Frozen Read Free Page B

up, hoping that this would be the time it stuck. Instead, it hit the trunk about three feet too low, and fell with a soft smack. Not a good start, when you thought about it: surly replies and a display of inept footwork. And she obviously was my neighbour. After all, she was poking her head through the fence from next-door's back garden. And in any case I'd watched them move in the day before, a tall gaunt man and a young girl. I had hung around at the window hoping for another sight of the girl, and the more glimpses I caught the more I thought that for once something good had happened to me. Now, in person, she was as pretty as I'd hoped, with big brown eyes and a face like an elf who was about to get into trouble and was looking forward to it. All in all, not the best time to start behaving like a prat. Mercifully, she giggled.
    “Oh, I'm your neighbour,” she said merrily. “No doubt about it. Only I was asking if you were my neighbour.”
    I sniggered at the joke despite myself. I hoicked the ball up again, and once again missed. That made her laugh too. She slipped through a narrow gap between two spindly trunks in the threadbare hedge, and stood next to me. I swaggered off to collect the ball.
    “It would work if you used a sling,” she said. Neither of us looked at each other, only at the ball and the tree: rules of engagement.
    “I don't think you can control it well enough with your feet.”
    I snorted a sarcastic thanks.
    “I don't mean like that.” She giggled. “I mean you're never doing it the same twice, so you don't get any better. You're just starting again.”
    Which was true enough. I hadn't been thinking of it that way because, of course, perfecting the result wasn't the point. I was just passing time. I hadn't yet succeeded with the ball that day—in fact, I could remember only ever having done it once. I ambled back with the ball.
    “What do you mean, a sling?”
    “Like the Romans used in sieges.” She waved her delicate hands about airily. “A catapult. A lever, with the ball on one end and a weight on the other. Or a spring in the middle; doesn't really matter. And you'd need some kind of release thing so you wound it up to the same tension every time. Otherwise it'd go all over the place.”
    I kicked the ball twice more in silence. She stood with her hands behind her back, twirling idly from side to side. Her yellow print skirt was slightly translucent because the light was behind her. Her shadowy legs were long and lean, and where they appeared from under her skirt, her knees bulged slightly. Her thin brown calves had a haze of transparent hairs. Her sandalled pigeon toes scuffed at the tussocky grass with every sway. She kept her head still as she swung her shoulders back and forth, and the yellow light reflected from her dress cupped her chin, first on one side and then the other. She was almost as tall as me—but then, I was short and stocky. I was lumpen and graceless; my growth spurt had all been sideways while everyone else had gone up. She was long and supple as a willow. She didn't seem to notice the contrast. Mostly she seemed to be eyeing the tree. The thin fabric pulled gently at the two small bumps on her chest with every twist of her scrawny arms. I decided I liked her. Sort of.
    “Won't work,” I said surlily.
    “Rubbish,” she pouted. “Anyway, why not?”
    “Well, have you got a spring and a ratchet and a lever and all that other stuff?” I asked petulantly. “’Cause I haven't.”
    I kicked at the over-long grass around the football (did I mention that it was my job to mow the lawn?). I kicked the heads off a couple of dandelions. Then I said, “Look, I've got to go for tea and stuff. See you around.” And I slouched away, feeling her gaze upon me, knowing that my ears were going red. I wasn't trying to push her away, but that was exactly how it sounded, and I knew it.
    ''Bye, then,” she called softly. I pretended I hadn't heard. I didn't turn round. A