The Education of Hailey Kendrick - Eileen Cook [15]
“I would feel terrible if you caught some intestinal parasite on our nation’s behalf. I think we should plan to go with London, since you don’t speak French.”
“Thanks. Not just for the future ambassadorship, but for sneaking out to find me. I feel better,” I said, tucking a clump of my muddy hair behind one ear. I was still mad at my dad, but I didn’t feel like I was going to fly into a thousand pieces anymore.
“This is all it takes to make you feel better?” Joel shook his head sadly, as if he couldn’t believe me. “I think you should raise the bar.”
“I don’t know. Don’t forget, I’ve pretty well beat up our buddy here.” I pointed to the statue of the knight. “I would say I’ve struck a blow against duty and feeling fake.”
Joel’s smile turned up on one side, just the tiniest bit evil. “What do you say we strike a real blow?”
6
“See if you can wrap my sweatshirt around his head. Then push from up there while I pull,” Joel called up to me. He was coated in mud now too. “Try to get as much leverage as you can.”
We were trying to remove the mascot’s head, but it was clear that this was one knight who didn’t intend to be decapitated. I didn’t have any artistic talent, so until that moment I’d had no appreciation for how much effort must go into making a statue. However they’d attached the head, it had clearly been done with more than a mere dollop of Elmer’s glue. Whoever made these things made them to last. Our plan was to take his head off and mount it on the front gate of Evesham, but I was getting close to giving up.
I was straddling the knight’s upraised arm a good six feet off the ground. I scootched forward so that I could take the sweatshirt from Joel without falling off. I wrapped it around the back of the knight’s head. Joel grabbed a hold of the arms of the shirt and pulled down while I tried to push. It didn’t feel as if the head was even budging. I didn’t think this plan would work. Given that our earlier attempt, whacking his head with a large stick, hadn’t seemed to do the trick, I didn’t think we had the brute strength to just rip it off. The only impact we seemed to have made all night was a slight dent in his chin, but that might have been there before we’d started.
I leaned back against the upraised part of the knight’s arm and tried to kick at his head. There was a loud crack, and the arm I was sitting on snapped off. It felt like I hung in the air for a split second, like the coyote in the Road Runner cartoons when he would run off a cliff. I let out a squeak, and then I fell.
Before I could hit the ground, Joel was under me, catching me with a loud “Oomph.” He staggered under my sudden weight, but hung on, holding me as if he were the groom and we were headed over the threshold. We both looked up at the statue. He still had his head, but his arm had sheared right off. It was lying on the ground, the tip of the sword snapped clean off. Our eyes met, and we both started laughing.
I slipped down so that I was standing, but Joel still had his arms around me, holding me up. I was laughing so hard that my eyes were watering.
“I can’t believe we did that,” I said, slightly out of breath.
“I can’t believe I’m going to do this.”
I was about to ask what he meant, when he kissed me. He pulled me even closer, and I could feel the heat of him through our wet clothes. It was like he was on fire. His hands were on either side of my face. I wasn’t aware of the knight, the rain, or the mud anymore. Joel was consuming every sense I had. His heat, the smell of his skin, the taste of his mouth, and the look in his eyes. It was as if the entire universe had shrunk down to the space that contained us. We were a black hole pulling everything in. I wound my hands in his hair and pulled him even closer, our bodies locking together like perfectly fitting puzzle pieces, LEGO bricks clicking together to build something bigger and better. I felt