When I looked over, surprised, she said, “The wine you ordered.”“Oh, of course.” At the door I took the bottle and two glasses, setting them d...wn before I paid the room service waiter. When I turned around Tina had recovered her purse and was finger-combing her hair, preparing to leave.I stood with my back to the door as we looked at each other for several seconds; she looked sad and disappointed, the way I felt. “Stay.”“What?”“Stay and have a glass of wine. I can’t drink this whole bottle. I asked her son’s age, and what he was wearing, and then passed on these details to the policeman.“I’ll contact my control, they will check with all the police posts in the town for any child recently brought in.” He was as good as his word and got on his radio straight away.I introduced myself to Mrs Probert, and told her what was happening. She had calmed down now the police were involved, and smiled and thanked me. I fell in lust with her at that smile. We waited for about five minutes and. ’ I was fairly certain he was thinking something similar, but the song ended and our class president took the stage, announcing that it was time to declare the winners for the prom court. I thought fleetingly of my dream that I would be nominated and that Eli would be my date. I was actually pretty glad the latter hadn’t happened, but I still had a glimmer of hope for the former. ‘We’ll announce the guys first. Gentlemen, please all come forward when you hear your name called. Eli Cunningham,. She set her crutch against the moist stone wall and reached for her rucksack, digging through it to retrieve another painkiller from one of the first aid kits. She pressed the needle into a vein on her arm, then relaxed a little as the medicine spread through her body, the sharp pain becoming a dull ache that could be more easily ignored.She lay back on the cold floor and looked up at the ceiling of the recess. Water dripped from thick growths of moss, it was a little colder than the humid.