in the living room to answer the call.
"Hello?" I heard dad say from the hall, "Oh, hey Betty." His voice sounded cheery at first. "I haven't seen Phil or Dil today, no."
Then I heard his footsteps move towards the bottom of the stairs.
"Angelica? You seen Dil or Phil today?" Dad asked.
"I saw them at school," I said honestly, "But not since then." It was true I hadn't seen them.
"You know where they would have gone?" he asked.
"No, no…err…what's going on?" I asked, trying to sound as if I didn't already know.
Dad didn't answer, he went back to the phone and told Betty I didn't know where they were either. Seconds later Dad came up to my room and knocked on the half open door.
"Betty says that she hasn't seen Phil since this morning. And that Lil and the others haven't seen them since Phil ran out of a classroom in tears," Dad said sitting on my bed.
"Oh, I…" I began, but then I realised something. This would come back to me anyway, wouldn't it? I was the hall monitor this week; they'll wonder why I didn't see them leave school early. They'll think I know something, or that I wasn't doing my job.
"Angelica? Do you know something?" Dad asked as I glared into space.
"No! No, how could I? I'm not exactly their best mate," I said, and then turned back to my maths book.
"Okay, well if you hear from them please say something. I'm sure they're just out at the shops and forgot to ring home," Dad said getting up and walking towards the door.
I sighed, thinking he'd left. I picked up my pen and tried to answer the sum I'd been doodling over.
"Angelica?" Dad said standing in the doorway.
"Yes Dad?" I said looking around.
"Did you know Phil was gay too?" Dad asked quietly. I looked at him a bit shocked, I deffinatly didn't want to talk about stuff like this with him.
"Yeah, yeah I did, we all know," I said.
"Oh, okay then," he said and left rather suspiciously.
Would Phil and Dil ever come home? I picked up my mobile phone that was on my desk.
'Hey coz, u ok? Just checkin on u. A' I wrote in a text message then sent it to Dil's mobile and waited patiently. Two minutes later my phone vibrated and a text from Dil appeared on the screen.
'We r fine. Plz don't tell ne1 where we r. Thanx coz, D' the message said. It made me smile to know they were okay, but it still made me sick that Phil wasn't here.