LITMIR.BIZ

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us. She stumbled as we went round the turn and dropped her books, but Trish didn’t stop to help her pick them up.

      ‘It’s an awful bruise.’

      ‘It’s not much.’ My legs ached with going so fast up the stairs. I regretted telling them now.

      ‘He could have fractured your skull.’

      ‘It wasn’t that hard.’

      We reached the biology lab. I sighed with relief.

      Half-way through biology, Miss Millichip divided us into pairs to do an experiment on breathing. The sheep’s lung had yet to make an appearance, although there was a whiff of something clinging to Miss Millichip’s lab coat that suggested it wasn’t far away. I hated doing experiments in pairs, because there was always a chance Poppy would beat me to it and team up with Trish, and I would be left on my own. But I needn’t have worried. Trish swiftly claimed me.

      ‘So what’s the worst thing he did to you?’

      ‘Really, not much more than the odd bruise. Honestly. Blow into this.’

      Trish blew a long puff of air into the bell jar. ‘What are we supposed to do with this now? Hasn’t he ever hit you where it shows?’

      ‘We have to measure how far the water level’s dropped. Once he did knock my shoulder out. But he did medical training in his national service and he knew how to put it back into its socket.’

      ‘One point four inches. Did it hurt?’

      I winced. ‘Like … hell.’ The words felt strange in my mouth. I couldn’t really remember how it had felt.

      ‘You ought to tell someone.’

      ‘No.’

      Trish shrugged. ‘Well, it’s your fault, then, if it keeps on happening. Your turn to blow.’

      I blew into the flask as hard as if I wanted to burst it.

      Miss Millichip wore a gold cross round her neck, and what Mrs Owen would have called ‘sensible’ skirts with concertina pleats. You could see them peeping out under her white lab coat. When we had finished the breathing experiment, she called us to gather round the big desk at the front.

      Trish elbowed her way into the front row. I followed, then wished I hadn’t. On the desk lay something pinkish-grey, wrinkled like hands that have been in water too long, a pouch with a macaroni tube poking out of one end. It smelt foul, coppery, sickly. No, more than sickly–dead, and for a long time too.

      Miss Millichip pointed to the diagram behind her on the blackboard. She could draw beautifully, and she’d chalked a picture of the lungs in three different colours, labelled with neat capitals.

      ‘As you can see, this is one of a pair. The tube at the top–what’s it called, Trish Klein?’

      Trish squinted at the blackboard. ‘The bronch… bronchius?’

      ‘Hard ch. Like a k. Bron-kus. No i. The bronchus here …’ Miss Millichip poked the floppy macaroni with a blunt, unvarnished fingernail ‘… is one of a pair of tubes leading from the windpipe into the top of the lungs. When the diaphragm–where’s your diaphragm, Pauline Jagger?’ Pauline pointed vaguely to her abdomen. ‘Not bad, but up a bit. Here …’ Miss Millichip poked Pauline with the same finger she’d used on the macaroni tube. ‘When the diaphragm flattens out, it creates a space for the lungs to expand and air is pulled down the bronchus, inflating the lung–so …’ She inserted a bright yellow drinking straw into the macaroni tube, then bent forward and blew hard down it. The wrinkled grey pouch filled like a sad old balloon. A fetid smell, ammoniac and somehow familiar, wafted across the desk. It suddenly seemed very warm in the room. There were beads of sweat behind my ears.

      ‘The oxygen molecules pass through the walls of the tiny tubes inside the lungs–the what, Katie Carter?’

      ‘Bronchioles, Miss Millichip.’ My voice seemed to be coming from somewhere far outside me.

      ‘– and into the bloodstream, where they are exchanged for carbon dioxide, which passes back through into the bronchioles. The abdominal muscles contract to push the diaphragm back into a dome shape, the intercostal muscles collapse the ribcage, and the air is pushed out of the lungs–so!’ She pressed down with the heel of her hand on the horrid smelly thing and a puff of foul air shot out of the macaroni tube straight into my nostrils. Sweat burst out of every pore and someone sprinkled black confetti in front of my eyes.

      I came to on the floor. Miss Millichip was fanning my face with a set of notes about the eyeball–I could see something like a small fat pink squid flashing backwards and forwards–while the rest of the class clustered behind her, staring at me open-mouthed. They all looked disappointed that I’d regained consciousness.

      ‘Groo,’ I said, or something like it. My tongue seemed to have got stuck to my bottom teeth.

      Miss Millichip’s face was very red, and radiating alarm. ‘Bryony, would you go and fetch the nurse? How are you feeling, dear?’

      ‘Unk. Ouughar. Arghright.’ I tried to sit up.

      ‘Lie back, dear. The nurse is coming. You fainted. Best be still for a bit.’ She drew a hand tenderly across my forehead. My hair flopped back off the side of my face. ‘That’s a nasty bruise. How on earth did you get it?’

      The nurse was concerned about the bruise too. She thought it might have had some connection with me fainting.

      ‘No. I must have done it when I went down. Hit my head on something, I expect.’

      ‘Don’t be silly. A bruise doesn’t come out that quickly.’

      ‘Well, maybe it happened when I bumped my head in the bath last night. I was rinsing my hair underwater and when I came up I banged against the hot tap. I didn’t know it had bruised, though. Is it really bad?’ I opened my eyes as wide as I could. ‘Have you got a mirror? Can I look?’

      She was almost convinced. ‘I think we should get you X-rayed.’

      ‘Oh, no. Feel. It’s fine. No hole in the head.’

      ‘You might have concussion.’

      ‘Honestly. I’d know. I’m fine.’

      ‘Have you got a headache? Did you have one last night or earlier today?’

      ‘Absolutely nothing. But …’ I allowed myself to look guilty ‘… I didn’t have any lunch today. It was stew, and I hate that. And I’ve got my period.’

      ‘Ah.’ The nurse thought for a bit. I could tell she didn’t much want to take me down to the hospital on the other side of town. She stared hard into my eyes. I stared back, praying they weren’t crossing.

      ‘OK, then. But I’m going to drive you home, and have a word with your mum. If you feel dizzy again she’s to take you straight to Casualty.’

      ‘There’s just my dad. He wouldn’t want you to worry. I can walk home on my own, really.’

      But I wasn’t going to get away with that. The nurse bundled me into her Morris Minor and drove me down the hill. Of course my father wasn’t going to be in. He wouldn’t be back for ages, but I didn’t tell her that. I said I’d go straight round to Mrs Owen’s as soon as I’d unloaded my books and made myself a jam sandwich, and I promised faithfully I’d pass on the message to my dad about taking me to Casualty if I had another dizzy turn.

      She drove away up the hill, probably glad to get the weekend started early. I watched her go, then went into the house. Jesus looked down at me with his big, sad eyes from the living-room wall. Now he was unhappy I was such a good liar. I hadn’t even started my periods yet.

      When my father came home at six o’clock, he brought with him a big brick of Wall’s ice-cream: coffee, my favourite. He pushed it tentatively across the table towards me. Our

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