by Phoenix in the Ashes » Sunday 24 February 2008 12:38:18am
While Linda stared at the sky and Red picked up his things, John and Sarah talked about his prospective chances in the upcoming competition. He'd been training for it for months.
Suddenly, Linda's attention snapped back to reality, as though she had just awoken from a dream.
"Are you okay?" John asked.
"Yeah..." she responded. John lifted an eyebrow, but turned to face Tancred. "What have you got there?" he asked. In Tancred's right hand was a small piece of lined paper.
"It's nothing," he said, going red, "just something for school."
"Is that so?" John noticed his awkwardness. He snatched it out of Tancred's hand and tried to read it, but was tackled before he could get further than the first word. It looked like a letter.
The pair fought for the paper, and John tried to hold Red on the ground so that he could read it. Suddenly, he felt himself being flipped over on his back, and he fell to the ground with a thud. He swore, and tried to extricate himself from the awkward position. He still held the rather crumpled letter in his right hand. He managed to crawl away from Tancred and stumble onto his bicycle, where he rotated his legs furiously to gain immediate momentum. He rode to gather distance between him and Tancred, but the other boy was sprinting after him and he had no spare time to read the letter, as he had to concentrate on where he was riding. This was a garden, and there were plants and twigs and small declines everywhere.
Very carefully, still pedalling at a respectable pace, he uncrinkled the piece of paper in his right hand with his left hand, trying to keep a steady direction with his bike, which was heading up a small hill. He was peering down at the object of curiosity before him when he suddenly felt the resistance against the bike weaken, and its speed increase. The hill was behind him and his momentum was carrying him much too fast. The letter was strange, though. It was in Tancred's handwriting.
His attention was snapped away from the letter when he heard a shout from Red behind him: "Stop reading it!... and watch out!"
John's head turned suddenly to the path in front of him, but he realised that it was too late, and that he had been an idiot. He tried to swerve the bike away, but it was moving too quickly and he was flung off the seat at a rocketing pace. He hit the oak tree with a bone-cracking thump, and felt a brief spasm of pain before he blacked out into unconsciousness.