‘Bad but not mean’ seemed to be the verdict.

Tina’s summary was the most succinct: ‘like Belgian chocolate—absolutely sinful and completely irresistible’.

Guilty in the knowledge that I was far too interested in someone I’d met just the once, I tried to shake the habit of looking for him. This wasn’t my normal behaviour—in England, I’d rarely taken an interest in boys, and if I’d chosen a candidate to flip the switch, so to speak, it wouldn’t have been Zed.

What was there even to like about him? Nothing but a sneer. That made me shal ow for taking such an interest. He might have become the anti-hero of my ongoing graphic novel plotting, but that didn’t make him a good candidate for my attention in real life.

Maybe the fact that he was so far out of my league made him strangely ‘safe’ to fancy; it would go no further because the moon would fal from the sky before he noticed me.

Our paths did cross once, but that was out of school—and definitely not to my advantage. I’d dropped by the grocery store on my way home to pick up some milk and got cornered by Mrs Hoffman. In between gril ing me as to how I was getting on in every single one of my subjects, she also enrol ed me in fetching goods for her.

‘Sky, honey, I’d like a jar of dil sauce,’ she said, gesturing to a smal green bottle on the very top shelf.

‘OK.’ I put my hands on my hips and looked up. It was out of reach for both of us.

‘Why do they make these pesky shelves so tal ?’

huffed Mrs Hoffman. ‘I’ve a mind to cal the manager.’

‘No, no.’ I didn’t want to be there for that particular episode. ‘I can get it.’ I glanced down the aisle, wondering if there was a handy ladder available and caught sight of Zed at the far end.

Mrs Hoffman spotted him too. ‘Wel , look there, it’s that Benedict boy—Xav—no, Zed. Foolish names if you ask me.’

I didn’t ask because I had no doubt she’d also have something to say on the subject of mine.

‘Shal we cal him over?’ she asked.

That would be great: ‘Excuse me, Mr Tal -and-Good-looking Wolfman, but can you help the English midget reach the sauce?’ I think not.

‘It’s OK; I can get it.’ I climbed on the lowest shelf, pul ing myself up by the middle one, reaching up on tiptoes. My fingers curled around the topmost jar—

almost …

Then my foot slipped and I landed on my backside, the jar flying from my hand and smashing on the tiles. The row of dil sauces rocked precariously, looked sure to fal , but miraculously stayed on the shelf.

‘Bummer!’

‘Sky Bright, I won’t stand for such unladylike language!’ said Mrs Hoffman.

The assistant arrived, towing a mop and bucket on wheels behind her like a tubby dog.

‘I’m not paying for that, Leanne,’ Mrs Hoffman announced immediately, pointing to the mess I’d made with the jar.

I struggled to my feet, feeling a bruise already forming at the base of my spine, but I resisted the temptation to rub the offended part. ‘It was my fault.’ I dug in my pocket and pul ed out a five dol ar bil .

There went my chocolate treat.

‘Put your money away, honey,’ said the shop assistant. ‘It was an accident. We al saw that.’

Without a word, Zed sauntered over and plucked another jar of dil sauce from the shelf with no difficulty whatsoever and tucked it in Mrs Hoffman’s basket.

Mrs Hoffman beamed at him, perhaps not realizing she was smiling at the school’s bad boy.

‘Thank you, Zed. It is Zed, isn’t it?’

He nodded curtly, his eyes flicking over me with something like derision.

Zap—he paralyses his enemy with a flick of an eyelash.

‘How are your parents, Zed dear?’

Wonderful! Mrs Hoffman had found another victim to interrogate.

‘They’re OK,’ he said, adding as an afterthought,

‘ma’am.’

Wow, was America weird! Even the town bad boy had a polite streak drummed into him—not like his British equivalent who wouldn’t have dreamt of cal ing anyone ‘ma’am’.

‘And your older brothers, what are they doing these days?’

I slipped away with a soft ‘bye’. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I thought I heard Zed mutter ‘traitor’ as I abandoned him, which made me feel a lot better about doing a prat-fal before his very eyes.

I’d not got far before I heard a motorbike behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see Zed manoeuvring a black Honda up the street, weaving expertly between the streams of traffic returning home for the night. He was obviously better at cutting short a conversation with Mrs Hoffman than I was. He slowed down when he spotted me but didn’t pul over.

I carried on walking, trying not to worry that it was getting dark and he was stil on my tail. He fol owed until I reached my gate, then zoomed off, doing a wheelie that made a neighbour’s little poodle yap as if she’d been electrocuted.

What had that been about? Intimidation?

Curiosity? I thought the first was most likely. I would die of embarrassment if he ever knew how much time I had spent wondering about him that week. It had to stop.

Friday morning and the local news carried non-stop coverage of a gang shooting in the nearest city, Denver. Family members had got caught in the crossfire—al now in the morgue. It seemed a long way from the concerns of our mountain community so I was surprised to find everyone was talking about it. Violence of the ‘ka-pow!’ sort was OK in the imagination, but the real thing was sickening. I didn’t want to dwel on it but my classmates were unstoppable.

‘They say it was a drug deal that went down real bad,’ Zoe, a friend of Tina’s, told us over lunch. She had an irreverent attitude to life and I particularly liked her because she was only a shade tal er than me, thanks to her petite Chinese mother. ‘But five members of the same family were kil ed including a baby. How sick can you get?’

‘I heard the gunmen have gone on the run. An APB

is out over the whole state,’ added Tina knowledgeably. Her older brother worked in the sheriff’s office. ‘Brad’s signed up for extra duty.’

‘Tel your brother not to worry: Mrs Hoffman wil spot them if they come here.’ Zoe snapped her celery and dipped it in salt, deftly slicking her long black hair over her shoulder with her spare hand. ‘I can just see her taking them out.’

‘Yeah, she’l have them begging for mercy,’

agreed Tina.

Mrs Hoffman—Judge Merciless, dealing out justice with her wooden spoon of doom, I mused.

‘Do you think the gunmen wil come here?’

The two girls stared at me.

‘What?

Something

exciting

happen

in

Wrickenridge? Get real,’ laughed Zoe.

‘No, Sky,’ said Tina. ‘Not a chance. We’re at the end of a road going nowhere. Why would anyone come here unless they’ve skis strapped to their feet?’

It was a good question. I realized too late that I’d been stupid not to guess that they were joking about Wrickenridge getting involved in the big story, but Zoe and Tina were more amused than scornful of my intel igence. Being foreign cut me a little extra slack.

Making my excuses to get away from al this talk of murder, I arrived outside the practice room five minutes early. I had the place to myself and indulged my wandering fingers on the grand, dipping in and out of a Chopin nocturne. It helped cleanse me of the shivery feeling I got when thinking of the Denver shooting. Violence always made me feel panicked, as if it was about to release a tiger from a cage of memories inside me—something I couldn’t fight or survive. Not going there.

We didn’t yet have a piano at home and I was having serious withdrawal symptoms. As I weaved my way through the notes, I distracted myself by wondering what reception Zed would give me today.

Chopin melted into something more funky, with the Mission Impossible theme tune interlaced.