‘You drive this time,’ Kellen says, fetching the keys from Madzikanda’s desk. He twirls them round his finger before tossing them over, expecting me to catch. My hands slap together pathetically as they drop to the floor in front of me.
‘You know I can’t do sport!’ I groan, leaning down to pick them up.
‘Ah yes, competitive key-catching: goes all the way back to the first Olympics.’
‘They used to wrestle naked in Ancient Greece,’ I say. ‘I think I’d be better at that.’
‘You really think so?’ Kellen says, raising an eyebrow.
‘Depends who I’m wrestling.’
‘All right,’ he says, pulling his T-shirt off in one swift motion. ‘Right here, right now.’
‘You wouldn’t stand a chance.’
‘Wouldn’t I?’ He goes to take off his shorts.
‘OK, OK,’ I say, covering my eyes. ‘You win. Put your clothes back on.’
‘It’s cute you pretend you don’t wanna look.’ He smirks as he puts his T-shirt back on. I suppose he’s not entirely wrong. He does look good topless.
‘Can you imagine if Madzikanda walked in to see us wrestling naked on her carpet?’
Kellen laughs. ‘I think it would be enough to force her into early retirement.’
‘I sometimes feel kinda bad for her. Can you imagine having us as your year group?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kellen says as we exit her office. ‘I heard she was pretty rebellious when she was a student. You know Harrington was headmaster even back then?’
‘That can’t be right,’ I say, following him down the corridor, trying to do the maths on my fingertips. ‘He’d have to be, like, a hundred years old.’
‘He was a young headmaster. Apparently he used to be less miserable then.’
I snort. ‘I find that hard to believe.’ I’m pretty sure that man came out of the womb scowling and ready to give out detentions.
‘Besides,’ Kellen says, ‘I’m sure we’re not the worst she’s had!’
‘Kellen, we’re literally about to commit grand theft auto.’
‘You don’t need to be so dramatic,’ he says, laughing. ‘It’s just one little vehicle.’
I unlock the car. ‘Petite theft auto then?’
‘Petite theft auto it is.’ Kellen grins, climbing in the passenger side. ‘I’m glad I get to play passenger princess today.’ He drums on the dashboard like an excitable child.
I can’t believe I’m about to do this. Kellen driving was bad enough, but me? As I just proved with the keys, I have zero hand-eye coordination. I can’t even win a game of Mario Kart with the difficulty set to easy. At least we don’t need to worry about getting caught this time. Everyone is still inside at lunch. We can take it slow. There’s really no need to rush.
‘What the hell are you two doing?!’