Life_ An Exploded Diagram - Mal Peet [54]
“Easy, boy,” Frankie said, bringing the uneasy horse to a halt. She swung herself out of the saddle.
She said, “Hello,” as if to someone she’d met by chance, and walked to the horse’s head. She put her hands on its hard flat cheeks.
“This is Clem. Clem, this is Marron. Isn’t he gorgeous? This is one of our favorite rides.”
She looked at Clem at last. “Say hello. Wait, give him these.”
She took three sugar cubes from her jacket pocket.
“Sit them on your hand, like this.”
He let the horse slobber them up, then wiped his hand on his jeans.
“Have you been waiting ages? I’m sorry. But listen, I had this terrific idea. I told Mummy that I was feeling guilty for neglecting Marron while I was working in the fields. I said that I’d try to find the time to take him out once or twice a week when I got home. And she bought it! She said that it was a très bonne idée. It means we can meet in the evenings! Don’t you think that was clever of me?”
He did, yes, and was dizzied by these new possibilities. But her brittle-sounding chatter was like a barrier between them. He was keenly aware of Marron’s rolling eye. And, yet again, of how achingly beautiful this girl was, how impossible all this was.
“Clem? Don’t you?”
“Yeah. Brilliant.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I . . .”
He moved toward her. She turned her head to glance back down the track, and he understood.
“This way,” he said, and walked to where a narrower path led away into the bracken. The horse was reluctant to turn and was nervy on the path. Frankie led him by the bridle, making encouraging chut-chut-chut noises. After five minutes, they came to a little dell inside a group of ancient beech trees, their trunks like huge clenchings of gray-green muscle. Light came in shifting dazzles through fans of leaves that descended almost to the ground.
“Will this do?”
Frankie surveyed the scene. “Hmm. Is this where you bring all your girls, Master Ackroyd?”
“Only the special ones.”
She looped and knotted Marron’s reins onto a low branch, then regarded Clem mock seriously.
“How many special ones have there been?”
But he was too impatient for games. “None. You’re the first, Frankie. Honest.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Come here, then.”
They stooped under the fringe of the leaf mantle. Their feet rustled the rust-colored leaf litter. Frankie took her jacket off, spread it on the ground, and sat on it. He knelt in front of her and slid his hand into her hair, finding that delicate place at the top of her neck. He leaned toward her.
“No,” she said, “like this,” and lay on her side, resting her head on her hand.
They had never lain down together, and Clem hesitated, fearing he would not be able to hide his uncontrollable stiffening from her.
“Come on,” she said. “We haven’t got all night, you know.”
“You mustn’t go too fast,” Maddie Travish had told her. “Because if you do, the boy will think you’re a tart. So no touching anywhere on the first three dates, okay? After that, a hand on the bum is perfectly acceptable. If you like him, if his breath doesn’t stink or anything like that, you can let him touch you up here. But only outside the bra. Definitely not inside the bra until at least the fifth date.”
“Why, Maddie?”
“Because boys like to think they’re making progress. They’d absolutely loathe to think that you are in control of things. They want to believe that you’re absolutely dying for it, but terribly afraid of giving in. So when you do give in, they think it’s because they’re irresistible. Besides, it’s the most wonderful fun, making them wait. They get into the most extraordinary states. You can do almost anything with them, darling.”
Frankie wasn’t sure if countless