Crossing the Line by Gillian Philip

and he looked at Sunil, big and threatening on Kev’s left hand, and then he looked at Kev. His lower lip was stuck out, his spotty chin tilted half-heartedly, as if he’d committed himself to resistance without really thinking it through, but he knew he might as well take what was coming because there was no getting out of it now. Up against the seven of Kev’s regulars he looked brave and stoical and entirely defenceless.
    Kev crunched his knuckles, having seen too many cheap Cockney gangster films, and just then I knew I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear what was going to happen to Shuggie, right under my eyes. I couldn’t bear to be part of it. Mostly, and quite suddenly, I couldn’t bear being on the same planet as Kev Naughton.
    â€˜Leave him alone,’ I said.
    It just did not compute in Kev’s brain for a while, and for that I don’t blame him. He didn’t know who the hell I was talking to, he didn’t know why I’d blurted that out like some badly programmed Terminator, he didn’t understand. He smirked at Shuggie for a few seconds longer, his brow furrowing gradually till the smirk faded to a perplexed frown.
    â€˜Leave him,’ I said again. I’d started now and I couldn’t unsay it, so I’d better follow this through or I’d had it. ‘Leave him alone, Kev.’
    Kev turned and stared at me. There was confusion inhis eyes, and betrayal, and a degree of hurt, but even as I watched, it all coalesced into sheer contempt. That was it. It was irreversible, and I knew I’d burned my boats with a few impetuous words and a moment of misplaced sympathy. Oh, feck.
    I could feel the combined stare of all of them, including Shuggie, but I wasn’t wasting my energy looking anywhere but at Kev. I was the biggest and the meanest of them and they’d certainly take me down and give me a hiding if they got up the nerve and moved as one, but nobody wanted to suffer for making the first move. Anyway, they were all trying to get their heads round what had changed. Some of them weren’t that bright, though you couldn’t say that of Kev (though I only discovered much later, in a courtroom, just how smart he was).
    â€˜Why don’t you piss off and play with the girls, Nick?’ he sneered, half turning back to Shuggie.
    â€˜Cause they’re harder than you,’ I said, ‘and I’m dead scared of them.’
    I heard a couple of muffled snorts, turning quickly to coughs, and knew I was maybe OK with a few of them – they wouldn’t hit me too hard, they’d only pretend. That still left Sunil, though, and a couple of others, and Kev.
    â€˜Leave the wee tosser alone,’ I said.
    â€˜You gonnae make me do that?’
    â€˜Uh-huh. Yeah, Kev. I’m gonnae.’ There was a small Nick inside my skull at that moment, headbutting mybrain and shouting at me to shut
up,
but really I didn’t have a choice now. I had to bluff my way out or I really was screwed. ‘Just leave him, OK?’ I was not getting any more original with my pleas, but I was reckoning, Keep It Simple, Stupid. Because by that time, I was feeling extremely stupid.
    â€˜You.’ I looked at Shuggie, and jerked my head. ‘Eff off out of here.’
    Shuggie was not as dumb as I was. He didn’t hang around hoping to protect
me.
He just effed off out of there.
    For the moment, as it turned out, I didn’t need protecting. Kev was so stunned by my betrayal he just stood and stared as I walked past him, but it was not a nice stare. I know that because I held his eyes as long as I could. The others weren’t going to do anything without his say-so, not now. Later.
    It was as I shoved past the last of them that I spotted Aidan. He’d been walking round the corner on the way to the maths annexe, which was a grand title for a couple of prefab huts. He was standing rock-still, as if he’d watched everything, and he