Paws

Chapter 4

They were both walking alone in the complete silence accompanied only by Arvi's cheeky comments and suggestions. He constantly kept telling him how he should carry him or that it would be better for them to just go back to the changing rooms. At first Doltier tried to answer him every time and explain, why he thinks it's a bad idea, but after some time he eventually gave up and nodded his head every time the feline said something. He didn't even seem to care about his leg, that from what Doltier could see didn't look or hurt him as bad as at the beginning.

The canine really hoped they won't meet and student or (what would be far worse) any teacher. Explaining how the cat got himself injured so badly wouldn't be easy. Thankfully the classes started only few minutes ago, so the corridors were empty at this time of the day. Still they will have to explain themselves to the school nurse, but after all there was nothing in their story they would want to hide. "Besides his bruise" - Doltier thought to himself.

He looked over at his friend who once again started complaining about something, that Doltier had no intentions in commenting or even listening to. Now that he was closer to him, he could see much more scars and bruises he had, some of them were quite big while others nearly unnoticeable. He knew that the nurse will definitely start asking question when she'll see them. After all, even he couldn't help himself but ask:

"Hey, I couldn't help, but notice all the bruises on your body. Did something happen to you?" he tried really hard to make his voice sound as unconcerned and calm as possible.

Arvi didn't slow down, but he did stop taking for a few seconds. He looked over at his friend annoyed and answered in the same casual, carefree way:

"I'm not sure if you heard about it, but there's this thing, it's called skateboarding and well...it ain't the safest sport around. And it's defiantly more dangerous than reading, that's for sure," he added sarcastically.

"Aha" Doltier nodded his head slowly, doubting that this was the real reason behind all the wounds "and I assume that's also the reason why your leg is in the way it is or why you are so exhausted or why there is a small area of missing fur on your arm (most of which manged to grow back), or..."

"What is your problem!" Arvi suddenly stopped and took of his arm from Doltier's neck "If you don't want to help me, you don't have to, I don't need your help" wanting to emphasis his words he tried to take the next step on his own.

He clenched his teeth as soon as his paw touched the floor, but manged to restrain himself from screaming, which was always some sort of success. He took another step, this time with a greater difficulty. As he was about to take the third one, he felt Doltier taking his paw and wrapping it around his neck, he tried to fight, but gave in after he heard his apologies:

"Look, I'm sorry, I acted like a jerk," he tried to make his apologies sound as honest as possible, even though it was all mainly Arvi's fault. "I promise never to speak of this again. If you want, we can even head back to the lockers."