7

Two weeks passed by.

Max and El were hanging around in front of the skate park in Chicago, kicking the ground with their heels.

Every few seconds, El looked around. She wasn't just looking for the boys. El tried to calm herself down by reminding herself that Troy wasn't likely to do anything in broad daylight.

It didn't really help.

`Hey,' Max said softly. `Stop looking around. Troy won't do anything here.' Underneath Max's arm was a skateboard with `madrid' painted across the bottom of it. El, on the other hand, had a pair of rollerblades dangling by their laces from her hand.

As another bulky teenage boy did a nose-blunt on a ramp, El turned to Max.

`You did remember to tell them, didn't you? You're the one who has their numbers.'

`Lucas told me their numbers and I dialled them in exactly.'

El scanned the surging swarm of people, trying to find any of their friends in the crowd. Unfortunately there was some sort of charity concert going on across the street, meaning that all of America and most of Canada had flocked to Chicago Hall.

`It'll take them ages to get through that crowd,' huffed Max, dropping her skateboard and doing mini-circles around El.

`Mayfield!' Dustin yelled, waving at them from the other side of the park.

`How the hell did they get over there?' Yelped Max, almost falling off her skateboard.

`Doesn't matter. Come on!' El dodged through the other skaters and reached the panting, scarlet boys. Mike was looking very different without his sweater. `How did you get here?' She asked curiously. `We couldn't see you anywhere.'

Mike was still out of breath. `Dustin's idea,' he panted. `Said to cut through backyards.'

`It worked, didn't it?' Dustin replied defensively. `And we're here now. So where do we rent the skates?'

`Just over there,' Max pointed. `Fifty cents for rollerblades, dollar for a skateboard.' Immediately, the boys started to count their money and then headed over. They returned with their arms full.

Will awkwardly put his skateboard on the ground, planted his foot on it's body, and experimentally wheeled it back and forth.

He almost fell over there and then, but luckily regained balance, arms flailing like a windmill.

`Okay, okay. Calm down,' Max ordered. `Your feet are wrong. Sinclair, you come over too. And Henderson.' She began to instruct them on where to put their feet, how to keep their balance, to keep their back straight.

Mike held up his rollerblades embarrassedly. `Not sure how to skate with these. They seemed easier than a skateboard.' There was a loud crash as Dustin went flying off his skateboard, his cap landing five feet away. El stifled a giggle, before getting down to business.

`Okay, lace them up.' El sat down on the ground, wriggled her feet into her skates, and quickly tied the laces with quick, experienced fingers. Mike watched how she did it and tried to replicate how, doing a double knot and banging the heel of the skate against the hard, hot tarmac.

`Now what?'

El got onto her feet. `First step, stay upright.' She stretched out her hand and Mike took it, trying to find his balance. He wobbled a few times but managed to stay on his feet. El held both of his hands in her own, keeping him steady.

`Well done. Now put your feet in a T shape. Yeah, exactly. Push forward.' Mike did, and El skated backwards, still holding onto his hands. They looked like they were doing some sort of bizarre dance.

Mike smiled. `I'm actually doing it!' And then his skates went out from under him and he fell over onto the tarmac. El went right down with him with a yelp and the breath was knocked straight out of her chest.

She turned her head to look at Mike. For a few nerve-racking seconds, he didn't move. Then-

`Ow,' Mike groaned, straightening up, one hand rubbing the back of his head. El breathed out with relief.

`Mike! You okay?' Will yelled over.

`Yeah, I'm fine.' Mike started trying to get up. `Can we go again?'

El was surprised at his nerve, especially seeing as the knees of his jeans had been completely torn away. `Sure. Do you need me to hold your hands again?'

`Can you hold my hand anyway?' Mike didn't seem to realise what he'd said until a good five seconds after the words had left his lips, at which point he began to resemble a cut of corned beef.

The others went deadly quiet.

Apart from Max, who looked like her favourite TV show had come on.

There was a long, stretched out silence. No one could have guessed El's insides were dancing the conga.

El took both Mike's hands, looked him dead in the eye. He met her gaze. And she started guiding him around the small stretch of tarmac that wasn't being used for terrifying skateboard stunts.

El could have sworn her heart was almost too big for her chest to contain it.

Meanwhile, Max was showing Lucas, Dustin and Will how to do a wheelie.

Dustin put up his hand. `Max, shouldn't we stick with staying on the skateboard for a bit?'

`No. No one got anywhere without diving in headfirst,' Max replied determinedly. `Now tilt your weight back. But not too much.' There was a loud crash. `That was too much.'

`Yeah, figured that,' Lucas answered, picking himself up off the ground. `Next time we come here, I'm taping a pillow to my butt.'

The sun continued to rise, and then began to fall. After a while, the six kids noticed that it was four in the afternoon, and that they were wringing with sweat. Innumerable scratches and grazes covered the boys. But after several hours of hard practice, Mike knew how to skate backwards and execute a perfect spin. Will had actually gone down a ramp without breaking anything, Dustin managed to do a wheelie and Max had helped Lucas to grind a staircase. The result of that had been mixed, to say the least.

Dustin, Will, Mike and Lucas carried their rollerblades/skateboards back into the hut.

`That was amazing,' Will said happily. `Thanks,' he added as he handed the skateboard back to the sour-faced employee at the desk.

`I know,' Lucas beamed, his face a weird blend of shell-shock, admiration and bloody grazes. `Did you see me grind that staircase?'

`Lucas, the concrete probably still has an impression of your face in it.' Mike finished unlacing the rollerblades and lay them on the desk. He stood on the bone-dry grass in his socks.

`Small detail!' Lucas protested indignantly. `My landing was a little off, but I could tell Max was impressed.'

`She didn't stop laughing for ten minutes.'

`You know, that's a sign she likes you.' El's shrewd voice cut over them. Soundlessly, she'd walked over to listen in on their conversation. `I've known her since I was eleven. Trust me. I brought your shoes, by the way.' El held out Mike's shoes, then glanced down at his feet. `Nice socks.'

Han Solo held a gun on the left sock, and Luke Skywalker wielded a lightsaber on the right one. Mike laughed and quickly covered them up with his sneakers.

They all walked back in a group. El and Will were chatting about To Kill A Mockingbird, lagging far behind the others.

`See, I can't believe some schools ban it,' Will was saying passionately, gesturing with his hands. `The point of it is to make people think about their actions.'

`I know! It's unacceptable to ban it because it makes some teacher feel guilty. The point is to make people uncomfortable.'

They got so distracted Will completely missed Mike repeatedly yelling his name.

`Will! We're at my house.'

`Huh?' Will jolted out of his conversation with El and looked at the door, where Dustin and Lucas already waited. `Oh, right. Coming. Bye, El. See you in English tomorrow.'

`See you.' El gave a dorky little wave she immediately regretted. Her and Max carried on walking. West Chicago was still half an hour away. And then El suddenly burst out with what she'd been suppressing. Mike said he wanted to hold my hand! He actually said that!'

`Woah, calm down. Weren't you happy with being "just friends"?' Max's fingers framed quotation marks.

`Of course I wasn't, I said that to shut you all up.' El did half-skips along the pavement, smiling uncontrollably. `Am I meant to feel like this? This is like the time I drank too much Cherry Coke.'

A cyclist barrelled down the sidewalk towards them, then quickly turned off into the road, narrowly missing them. Max and El paid him no heed.

`El, you're an idiot,' Max said bluntly, planting her hands on El's shoulders to keep her still. `Go round to Wheeler's and ask him out.'

Slowly, the Cherry-Coke-Feeling dripped out of El. Her shoulders slumped, and the smile faded. `I can't,' she said. `Even if I wanted to.'

Her mind rewound seven days.


Hopper read his newspaper at the breakfast table. Behind him, El was trying to get the toaster to work.

`Dad, I think the toaster blew the fuse again.' Once more, she made a futile attempt to toast her Eggos.

The TV died.

El looked guiltily at Hopper. `I can fix it,' she said awkwardly. Hopper shook his head, and put down his newspaper.

`Sit down. We need to talk.'

Immediately, every bad thing El had done since birth raced through her head. `What's this about?' Her voice went up a good three octaves from nerves.

`Have you seen the newspaper recently?' When El shook her head no, Hopper slid his copy over to her. El flicked up the front page and read the headline.

Stabbing in west Chicago.

El lifted her eyes from the headline to meet her dad's, but he motioned to her to keep reading.

Yesterday, five teenage girls were stabbed in a knife attack. Three boys armed with knives recognised them as the girlfriends of members of the opposing gang. Jennifer Hayes, sixteen, Orla Brown, fifteen, Amanda Barr, sixteen, and Jessie Edwards, sixteen sadly lost their lives. Sophia Pola was resucitated at the scene and is in critical, unstable condition.

`The Texans did this?' Horror wadded up El's throat. `They killed four girls?'

`Yeah.' Hopper pulled back the newspaper. `You know how bad things are here. It isn't safe for anyone.'

As if to back him up, a gunshot cracked out from far away, it's echo spanning its way across the civil battlefield that was west Chicago. `So that's why we're moving away after the school year ends.'

A wordless cry of fury broke out of El's mouth but Hopper quickly talked over her. `It isn't safe here. I'm not risking you being killed or ending up in a wheelchair, like that Landey kid. I found a house in the next state. I've already got the payment. We're moving.'

That was when El found her tongue. `But what about school? We start SATs next year. And what about Max? And what about Mike, and Dustin and Lucas and Will?' She slammed her hands down on the table. `Don't you care at all?'

`The reason we're moving is because I care!' Hopper shouted back. `I care about you. You're asking me about your friends. What about them? What about drive-by shootings? Huh? What about drunk boys going around doing whatever they want to girls in the street?'

One of their neighbours slammed on the wall and yelled for them to shut up. El and Hopper did, both of them scarlet and standing up. El was furious to register the tears blurring her vision. Fruitlessly, she tried to blink them away, but instead they started to spill down her cheeks.

`I don't want to leave Chicago,' she half-whispered, water dripping quietly off her chin. Angrily, she wiped it away.

Hopper looked at her sadly, then went down to the basement. He needed to fix the blown fuse.


`You're moving? In a week?'

El nodded miserably. `After school finishes. Like I said. So I can't ask Mike out. Not a week before me and Dad move.'

Max rubbed the back of her neck and didn't say anything for a minute. For one horrible moment, El was certain Max was going to cry…

But Max Mayfield didn't ever cry.

Right?

`Max?' She asked nervously. Head still bent, Max mumbled something. El caught her friend's hand, and gave it a little shake. `Max, say something!'

`Well,' Max finally said in a faux-cheerful voice, `if you're moving in a week, we'd better make the most of it. Want an ice cream? I'm buying.'


It was almost six o'clock by the time Max reached home. It was several blocks away from El's, in a small collection of run-down bungalows on the edge of Chicago.

`Oh, jeez,' Max muttered when she saw the silhouette in the window. A little orange stub kept lighting up behind the glass. The silhouette turned, and slowly and deliberately, stubbed out the cigarette on the windowsill. Malice floated off the figure in clouds. Max made a brave stab at a smile. `Guess I'd better go in.'

El noticed the fine sheen of sweat on Max's forehead and her shaking hands. `Do you want me to come in with you?'

`Nah. I'll be fine. I can handle him.'

`What if he's been drinking?' In the front yard, the small porch swing creaked in the summer breeze. Clouds roiled in the sky above the house, with it's peeling paint and slanted picket fence. Max looked like she was about to turn tail and run. Then her shoulders squared and her back stiffened.

`I said I'll be fine. See you tomorrow.' And Max strode up the concrete pathway to the ragged, creaking front door. The silhouette left the window and Neil Hargrove opened the door.

His gait wobbled as he grabbed Max's wrist and jerked her inside.

A strong impulse to throw a brick at his head overcame El but she knew if she did that Neil would only take it out on Max.

El walked back to her apartment block. She could see it from Max's house; it rose above the squat little bungalows on Max's street, one of God knew how many apartment blocks. Satellites perched on their roofs like little mushrooms.

El quite liked the roof of her apartment block.

Whenever she climbed up there, she could shunt away any thoughts she didn't want in her head. Like images of what could be happening to her best friend behind that closed door.

The clouds got steadily pinker as the evening waned away. El kept her hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans and kicked a stone ahead of her. She was wrapped up in her own little world, imagining how glorious a kiss from Mike would be. She smiled to herself…

`Hey, bitch!'

El froze. There was a squeal and the scent of burning tires. A pick up truck skidded to a halt next to her, black lines marking the road.

Troy hung out of the truck, holding a beer can. It clearly wasn't his first. `I said hey, bitch. Didn't your daddy teach you manners?'

`W- what do you want?' Shivers knocked El's knees together. She forced herself to stop shaking.

`That's a very broad question,' Troy answered. He tilted his head, opened his mouth wide, and poured beer into it. Amber liquid overspilled his red mouth and ran down his cheeks. `What do I want?'

A pulse bounced at the base of El's throat.

`Aw, are you scared?' Troy mocked, putting on a baby voice.

There was a shattered bottle on the floor next to El. Keeping her eyes fixed on the quietly humming vehicle, El scooped it off the pavement and held it out in front of her.

`I'm not scared of you.' Even though she was. Even though awful pictures were running through her mind. Even though everyone else on the street was quickly and quietly walking away.

Why?

Troy's face turned, twisted up into a smile. He reached into his pocket, and held up a matchbox. He slid out the white box inside, with rows of matches sleeping next to each other. Their red heads looked like little hats. It was such a bizarre thing for El to register.

Now she couldn't hide her terror. Her entire body shook, the bottle trembled wildly, her mind screamed run but her feet stayed rooted.

Troy dragged the hat of the match across the scarred box. There was a snapping pucker of air. A flame burst up. El trained her eyes on it, not even daring to blink.

`Remember I threw a match at you in class?' Troy asked almost pleasantly, holding out flame. Behind him, his friends had started to look scared. `This won't miss.'

And he produced a firework.

El hurled the bottle at the pick up truck. It exploded into green shards by Troy's head, cutting across his face.

Enough to make him bleed.

Troy let out a snarl and drew back his arm.

El ran. Heaving breaths ripped from her lungs, seared her throat and got lost halfway to her mouth.

Troy screamed after her and threw the burning firework as hard as he could.

It exploded at her heels.

Adrenaline flooded her veins and capillaries and nerves, filling her entire body up. El ran faster than she thought possible as the laughter of drunk boys sped away in the opposite direction. She could smell smoke.

There was a clang, and a scream.

El hoped Troy had only hit a trash can.

She didn't stop running until she reached the apartment block, barely able to breathe and fairly sure she was going to puke. El fell against the stairwell, wheezing. The cold stairs seeped through her jeans. El managed to choke in a breath, despite the fact her lungs felt like they were collapsing.

For some stupid reason, she was dangerously close to tears. El breathed deeply until she'd calmed down, then walked up to the third floor on shaking legs.

Inside the apartment, Hopper was ironing. Two scorched shirts were screwed up on the floor.

`Hi, kid. How was the skate park?' He looked up. His expression changed. `What happened?'

`Troy,' El mumbled. `I- I think you're right. We need to leave Chicago.' She couldn't tell how badly her clothes had been burned by the firework. `You're right. We're not safe.'

So, El's moving, and the gang war is escalating. What will happen? Dun dun dun. I promise the next chapter will give the characters a break. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed or liked/followed so far. Also, I probably won't be able to publish for a few days as I'm going to a wedding. Bye!