(I owe an apology for how slow “Woe to the Giant” has been lately.  I’ve been in Berlin.  I’ll try to get the last two pages of this chapter up by Friday.)

(I’m also sorry it’s taken me nearly two months to finish this story.)

July 2003

Amelia phoned her with the news one morning not long after GCSEs ended.  The demolition work at Crowe’s Wood had been halted.  There was a front-page article in the local paper.

“They’re saying it was because the council ran out of funding,” said Amelia, “But that’s because it would be too embarrassing to admit it was because of dancing robot trees.”

Natalie spent the rest of the day at Amelia and David’s, sitting out in the garden, drinking wine and staring up at the sky.  Their plan had worked.  Crowe’s Wood had been saved.  It was as if they’d created a new world.

As the evening wore on, Amelia suggested going down to the river a little way behind their house, just to dip their feet in and enjoy the atmosphere.  They stayed there for a while, chatting happily, until Amelia got up and went back to the house.  That left Natalie and David alone on the bank, oddly silent.

David stretched out on his back.  “Shame you can’t see the stars from here.  Light pollution.”

Natalie nodded.  Tonight, light pollution seemed like just another problem they could solve with a bit of imagination.  Just get the lot of them together for a couple of hours, and they could do anything.

Night smelt different from day, even in a city.  Maybe it was the smell of the earth cooling after the sun went in.

Natalie took her feet out of the water, and shifted up so she was half-sitting, half-lying next to David.  For a moment, she was worried that he’d turn into just another stupid boy, with a sneer and an Eurgh, what do you think you’re playing at?  Instead, he reached out and touched her cheek with his fingertips.  “Perfect,” he said, with a blissful smile.

The planets were aligning tonight.  History was being made.  For years, Natalie’s body had been nothing but a series of minor irritations- nose too flat, shoulders too wide, legs too thick at the top- but now, it felt right.  As if it had finally finished cooking.

Destiny.  Magic.  Words like that felt too small.  Tonight was just different.  Tonight, she’d stepped into a new world.

She lay down in the grass, cupped David’s face in her hand, and kissed him.

 

July and August 2005

“Look, Natalie, you can’t hide from us forever.  All we want to do is meet up and clear the air.  Come on, you owe us that, at…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

“I get it, alright?  It got too tough to stick it out, and you couldn’t take it.  You got scared.  Well, fair enough.  But maybe, just maybe, you’ve lost out on something important.  I think later on, you’ll look back and realise…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

“Wow, so you’re just going to ignore us forever?  What a great attitude.  The next time you try and paint yourself as tolerant and open-minded, remember…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

“OK, so, we’ve all been talking, and we’ve decided this is for the best.  We don’t need this ugliness in our lives.  Deep down, you’ve always been quite a manipulative…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

“This is fucking childish.  You know that, right?  This is…”

“This message has been deleted.”

*

Over the next couple of months, Natalie spent a lot of time with Abbie.  The two of them seemed to have broken off from the main group completely.  Natalie didn’t know if Johnny and Amelia had told Abbie that their final argument had been over her, or if the two of them had just got sick of the others at the same time by coincidence.  They didn’t really talk about it.  They drove around to interesting places, sat at home watching old cartoons, and went shopping for stuff they might need for university.  There was always something to take their minds off it.

Natalie also checked in on Micha Lewis now and then, just to see how she was.  Her treatment had finished, and her parents were just starting to let her go out and see people again without worrying that it would tire her out.  Natalie still usually met her at her house, though.  She’d got into the habit.

One day, they were sitting around chatting when Mischa said, “Oh, I meant to tell you- I ran into Amelia Moody in town the other day.”

Natalie gave a start.  It was easy to kid yourself that just because you weren’t speaking to someone, nobody else around you would either.  “Really?  What did she say?”

Mischa grinned.  “She said she thought I ought to know that you were just using me like you did her.  And I said, ‘using me for what?’ and she just made this disgusted snorting noise and walked away.”

“I think I know which noise you mean,” said Natalie.

Mischa leaned back against the sofa.  “What I should have said was, I already got my end of the bargain.  Anyone who helps me pass my A-levels can use me as much as they want.”

Natalie laughed.  “I’m glad you didn’t say that.  Amelia’s got a dirty mind, you know.”

*

Natalie spent the first two weeks of August in Portugal with her family.  No Johnny and Amelia to bother her there.

Even besides that, she enjoyed herself.  They hadn’t been sure until the last minute whether or not her older sister Andrea would be able to get the time off work to come along, but it all worked out and here she was.  And maybe it was just because Andrea knew Natalie was about to leave home and she wanted to pass down some advice, but the two of them seemed to talk more in those two weeks than they had for the last two years.

One evening, while they sat out on one of the villa’s balconies trying to see if they recognised any constellations, Andrea mentioned something that had happened when she was twelve and Natalie was eight.  “Worst thing I ever did.  Kicking you two out of my friend’s house and making you walk home in the dark?  You could’ve been killed.”

Natalie remembered the night in question.  It hadn’t been great.  “Yeah, but… we weren’t.  And it was a long time ago.”

“I still feel sick when I think about what could have happened.”  Andrea had clasped her hands in her lap, and her fingers seemed to be trying to wrestle each other out of the way.  “You were only little.”

“Well, you weren’t exactly grown-up yourself.”  Natalie thought back to another holiday.  “Hey, remember when we were in Berlin five years ago, and there was a guy in the subway playing… I guess it was traditional German music… and Dad tried to get me to dance with him?”

Andrea grinned.  “Yeah, and you really didn’t want to.”  That had pissed Dad right off, and Mum had joined in.  That could have been a fun holiday memory, but you had to ruin it by acting miserable.  Why can’t you just lighten up?

“Well, the main thing I remember is that you stood up for me.”  She’d told Dad that just because something was fun for him didn’t mean he could browbeat everyone else into finding it fun too, and that if he seriously expected any thirteen-year-old on the planet to want to dance with her dad in public, then he was setting himself up for a whole lot of disappointment.  Dad had then spent the next half-hour grumbling about how on earth he’d been saddled with two such humourless daughters, but that didn’t matter.  “I think that taught me something about trusting my own instincts.  Before, I’d been assuming that Dad was automatically the reasonable one, and I was just a sulky brat who didn’t know how to have a good time.  But if you were taking my side, then maybe that wasn’t true.”  Natalie lifted her glass of cola in an impression of a toast.  “And honestly, after the kind of year I’ve had, I’ll forgive you pretty much anything for that.”

*

A-level results came out a few days after they got back.  Natalie’s mum drove her up to the school to collect them.  She did quite well (two Bs and a C, enough to get her into Berrylands), and, if she was a little put out that Abbie and Mischa had both scored higher than her, it was hard to dwell on that when Mischa was sweeping her up in a hug and declaring that she’d never have to buy a round of drinks as long as she lived.

Natalie didn’t find out what grades Johnny and Amelia got.  She didn’t get close enough to ask.

She did see David, though, just outside the school as she prepared to head home.  “Hey, Natalie,” he called out, with the same dazed, contemplating-the-universe smile that he’d always had.  The one that made her heart ache a bit.

She smiled back, faintly.  “Alright?”

“So you were going to go off to university without even saying goodbye?”

Natalie, back off.  You apologise to Amelia right now.

Bite me.

Natalie sighed.  “I think I already did.”

David nodded, acknowledging what she’d said in a way that meant he didn’t have to react to it in any way whatsoever.  “If you want to know a secret, I’m not going to stick around here much longer, either.”  He looked around at the nearby buildings- the school, the fire station across the road, the old people’s home on the corner- and shivered.  “Suburbia… it gets to you.  I need to be among people whose biggest concern isn’t their paycheque.”

“Yeah?” asked Natalie, “And where do they live?”

He smiled again, and Natalie remembered the night they’d made their stand for Crowe’s Wood.  She didn’t know how much of an impact they’d actually had on construction being cancelled, but she did know that it had been something worth doing.  None of the unpleasantness of the last month could cancel that out.  “I’ll find out,” he told her, “Just give me enough time.”  And Natalie was surprised to find that she believed him.  If anyone was going to find and live among a group of people who always focused on more important things than money, it was David.

He took a step back, as if he was appraising her, then added, “What if you came with me?”

Natalie stared at him.  “What, to look for the no-paycheque people?”  She was trying to pass it off as a joke, but she saw how it could work.  She was a legal adult, done with school for good.  She was expected to head out into the world.  And who said there was only one way of doing that?

“Exactly,” David said softly, “Just you and me.”

Just Natalie and David.  No Amelia, no Johnny, no Daisy.  No need to worry about Abbie or Mischa.  They could leave behind all the stupid crap that had built up over the last year and start a new life somewhere else.  Instead of thinking about student loans and the Freshers’ Fayre, she could be travelling the world in a life of swashbuckling adventure, by David’s side day and night.

Natalie, back off.  You apologise to Amelia right now.

What would happen the next time she went against what he wanted?  Or even against what someone he liked wanted?  Would he be willing to talk things out with her, or would he start talking like a disappointed parent again the minute she stepped out of line?

She wouldn’t be by his side after all.  She’d be trailing along in his shadow, expected to be constantly grateful for being there.

“David,” said Natalie, with a smile that felt a little apologetic, “You really need to make some friends your own age.”

He left pretty quickly after that.

 

September 2003

On the first morning of term, Natalie woke up at five-thirty and couldn’t get back to sleep.  She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, and made plans for the day ahead.  The days, weeks, and months ahead.  Everything around her seemed ripe with potential, and she was going to explore it all.

It wasn’t just that she was starting Sixth Form, with school uniforms a thing of the past, her timetable whittled down to four subjects she actually enjoyed, and the whole of the next two years basically a rehearsal for university.  It had more to do with how much she’d changed over the last three months.  It felt as if the whole Crowe’s Wood thing had altered her DNA somehow.  The others at school might not be able to see it, but Natalie would.

People weren’t going to know what had hit them.  Natalie and her friends working together were like nothing they’d ever seen before.  People wouldn’t even know the words to describe them.  After the summer they’d had, with Crowe’s Wood and everything that had happened afterwards, they all knew they were capable of anything.

Natalie grinned into the darkness, and stood up.  No point staying in bed now.

The End