Chapter Text
Harry checked his timetable before he got out of the car. He did this every morning despite knowing it by heart. Registration, performance studies, a free period he would probably spend in the library, double business, lunch, then training. The screenshot had been sitting in his favourites since the end of August. Nothing had changed overnight.
Still, he looked.
His dad waited until Harry locked his phone before saying, “You getting out, then?”
“Yeah.”
Harry reached for his bag. The strap had twisted beneath his training kit, and freeing it gave him another few seconds before he had to open the door. Outside, the rain had settled into the thin, miserable sort that barely looked worth an umbrella but left everything wet anyway.
His dad glanced through the windscreen at the main building. “Training tonight?”
“Till half five.”
“I’ll be here.”
“I can get the bus.”
“I said I’ll be here.”
Harry nodded and got out before it became a conversation.
The glass entrance doors reflected him back at himself: blazer sitting too tightly across his shoulders, shirt pulling where he had tucked it into his trousers, tie already slightly crooked. He shifted the strap of his bag across his chest, decided that made everything worse and moved it back onto one shoulder.
Someone had wedged a poster beside the entrance advertising football trials. Harry’s own face was in the top-right corner, taken during the previous year’s county final. He was shouting at someone outside the frame, mouth open and neck strained, the captain’s armband visible beneath his sleeve.
He always looked bigger in photographs.
Not taller. Just bigger.
Harry pulled the bottom of his jumper away from his stomach and went inside.
The sixth-form common room was almost empty at this time of morning. A few Year Twelves had taken over the sofas nearest the radiator, speaking in voices that suggested they wanted everyone to know they had arrived before eight. Someone’s music played faintly through a phone speaker. The vending machine made a grinding noise and dropped nothing.
Son Heung-min was sitting on top of one of the tables with a carton of orange juice between his knees. He spotted Harry immediately.
“Harry! Here.”
Harry had been walking towards him already. Sonny still waved, arm raised above his head as though Harry might otherwise lose him in the crowd of nine people.
Harry dropped his bag beside the table. “You know you’re not meant to sit there.”
“You sound like teacher.” Sonny reached down, caught Harry lightly by the wrist and pulled him closer so he could inspect his tie. “What happened to this?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s doing something strange.”
“It’s a tie.”
“Yes, Harry. I know what it is.”
Sonny tugged the knot loose, straightened it and pushed it back towards Harry’s collar. He did it without asking. Harry stood there and let him.
Sonny had been doing things like that for years—taking food off Harry’s plate, leaning against him while they waited for buses, reaching over to fix his hair before team photographs. Harry rarely noticed until somebody else did.
“You’re wet,” Sonny said.
“It’s raining.”
“I came through the same rain. I don’t look like sad dog.”
Harry ran a hand over his hair. That only made Sonny laugh.
“Leave it now. Worse.”
“Cheers.”
“You want some?” Sonny offered him the orange juice.
Harry shook his head.
Sonny held it out for another second. “You always say no, then you drink mine later.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. Yesterday, half my water. Monday, my coffee.”
“You said the coffee was horrible.”
“It was still my horrible coffee.”
Harry took the carton and drank from it. Sonny watched with the satisfied expression of someone who had proved something important.
The common-room doors opened hard enough to strike the stopper.
Eric Dier came through first, one hand clamped around Dele Alli’s forearm while Dele held a phone as far away from him as possible. They had apparently been arguing for some time.
“I am being very calm,” Eric said. His voice had the careful flatness it developed when he was nowhere near calm. “But if you send that to anyone, I’ll put your phone through the window as well.”
“It’s not even bad. You look quite handsome, actually. Distinguished.”
“You’ve put hair on me.”
“Everyone has hair.”
“You’ve put it here.” Eric pointed at the centre of his forehead with his free hand. “One single piece. What is distinguished about that?”
Dele twisted free as they reached the table and passed the phone to Sonny for protection. Sonny looked at the screen, made a startled noise and immediately folded himself over laughing.
Harry leaned just far enough to see.
Dele had changed Eric’s contact photograph to a close-up of a thumb with a badly drawn face on it. A thin black line had been added across the top.
“It does look like you,” Harry said.
Eric stared at him.
Harry lowered the orange juice. “A bit.”
“Thank you, Harry,” Dele said, sliding into the chair beside him. “See, that’s an honest man. Harry doesn’t speak often, but when he does, there’s substance.”
Harry’s tongue caught slightly on the first sound when he answered. “Don’t bring me into it.”
It was barely noticeable. It still left him aware of his mouth for the next several seconds—where his tongue sat, whether he had pushed too much air through his teeth, whether any of them had heard.
None of them reacted. Eric was too busy reaching across Sonny for the phone, while Sonny held it against his chest and protested that he had nothing to do with it.
Dele had already moved on. “Have you lot seen the new boy?”
Harry handed the juice back to Sonny. “What new boy?”
“The football one. Apparently he’s famous.”
“He’s not famous,” Eric said. “He’s sixteen.”
“That has never stopped anyone being famous. There are children with ten million followers opening boxes on YouTube.”
Sonny finally surrendered the phone. “Jude Bellingham.”
Eric looked down at the screen, saw that the language had also been changed and shut his eyes.
Dele pointed at Sonny. “That was him.”
“Aish, why would I do this? You think all Korean people know how to change Eric’s phone to Korean?”
“You definitely know more Korean than I do.”
“That is not the point.”
Harry looked between them. “Who’s Jude Bellingham?”
All three turned towards him.
Harry immediately wished he had pretended to know.
Dele’s eyebrows went up. “Captain of the football team, everybody.”
“I don’t follow academy stuff.”
“You follow all academy stuff,” Eric said, still navigating through unfamiliar menus. “You had a spreadsheet last year.”
“It wasn’t a spreadsheet.”
“It had columns.”
“It was the league table.”
“That already exists online, mate. Didn’t need to make another one.”
Harry put his bag on the table and unzipped the front pocket, though there was nothing in it that he needed. “So who is he?”
Sonny shifted closer, his knee pressing briefly against Harry’s arm. “Midfielder. Birmingham. He was playing above his age for a long time, and he signed professional terms in summer. Proper contract, not only academy.” Sonny took his phone from his pocket and searched for something. “Coach said he is training with us today.”
“He’s Year Twelve,” Harry said.
“Yes.”
“And he’s training with the first team?”
“Our first team,” Dele said. “The school one. Try not to look so threatened.”
Harry looked at him. “I don’t.”
“You do a bit.”
“He doesn’t,” Sonny said, although he was smiling. “This is just Harry’s face.”
“Cheers, Sonny.”
“No, I like your face.”
Dele made a noise of exaggerated disgust and pushed his chair back. Eric, having restored his phone to English, clipped him around the back of the head as he passed. Their voices moved towards the vending machine. Eric was explaining that there would be consequences if Dele had sent the photograph to the team group chat. Dele was pretending not to hear him.
Sonny turned his phone around. The screen showed a photograph from a youth match. Jude Bellingham was in a blue kit, one arm raised as he shouted towards someone out of frame. He was younger in the picture but already looked certain of being listened to.
Harry recognised him then, vaguely. He had seen clips without remembering the name. A midfielder who carried the ball as though challenges were personal insults. Long strides. Sharp turns. Always demanding it back.
“He’s good,” Sonny said.
Harry handed the phone back. “Looks alright.”
Sonny’s mouth twitched. “Mm.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing that thing.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
Sonny leaned down until his shoulder rested against Harry’s. “Maybe you watch him first. Then decide you hate him.”
“I don’t hate him.”
“He has not even arrived and already your forehead is like this.” Sonny pressed two fingers between Harry’s eyebrows. “Relax, captain.”
Harry moved his hand away, though not very quickly. “I’m relaxed.”
The entrance doors opened again. This time the common room noticed.
Harry did not know whether the sudden quiet came from people recognising Jude or simply from the way he entered. Some people had the ability to arrive as if the room had been waiting for them. Jude Bellingham walked beside the head of sixth form with his blazer open, tie loose and school bag hanging from one hand. His uniform was technically the same as everyone else’s, but on him it looked temporary, something he had agreed to wear for the morning. He was smiling at whatever the head of sixth form was saying. Not politely. Properly smiling, head tipped back slightly, as though they were already sharing a joke.
The head of sixth form pointed towards reception and Jude said something that made the receptionist laugh too.
Sonny sat upright. “That’s him.”
Harry had worked that out.
Jude was taller than he had looked in the photograph, though still slightly shorter than Harry. Lean as well, his trousers sitting neatly where Harry’s always seemed to catch at the thighs. His shirt hung loose without looking untidy. Harry’s mum would have said he needed to do up his top button. On Jude, the loosened collar looked deliberate.
“He knows everyone’s staring,” Harry said.
Sonny watched Jude greeting two Year Twelves near the door as if he had known them longer than thirty seconds. “Of course he knows.”
“He likes it.”
“Maybe.”
“He definitely likes it.”
Sonny looked at Harry rather than Jude. “You are studying him very seriously.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay.”
Harry disliked when Sonny said okay like that. It usually meant he had decided Harry was lying but did not see the point in embarrassing him.
Jude moved through the room slowly because people kept stopping him. He remembered names immediately. He laughed with his whole face and touched people when he spoke to them—a hand against an arm, fingers briefly around someone’s shoulder. Within minutes, he had been shown where the decent vending machine was, told which teachers could be persuaded to extend deadlines and invited to something happening on Friday. He accepted the invitation without asking what it was.
Dele returned with a packet of crisps and watched him approach. “Confident, isn’t he?”
Eric came behind him carrying two coffees. “You would say that as if you don’t introduce yourself to people while wearing their clothes.”
“That happened once.”
“You came to my house and left in my coat.”
“It suited me.”
Jude was near enough now that Harry could hear him telling somebody he had no idea where room 214 was but had been assured the building was “impossible to get properly lost in unless you’re thick.”
Then the head of sixth form spotted Harry.
“Kane.”
Harry straightened automatically.
The head of sixth form crossed the common room, bringing Jude with him. There were teachers who called everyone by their surnames because they liked pretending school was the army. The head did it because he rarely remembered anyone’s first name.
“You’ll be useful here. Bellingham, this is Harry Kane, our senior football captain.”
Jude looked at Harry. His eyes moved from Harry’s face to the badge on his blazer, then down towards the old trainers Harry wore to school because he did not see the point of ruining good ones. The inspection was open enough that Harry could not pretend it had not happened.
“You’re Kane, yeah?”
Harry hated introductions. Even simple ones required him to hear his voice before he knew how it would come out.
“Yeah. Harry.”
The second word caught softly around the middle. Jude’s expression did not change. He held out his hand. “Jude Bellingham.”
Harry knew that already, but he shook it.
Jude’s grip was firm. Not ridiculous, not one of those handshakes where somebody tried to crush your fingers, but confident enough to feel intentional.
The head pointed between them. “Kane can show you where you need to be.“
Jude smiled.
Harry could not tell whether it was at him or the head of sixth form.
The head was already turning away. “And Kane, Park wants a word before training. Something about the team sheet.”
“Right.”
“Good. Bellingham, try to make it through one morning before I hear your name over the radio.”
“That depends what people are saying, sir.” Jude’s face remained perfectly pleasant.
After a moment, the head continued walking.
Dele waited until he was out of earshot before laughing into his crisps.
Jude turned towards the sound. “What?”
“Nothing, mate. You’ve been here about four minutes and he already looks tired.”
“He was tired when I got here. Can’t put that on me.”
He said it easily, drawing the group in as though the conversation had included him from the start. Sonny moved his bag from the table to make room. Jude did not sit, but he rested one hand against the chair beside Harry.
Sonny introduced himself first.
“Son Heung-min. Sonny is okay.”
Jude’s face brightened with recognition. “You’re the winger.”
Sonny looked pleased. “You know me?”
“I watched the county final. That run you made before the second goal was mad. Full-back looked like he wanted to go home.”
“Ah.” Sonny laughed and ducked his head, although he never disliked a compliment as much as he pretended. “Harry made the pass.”
Jude glanced at Harry. “Did he?”
Harry felt the question more than he should have.
“Yeah.”
“Was decent.”
“Thanks.”
The word came out flatter than intended.
Jude looked faintly amused by it.
Eric introduced himself next. Jude recognised his surname from school football, though not his face, which Eric seemed to prefer. Dele waited until last, holding out his hand with exaggerated formality.
“Dele Alli. Most important person here.”
“Is that what they told you?”
“It’s what I told them.”
Jude grinned. “Fair enough.”
They liked each other immediately. Harry could see it happen. Dele shifted aside to include him; Jude took one of his crisps without asking. Neither appeared to consider this unusual.
Sonny nudged Harry’s elbow.
Harry looked at him.
Sonny did not say anything. He only picked up Harry’s bag and passed it over, because the warning bell had begun sounding and Harry had not moved.
Room 214 was on the other side of the main building.
Harry walked slightly ahead, partly because he knew the way and partly because Jude had fallen into conversation with Sonny and Dele before they had left the common room. Eric peeled off at the staircase for economics. Dele was meant to be going in the same direction but continued backwards down the corridor so he could finish telling Jude which toilets had broken locks.
“Don’t use the one by maths,” Dele said. “Mr Cooper camps outside it like he’s border control.”
“You’re going to be late,” Harry told him.
“So are you.”
“We’ve got three minutes.”
“Loads of time.”
Dele turned, walked directly into a Year Eleven and apologised without slowing down. He disappeared around the corner with one hand raised.
Jude watched him go. “He’s funny.”
“He thinks he is,” Harry said.
“You’re close with him?”
“Sort of.”
Sonny caught up and hooked two fingers briefly through the strap of Harry’s bag. “Harry likes him. He just complains.”
“I don’t complain.”
Jude looked from one of them to the other. “You two together all the time, then?”
Sonny answered before Harry had worked out why the question made him oddly uncomfortable. “Unfortunately. Since Year Ten. He cannot get rid of me now.”
“I’ve tried.”
“No, you haven’t.”
Harry almost answered, then left it. Sonny knew he had not.
They reached the stairs. Jude took them two at a time, still talking.
“What’s the team like?”
“Good,” Sonny said.
Harry said, “Depends.”
Jude looked back over his shoulder. “On what?”
“Who turns up. How seriously they take it. We were good last year.”
“You win anything?”
“County cup.”
Jude nodded as though assessing whether this was respectable. “What level are most of the lads?”
“It’s a school team,” Harry said. “Different levels.”
“Yeah, I know that. I mean, who’s actually good?”
Sonny’s gaze moved briefly towards Harry.
Harry kept climbing. “We’re all good enough to be there.”
“That’s a captain’s answer.”
Jude said it with a smile, but Harry heard the dismissal inside it. A school captain giving a school answer about a school team, while Jude had already moved beyond all three.
At the landing, Harry held the door open. Jude walked through without breaking stride.
“You play striker?” Jude asked.
“Mostly.”
“How many last year?”
“Thirty-one.”
Jude turned then. “For school?”
“And county.”
“Oh.” He studied Harry again, recalculating. “That’s alright.”
Harry let the door close behind him. “Glad you approve.”
Sonny made a small noise that might have been a laugh or a warning.
Jude’s smile sharpened. “Didn’t say I approved. Haven’t seen you play yet.”
The corridor was crowded, forcing them closer together. A group of students came through in the opposite direction and Jude refused to move until the last possible second. His shoulder clipped somebody else’s.
The other boy turned. “Watch it.”
Jude stopped walking. It happened quickly enough that Harry took another two steps before noticing.
“What?” Jude asked.
The boy looked him over, perhaps recognising him, perhaps deciding the confrontation was no longer worth it. “I said watch where you’re going.”
“I heard you. You walked into me.”
There had been nothing especially threatening in Jude’s voice. That was what made the shift in him more noticeable. The friendliness had not disappeared; it had been put away.
The boy glanced at Harry and Sonny, then back at Jude. “Whatever, mate.”
He moved on.
Jude watched him for another moment before turning around.
Sonny gave him a curious look. “First morning.”
“He was the one crying about it.”
“No one was crying,” Harry said.
Jude shrugged. The bright version of him had already returned. “Not yet.”
The teacher had arranged the classroom desks in a horseshoe because he believed it encouraged discussion. Mostly it meant nobody could look at their phone without him seeing.
Harry sat in his usual chair near the windows. Sonny took the one beside him. Jude stood behind the remaining seats for a moment, looking around as people settled.
There were empty places elsewhere.
He sat on Harry’s other side.
Harry took out his folder. Jude put nothing on the desk.
The teacher entered with a laptop under one arm and a mug that said WORLD’S OKAYEST TEACHER. He was young enough that some students called him by his name when he could not hear them and old enough to become genuinely offended when they did it to his face.
His eyes found Jude immediately. “You must be Bellingham.”
“Must be.”
A few people laughed.
The teacher set down his mug. “That confidence will serve you brilliantly right up until the point that it doesn’t. Folder?”
Jude looked at the empty desk as though one might have appeared there. “Wasn’t given one.”
“Pen?”
Jude patted his blazer pockets, then his trousers. “I’ve got a phone.”
“You won’t need it.”
“I might.”
The teacher held out his hand.
Jude stared at it. “You’re taking it already?”
“I’m preventing us from having the same conversation in ten minutes.”
“I haven’t even done anything.”
“And I’m keen to preserve that record.”
For several seconds, Jude did not move.
Harry kept his attention on the date he was writing at the top of the page, though the pen had stopped after the month.
Jude took his phone from his pocket and placed it in the teacher’s hand.
The teacher set it on his desk without comment. “Kane, give him some paper.”
Harry slid a few sheets across.
Jude looked down at Harry’s folder. The notes were divided by coloured tabs, with the previous week’s handout already dated and highlighted. “You carry a stationery shop around?”
Harry put the folder between them so Jude could not keep inspecting it. “You haven’t even brought a pen.”
“I’ve got one.”
“You just said you didn’t.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Harry looked at him.
Jude reached towards the desk and took the pen Harry had been using. “There.”
Before Harry could object, the teacher began the lesson.
A match clip appeared on the board. It showed a midfield turnover, the defending side attempting to recover while three attackers broke forward. The teacher played it twice, then froze the image just before the final pass.
“I want you looking beyond the obvious outcome. Don’t tell me whether the attack scores; that’s irrelevant. Identify the decisions available to the player in possession and the defensive triggers that should determine them.”
Jude rolled Harry’s pen between his fingers.
The teacher divided them into groups of three. Sonny turned his chair slightly, bringing his knees beneath the desk. Jude remained facing forward.
“The left side,” Sonny said quietly. “There is space.”
“Too obvious,” Jude replied. “Full-back’s waiting for it.”
Harry studied the frozen image. “He’s not waiting. His hips are facing inside.”
Jude leaned forward. “The winger’s gone too early,” he said. “If he holds, the full-back has to choose.”
“He doesn’t need to hold. The six hasn’t recovered.”
“He will before the pass gets there.”
“Not if it goes first time.”
Jude looked at Harry properly.
Harry became conscious of Sonny listening between them. He was also conscious of the words he would need if Jude asked him to explain. Six, space, first phase. Too many sounds he could get wrong if he rushed.
Jude tapped Harry’s pen against the image on the worksheet. “He can’t play it first time from that body shape.”
“He can.”
“With what, the outside of his boot?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a low-percentage pass.”
Harry knew he was right. He also knew Jude knew he was right, which made it worse. “The safe pass kills the counter.”
“Didn’t say safe. He drives another five yards, makes the centre-half commit and slips the runner.”
“The runner’s offside by then.”
“Only if he’s thick.”
Sonny reached across and took the pen from Jude before he could puncture the worksheet with it. “What do I write?”
Neither of them answered.
Sonny looked between them. “Very helpful, guys.”
Jude sat back. “Write that the ball carrier should delay until the defender commits.”
Harry shook his head. “That’s not what happens.”
“It’s what should happen.”
“The question’s about the options.”
“Yeah, and that’s the best one.”
“You haven’t seen the outcome.”
“You said the outcome didn’t matter.”
“The teacher said that.”
“Same difference.”
Harry looked towards the front. The teacher was helping another group. When he turned back, Jude had taken the pen from Sonny and was writing. His handwriting slanted heavily to the right, large enough to occupy three lines where one would have done. He finished, pushed the sheet towards Harry and said, “There. You can add your outside-of-the-boot fantasy underneath.”
Sonny laughed.
Harry tried not to. The effort made something pull at the corner of his mouth anyway.
Jude noticed.
It was irritating how pleased he looked.
The teacher replayed the clip. The player drove forward, drew the centre-half and slipped the runner through the channel. The shot went wide.
Jude spread his hands. Harry stared at the board.
“Low percentage, though,” Jude murmured.
“You didn’t know.”
“I did.”
“You guessed.”
“Educated guess.”
“You saw the clip before.”
Jude turned in his chair, affronted. “Why would I lie about a performance-studies clip?”
Harry had no answer to that.
The teacher began asking groups to share their analysis. When he reached their side of the room, Sonny gave the basic outline. The teacher then asked why delaying the pass was preferable.
Jude answered without looking at the worksheet. “Because the centre-half’s trying to defend two decisions at once. If the ball goes early, he can drop and cover the runner. If the player carries it, he’s got to either step out or let him into the box. Once he steps, the pass is simple.”
The teacher nodded. “Good. Kane, anything to add?”
Harry wished teachers would stop doing that—asking him without warning, turning every face in the room towards him before he had arranged the sentence.
He kept his eyes on the board.
“The winger on the left still matters. He’s holding the full-back wide, so the centre-half can’t pass the runner on. It’s not only what the player on the ball does.”
The sibilants blurred slightly. Harry heard every one of them. A couple of people looked towards him, though they might only have been listening.
Jude did not glance at Harry’s mouth. He followed the line of Harry’s explanation across the screen.
The teacher rewound the clip. “Exactly. The off-ball run creates the decision before the pass is made. That’s the detail most of you missed.”
Jude rested his forearms on the desk. “Fair,” he said quietly.
Harry looked at him.
Jude nodded towards the board. “About the winger.”
It was not an apology because there was nothing to apologise for. It was barely even a concession.
Harry still had not expected it.
The lesson continued. Jude contributed to nearly every question, including two that had not been directed at him. He was right often enough that the teacher tolerated it for the first half hour. Then Jude interrupted a girl across the room and the teacher told him to let her finish.
“She’s saying the same thing,” Jude said.
“She’s still entitled to finish saying it.”
“I’m saving time.”
“You’re taking hers.”
Jude sat back, jaw moving once.
The girl continued. When she reached the end, Jude raised his eyebrows but kept his mouth shut.
The teacher turned towards the board.
Jude muttered, “Same thing.”
Sonny covered a smile with his hand.
Harry kept his eyes on his notes, but Jude’s presence pulled at his attention. He was restless even when seated, one knee shifting beneath the desk, fingers moving constantly over Harry’s pen. He became bored with anything he understood too quickly and impatient with anyone who took longer. Yet when the material grew more difficult, he leaned in. The laziness vanished so completely Harry suspected it had never been laziness in the first place. Jude simply refused to look interested until something proved worthy of him.
Near the end of the session, the teacher handed out the term assignment.
Jude scanned the first page and pushed it away. “Three thousand words?”
“Excellent reading.”
“I play football.”
A few people laughed again. Jude did not appear to be joking.
“So does everyone in this room,” the teacher said.
“Not professionally.”
The laughter stopped.
Harry felt Sonny shift beside him.
The teacher placed both hands on his desk. “At school, Bellingham, you’re a student. Your contract doesn’t change the qualification requirements.”
“It changes how much time I’ve got.”
“Then you’ll need to manage it.”
“I train four evenings a week. Matches, recovery, travel—”
“And Kane trains five.”
Harry looked up sharply.
The teacher continued before he could object. “He managed the same assignment last year.”
Jude turned towards him.
Harry hated being used as an example. He hated the immediate curiosity in Jude’s face more.
“You academy?” Jude asked.
Harry looked back at the handout. “Yeah.”
“Where?”
“North London.”
“Scholarship?”
“Still academy.”
Jude waited, perhaps expecting more.
Harry did not give it to him.
The teacher gathered the unused worksheets. “You’ve joined late, so you’re behind on the first unit. I’ll send the materials over, but you’ll need notes from someone who has attended consistently.”
Jude leaned back in his chair. “Sonny seems reliable.”
Sonny made a sympathetic face. “My notes are terrible.”
“They are,” Harry said.
“Thank you, best friend.”
The teacher ignored them. “Kane has everything from the start of term.”
“No,” Harry said. It came out before he could make it less blunt.
The teacher looked at him over the top of the worksheets.
Harry cleared his throat. “I mean, I need them.”
“You’re not giving them away. Bellingham can copy what he’s missed.”
Jude lifted Harry’s folder by the corner. “Colour-coded as well. Lovely.”
Harry took it from him. “Get your own.”
“Bit late for that, apparently.”
The bell rang before the teacher could settle the argument. Chairs scraped back. Phones appeared instantly. Sonny packed his things with no particular system, dropping one handout and folding another in half before Harry rescued it.
Jude went to the front for his phone.
The teacher kept it beneath his hand. “Tomorrow, you bring a folder and something to write with. You wait to be called on, and when somebody else is speaking, you don’t decide whether they’re worth hearing.”
Jude’s posture changed. Only slightly, but Harry saw it: shoulders set, chin raised. “I was listening.”
“You were interrupting.”
“Because I knew the answer.”
“That won’t always be the case.”
Jude smiled without warmth. “We’ll see.”
The teacher held his gaze, then released the phone.
Jude took it and walked out.
Sonny was still stuffing papers into his bag. He watched Jude leave, then looked at Harry. “He’s interesting.”
“He’s rude.”
“He is a little bit rude.”
“A little bit?”
Sonny zipped the bag and stood. “You also were rude.”
“When?”
“You said no to the teacher like he asked you for kidney.”
“I need my notes.”
“You have copies on laptop.”
“That’s not the point.”
Sonny slipped his arm across Harry’s shoulders as they went into the corridor. Harry’s bag knocked against Sonny’s hip. Neither moved away.
Ahead of them, Jude had already been stopped by two boys from the class. He stood in the middle of the corridor, phone in one hand, telling them something that made both laugh. Whatever had happened with the teacher had rolled off him—or had been pushed somewhere nobody could see.
He noticed Harry looking.
Jude said something to the boys and stepped away from them. “You forgot this.”
He held out Harry’s pen.
Harry took it. “Thought you had one.”
“I do now. The teacher said bring something tomorrow.”
“That’s mine.”
Jude kept hold of the other end. For a second, neither of them let go. Then Jude smiled and released it. As he began to turn and walk away, he replied to Harry from over his shoulder.
“See you at training, captain.”