I continued to sniffle but remained silent and still. I didn’t want to tell him because I would get in big trouble, and he would probably shout at me. I didn’t want to be shouted at.
“Lane?” Kale pressed when I turned my gaze from his. “What. Happened?”
I felt my lower lip wobble, and he sighed.
“I’m not mad at you,” he softly assured me, “but you need to tell me what happened. Anna O’Leary came and told me that you ran in here from the yard and that something happened. Tell me what. Please.”
“I . . . I was playing skipping with Anna O’Leary and Ally Day when Jordan Hummings took our rope and ran away.” I lowered my head until my chin touched my chest. “I chased after him and tried to get it back, but Jordan fell and said it was my fault, so he punched me in my head and now it really hurts.”
Kale’s hold on me tightened.
“Jordan Hummings?” he growled. “The boy in my class?”
I slowly nodded.
That’s why I was so scared; Jordan was a big boy like Kale.
“He hit you?” Kale asked, his voice a snarl.
I began to cry again when Kale’s anger became evident. He quickly lost the livid look on his face and just as quickly put his arms back around me. He hushed me, said sweet things to me and that he was going to make everything better.
I believed him.
“Come with me,” he said, and stood up, then settled my feet on the floor. “My playtime is over in a few minutes, so I have to do this quick.”
Kale was in big boy classes, and I didn’t like it. He had to be in big boy classes, though, because he was nine years old and had to learn big boy things . . . like maths. When I start year 2 classes next year, Kale and I will have the same yard time and can play together all the time. He told me so.
“Where are we going?” I asked Kale as he threaded his fingers through mine.
He grunted in response as he led me out of my classroom and down the long corridor to the exit door that opened up to the playground.
“I’m going to fix what happened to you,” he said as he pushed the door open and stepped through it.
I gripped his hand tightly as we walked around loads of children who were playing chase, hopscotch and skipping. We stopped at the girls who were skipping in the spot I’d been skipping on a while ago.
“Hey, girls, have either of you seen Jordan Hummings?” Kale asked.
I didn’t know who they were, but they were older than me. They might have even been in Kale’s class because they both smiled wide at him when he spoke to them. I narrowed my eyes at them and pressed closer to Kale’s side. I didn’t like that way they were looking at him. They looked a little too happy to see him.
“Hey, Kale.” The girl with the bright red hair and lightly freckled skin beamed. “I did actually. He’s gone behind the prefabs with his friends. I’m not sure why, though.”
Kale smiled to the redhead. “Thanks, Drew.”
Drew’s smile touched her ears. It was that big.
“Anytime,” she replied, tucking a piece of her luscious hair behind her ear, a coy smile on her lips.
I didn’t like Drew; I didn’t like her at all.
I tugged on Kale’s hand when he didn’t move. He was just standing there, looking at this Drew girl with a weird, goofy look on his face, and it made me mad.
“Kale!” I snapped.
He jumped a little, then looked down at me and blinked as if he’d forgotten I was there.
“She is so cute – is she your sister?”
Kale looked away from me and back to Drew when she spoke.
“Lane? She’s actually my best friend. I’m really close with her brothers and family. She is pretty much my sister.”
The look of admiration Drew shot Kale really ticked me off.
“Wow. That’s really cute, Kale,” Drew said, and lifted her right hand to her shining red hair, twisting her fingers around the end of it.
I wanted to chop the hair off her head. She touched it way too much.
“It-it is?” Kale stuttered, then had to clear his throat because it made a funny noise.
Drew nodded. “Yep. I think it’s really cool that you look out for her.”
Kale acted differently then. He shrugged his shoulders like what Drew said was no big deal and then untangled his hand from mine so he could leisurely drop it over my shoulder. “Well, you know. Someone’s gotta look after her. She’s six but she’s really small for her age. She’s only a kid.”
I frowned up at Kale and decided I didn’t like how different he was around this Drew girl and her friend with blonde hair who did nothing but stand and stare at him since the moment he’d asked where Jordan was.
Jordan.
At the reminder of why Kale was even talking to these girls, I tugged on his hand to get his attention, and when he looked down at me I said, “Jordan.”
Kale blinked, then shook his head clear and set his jaw.
He looked back to Drew. “You said Jordan went behind the prefabs, right?”
Drew bobbed her head up and down. “Uh-huh.”
Kale winked. “Thanks, beautiful.”
He turned to me then and said, “Stay here with Drew. I’ll be right back.”
With that said, he walked around me and headed in the direction of the prefabs. I was on the verge of tears because he’d done something wrong. He’d called Drew beautiful, but that had to be wrong because he said I was the only beautiful girl in the world. Just me. He always told me that.
“Did you hear that?” Drew squeaked to her friend and clapped her hands together like a seal at the zoo. “He called me beautiful. Beautiful!”
Drew’s friend jumped up and down and squealed. I resisted putting my fingers in my ears to block out the horrible noise.
“I did,” Drew’s friend said as she too clapped her hands together like a seal. “I so did. Oh, my God! He so likes you! Did you see how he couldn’t stop staring? You’re so bloody lucky, Drew – he is gorgeous!”
I didn’t want to stand there and listen to Drew and her friend as they gushed over Kale, so I ran after him. I heard Drew call for me, but I didn’t turn around to answer her. In fact, I mentally stuck my tongue out at her.
Take that, Drew.
I spotted Kale’s back as he disappeared around the back of the prefabs, so I ran my fastest after him. I got to the back of the prefabs at the same time a hand clamped down on my shoulder.
“Hold your horses – Kale said you have to stay with me.” I looked over my shoulder and stared up at Drew, who was looking down at me with furr
owed brows. Her chest rose and fell rapidly like my own as we both tried to catch our breath.
She lifted her gaze and looked straight ahead. Her mouth formed into the shape of an O before she flung her hand over her mouth and screeched. I jumped with fright and snapped my head forward, but like Drew, I too screeched when I saw what she had.
Kale was in a fight – with three boys.
“Kale!” I cried when one of the boys kicked him in the side of his belly.
I tried to rush forward to help him, but arms folded around me from behind.
“Stop!” Drew’s voice hissed in my ear. “You’ll get hurt!”
I didn’t care; I had to help Kale before he got hurt.
“Leave him alone!” I screamed at the boys. “Stop it, please!”
The noises of punches and slaps filled my ears, and just as I was about to scream again, one of the boys on top of Kale suddenly yelped in pain after receiving a kick between the legs. He fell backwards onto the ground and held both hands between his legs. He didn’t get back up and try to hit Kale again; he stayed down and began to cry in pain.
A few seconds later a second boy fell back off Kale, holding his nose, and he began to cry too, and like the boy next to him, he stayed on the ground and held onto his face as blood began to seep through the fingers he had pressed over his nose.
I didn’t know why, but I held tightly onto Drew’s arms as she bent down and picked me up. She held me to her and tried to turn so I couldn’t see what was happening, but I turned my head just enough to see that the last boy to fight Kale was Jordan Hummings. The boy who stole my skipping rope and punched me in the back of my head.
Kale was on top of Jordan. Both of them had blood on them, but Jordan had a lot more on him than Kale did, and he was crying. Kale was not. Jordan lifted his hands and tried to push Kale off, but Kale knocked his hands to the side and grabbed him by the collar of his school uniform and held him in place.
“If you ever,” Kale bellowed down into his face, “touch my family again, I’ll fucking kill you!”
I gasped. Kale said a bad word, a really bad word. He was going to be in so much trouble when his mummy and daddy found out.