Friday Barnes 13

Chapter 1
Abducted

Three hours later, Friday and Melanie were on a flight to Oslo. Ian was not with them. He was still not allowed to fly because of his head injury. It had been a sad scene at the airport. Ian had been his usual sullen broody self. Friday wasn’t entirely sure whether he had forgotten she was his girlfriend again, until they got to the departure gate where they would have to part ways to go through customs, and suddenly Ian had burst into tears.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Friday. She wasn’t sure what to do. Whether to try and hug Ian or to pat him on the back.

‘I don’t know,’ said Ian, hiding his face as he tried to plug his tear ducts with his thumb and middle finger. Which didn’t work. ‘Ever since the head injury, I just get so emotional.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ said Melanie. ‘It’s better out than in.’

‘No, it’s not,’ said Ian. ‘It’s very confusing. I saw a puppy playing with a chicken yesterday and it made me well up.’

‘Yes, that can be awkward,’ agreed Melanie. ‘Espe­cially if you find yourself somewhere with a lot of puppies, like a pet shop. But you’ve spent your whole life suppressing your emotions – your anger with your father, your anger with your mother, your anger with the world for not understanding how difficult it is to be incredibly handsome. It’s good that you’ve finally learned to release emotion in a healthy way.’

‘Why do people say crying is healthy?’ wailed Ian. ‘It’s not. It’s positively dangerous. It makes it very diffi­cult to see clearly. There’s no way you could operate heavy machinery with tears streaming down your face.’

‘You’re trying to change the subject now,’ said Melanie. ‘You’re crying because you’re upset to be parting from Friday. You can’t say that with words, so your eyes are saying it with liquids on your behalf.’

‘What?’ said Ian.

‘It’s okay,’ said Melanie. ‘It’s not your fault your eyes are more emotionally articulate than you are. Most men are that way.’

Ian swiped the tears from his eyes and forced himself to look at Friday. ‘You must think I really am brain damaged.’

Friday did not respond.

Now that he was looking at her, Ian realised that Friday looked like she was choking on something. ‘Are you all right?’ he sniffed.

Friday’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

‘Oh my gosh,’ said Melanie. ‘You’ve set her off too. You’ve made Friday get emotional. This is like some sort of miracle. Both of you emotional at once. I can’t believe you’ve having this relationship breakthrough just as we’re about to fly off to a different country.’

Friday wasn’t able to hold in the tears any longer. They started rolling down her face.

‘Oh, Friday,’ said Melanie. ‘Just give him a hug.’

Friday stepped towards Ian. He opened his arms, and they stood there holding each other for a solid two minutes before a rude businessman told them to get out of the way and stop blocking the entrance.

Friday found herself standing in the serpen­tine line in the customs hall with Melanie pressing tissues into her hand, not entirely sure what had just happened. Her eyes were so red and swollen that the electronic passport machine didn’t recognise her from her passport photo and she had to go to a desk to be processed manually.

When they finally made it through to the depar­ture lounge, Melanie took Friday by the hand and led her to their gate.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Melanie. ‘He’s not nearly as attractive since the neurosurgeon shaved all his hair off and put stitches in his head. No girl will steal him from you while you’re gone.’

Friday turned to look at her friend. They both knew Melanie was lying. No girl let anything like a serious head injury put her off pursuing an attractive teenage boy.