'Hey Ross!'� The square was crowded with kids. School was out and everyone was heading home.

'Ross! Wait!'�

The weekend was here and the throng on the square could feel it in the air.

'Ross!'� David was twelve years old and sometimes his voice broke and pitched a note that was embarrassingly high. It did so now.

A giggle of girls collapsed with the hilarity of it. Their skirts were tartan and their blazers perfectly-tailored. Orthodontic braces and sprinkles of pimples everywhere.

David called again and Ross heard him in the din. He turned to look just in time to see his friend disappear behind a senior the size of somebody's dad.

'Wait up!'� David waved over the big guy's shoulder.

Ross obliged. In the centre of the square loomed a statue of Archangel Michael. His wings were sharply etched by the deep-blue sky and the devil was grovelling at his feet.

Ross dropped his bag to the flagstones and slouched to the dais the angel was standing on.

St Michael's College was Delaney's only private school. Ancient sandstone and manicured ivy, teachers with academic titles resplendent in capes of velvet and black.

David elbowed aside a beanpole with an awfully thunderous scowl.

'Watch it, dork!'� it snarled.

'What's up?'� said Ross. David's face was deeply flushed with the effort of getting here.

'Did you hear about Framp?'� he said between gasps. He was a skinny kid, small for his age and pale.

''Course.'� Ross took up his bag and joined the throng, a tall twelve-year-old so unbelievably innocent to the ways of this world.

And so delightfully cool.

Quis ut Deus? read the legend at the statue's feet. 'Who is like God?'

David tagged along, lugging his school bag and loosening his tie despite the rules.

'Did you hear what actually happened?'�

'Yep,'� said Ross. Of course he'd heard about Adam. Who hadn't? Bad news like that spread like wildfire and the grapevine in Delaney was a vindictive old thing.

'Grossest,'� said David. 'Like ''�

'It's like ''� said Ross.

'' epic,'� they said in unison.

'Jinx!'� went Ross. He said it without thought. This was what happened when two of you said the same thing at the same time, especially if you were a seventh grader at St Michael's College, Delaney. It was fastest tongue first.

David stopped breathing at once.

Beyond the square, cars and SUVs of various shapes and sizes over-occupied the parking lot, patiently waiting to take everyone home.

David plucked at Ross' sleeve. The Jinx was on him and he couldn't breathe or speak.

Ross thought he was just dying to jabber on about the poor old Frampster.

Poor and strange and ridiculous Framp. He didn't go to St Michael's, you know. He was downtown. He lived with his mother and his brother in their two-bedroomed flat on Elim Street not far from the railway station.

The sinister figure of Frau Holdt interrupted Ross' thoughts as she waded through the crowd. She was deputy-head of Languages, a bona fide Bavarian complete with accent and the worst temper Ross had ever seen on another human being.

Little David Ranger's hand flew up to his throat to conceal his undone tie. His face was turning a new shade of red. He hated the Jinx. He was slow on the draw and had to go without air about a million times a day.

Yes, the Framptons were downtown people. Their flat was above Hank Redman's diner where mill workers killed their lunch-hour breaks to the tune of jukebox music and the stink of over-fried grease.

Every morning before sunrise, Kate Frampton would count out the day's pills and set them on Billy's bedside table. Billy was Adam's brother and his pills had names like Phenytoin and Procainamide and Prednisone.

With both her sons still asleep and the day just peeking over the smokestacks in the distance, she would head out to the supermarket where waited the cash register with its insatiable appetite.

By mid-morning, when the breakfast rush was good and over and things had settled some in the diner below, Hank Redman's wife Ida would go upstairs to the Framptons' flat. She'd make Billy comfortable in his wheelchair and turn on the TV for him. She'd make sure he wasn't carrying any stinkers in his diaper and fed him a cup of tea.

He was a boy of seventeen, this Billy Frampton, a scarecrow of a thing all twisted up in his wheelchair. He sat there in the flat day in and day out as the TV spewed forth endless streams of pre-recorded crap and dystrophy quietly stole his body right from under his nose.

'All right!'� Frau Holdt jolted Ross back to the square at St Michael's. She had a very fierce voice. It was the voice of a general. She was Forschrpung durch Technik. 'All right, everybody! Stand back!'� Something was going on.

The crowd on the square obeyed and made a clearing. At its centre a kid lay spread-eagled on the flagstones. He lay face-down like the Unknown Soldier.

'Further!'� ordered the Fuhrer. That's what they called her. 'Give him space to breathe!'�

Ross' thoughts were tangled and confused as they returned from downtown Delaney to upmarket St Michael's.

Frau Fuhrer descended on the fallen boy like an outlandish old vulture. She put down her briefcase and shoved the folded shape of her academic cape at pious little Emily Nobhouse.

'What happened here?'� she demanded from everyone in general. No-one answered. No-one knew. Least of all Ross.

His mind had been elsewhere. He'd been thinking about Adam Frampton and his mother, about them and poor old Billy who he swore couldn't possibly live to see another birthday.

He and his little brother both, come to think of it.

Yea, what had happened to Framp just last night really was epic. It was grossest, as David would say when the Jinx wasn't on him. It was a sly and seriously nasty twist of fate. And it made Ross shudder inwardly ' was this the world? Was this what it could do to you?

He hoped not. He was twelve years old. He had barely started out.

He had known the Frampster since the third grade, had Ross. They'd been friends for almost four years now. He, Ross Elliott from St Michael's College and he, Adam Frampton from downtown Delaney where pool-hall sluts hung around by day and housewives sometimes wore their sunglasses indoors just to be different.

The Fuhrer on the square seized the fallen kid by his shoulders and rolled him on to his back. Ross couldn't see his face; the crowd was at its densest here where the action was. Nobody spoke.

'You!'� she singled out a tall and scrawny senior. It was the dude with the seriously ominous scowl. His skin, Ross saw, was going lunar with zits. 'Call the nurse! My cell-phone's in my attaché.'�

To Ross, the square had become dreamy and distant ' incidental, even. He was recalling the day he'd bunked Sunday school and spent the morning goofing about under the bridge where Clancey Road crossed the stream near Mason Granger Park.

It was the day he'd bought a frog and made a friend.

He'd been chucking pebbles at leaves and things floating down the stream.

He was eight years old and so was the Framp, who'd been spying on Ross for quite some time.

'Where're you s'posed to be?'� he asked at last.

Bulrushes parted and there he was, a sandy-haired and skinny-lookin' thing of a kid. His windbreaker was a size or so larger than he and his jeans were scuffed at the knees. 'There's no school today, you know.'� Ross was in his chinos and a button-up shirt.

'Yeah, I know,'� he said and tossed his remaining pebbles into the stream. 'I'm bunking Sunday school.'�

'Bummer,'� said the intruder. He was holding something in the cup of his hand. 'So what you doing?'�

'Just goofing,'� said Ross. 'You been spying?'�

'Yeah. Want a frog?'�

'A frog?'�

'Sure,'� said the kid with the grubby face. He extended his hand. 'Caught it this morning down by the park. You want it?'� Ross took a closer look and sure enough, there it was, a prize croaker if ever he'd seen one. 'They don't give warts,'� said the kid. 'I been catching 'em for ever.'�

'Cool,'� said Ross and meant it. He reached out to touch it but the kid pulled away.

'It'll cost you.'�

'How much?'�

'How much you got?'�

'Fifty cents,'� said Ross. He had planned to get a Mars Bar going home.

'Deal,'� said the kid. 'I'm collectin' money for my Pannyfarthing Fund.'�

Yes, the Frampster had wanted a Pennyfarthing just like his cripped-out brother's. It was a big thing with him.

On the square, the Fuhrer was supporting the fallen boy's head in the crook of her arm.

'What is this boy's name?'� she demanded.

The crowd craned its neck the better to see. Ross did so too and got the shock of his life.

It was David lying there.

'It's David,'� said Emily Nobhouse. She draped Frau Holdt's cape over her arm like a flag at half-mast. 'David Ranger, Grade Seven, I think.'�

The Fuhrer was quick on the uptake: 'David!'� she said and patted his cheek. 'David, you passed out. You must wake up now!'�

'Oh crud,'� said Ross. One minute David had been here, at his side, waiting to be un-jinxed, and the next '� 'Oh my holy crud!'� he said and I'd be darned if the good Mrs Holdt didn't hear. Heads turned his way from everywhere.

'Get the nurse!'� barked the Bavarian as she fumbled with the necktie David had undone just a minute before. She undid a couple of buttons and opened up the front of his shirt, all the while talking to him, calling him.

'Come on, David! Wake up!'� The lout with the menacing face finally pried open the case and produced the Fuhrer's phone.

'Dial the office! Tell them to send the nurse!'�

Ross Elliott was approaching systems overload. He had scratched the protective veneer of childhood and got his first glimpse of life lurking below, of the world as it really was, as it must seem to people like Kate Frampton and both her ill-fated sons. It was the world of the Freak Accident he was looking at.

Yeah, it was epic.

'It was me,'� he said at length. 'I did it.'�

'You struck this boy?'� Frau Holdt spoke as harshly as ever. In the background, the dude with the malevolent manner was stammering into her Nokia phone.

'I jinxed him,'� said Ross. 'And now he's '� Is he dying, Mrs Holdt?'�

'You jinxed him!'� scoffed a girl about ten times Ross' age and twice as tall. The crowd responded with sniggers and sneers here and there.

Raymond Klein, however, took him seriously. 'Then un-jinx him, Ross,'� he said. He was a fifth grader and, in his case, the veneer of childhood still held strong.

'What is this Jinx?'� asked the Frau. 'Did you give him something ..?'� Ross didn't even hear.

'David!'� he screamed. 'Wake up!'� His mind reeled with the phenomenon of the Freak Accident. His mother had told him all about it just that morning.

'They happen to anyone,'� she'd said. She was pampering her Volvo through early-morning traffic. They were on their way to school. The rest of the world was going to work. Drivers everywhere were listening to traffic reports and the ups and the downs of the bulls and the bears. The car stank of cigarettes and Chanel.

Ross was picturing Adam Frampton broken and bleeding in a hospital bed.

'Just goes to show,'� said his mom and reached for her smokes. Ross let down the window on the passenger side. 'The world is a mysterious place. I'll give Kate a call today, see if there's anything we can do.'�

Yes, his mother was a sucker for her smokes but she clearly understood the workings of life.

David lay limply on the square, his head in the teacher's arms and his face the face of a corpse.

'It's a freak accident!'� Ross didn't care about the tears in his voice. 'I jinxed him dead!'� The Fuhrer heard his hysteria.

'No,'� she said. 'No, he's breathing. It's just a faint '�'�

'You don't understand!'� She obviously hadn't heard about the Frampster.

'Un-jinx him, Ross!'� pleaded Raymond Klein. You did this by saying your victim's name three times in a row. It suddenly seemed preposterous to Ross. He saw the childishness of it.

'You don't get it!'� he cried. All eyes were on him. 'It's like what happened to Adam! It's a freak accident!'�

Now young Adam Frampton had had his particular freak accident coming, all-right. It all started when he was only eight and his brother Billy's disease got so bad he could no longer walk. When other mothers were window-shopping for baseball gloves and mountain bikes, Kate Frampton was scraping the barrel to get her son a wheelchair.

And get it she did ' an ugly old thing, ungainly and second-hand and tired-looking, somehow. Its seat needed stitching and its brakes only worked on a whim.

But Adam loved it. He was instantly obsessed with it. Within the hour of its arrival he'd mastered the art of manoeuvring it about the confined space of their flat.

Soon, he resolved, he'd have one of his own. He'd exchange soda bottles or wash cars or mow lawns until he dropped, but very soon Adam Frampton would have his own Pennyfarthing just like Billy's.

Day after day he practiced while Billy lay sleeping or was being bathed or fed. He wheeled himself up and down the passage, around the coffee table in the living room and into the hall. He ferried himself out the door and onto the balcony beyond.

And then, one day, he took to the street. There was no stopping him. In the weeks that followed, no matter where you went, you were bound to bump into the Frampster cruising the sidewalks or the parking lots or sometimes even the shopping malls in his brother's chair.

And the tricks he could do! He could balance backwards for as long as he liked, he could spin and manoeuvre the thing at will '� He even built ramps in the loading zone behind the 7-Eleven and perfected the Pennyfarthing Pounce.

Poor strange and ridiculous Framp. He soon became well-known all over town. But not popular. No, not even welcome.

The idea of him fooling around in his dying brother's wheelchair didn't quite appeal to the good and godly folk of Delaney's downtown. They saw him and his Pennyfarthing as obscene to say the very least and before he knew it, security guards and landlords and law-enforcement officers everywhere were turning him away from parking lots and loading bays and shopping malls and all his favourite haunts.

By day.

'So what happened?'� Ross took his mother's cell-phone from her so she could concentrate on her driving again. He ended he call. It was Friday morning and the traffic on the way to school was especially hectic.

'That was Ida Redman,'� she said.

'Yeah, I know,'� he said and tossed the phone into the glove compartment.

'It's Adam,'� said his mother

'Frampster?'�

'Yes. There's been an accident, Ross.'� His mother touched the dashboard and the radio quit. 'He went out in that wheelchair again last night.'� She was desperate for a smoke.

'Yeah and?'� said Ross.

'He was crossing the road ' Old Main ' and someone ran the light. A drunk.'�

'Was he hit? Is he okay?'�

'He's in Intensive Care. He'll never walk again.'� They drove on in silence for quite some time.

'Ross, are you all right?'� his mother asked at length.

'I'm fine.'� But he wasn't, really. He was thinking of the day the Frampster had appeared from nowhere with a frog in his hand.

'It was a freak accident, you know,'� said his mother. 'They happen to anyone.'�

Later that day, in the afternoon, the square at St Michael's would team with kids as everyone headed home. Everyone except the boy who lay sprawled on the flagstones ' he and the crowd gathered about '� And Ross Elliott who would finally succumb to tears and admit murder.

'They happen to anyone!'� They were full of anger and fright, his tears. But mostly anger. He had lost two friends today. He had lost them both to freak accidents. He was twelve years old and he'd had enough.

'Or not,'� said David Ranger.

The crowd gasped dramatically. Frau Holdt froze with surprise. Little Emily Nobhouse uttered a very self-conscious yelp. Raymond Klein covered his mouth.

'Man,'� said the geek with the grimace and the very bad skin.

'Coming through,'� said the nurse.

'It was an accident!'� cried Ross. His world lay in ruins about him. 'I jinxed him to death!'�

'Stop it!'� ordered the Fuhrer. 'You're hysterical!'� David was sitting upright now. He was okay. He finally felt vindicated.

'Cool it, Ross,'� he said. 'I was just getting back at ye.'� Someone laughed.

' Ends

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