The Hornsey Bay Chapters

Chapter 3 - Ambushed

Floren is not entirely sure why John was even more angry at her this morning than she probably deserved him to be.

She got a very early ride to school with Mr. Parker, the middle-aged widow who lives in the apartment below hers. He had an early shift at the factory, so it worked out well. She wasn't sure how she was going to get to school early again tomorrow since he was just standing in for someone today.

Well, that problem solved itself when she lost her balance while practising doing handstands and fell, knocking her wrist hard against the stacked equipment she'd been sure she was far away from. Each time her attempts to stand on her hands failed, she must've moved away from her designated spot a little bit more.

The coach was so angry with her! Floren doesn't regret getting hurt and ending her career as a tomb raider before it's even begun because she doesn't enjoy getting yelled at, and Miss Winkler yelled a lot.

John has every right to be angry at her. She messed up his morning, and she feels horrible about it. He is always telling her to think before she acts, and she always remembers that advice right after she'd already acted without thinking and mucked up everything.

She didn't really want to do gymnastics so that she could pretend to be Lara Craft. She just got the idea while playing Tomb Raider. Floren is sick of always feeling like a burden. She can never keep up with her taller friends, especially the boys. They're always carrying her on their backs and helping her over obstacles or onto the boulders in the cove where they like to hang out.

She feels like a child when she's around them. She'd thought that if she could stand on her toes, like Lara Croft, reach up far above her head, pull herself up by her fingertips, and do flip-flops over hurdles, John wouldn't always look so stressed when she was around.

Gymnastics seemed like the ideal way to learn the skills she needed. It was a terrible plan because, first of all, there are no beginners in the school's club. Most of the students there this morning have been doing gymnastics since conception, and to make matters worse, Floren finally had to admit to herself that she is an incurable clutz!

She knew that, of course, but she'd never officially admitted it to herself before. If she's not tripping over her own feet, she's tripping over someone else's. Being a burden has nothing to do with her size, which is just a little bit under average. It has everything to do with the fact that she has two left feet and no co-ordination.

And now she's hurt... again... which means that John is going to stress again. That is the direct opposite of what she was aiming for. It's good that she didn't decide to join the wrestling team or, worse... the fencing club! She could've really wiped herself out there.

The school nurse looked her over and agreed with Jared's diagnosis that it was merely a slight sprain. She rubbed some gel on Floren's wrist and had it strapped into a brace. She gave her the tube of gel to take home for more applications and told her to wear the brace for a couple of days and, if the swelling doesn't go down or gets worse, to see a doctor and have some X-rays done.

Floren's wrist still hurts, but not as much as earlier. The swelling has gone down a lot, but she is ready to go home now because the day is just dragging on and on. She is fortunate that her right wrist got injured because she writes with her left hand. Still, she didn't realise how often she uses her right hand to do things until now.

Relieved that the bell announcing freedom has finally rung, Floren hurries to the school gate. She definitely doesn't want to make things worse by causing John to have to wait for her after school, so she ducked out of class the moment the end-of-day siren - the bell - made it sound like they were about to suffer an air raid. In his current mood, John might even decide not to wait for her if he got to the gate before she did!