Outside In by Chrissie Keighery Read Free Book Online

raised his hands, palms up. ‘Come on, Delanty. How long are you gonna take?’
    â€˜Come on, Delanty. How long are you gonna take?’ Meredith ducked under Sam’s outstretched hands, mimicking him.
    She got his tone exactly right, the emphasis on the ‘long’, the crackly voice. Sam could feel how close she came to his body. Her back to his stomach. The grey wool of his school jumper brushing against the checks of her dress.
    â€˜Piss off, Moo,’ he said mildly.
    â€˜Piss orff, Moo.’ She swung around, laughing. She was such a stirrer, so loud. She always had so much to say that Sam never needed to say much back.
    The sun came out between the clouds. There was something weird about the way Meredith was watching him. Sam felt like a pinned insect, alive and wriggling.
    â€˜OH MY GOD! You’ve got BUM FLUFF, Sam! Above your lips!’
    BLUSHING IS THE BODY’S RESPONSE TO STRESS. IT SENDS THE BLOOD PUMPING THROUGH THE VEINS TO REACH THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE SKIN. READYING THE BLUSHER TO RUN. TO EXECUTE THE FIGHT OR FLIGHT INSTINCT .
    The random information knocked around in Sam’s head, even as he felt the blood rushing through his veins, the heat up his neck and face.
    Sam registered a general sense of amusement around the gang. He didn’t know where to put himself or where to look. Cecilia looked embarrassed for him. Made it worse, somehow.
    Meredith, whose chatter came as fast as the Blackbird airplane. ABOUT 3600 KM AN HOUR . Like she was always in some kind of race. Normally it made her the girl he was most comfortable with. She never seemed to notice that Sam wasn’t good at making his thoughts come out in words. That he struggled to come up with the right thing to say when Lee asked him a question. When Jordan gave him one of her withering looks, or Cecilia just let the pause in a conversation grow and gape.
    Meredith filled in the gaps herself. She included Sam in her conversations, requiring only a gesture here, a word there. Sometimes Sam even felt a bit cool when Meredith was around. Not Jack cool. That was never going to happen to a guy like Sam. But cool enough.
    And then a curve ball, like this. What was he supposed to do with this?
    Instinctively, Sam moved into his default position. He knew it was a variation on the fight instinct. He buckled Meredith’s knees with his own and spun her around into a headlock. Her back was against his chest, and she fought all the way as they fumbled through the crowd.
    Sam mumbled an apology to Cecilia for making her jump backwards to avoid them. She was so skinny, so small, it was kind of scary. It was as though you’d break her in half if you weren’t careful. The two of them bumped into Jack. That didn’t matter. Delanty was indestructible.
    â€˜No offence, Sam,’ Meredith giggled. ‘I just noticed it, all right?’
    The Chinese burn was pretty hard. Meredith was strong, for a girl. A bunch of Sam’s skin went one way. Another bunch of skin went in the opposite direction. Like his thoughts.
    She shouldn’t have said that in front of everyone.
    She noticed .

Sam pressed the nozzle on the shaving foam can. RELEASED FROM THE PRESSURE INTO THE ATMOSPHERE, THE HYDROCARBON MADE IT EXPAND AND FROTH . Sam pasted the foam onto his upper lip. He checked the lock on the bathroom door.
    Meredith’s comments had followed him around all day, like a shadow, and even seeped into his evening. Around the basketball court as he passed and shot the ball. Her words had melted into maths, arranging themselves around the algebra. X = flattered. Y = embarrassed. Brackets should tell you which part of the equation to figure out first. Where were the brackets?
    This was harder than algebra to figure out. Because there was embarrassment, but there was something else too. A sort of thrill inside the humiliation that had made him shudder even as he played basketball or solved maths problems. The memory of what