Stormfly - Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO
I hadn't realised that Tom wasn't well, and if Annie knew, she never said. Tom was a good-looking guy, with his fair hair and acne free complexion. It all suggested health to my own ignorant mind.
My lungs felt like they were bursting as I tried to match Annie stride for stride, and hers were so long, but I was doing it too, with the help of a whacking surge of adrenaline ' until I heard Tom's stifled shout. He was clutching his chest, and then suddenly down on his knees, head hung towards the ground.
Annie heard it too; barely out of breath she turned in annoyance, hands on hips, 'Tom, for heaven's sake we'll never make it if you don't buck up. All this crap about girls being the weaker¦'
'I think it's serious,' I think I snapped at her, I can't remember having done that before, but he was wheezing, the sound was awful, like he was dragging the lining of his lungs into his throat.
'Tom?' Annie frowned, her expression turned from anger to confusion, to concern. She hurried back, stooped beside him. He was struggling for breath; he couldn't speak. The wind had risen in advance of the impending storm.
She turned to me, I don't think she really saw me, 'I think it's asthma, I've seen this kind of thing before ' that right?'
Tom managed a nod, I'd never seen him so red, 'Where's your medication?' I cut in.
He shook his head, 'Inhaler indoors,' he croaked.
'Christ¦' Annie slapped a hand on her brow, blew enough wind to inflate a sail, 'fat lot of good it'll do there! He comes out here, into the middle of a cornfield in
what might be the hottest day of the year, a mile and a half from home without his inhaler ' and now the wind ' and soon the storm¦' she chewed her lip, in the darkening sky her eyes seemed like lanterns, 'we'll never get him back in his state, anything could happen, we need shelter.'
I remember the question of shelter sounded absurd, because it was all open land. 'There isn't any,' I said flatly.
'Of course there is; Norton Manor,' those lantern-like eyes burned into me, I will always remember their intensity.
'Huh!' I ridiculed her. 'The de Vere estate, you must be joking. Like they live in the nineteenth century, we won't get past the housekeeper. Tom might be ill, but they'll still turn us out on our ear.'
'I wasn't thinking of that, everybody knows what they're like,' Annie looked at me as though I was stupid, 'just somewhere to keep him dry while I go for help, you creep.'
"You creep, those words smashed into my chest with the force of a blacksmith's blow. Was that what she really thought of me?
I swallowed, tried to look unconcerned, when I should have been concerned for Tom, 'There's a ten foot wall around the stable block and a bloody big locked gate.'
She scowled at that when all I'd told her was the truth. 'I can scale the wall and unlock the gate from the inside. I've done it before when I was a kid wanting to see the gee-gees. Now are you with me or do I have to carry him there myself?'
I couldn't have scaled the wall, but my indignation might have done. Yet another thing she could do, but of course, I might have known.
A quarter mile to the east, Norton Manor lay, it's extensive grounds bordering my Uncle's small farm. I doubt that even she could have carried him that far, but I do know she would have tried, and I was having none of it.
So we hoisted Tom between us and began our journey to the stable-block of Norton Manor, just as the first big drops of rain began to fall.