The Force of Terror

Chapter 9 (Emily) - The Kiss

When I woke up on Monday morning, mother was already gone. She had fried some bacon and eggs for me and left a note saying that she was organising something with Mrs Smith.

I would have liked to go back under the warm blankets, but I forced myself to grab a plate and go to the table to eat. It was so cold that I had to put my winter coat on. The electricity hadn’t come on for some reason, and mother hadn’t used enough coal when frying the bacon to heat our flat.

The doorbell rang. It was Charlie. I yawned when I opened the door.

 ‘Do you know that you have a piece of bacon hanging from the side of your mouth,’ was the first thing he said when I opened the door.

I tried to wipe my mouth before noticing the mischievous grin on his face.

‘Very funny, Charlie!’

‘I’m sorry, but when you were trying to kiss me, your breath smelled so much of bacon that I had to think of something quickly to get your bacon-breath away.’

We had never kissed, not really, and I hadn’t tried to kiss him then, but his words still made me worry. I mean, how can you tell what your own breath smells like? To try to get a whiff of my scent, I kept blowing on my hand while we were running down from the eighth floor. We were not the only ones leaving at the last possible moment. It almost looked like army barracks with uniformed boys and girls pouring out of every door.

Once down and out, we almost crashed into Lola and Lucy. They are twins and were my best friends at the time.

‘Hey Lola, do my breath smell like bacon?’

‘Huh?’

‘Never mind her, she is just trying to show off, "Here I am, just eating my bacon and honey, while the rest of you lot just have your government-issued porridge,"’ Lucy said.

‘Who eats bacon with honey?’ asked Sunitha, who joined us with three of her friends. She had put pink highlights on her hair again. She was going to get into so much trouble if Mr Owens saw her.

‘What are you all talking about?’

‘Emily is just trying to remind us how rich she is by announcing to everyone what she had for breakfast.’

I looked at Charlie. He was trying hard not to start laughing. ‘Stop smiling, Charlie, and say something. This is all your fault.’

This statement got a lot of ooohs and aaahs from the crowd. Charlie never said anything, but luckily, people got tired of making animal noises when someone started singing ‘Jingle Bells, Batman Smells’.

We had to slow down near the gate because the police had come back again, and Scottish Liberation Army had locked the entrance meant for vehicles. This made getting out of the estate ridiculously slow as the side gate was so small that only one person at the time could get through. The taller kids had to bend their heads to fit.

‘Did you hear about Jonas,’ Sunitha whispered. ‘I don’t like gossiping, but I heard that Jennifer’s death really devastated him. Nobody has seen him since the Saturday morning.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said.

‘Somebody saw him walking around with a thick rope. Do you think—’

‘I said that I don’t want to talk about it!’

‘Jeez, Emily,’ Sunitha exclaimed theatrically. ‘I was just making conversation. You don’t have to become violent.’

We waited in silence. Charlie took hold of my hand. His touch felt electrified, and warm shivers spread all over my body. It felt like getting back inside the heated tent after freezing outside for hours guarding against enemy attack. I squeezed his hand as hard as I could and rested my head on his shoulder.