Page 30 of The Fall I Fell

He ignored me. ‘She’s been asked to the prom?’ Callum asked wide-eyed, focusing on the unimportant part of my sentence.

‘You knew about this thing too?’ I shook my head. Why was I always the last to know?

‘Alfie only just told me, because the girl Jake is going with just arrived.’

With a little fire in my belly, mixed with the painful discomfort of an emotion I couldn’t explain and a desire to know who this ‘Pen’ was that everyone just couldn’t stop talking about, I planted an aggressive kiss on Hope’s head and dragged my brother back to the barn.

The music thumped through the yard as various teens hobbled in and out of the doors, already acting wasted despite the fact the party had only been on for an hour, and the only booze on offer was cider. I followed Callum, who navigated his way through the crowd of strangers with ease and brought us out at the back of the barn where Will, Jacob, and a few others gathered, alongside a girl I assumed was Pen. Alfie was no doubt swinging from the rafters, and I dreaded to think what he’d have broken by morning – bones and all.

Though I knew she was only our age, Pen seemed so much older – like I was stuck in girlhood, and she was a fully fledged woman. She didn’t try and hide her chest under layers of four-year-old cat costume. No, she stood confidently with every one of her curves on display. I could never imagine her looking in a mirror and hating anything she saw. She had a nose piercing and stacks of rings and necklaces, and everything about her felt so proper, so confident, that I cowered in her presence.

‘You must be Ava!’ She grinned and waved from across the group. ‘I’ve heard so much about you!’

‘Ditto,’ I returned, my smile not as convincing as hers. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’

‘Wait, do you and Jake have matching costumes?’ She suddenly looked between us, and Jacob refused to look up from his shoes.

‘Sort of,’ I responded. ‘My gran made them both. I’m a cat, but Jake is a wolf. We’ve had the costumes for a few years now. It’s just like a little inside joke we’ve had since we were kids. I always said he was like a wolf, and well after we found Hope, our cat, he thought that I was, well, like a cat too.’ I felt like an idiot the more I spoke, but Pen just smiled and nodded. As Will’s other friends chuckled amongst themselves, Jacob flushed. Was he ashamed? Of me? Of being Wolfie?

‘How adorable.’ Pen pinched at the ears of Jacob’s costume.

People started explaining their costumes in various degrees. And when Jacob thought everyone had looked away to listen to another of Will’s anecdotes, he slid the ears off his head and shoved them into his pocket.

I saw him, though.

Excusing myself from the group, I found myself at the drinks table. I was tempted to try one of the ciders, but picked up a can of Diet Coke instead and took a swig.

‘Mind if I join you?’ One of the boys from the group stood beside me with a soft smile. He was redheaded, speckled with freckles and had beautifully set teeth that look like he’d only just had his braces off. He smiled wider when I nodded. ‘I’m Adam.’

‘Ava.’ I stuck out my hand for him to shake. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘A handshake? Very formal,’ he teased, but before I could pull it away in shame, he took my hand in his and squeezed it gently, sending a shiver through me.

‘You’re one of Jacob’s friends?’ My voice trembled a little. For the first time in my life, I actually recognised that he was hitting on me. I had absolutely no preparation for this moment.

‘Will’s, actually,’ he replied.

An older boy was actually showing some interest in me? I chanced a glance at Jacob, who was looking around the party with a soured expression. When I caught his gaze, he snapped away and returned his attention to Pen, who stood beside him chatting away without any sort of nerves or restraint.

‘Would you like to dance?’ I still don’t know where my confidence came from. I was never a dancer. I certainly didn’t feel like I could dance ‘correctly’ at a party full of teenage boys, with a teenage boy.

Before I could backtrack, Adam gave me a perplexed look that shifted into a grin and a shrug. ‘Go on then. Why not?’

Chapter 17

Now

‘It isn’t stopping.’ Grandad stands at the kitchen window for the seventh morning of the week, chastising the rain as though his shaking bony fist is enough to ward it off. ‘The dykes are full and the back field is a bog.’

‘It’s alright dad,’ Mum tries a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he paces too quickly for it to stick too long.

‘It’s not alright. It’s too wet to harvest the tates, the animals need to be moved inside to be grain fed, and there’s no chance I’m going to get time to drill the winter wheat.’

Farming is both a science and an art. It relies on so many variables coming together at the right time in only the correct ways, that it may as well be sorcery. Especially here, where rain is in abundance, and yet drought always seems to hit at the very worst moment. In a country where the weather is known for its inability to stay fine from one hour to the next, farming needs only the perfect conditions. How are you meant to plan around a weather system that can’t decide on snow or sun in March, or cold or blistering heat in October? I don’t know how grandad has kept going for as many years as he has, where each bad harvest has a knock-on effect, until his whole livelihood is at risk after one cold snap. It’s a game of chance, a gamble that rarely pays out in full, and leaves you swearing at the sky in every season.

Yet, never once has the thought of quitting been said aloud.

‘Can we help, Grandad?’ I speak up, my stomach in knots at the sight of him so rattled, so anxious.