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‘Not yet Hold still, or I won’t be able to finish it’
‘Bossy thing’
‘It won’t be long now,’ I say, glancing back at A, for a few final strokes of my pencil
Amy smiles ‘Are you level?’
I turn my wrist to check ‘Yes 52 and steady’
The door opens but I don’t look up
‘Are you girls ready for breakfast?’ Mu at Amy one more time, then at the sketch in my hands A final stroke, there ‘Done,’ I say, and put the pencil down
‘Let ood,’ Amy says
Mum’s mouth is in a round ‘o’ of surprise ‘That is Amy, you have captured her, just so I want to fra it on the wall May I?’
I smile ‘Yes’
Breakfast is pancakes Eaten with butterin streaks, and syrup, or strawberry jaether: very nice
‘Don’t think you’ll be eating like this every day,’ Munet instead of a frame on the wall, and Muot twenty minutes before the bus and you don’t look even a bit ready to me’
‘Can’t I stay home with Kyla today?’
‘No’
‘Where’s Dad?’ I ask
‘Work, of course Where I should be, but had to take leave toto school, Dad’s at work: that leaves Mum and o today?’
‘No’
Aot to be assessed by the area nurse first; she has to think you are ready Then the school tests you to work out where to put you, what year Though they’ve sent so in this afternoon to meet you,’ Mum says
I vow to act as well adjusted as possible
A school books, uniform She is in her last year of A-levels At nineteen she should be done, at university, studying nursing like she wants to, already But she needed an extra year to catch up And she was fourteen when she was Slated I’m sixteen no many extra years of school will I have?
‘You can wash up,’ Mum says
‘Wash what?’
She rolls her eyes
‘The dishes’
I stand and look at thehs ‘Pick up the dirty dishes from the table and put them there’ She points at the worktop next to the sink
I carry one plate across and go back for another
‘No! That will take forever Stack the out knives and forks and clattering them on the top one, then plonks the lot on the worktop
‘Fill the sink Add soap, just a little’ She squeezes a bottle into the sink
Bubbles!
‘Wash them with this brush’ She scrubs a brush across the plate ‘Rinse it under the tap, put it in the rack, like so Repeat Got it?’
‘I think so’
I plungeup
I carefully clean a plate of the sticky remains of pancakes and syrup, rinse it and put it in the rack
‘Pick up the pace or you’ll be there all day’
I stop, and look around
‘Pick up what?’
‘The pace It o faster’
Plates, then cups This isn’t so bad I speed up and Mu them with a towel Aasp, and look down: a thin line of red drips froht hand
Amy bounds in ‘Oh no! Kyla’
Murabs a sheet of kitchen paper
‘Press it against, don’t bleed everywhere’
I do, and Amy rubs my shoulder and looks at‘A little,’ I say, and it does, but I ignore the jagged heat that throbs through ht red soaks into the kitchen paper, slows, then stops
‘Just a nick,’ Mu the paper back to look ‘The nurse can check it later She’s all right, Ae around ot to mention, Kyla Knives are sharp Don’t hold thes to remember
Nurse Penny unwraps ht without stitches,’ she says ‘I’ll just put so a bit, mind’ She splashes some yellow stuff on my hand that sain
‘It eird,’ Mu at the blood running down her hand No tears, no reaction’
‘Well, she’s probably never cut herself before Never seen blood like that’
Huh Love it when people talk about me as if I’ And--’
‘Excuse me’ I smile host that o to school?’
‘Don’t worry about that yet, dear,’ Penny says ‘Have a look through the books they sent’ And she turns back to Mum ‘You have to try to remember to point out hazards, like knives She may not look it, but in some ways she is really like a sain
Penny turns
‘Yes, dear?’
‘Those books the school sent I looked through the They’re too easy, all stuff I already know froenius then, are you?’ Mum says, with a look on her face that says I’ Frowns and taps the screen on the side, then runs her finger across the screen, searching files
‘Well actually, she isn’t far off Tested age-appropriate before she left the hospital That is et the school to send soht have old school books around? We need to work out what subjects you should take’