The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs by Dawn O'Porter Page B

that I haven’t met whoever my real best friend is going to be yet.’
    â€˜What if you don’t meet anyone you like more than Bonnie?’
    Grace laughed. ‘That would be very disappointing. But maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll be a friendless loser for the rest of my life. Or maybe I’ll meet the coolest people in the world and go on adventures with them. Who knows? That’s what makes it all so exciting.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Life, silly.’
    Ben blushed. ‘Right,’ he muttered. ‘Of course. Sorry.’
    There was silence in the bedroom, a long moment of it that wasn’t remotely uncomfortable; to Ben it felt warm and fuzzy, like he was surrounded by invisible cotton wool. He was trying to focus on his quest, on the goal that, as he stole a glance at the raised pattern on the edges of the black bra, he realised was literally within his reach, but Grace Matthews kept distracting him, kept disarming him with her easy confidence, her way of making things seem clear and simple, her straightforward honesty and her obvious disinterest in games or bullshit.
    â€˜Ben,’ she said, after an unknown amount of time had passed.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Look at me, Ben.’
    He raised his gaze from where he had been studying the pattern of stripes and squares on the duvet cover. Grace was sat with her legs crossed and her elbows resting on her knees, her body leant slightly towards him, an unreadable expression on her face.
    â€˜Why are you so nervous?’ she asked.
    Ben suddenly realised two things. Firstly, that he was about to break the solemn promise he had made to Sean. Secondly, that there was a good chance he was about to say one of the stupidest things that a teenage boy had ever said to a partially undressed teenage girl. He drew a deep breath, and took the plunge.
    â€˜I’m on a quest.’
    The winter months were cold, and hard.
    Children have long memories, teenagers especially, and Ben’s hope that referring to Mrs James as ‘Mum’ would soon be forgotten proved hopelessly naïve. The outright insults and mocking died down, as new embarrassments presented themselves, but the incident remained lurking just below the surface, ready to be brought back up whenever he did anything even remotely worthy of derision. Even Sean had taken to keeping his distance, not wanting to be tainted with his best friend’s sudden, catastrophic fall from grace, and appeared to have lost all interest in their quest. He was now spending most evenings at Matthew Hetherington’s house playing something called
DOOM
and showing worrying signs of a burgeoning interest in rugby.
    Ben kept his head down, let his contribution to the success of the school football team prevent his stock from ever bottoming out completely, and devoted himself to the quest for the Orbs of Power, which was now approaching the status of an obsession. He blamed the quest for what had happened in Mrs James’s class, had started, in all honesty, to believe that the trajectory of his life had somehow become bound up with it, that things would not improve until he completed it.
    Cursed
, he thought to himself one evening, as his father snored through
Match of the Day
and his mother chatted happily away on the phone to her sister.
It’s like the quest has put a curse on me.
    * * *
    As is so often the case where quests are concerned, it was when things seemed at their bleakest, when the path seemed blocked at every turn, that a chink of light shone through the clouds, illuminating a possible way ahead.
    Sean’s parents had gone to their timeshare villa in Florida for two weeks, as they had been doing every Easter holiday for as long as anyone could remember, and his sister Cheryl, who was home from university, had announced that she was going to Edinburgh with her friends on Good Friday and would not be back until the afternoon of Easter Sunday. Which could only mean one