Shooting Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

found myself being pushed around. Until, eventually, one last shove from the biggest, baddest, oldest, and ugliest of them all had me 31
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    landing in a bad way, cracking my elbow loudly on some concrete stairs.
    And I am not exaggerating when I say it really hurt.
    Because it really hurt.
    In fact, it hurt so badly I was kind of temporarily winded and could only curl into a ball on the stairs and hope I didn’t get kicked to death.
    Which is when Ned came along.
    “Hey, you. And you. Move. Now. Get out of the way!” are the words I remember him saying before I felt something warm on my back— his hand. “Are you okay?” I think I’d just groaned. But then I’d heard someone else speaking. Telling Ned that I was one of them. I’d expected him to leave. But he didn’t.
    “You can’t be serious. He’s just a kid.” Oh, nice. I remember this comment ripping through my pain and, amazingly, causing a bit more. I might have had a baseball cap on and been wearing jeans and a hoodie, but I was not a little boy out past my bedtime. My elbow still throb-bing, but my breath restored, I somehow managed to uncurl myself. “I’m fi ne,” I said.
    Big lie, but what else was I going to say?
    I looked into Ned’s eyes and saw him come to the realization that I was (a) female and (b) not quite as young as he thought. To his credit, however, he didn’t turn and walk off at this point, but took my good arm and started to lift me up the rest of the way.
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    The problem was, being tall and well built, he may have underestimated how much I weighed, because I sort of went fl ying, bounced off Ned’s chest, and came back to a resting position on my feet just inches away from him.
    I stood there, dazed for a few seconds, before I’d glanced up at him. “Um, thanks,” I managed to say. I went to take a step back, stumbled, and Ned pulled me in close again, steadying me.
    “Whoa,” he said. “Are you really okay?”
    I took a step back without falling over this time, but Ned kept a fi rm hold on one of my hands just to make sure. By that stage, the pain in my elbow had died down to nothing more than a gigantic throb. I started to think I had bigger problems, though, because I still felt woozy. And my heart was kerthunking inside my ribs. I wondered if there was something more serious wrong with me— like a con-cussion.
    When he’d established I
    wasn’t going to fall over, Ned
    frowned. “Where are your parents?” he asked me. I was still close and he smelled good— a combination of citrus after-shave and mint.
    At least this took my mind off things, not to mention the biggest thing of all—
    that Ned was still holding my hand.
    “Where are yours?” I had to laugh at his question. Ned Hartnett and I were the same age. I’d read in an interview once that his birthday was only days before mine. He still looked confused, however, so I added, “We’re the same age.” 33
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    “No, we can’t be. I’m . . . ,” he trailed off before his eyes moved down to my hand. He let it go.
    “Look,” I told him, “you can go. You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fi ne. Despite appearances, I’m a big girl.” He’d frowned again and turned his back away from the other paps, towering over me and effectively wrecking any nice little pictures they might be thinking of taking. “How long have you been doing this for?”
    I shrugged. “A month.”
    “And how many times have you almost lost an elbow?”
    “Once.”
    “And other bodily parts?”
    “Maybe more than once.”
    Ned Hartnett shook his head at me. “You’ve got to get out.”
    Ha! He wished! I wondered if he said that to all the paparazzi he picked up off the ground. I just shrugged again. “It’s not