On the Strawberry Moon - 20. Chapter 20

The twins were in their bedroom getting ready for bed.

As he pulled his pyjama top over his head, Kalum bit his tongue.

He knew the outcome was going to be very bad but he needed to just go for it.

‘What?’ Jasper bluntness snapped out of him.

Kalum sighed and leaned against their bedroom wall.

‘Is that rock climbing thing on twenty-eighth?’ asked Jasper as he pulled his pyjama trousers on. ‘You’ll be fine. Just don’t look down and you won’t embarrass me.’

The rock climbing was something Sammy planned to do; it was sort of near her birthday. She was going away for the weekend with her folk and this was the only thing she was doing with friends. Kalum completely forgot about it.

‘I don’t think I can go,’ murmured Kalum.

‘You don’t think you can go?’ snorted Jasper.

‘I have something else on?’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘I do,’ a small voice protested out of Kalum. ‘I have a date.’

‘You organised a second date with the girls?’

‘No. With Robert.’

‘Robert?’ frowned Jasper, crossing his arms.

‘Yeah, he asked me out, I said yes,’ Kalum tried to make his voice not small but it kept coming out sounding fragile.

‘So, you like him?’ Jasper’s tone of voice was harsh.

‘It’s just one date,’ Kalum said. ‘We won’t tell anyone, no one will know okay, it’s just two guys hanging out, that’s all, and we’ll make sure no one from the gang or school sees us.’

Jasper stared at him not saying anything and unblinking.

This wasn’t looking good.

Kalum kept babbling, ‘It’s not a big deal, and Robert won’t tell anyone as well, and if Sammy asks where I am, I can just say I’m sick and I can make up for it. But, I know we both have to be sick, but I can be the one who caught a sickness bug first and then you can say you’re not feeling too great either after the climbing.’

‘You want me to lie to our friends?’

‘Well, I can say it to them, you don’t have to say anything at all,’ Kalum gave out a nervous laughter. ‘I can sort it out.’

‘Why can’t you just change your stupid date to a better time?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Because Robert won’t let you.’

‘Because I don’t want to,’ Kalum replied, softly.

‘But you’re okay lying to people about being sick?’ Jasper backed Kalum into a corner of the bedroom.

Kalum wanted to say he lied to them all the time and Jasper did too. Lied about them being okay and lied about the fact that nothing bad was happening.

‘Just this once,’ Kalum replied.

‘Just this once?’ Jasper paused. ‘Well, let’s make it more believable why you can’t climb.’

Suddenly, he grabbed Kalum’s arm and yanked it forwards. Pulling his brother quickly to the floor, Jasper sat on top of him, with full weight and yanked his arm back.

‘Please, no, no,’ Kalum tried to wiggle away, feeling immense pain piercing through.

Jasper kept bending and bending and twisting before snatching up their heavy backpack and dropping it onto his arm. He stamped hard and pulled the arm back even more.

The care workers downstairs heard an almighty shriek from the twins’ bedroom and rushed in.

Kalum was wiggling on the floor, in tears, clutching his mattered arm while Jasper rushed to them, looking very upset, ‘Kalum’s arms went all funny, he’s in so much pain, please help!’

***
‘Dude,’ Tom raised both his eyebrows as the twins sat down at the school table with their lunch. ‘What happened?’

Kalum put his lunch down with his free hand, his other arm hanging in in bandages and a sling, ‘Accident at home, very annoying.’

‘Hope you’re okay,’ Oscar frowned. ‘Must be painful.’

‘I broke my arm years ago, I had it in a sling for ages, it’s so crap isn’t it,’ Ronny said.

‘You won’t be able to go climbing,’ Sammy said, with a sad face.

‘I’m gutted about that,’ Kalum said.

‘Guess he’ll be missing it this year,’ Jasper announced and looked at Kalum, clicking his tongue, ‘Kalum is an absolute klutz. He fell off the bunk bed, can you even believe that.’

As the gang laughed, Robert was sat with them and he just stared hard at the twins. He noticed how Kalum didn’t look up from his lunch, he laughed but the smile wasn’t Kalum’s smile, it was his acting smile.

Robert didn’t say anything and bit hard into his sandwich.

He had had enough of Jasper. He was going to sort this today with Jasper directly.