Try To Change Me

Chapter 19

Eventually, after all three had taken a breathless, shocked pause to process everything, the setting sun stirred them into action. Phitz and Austen stood, not looking at each other, and moved the dresser aside as ebony waited behind them. They stepped into the failing light and finally met each other's eyes.

"So...?" She said, brushing hair out of her face. The front wisps had escaped her plait and tickled ebony's chin.

Phitz sighed. "Now what?"

Austen kicked the ground, letting out a heavy breath. "Well..."

"Where are the others?" Ebony cut in suddenly to his annoyance. Phitz rolled his eyes at his glowering friend.

"We're meeting them at the skatepark," he informed her, smiling patiently.

"So the question is," Austen said loudly, causing both of the others to shush him, "whether we follow the suits and risk running into them, or we go back to school and risk running into more of them."

Phitz shrugged. "How many more of them can there be?"

Eyes wide, ebony shook her head. "I never want to know the answer to that. Ever."

"So what are we going to do?"

They were all silent for a moment until ebony let out a gasp, looking around desperately. She stuck her head back under the verandah but reappeared, to the bemusement of the boys, looking quite stressed.

"My bag!" She wailed, dragging her hands anxiously rough her hair.

Phitz stared at her in stunned silence while Austen gathered his thoughts.

"Wait a minute. In the middle of all this, you're worried cause you lost your school bag?"

"Misplaced," ebony snapped. She twirled pointlessly, as if hoping it would appear in front of her but sank to her knees when she had no such luck. "If I happen it get out of this alive, which I hope to, my mum will kill me for misplacing that bag."

"Geez," Austen looked to Phitz for help, but he just shrugged. "Why?"

Ebony ignored the question. "I blame you for this, you know."

"Me?" He yelped, throwing his hands in the air, "what did I do?"

"You spoke to me!"

"What?"

Ebony fisted her hands in her hair, grinding her teeth. "You spoke to me and then Carrissa got mad and the world fell apart and I'm either going to die or get grounded and..." Tears sprang to her eyes and ebony's voice choked off into silence.

Austen dropped down beside her, gathering the trembling girl into his arms. Phitz watched in amazement as he rocked her gently back and forth.

"Hey, hey, hey," he murmured against her hair, gently rubbing his thumb in circles on her back. "Carrissa doesn't own me."

His friend swallowed a chuckle: he would have gone with 'we're not going the die' or 'the worlds still spinning', but that wasn't how Austen rolled.

The boy continued very quietly. "And if we are playing the blame game, it's your fault. I wouldn't have helped you if you hadn't looked so..." He swallowed his sentence as she met his eyes. "Hopeless."

Phitz shook his head, but ebony chuckled. She wiped her eyes.

"Thank you, Austen," she said simply, taking his hand and standing. She dragged him to his feet as he nodded, a little stunned, and Phitz clapped his hands together.

"So," he said, grinning, "sounds like we're going looking for a school bag?"

She nodded gratefully, turning back to the smashed fence and picking her way through gently.