Read The Future King: Logres for Free Online Page B

been coming here for the past two days.’
Arthur smiled, and Gwenhwyfar found her heart fluttering with the notion that he
had noticed. The teacher called them in, and Bedivere peeled himself away.
    ‘I should probably go,’ he told them. ‘Don’t want to be late again.
I’m never late. I’ll see you at break though, yeah? Bye, Gwen.’
    Suddenly they were standing in a disastrous silence with no Bedivere
to mediate. Gwenhwyfar offered Arthur an inviting smile, hoping he’d strike up
conversation, but he merely smiled back and followed her into the laboratory,
looking as awkward as she felt.
    ‘So where are we sitting?’ she tried, hiding her reddening cheeks
beneath the veil of her hair.
    ‘Where you usually sit, perhaps?’
    They reached her empty desk at the back of the classroom. She pulled
out a stool and climbed onto it, finding them as ever to be stupidly high,
while Arthur glided sideways onto his seat with casual elegance.
    ‘I feel like it’s been raining all week,’ Gwenhwyfar said, keeping
her eyes on the chalkboard.
    ‘It hasn’t been raining that much,’ Arthur shrugged, missing the
point entirely.
    ‘We’ve had rain pretty much every day since I got here,’ Gwenhwyfar
disputed. ‘Maybe I brought it with me. From Wales.’ He was watching her with a
frown. ‘So I thought you knew those people you were sitting next to,’ was her
next attempt. ‘Don’t you know anyone?’
    ‘I know you,’ Arthur quipped. Gwenhwyfar smiled, and that seemed to
please him.
    ‘But you’ve only just met me.’ She tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘I
meant other than me.’
    ‘Oh. No, then. I guess I know them, but we’re not friends.’
    ‘How come?’
    ‘I don’t know, we just don’t talk much.’
    ‘You don’t? Well, then that’s their loss, isn’t it? And it means I
get to sit next to you, instead.’
    As he smiled her heart did a cartwheel. It seemed that neither one of
them knew what to say after that, but their teacher soon rescued them. The
lights were switched off and the blinds were shut, leaving the room in the blue
glow of the ancient television suspended above the door.
    Gwenhwyfar leant towards Arthur, half as an excuse to talk to him, half
as an excuse to get closer. ‘What are we watching?’
    ‘Something about osmosis,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t know, I wasn’t
really listening.’
    ‘Me neither.’
    ‘Something about plant cells and water.’
    ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘how interesting.’
    ‘Very,’ Arthur stressed. ‘It gets better—it’ll probably cover
facilitated diffusion next. Exciting.’
    She let out a laugh which was definitely too loud. Their teacher
shushed them. Gwenhwyfar tried to focus on something other than her euphoria,
but failed and giggled in silence, and soon Arthur was telling her off too,
half-amused, half-perplexed how he could be so witty.
    ‘It wasn’t that funny.’
    ‘Sorry,’ she gasped, ‘I can’t help it.’
    As soon as his eyes met hers again she smiled, and he did too.
‘You’re peculiar, you know that?’
    ‘I am? Thanks. That’s nice.’
    ‘No, in a good way,’ he corrected, forgetting to lower his voice. The
three girls sat in front of them glanced back, wondering what the joke was.
    ‘Oh, thanks then, I think.’
    ‘I said quiet !’ Gwenhwyfar
jumped. The teacher’s voice cut through the class. ‘Do you want to go to the
principal’s office?’
    This was threat enough to silence the two, albeit an amused silence
with hidden smiles. Most students preferred to avoid the headmaster, as he was
an ominous figure, one who stalked the halls in a blue suit with an expression
of thunder. Dr Ravioli was often called the Nutcracker, due to his resemblance
to one, though this name stemmed from the more boisterous groups of the school
and was largely only used by them.

 
    * * *

 
    Gwenhwyfar found Emily, Hattie and Charlotte waiting for her in the
canteen at break, huddled around their usual table. She predicted the