Hacked by Tracy Alexander Read Free Book Online Page A

little help.’
    Mr Richards came over and interrupted us. Damn!
    ‘Dan, I noticed you giving Aiden a hand. Really good to see.’
    He walked back to the block with me.
    For the teambuilding quiz in the evening they picked the names out of a hat (except it was a bucket) – no luck there. Shame, I was hoping to build on the tiny bit of goodwill I’d detected from Ruby. Instead I concentrated on winning, which we did.
    The coach ride home was my last chance. I got on early and chose a seat near the front but Ruby sat with Amelia, two seats ahead on the opposite side. I studied her (while talking to Aiden – my new BFF). It’s weird what attracts you to one person and not another. She kept tucking her hair (which, unlike all the other girls’, stopped at her shoulder, not her bum) behind her ear and letting it slip through her fingers, and tilting herhead a lot. Her sleeves were too long – that looked cute, even though she picked her nails.
    It would have been over before it had begun, but the bus arrived back as school was chucking out so I confided in Joe and Ty (who’d come in for a half day).
    ‘No chance,’ said Ty. ‘She’s not the sort to go out with someone like you.’
    The head injury hadn’t made him any nicer.
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘You’re bad news, Dan.’
    ‘You could ask her to go for hot chocolate and explain,’ said Joe.
    ‘Explain that I stole lots of dosh by hacking?’
    ‘Explain that you don’t do it any more, because it was wrong. You’ve seen the error of your ways. You’re a new, and better, version.’
    As if that was going to work …
     
    The next day, when I spotted Ruby in the corridor outside her classroom, I gave it a go anyway.
    ‘Come with me for a hot chocolate after school … or a milkshake. I want to explain about the phone thing. Please.’
    ‘Get lost,’ said Amelia.
    ‘I will, if Ruby tells me too.’
    I wanted to make my eyes huge and sad like the cat in
Shrek
but she’d said she liked me normal so I didn’t.
    ‘All right,’ she said. ‘To shut you up.’
    Now I wanted to make my eyes mean and squintyto frighten Amelia, but I didn’t do that either. I did, however, do an involuntary skip after I turned the corner. I was turning into someone from
Mary Poppins.
     
    The thing with Ruby could have saved me. I wanted to be with her. She didn’t want me to be involved with anything illegal. Ergo, stop the hacking, get the girl. And that was how it was for a while. (Almost.)

14
    For our first proper date we went out with the Wildlife Trust. (Yes, I became a ‘friend of the planet’.)
    Sunday mornings in Ruby’s world meant volunteering. I wanted to see her and that was what she was doing so I went too. We all met at a courtyard on Jacobs Wells Road. It was an odd group, about twenty people, of which we were the youngest and the oldest was as old as Gandalf.
    ‘Who’s this you’ve brought with you, Ruby?’ said an old man, who turned out to be called Ted.
    ‘It’s’er fella,’ said an old woman, name of Dot.
    ‘Has he got a name?’ said Ted.
    ‘He’s called Fella,’ said Ruby.
    They all laughed, and called me ‘Fella’ all that day (and forever after).
    ‘When we get there, look out for the snipe and redshank,’ said Ted’s pal, Isaac, tapping my shoulder on the bus.
    ‘Will do,’ I said, with no idea what either of them looked like.
    ‘Fella’s got his own bird to gawp at,’ said Ted, startinga laugh that turned into a cough.
    Ruby winked at me.
    That day’s job was on the moor, patching up the bird hide and clearing the access. I worked beside Ruby, who’d brought some gloves for both of us. She was cutting back the overgrowth and I was tidying the edge of the track.
    ‘I like these long-handled sideways scissors,’ I said.
    ‘They’re called lawn shears, Fella,’ said Ted. His role seemed to be onlooker.
    ‘We could do with one of those petrol-driven strimmers,’ said Isaac.
    ‘Don’t need petrol when you’ve got a young