Chrissie
They sent me away from hospital after two more days. I didn’t want to go. I pretend-coughed and pretend-sneezed and said my belly hurt, my head hurt, my everywhere hurt. They still told Mam I was ready to leave. When we were going, Nurse Howard said, “Take care of yourself, Chrissie.” I wished she’d said, “Take care of Chrissie, Mam.” Mam didn’t speak to me on the bus. She sat straight-backed and smoked two smokes with a trembling mouth. When the bus dropped us outside church she walked off without me. I didn’t try to catch up.
Linda was extra nice to me for the next few days because I had been so poorly. Even her mammy was nicer than usual. When I stayed for tea she gave me as much food as she gave Linda (which she normally didn’t) and she didn’t make Linda wash her hands after she’d been playing with me (which she normally did). Linda told Donna that I had been so poorly I had nearly died, because that was what I had told her. Donna didn’t admit it, but she was really impressed, and she let me have a go on her bike the first time I asked. If I had known people would be so nice to me just because I had been in the hospital, I would have tried to get myself in the hospital much sooner.
I went back to school on Monday but Miss White wasn’t particularly nice to me, and she was even more not-nice to Linda. When we were doing maths she asked her to read the time off the clock on the classroom wall, even though she knew Linda was thick at telling the time. Linda stared and stared at the clock without saying anything and Miss White kept saying, “What’s the time, Linda?” and Linda kept not saying anything. I could almost hear her heart banging from across the room. The rest of us went out to play but Miss White wouldn’t let Linda come. She said she had to sit on her own in the empty classroom until she said the right time.
When I got into the playground I went to the classroom window and looked through it. I could see Linda’s face from the side. Her mouth had turned down at the corners the way it did when she was going to cry, and under the table she was knotting her fingers so tightly the pads were turning red. I couldn’t see them from outside but I knew they were turning red, because the pads of her fingers always turned red when she knotted them like that. In the end she got let out to play because Miss White wanted to go to the staff room and have a cup of tea. I told the teacher on duty I needed the toilet. I didn’t go to the toilet. I went into the classroom, climbed up on a chair, took the clock off the wall, and threw it on the floor. It didn’t smash because it was made of plastic, so I turned it faceup and jumped on it until the numbers were hidden under a spiderweb of cracks. I left it on the floor and went back out to play. When Miss White saw it she looked at Linda, but she knew Linda would never have done something like that. There was only one person in the class who was bad enough to have done something like that. She waited until everyone else was doing worksheets, then called me to her desk. She had the clock in front of her.
“Do you know what happened to our clock, Chrissie?” she asked.
“It’s smashed,” I said.
“Yes, it is. Do you know how it got smashed?”
“Must have fallen off the wall.”
“And how might that have happened?”
“Probably just got blown off.”
“Blown off?”
“Yeah. By the wind.”
“Wind?”
I pointed to a leaf skimming across the playground outside. “It’s windy today,” I said. “Just look at the leaves.”
She sighed. I wanted to say, “You might have blown it off the wall with one of your sighs, Miss White,” but I thought I had better not.
“You are going to get yourself into serious trouble one day, Christine Banks,” she said.
“Because I’m the bad seed?” I asked.
She made a little snorting sound. “Did someone tell you that?”
“Yeah. I’m the bad seed. I’m not going to get in trouble, though.”
“Oh?” she said. “Because you’re going to start behaving?”
“No,” I said. “Because no one’s ever going to catch me.”
“Go back to your seat,” she said.
“Did you know I was in the hospital, miss?” I asked. “I was. I got given some sweets but they were actually tablets. They poisoned me.”
“Who gave them to you?” she asked.
I thought of Mam pushing the tube into my hand, pushing her mouth against my cheek. Lips like tree bark on my skin, feeling in my belly like a fluttering feather. Maybe she likes me now. Maybe I’ve got good.
“Just someone,” I said. “I got poisoned by them. I had a bad belly for loads of days. I nearly died.”
Miss White pulled a stack of worksheets toward her and started ticking and crossing. “Of course you did, Chrissie,” she said. “Of course you did.”
The next day at break time I went to bring the milk bottles in from the playground, but Miss White said, “No, Chrissie. Your turn as milk monitor has finished. Caroline, can you go, please?”
Caroline got up slowly, watching me.
“But it’s my job,” I said. “It’s my monitor job.”
“It has been your job, and now it’s someone else’s turn,” said Miss White.
“But I did it yesterday,” I said.
“Yes. You’ve been a very lucky girl, haven’t you? You’ve been milk monitor for a long time. Which is why we need to give someone else a turn.” She clapped her hands. “Come on, Caroline. Spit spot,” she said.
Caroline went out of the door and dragged in the milk bottle crate. She huffed and puffed and acted like it
