The Beauty Is in the Walking Read Online Free Page B

one’s supposed to drive this but me. If Mum finds out, she’ll hang my balls on the clothes line.’
    â€˜So don’t tell her,’ Bec called calmly from the back seat. ‘Jacob drove like a pro, anyway.’
    The matter of my mangled legs hung in the air, whether anyone mentioned it or not, but Mitch was steamed and he wasn’t letting me get off that easily. ‘What was I supposed to think, the way you drove off and left us here?’
    â€˜It was the only way to make you stop.’ If I went on about Amy she’d feel worse than she already did and even now, when I checked over my shoulder, she was still a little shaky.
    Mitch circled the car with Dan, more for show than anything, and when there wasn’t a scratch he cooled down. ‘You shouldn’t have taken it,’ he said finally, but in such a meek voice I wondered if he was feeling sheepish because of the way Amy sat in the back, deflated and wishing she was anywhere else.
    Nothing sheepish about Dan, though. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, you knew it was us mucking around. Why do you think we brought you out here? Just a bit of fun. I can’t believe you drove off like that.’
    I was out of the driver’s seat by this time, with Dan only a metre away. ‘Amy was freaking out and you wouldn’t stop, even when I told you to.’
    He didn’t like me saying that. ‘But you knew it was us,’ he repeated, as though it was our own fault. ‘Isn’t that right,’ he said, poking his head through the driver’s door to confront the girls in the back seat.
    â€˜Yeah, I knew,’ said Bec. It was the truth, maybe, but that wasn’t the point.
    Dan turned his attention to Amy. ‘Come on, Ames,’ he coaxed, putting his hand on her knee with surprising tenderness. ‘You knew it was us as well, didn’t you?’
    She took longer to answer, all the while holding his gaze as though she was going over the whole thing in her mind. Finally, she glanced towards Bec and said, ‘S’pose I did.’
    Dan pulled back, triumphant, and turned to me. ‘See, you’re the one who went too far, Jacob, pulling that stunt on Mitch. Wasn’t funny, mate.’
    Dan touched the tip of his forefinger to my chest – the faintest contact backed up by his footballer’s body. ‘Don’t ever play me for a fool like that again, Jacob,’ he said.
    It was an odd moment, especially with Mitch watching from so close. Dan was warning me, threatening me even, which didn’t seem right among friends, but he’d let something else slip without meaning to. When I’d taken so long to turn around he must have thought I wasn’t coming back at all and, for those few minutes, he’d been as powerless to make me as I’d been to stop him taunting Amy.
    Mitch reclaimed the driver’s seat, Dan flopped in beside him and I squeezed into the back with the girls in exactly the same spots as before. Dan still had the torch and, twistinground into the gap between the seats, he shone it under his chin to create ghostly effects. It was funny now that Amy fear’s was gone – and Dan’s anger. He was his laid-back self again, cranking up the radio as Mitch guided us through the curves and creek crossings to rejoin the highway.
    We were halfway back to town when Amy leaned close and spoke into my ear. ‘Thanks for stopping them the way you did.’
    I put my arm around her again in friendly affection and left it there, knowing the guys had eyes only for the windscreen and Bec wouldn’t notice in the darkness. After a minute or two, Amy leaned away to break my hold, but I tensed my arm, keeping her in place, and since my hand stretched far enough around I pressed it flat against her stomach, wonderfully aware of her warmth beneath my palm. She might have sat up and said in front of the others, ‘Jacob, what are you doing?’ but she