The Island of Dragons (Rockpools Book 4)

by Gregg Dunnett

  Chapter Eight

  By the time I get back, Guy and Jimbo are already drinking, and the pile of trash overflowing the trash can has grown a bit bigger. And over the next few days that’s how it goes. That seems to be the pattern that most people are following. Drinking, recovering from drinking (and making a big fuss about how hungover they are), and then this absurd talk about how much sex they’re having, or how they’re going to get lots of sex at the next party. In short, it’s almost exactly like high school was, only a lot messier because there’s no proper adults to clean up.

  I guess I’m a bit disappointed, but I’m still hopeful that it’s going to change when the classes actually start, and I get to meet some of the other Marine Biology students. In the meantime I decide not to complain. It’s not that bad. But I’d be lying if I said my first impression of college was great.

  My first class is a lecture on Cells: The Building Blocks of Life. It’s my first time actually taking a real class in one of the proper lecture halls, with the steep rows of seating, and the professor at the front behind a lectern. I’m a little bit early when I arrive, and I’m not sure where I should sit. Actually I’m fifteen minutes early, so the theater is empty, which doesn’t give me much to go on. In the end I opt for the second row – near the front but not right at the front, I don’t want to be the class geek. But then there are some geeks who do sit in the front row, as well as lots of more normal students who sit in little groups together in the other parts of the room. I kind of hope someone will come and sit next to me, but no one does. I take notes all the way through. I don’t actually need to, because the whole lecture is incredibly basic stuff, but I feel the lecturer might be offended if I don’t. I’m actually a bit surprised when it’s over and she just leaves, telling us she’ll see us next week. In a way it’s a bit of an anticlimax.

  Then I have a gap in my schedule, and later on I have my second class: Introduction to Marine Biology. Again it’s pretty basic, because I’ve been studying this stuff since I was about eleven, but I expect it’ll get tougher pretty quickly. In this class I take the time to look around a bit more. There’s maybe a hundred other students, and most of them look much more serious, at least they’re all writing, or typing things into computers. Which is quite cool I reckon.

  The other classes I have are Evolution and Behavior, Biodiversity and Physical and Chemical Processes of the Ocean. Again, none of it is new, or difficult, but I suppose it’s good to have a refresher. And as the days go by I do get to know some of the other students on the courses. In fact, it’s hard to keep track of them all. But while everyone seems nice enough, I guess I’m still a little disappointed too – the Marine Biology students don’t seem very different to the other students I’m meeting, at the parties and at my house. No one seems that committed to the course, it’s more about how much they’re drinking, and how much sex they’re having.

  I’m nervous when I get to have my first tutorial with Lawrence. I’ve understood now that he’s only a PhD student who’s doing teaching – that is, he hasn’t even got his doctorate yet, let alone become an actual professor. And at the rate he’s going, I’m not sure if he’ll ever make it. As I suspected when I first met him, he still seems more interested in the girls he’s teaching than about the subject (Marine Ecosystems – could it be more basic?) But it turns out to be a little more interesting than the lectures, because as least we get to answer questions in the tutorials (in fact I end up answering all the questions because none of the other students seem to know very much.) So in a way it’s quite fun.

  Then I get a call from Amber telling me we have to meet for lunch. On the one hand it’s hard to believe it’s been two weeks since I last saw her, but on the other I can’t believe it’s been only two weeks.

  It’s easier for me to go to her than for her to come down to the campus, since she only gets an hour off from her work and I have large study gaps in my schedule (not that I particularly need them yet). So we meet in Pasta Gusto, which is just across the street from her office.

  “So Billy, how’s it going?” She asks, once we’ve both sat down. She’s dyed her hair again, it’s orange now – but only in bits. “How’s my college boy?”

  “Good.” There’s a pause, where we smile at each other, but it’s just a tiny bit awkward. “How’s your job?”

  “It’s cool. They’re giving me a ton to do, but it’s…” she tips her head to one side. “It’s nice to see you Billy. Really nice.”

  For a moment I wonder if she expects me to stand up again and hug her – she kind of sounds like she’s thinking about it, but then gets herself arranged instead, putting a phone I haven’t seen before next to her, and tucking her bag on the seat next to her. Then she spots a waitress and puts her hand up, calling her over.

  “You wanna beer?” She smiles. “I know what you students are like.”

  “You know what I’m like too,” I reply, then frown. “Are you having one?”

  “Can’t. I’m still working.” She orders a coke, and I have the same. “They got me working on this pitch for a re-brand of a bakery. But a big one. And my boss, he keeps having new ideas and getting me to start from scratch.” She gestures to the phone. “That’s why I’ve gotta have that on the whole day.”

  I don’t really know what she’s talking about. “How’s your apartment?”

  She looks up. “Oh, it’s OK. Nicer than your place! I’m sharing with two other girls.” She shrugs. “They’re cool. Bit older than me. Hey, how’s your lot? How’s… what was his name? Gary?”

  “Guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You met him. He’s a moron.”

  She grins at this, and I tell her about the whole lot of them, and how they either seem more interested in drinking than studying, or like the girls they hide in their rooms and I hardly ever see them. It’s nice to be with Amber, I realize after a while. I can just be myself and relax. And I get the sense she feels the same, but at the same time I notice her checking her phone a couple of times, or maybe she’s just keeping an eye on the time.

  We both order pizzas, and I explain how the work is a bit disappointing, at least so far, and she nods, and when I’ve finished she explains how her pitch works. They have to basically design a whole new suite of logos and how the different products the bakery makes will get packaged. But they’re up against two other design agencies, and the bakery will decide which one they prefer. If they don’t win, they don’t get paid anything. It’s interesting but, well, you know, it’s not that interesting, so I ask her if she’s managed to do any new designs for the Save our Sea-Dragons campaign, and she gets a bit uptight and says she’s already done loads for that. And then there’s a few moments where we’re both just eating the pizzas, and don’t seem to know quite what to say. I guess it makes me realize how Amber and I are moving apart more quickly than I’d anticipated. I mean I’m sure we’ll stay friends and everything, but we are on separate paths now, her into the commercial world, and me into academia.

  Then before I’m even done eating, Amber’s phone pings, and when she checks it she swears and says she has to go. Right then. She insists on paying for the meal, even though I try to stop her. She says she got paid already. So that helps, because my bank account is looking pretty empty already.

  Chapter Nine

  Nearly two months go by with me telling myself – and Dad, when I ring him – that everything’s going great, when it isn’t. Not really. It’s a bit like with school if I’m honest, in that there’s no massive problem I could point to, it’s just the whole experience is somehow – I don’t know, underwhelming. But then something happens that changes everything. Like completely. Actually it’s not something, it’s someone.

  I didn’t tell you, but just after the semester began I was selected for a special program, not here at BU but at a different university called Harvard. You might have heard of it, since it’s quite well known (though it doesn’t even teach Marine Biology). Anyway, Harvard Univer
sity has a lot of money and likes to help out the other universities, so they offer a few special students – the ones from underprivileged backgrounds, or the really exceptional ones – additional courses, actually in Harvard itself. And I got told I fit into both those categories, so I was offered an extra class studying National and International Law. It was actually my tutor, Lawrence, who convinced me to go, since I didn’t see the point, but he told me that Law is very important, given that it impacts upon the coastlines and the oceans. And actually it is very interesting, partly because it’s actually something new to learn. The only problem is my Harvard class finishes at two on Thursdays, and then my Physical and Chemical Processes of the Ocean class starts at two thirty – which only gives me a half hour to get three miles across the city. Of course it doesn’t really matter if I’m late for Physical and Chemical Processes, since it’s super easy, and they don’t take registers in college, but I still feel it would be rude. But anyway. That’s why I was sprinting out of the Harvard campus just now, until I went around a corner too fast and literally smashed straight into a girl. She actually screamed like I meant it or something.

  I stare at her as I pick myself up off the floor. Or bits of her. She’s lying on her back, with her legs in the air, and there are books everywhere. It gives me a few seconds to consider what to do. I’ve already seen the students around here are different from the kids at my high school – they all look like they’ve got money. I don’t want this girl to sue me.

  “I’m really sorry.” I say suddenly. “Are you OK? I was late for a class, and…”

  She rolls forward, her hair all messed up and her face white. Even so her appearance stuns me into silence.

  “You nearly killed me!”

  Slowly she picks herself up and slaps the dust from her jeans. On the one hand she looks like any of the hundreds of other students around, in jeans and a kind of blouse thing, but on the other hand it’s obvious she’s different. She’s stunning, and the anger on her face only makes her more striking. It’s pushed a red color into her cheeks, where the rest of her skin is pale and clear. But I don’t want to stare, so I bend down to pick up her books. I can’t help but read the titles. They’re all some sort of law textbooks.

  “What class?” She says.

  “Pardon?”

  “What class are you late for?” She holds out her hands to take them, and as she does so she stares right at me.

  “Oh it’s not here. I’m at BU…” She’s still looking at me, and there’s a curious expression on her face that I don’t understand. “It’s, um, Physical and Chemical Processes of the Ocean.” I give a little cough, when she doesn’t react.

  “I know you.” Her eyes narrow, and her forehead just creases a tiny bit, the skin still smooth, and kind of delicate. Her hair is this golden color, a bit like, a bit like… Well like sunlight. Or maybe more accurately dry Marram grass, but only when it looks beautiful like at the end of summer at sunset. Sunset in the sand dunes…

  “I saw you on TV.”

  I snap quickly out of whatever it is I’m thinking and try to focus.

  “I did, didn’t I? You were that kid who stopped the – some drugs assholes. Only when they interviewed you on TV you only wanted to talk about the sizes of sharks. You confused the hell out of the reporter. It was hilarious.”

  Now it’s my turn to frown. It’s true I did end up helping to get some drug smugglers arrested about a year ago, well – in some cases arrested, in other cases killed, but that wasn’t my fault. And while I did give a couple of TV interviews about it, and used the opportunity to try and explain the mitigating circumstances behind Steve Rose’s scientific fraud, they definitely weren’t funny. But you just try explaining all that to a girl you’ve just sent flying.

  “Over on, erm…” She turns away and snaps her fingers. “Lornea Island, wasn’t it?”

  Dumbly, I nod.

  “We have a house on Lornea.” She smiles suddenly. Her whole face lights up, like the sun just came out. “My family I mean, it’s just a holiday place,” she wrinkles her nose.

  I’m still holding her books, and though I don’t know what to say, I don’t want to give them back. It might mean she walks away, and I don’t think I want that.

  “So is that where you’re from? Lornea Island?”

  I nod again, although actually my background is kind of difficult to explain. “Yeah.”

  “Billy!” She exclaims suddenly. “It’s Billy, isn’t it? I remember now. I have one of those memories.” She holds out her hand, and I have to clasp her books to my chest in order to free up mine to shake it.

  Then her forehead creases again into a frown, but one of amused confusion, not anger.

  “It was actually my books I was hoping for there Billy, but if you insist. I’m Lily.”

  So then I pull back my hand, just as she goes to shake it, and then I stick mine out a second time, and eventually we shake hands. Her hand feels delicate, the skin cool and soft. Suddenly she bursts into laughter.

  “What are you doing?” I’ve no idea what she means, but I drop her hand at once.

  “I’m sorry, I was just…”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She stares at me for a moment. “Actually what are you doing?”

  I pause. “I’m not. It’s just your hand felt nice…”

  “No, I mean – that was weird but - what are you doing now? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  I freeze. I’ve got my class. But then there’s this girl. This incredible girl. But I haven’t missed any classes yet. I have my attendance record to think of.

  “I have my class.”

  “Physical and Chemical…something?” She smiles again. “Processes of the Ocean. I told you, I have that sort of memory. Is it hard? It sounds hard.”

  “Oh no. I’ve studied all the topics for the whole year, back when I was in high school… I mean, it wasn’t a subject my school offered, I just studied it anyway.”

  “When you weren’t catching drug smugglers?”

  “That’s right. Or murderers.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up.

  “I also caught some murderers. Just a couple.” I turn away and count in my head. “Actually three.”

  “Three?”

  “I think it was three.”

  “You’re even funnier in real life than on TV.”

  I frown again. “Do you want your books back?”

  “You can carry them for me.”

  “What?”

  “You can carry them. You’re coming with me.”

  “But I have to get to…”

  “No you don’t. You just said it was easy, and I’m about to expand your education significantly in other directions. Come on.” She turns and starts walking away, and I can’t help but see how well her jeans fit her. Her hair swishes as she turns her head, and she sees where I’m looking.

  “Come on Billy.”

  So I follow her.

  Chapter Ten

  She walks fast, so it’s hard to keep up, especially since I’m still carrying her books clamped to my chest, and my back pack too.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I do soon enough, when we come to a little café. It’s tucked away in the basement of a block of apartments on a street just off the Harvard campus. She skips down the steps and pushes open the door and a bell tinkles as she does so, and inside most of the customers look up to see who’s come in. There’s only about ten people, and it’s one of those places where they let you linger and lounge about. Most of the seating is old leather couches. Against the left wall there are two facing each other over a low table, and three other people slouched in them.

  “Hey guys!” Lily says brightly. Then she reaches behind her and grabs me by the arm, and pulls me forward, like she’s presenting me as a prize.

  “Who’s that?” It’s a man who asks, well, he’s only a couple of years older than me, I’d guess, but he looks much more mature than me
. Physically I mean, I don’t know about mentally. I haven’t had the chance to tell.

  “I bumped into him,” Lily explains. I assume she’s using the term literally and metaphorically, but she doesn’t explain how. “His name’s Billy, and he’s really funny.”

  They all – the man, and the two others, who are another man and a girl – look at me, as if I’m about to launch into a comedy skit, but obviously I’m not, so I just stand there.

  “He doesn’t look very funny,” the first man says, but at once the other man interrupts him.

  “Oh I don’t know, James, the way he’s dressed looks frankly hilarious.” This second man is wearing little round spectacles, and he pushes them up his nose. But then he stands up and holds out his hand – not like I’m going to shake it, more like I can kiss it.

  “I’m Eric.”

  I take his hand, still horizontal, and hold it for a second, then let go again.

  “Charming to meet you. Any friend of Lily is a friend of mine. And James too, I’m sure.”

  I haven’t got the first idea what’s going on, but Lily takes my hand now and pulls me down onto the couch. The other girl moves along to make space for us.

  “So you’ve met Eric, and sort of met James,” she turns to him and gives him a smile. “This is Jennifer. There’s also…” she looks around. “Where’s Oscar?”

  “He’s got a class,” Jennifer says, and she turns to me now. She’s one side of me, and Lily is the other, and the thing is that both of them are stunning. Jennifer is much darker than Lily, dark hair and more tanned, and she surprises me by leaning in and kissing me. She only does it on the cheek, and her lips don’t actually touch me, but it still takes me by surprise.

  “So what? You know Lily or something?” It’s James who asks the question. He’s the only one sitting on his own, in one of the armchairs that completes the square of our seating, and he still sounds pissed. I’m about to answer when Lily does it for me.