Strawberry Crush

“Best have that looked at,” said Jake. “You could have got some dirt in it. Let’s get you into the car and I’ll give you a lift home.”

With the help of Jake’s supporting arm, Maya tottered feebly to her feet.

“Can you manage to walk?”

She sniffed, heroically. “I’ll try.”

“Well, take it slowly. Mattie, do you want to grab her bike?”

I thought, Oh, if I must.

“We can put yours in, too, if you like. I might as well give you both a lift. You’re just round the corner from each other, aren’t you?”

I was about to say, rather ungraciously, that I didn’t need a lift, we were only five minutes away, but then I thought, who in their right mind would turn down a ride in a car with the great Jake Harper? Just about the coolest boy in the school!

I wheeled both bikes across the road, pulling a face behind Maya’s back as I did so. She was really playing things for all they were worth!

“Easy does it,” said Jake, helping her into the car. Needless to say, she got the front seat. I had to sit crammed into the back, against the bikes, with my legs all curled up and handlebars digging into me.

“OK?” said Jake.

I said, “Fine!” I didn’t want him thinking I was as big a wimp as Maya. A little bit of discomfort was nothing to me.

“I’d better go in first,” I said, “and tell your mum.”

Maya’s mum tends to panic. Although she and my mum are twins they are so not identical. Mum is really down to earth and practical; she takes things in her stride. I think I am a bit like her. Auntie Megs, on the other hand, is more of a nervous type. I guess that’s where Maya gets it from. I knew if I didn’t go ahead and break the news, gently, Auntie Megs would immediately think Maya was at death’s door.

But then, omigod! As I uncurled my legs and clambered my way out of the car I saw that Jake had already gone round to the passenger side and was actually preparing to carry Maya up to the house. It was like something out of a cheesy romance movie. I do actually quite enjoy cheesy romance movies – sometimes – but this was just embarrassing! Maya was being poor little fragile me, and Jake was falling for it. Maybe it made him feel … I don’t know … manly. I know some boys like to feel that, just as some girls like to play helpless. I have too much pride! I’d have managed to stagger indoors without any help even if I’d had to hop on one leg. But that is just me.

“Let me go first!”

Rudely I pushed past them and raced up to the door. Auntie Megs must have been keeping watch – waiting, in her anxious way, for Maya to arrive home – because the door flew open even before I got there.

“Mattie!” shrieked Auntie Megs. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing; it’s nothing,” I said. “She fell off her bike, but she’s perfectly OK!”

Not that it looked like it, with Jake cradling her in his arms.

“Honestly,” I said, “she’s just grazed her hand. Nothing to worry about.”

But Auntie Megs worries about everything. She has this long list of rules that are designed to keep you safe. Rule No. 1, never go anywhere near a tree if you are out in a storm in case you get struck by lightning. Rule No. 2, never get into the first or the last carriage on a train in case the train gets hit by another train. Rule No. 3, never walk under a piece of scaffolding in case it collapses on top of you. The list is endless! So naturally, seeing a limp body being carried up the garden path she feared the worst. To be fair, I expect any mum would have. Even mine might have been a little bit alarmed. It was so over the top!

Maya was obviously basking in it, and I guess Jake was, too. He carried her through the house and set her down, very gently, on the sofa.

“There you go! No broken bones, but it was a nasty tumble.”

Nasty tumble? Whoever uses the word tumble? Unless they’re talking about a tumble dryer? Unless … maybe he had chosen the word specially, so as not to cause too much alarm. Maybe he’d thought if he said “a nasty fall” Auntie Meg would fly into one of her panics.

She was going to fly into a panic anyway. As soothingly as I could I said that Maya had just come off her bike. Like she hadn’t come off it a dozen times before.

“I knew this would happen!” cried Auntie Megs. “I’ve said all along, you shouldn’t be cycling.”

“We always wear our helmets,” I said.

“I don’t care, it’s still not safe! You could still get a concussion.”

I tried exchanging glances with Jake, but he was too busy concentrating on Maya and didn’t notice. I waited while Auntie Megs fussed about, checking for concussion by holding up a finger and telling Maya to follow it, then decided I’d had enough. I was used to Auntie Megs getting in a flap but I never thought I’d see Jake going all soft and drippy. Jake Harper was one of the coolest people on the planet! He was not only a prefect, he was also captain of the school football team.

But Auntie Megs does cleaning for his mum so probably, maybe, he felt duty-bound to show concern. Just not that much! I felt like screaming, “There’s nothing wrong with her!”

“I’ll go and get the bikes,” I said.

“Hang on!” Jake came after me. “I’ll give you a hand. Let me just take Maya’s in for her then I’ll run you home.”

Well! How could I say no? I am not someone that goes soft and drippy but there’s this girl that lives in my road, Linzi Baxter, that reckons all the boys fancy her. She’s in Year Eight along with me and Maya and is a really tiresome sort of person. With any luck she might be coming back from school in time to see me getting out of the car. And see who was driving it. That would give her something to think about! There aren’t many boys at our school get to drive their own cars. She’d certainly never gone out with one.

I suppose that is a bit shallow, really, but girls like Linzi, always so full of themselves, really do my head in.

“I’ll just go and tell Maya I’m off,” I said.

Jake came back in with me, wheeling the bike.

“Maya,” I said, “we’re going.”

“All right.”

She’d been sitting up but immediately flopped back down again, giving us this little trembly smile from out of her pile of cushions.

“See you tomorrow,” I said.

A sort of sigh escaped her. It was like “Mmmmmm …”

“I’m not having her back on that bike,” said Auntie Megs. “My nerves can’t stand it.”

“OK.” I shrugged. “We’ll take the bus.”

It isn’t any use trying to reason with Auntie Megs; it just gets her even more flustered. But I grumbled about it in the car.

“It’s such a drag, hanging around for the bus! Cycling’s perfectly safe, as long as you wear a helmet. It’s not like we’re in London! I could understand it if we were in London. But I mean, out here it’s, like – well! It’s just fields and stuff. Auntie Megs makes such a fuss!”

“I guess you can understand it,” said Jake. “Maya’s quite a delicate little thing, isn’t she?”

Oh, yuck!

“Not especially,” I said. “She just looks like she is. She’s actually quite tough.”

“No one would ever think it,” said Jake.