The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group by Catherine Jinks Read Free Book Online

business.’
    Fergus blinked. He stared at me for a moment, drop-jawed and goggle-eyed, before shuffling into the house.
    ‘Jeez,’ he moaned. ‘What’s got up your bum?’
    ‘You have,’ I told him.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I dunno.’ It occurred to me suddenly that I was being unfair. ‘I just don’t want to talk about any of this.’
    ‘So you don’t want to know what happened?’
    ‘Of course I do!’
    ‘Well, how are you going to find out if you don’t talk to people?’
    He had a point. He was also extremely unsquashable. The thing about Fergus is, whatever he wants to do, he does it. Without a second thought. That’s why he gets into so much trouble at school.
    ‘I was thinking, if someone’s to blame for what happened, we can pay ’em back,’ he suggested, following me into my bedroom. ‘We can work out what they did, and then do the same to them.’
    ‘Don’t be such an idiot.’ I could hear Mum banging kitchen drawers in her search for something edible. ‘This isn’t funny. This isn’t a joke. It’s really serious .’
    ‘I know! That’s what I’m saying! Whoever’s responsible should be made to suffer!’
    ‘Just drop it.’ I scanned my possessions, eager to distract him. ‘Do you wanna play that computer game you got off Liam, or what?’
    Fergus seemed taken aback. He eyed me in a perplexed sort of way, then pulled a face and scratched his chin.
    ‘Did some pervert get hold of you?’ he asked quietly.
    ‘ No! ’ I was stung. ‘Jesus!’
    ‘Well, why are you acting so weird?’
    ‘Because you’re really bugging me, that’s why!’
    ‘Were you with a girl?’
    ‘Of course not! Why the hell would I take a girl to a dingo pen?’
    Fergus shrugged. ‘Some people are really strange when it comes to sex,’ he announced.
    I laughed: a short, sharp honk.
    ‘Like you’d even know,’ I said witheringly.
    ‘Was it a boy?’ he inquired, as if struck by a sudden thought. ‘Are you gay?’
    ‘Don’t be stupid.’
    ‘Was it a dare?’
    ‘Just leave me alone , will you?’
    ‘Why? What’s the big deal?’ He wouldn’t stop pestering me – and at last I blew my top.
    ‘The big deal is that I might be epileptic! Okay?’ I barked. ‘Are you satisfied? Huh? Will you shut up, now?’
    Of course not. Dumb question.
    ‘What do you mean?’ He was frowning. ‘How can you be epileptic?’
    ‘I dunno, Fergus! Go figure!’
    ‘But—’
    ‘I might have had a seizure on Monday night. I might have lost it. And now I can’t remember what happened.’
    I braced as Fergus caught his breath.
    ‘But that’s fantastic !’ he exclaimed.
    I gawped at him. ‘What?’
    ‘Don’t you see?’ He grabbed a handful of my T-shirt. ‘You’ve got a free pass, you lucky bastard!’
    I still didn’t get it, though. He had to spell it out.
    ‘You can do anything you want,’ he said, ‘and you’ll never get in trouble. Because you can always blame the epilepsy. Man, you’ve got it made. ’
    He was right. The truth slowly dawned on me as I gazed at his widening grin. I now had the perfect excuse. For everything. There was no end to what I could get away with, providing I didn’t push my luck.
    ‘You know what?’ I said slowly. ‘Yesterday the doctor was talking about these things called absence seizures, where you just sit there and stare into space.’ Lowering my voice so that Mum couldn’t hear, I hissed, ‘What if I pretended to have one of those during an exam?’
    ‘You wouldn’t have to answer any questions!’
    ‘I know!’
    ‘You could do it in class!’
    ‘Exactly!’
    ‘You could say you didn’t do your homework because you had a seizure . . .’
    That’s what I like about Fergus: he’s a real silver-lining kind of guy. We soon worked out a whole bunch of tricks that we could play, thanks to my dreaded ‘condition’. He put an entirely new spin on something that I’d been viewing as a total disaster. Thanks to Fergus, I was no longer scared to talk about what had