On my first day of secondary school I go in early with Mum. We’re all dressed up. Mum bought me a new pair of jeans with a chain belt and ripped knees and she even took me to the hairdresser and said I could get highlights in my hair. She’s let me put on lip gloss. Her dress matches my top. At the gates she asks Dad to take lots of photos.

The school is empty. Mum and I say hello to the teachers and the headmaster and they’re very nice. They all say I look so much like my mum and that they’ve heard I was really clever. I blush and smile. Another thing they say is that I’m very tall the same way everybody always says I’m very tall. A teacher asks me how old I am. I say I’m ten but I’ll be eleven next month. I look at Mum while I speak. The teacher says Ten! The teacher says I look like I’m fourteen. Mum says one day I’ll be a tall woman a very tall woman and she squeezes my hand. 

I have lunch with Mum and all the teachers and they talk about school trips abroad. There’s one in March to France and one in May to Spain and I ask Mum if she’s going on the trip to Madrid and she whispers a yes and she smiles.

All the other people arrive at two in the afternoon. We get sorted into forms and I wave Mum goodbye and I find Juliet and Mallory and I tell them my mum arranged for us to be in the same form and they say it’s so cool because we don’t know anyone else. In the corridors the teachers say hello to me and people ask me how I know everyone and I say I know a lot of people. Mallory and Juliet and I talk about how it’s going to be a great year.

At some point in the middle of the school year Mum doesn’t go to school anymore. She starts sleeping in the office downstairs and I wonder if my parents will get a divorce because Mallory said her parents slept in separate rooms before they got divorced. When Mallory talks about her parents’ divorce she always says it’s all because of that bitch. And Juliet and I agree it’s all because of that bitch. At home I’m really nice I only say nice things so that my parents feel good so that my parents don’t need to divorce maybe. Although if there’s a bitch I don’t think there’s much I can do apart from finding out who the bitch is. 

Mum spends a lot of time on the sofa in the living room and Dad brings her dinner on a tray and she’s picky. She wants her food cut for her and wants everything to be easy to eat. We watch The X Factor together like we do every Saturday night but when I bring her a Mars bar like I always do on Saturday nights she says no she says it’ll make her feel sick and she looks annoyed. And then on other Saturday nights she doesn’t watch she just sleeps. And when I sing along she sighs and turns so I stop singing. And once I kiss her goodnight and it wakes her up and she tells me off for waking her up. What it means is Dad has to drive me to school now and we can’t use the teachers’ car park now and we have to wait in line with all the other people now. 

At school everyone asks me where my mum is and how my mum is. Her pupils find me in the playground they say You’re Mrs. Hale’s daughter aren’t you? Can you tell her we say hello? Also tell her the supply teacher is so bad and that we miss her! Can you tell her? From Aviva Cleo and Abigail. Will you tell her? Aviva Cleo and Abigail. I repeat their names in my head all day. The teachers speak in quiet voices at the end of class and ask me if she’s coming back and if she’s okay. I say what I’ve been told to say. I say she has sciatica. The teachers nod and say Ah yes sciaticas are really bad and I say Yes sciaticas are really bad. 

One evening I show Mum my Spanish homework and she shows me two burnt holes on her scalp where there’s no hair. She shows me headscarves. A wig arrives in the post and it’s pretty much prettier than her real hair because it’s blond. She has lost weight and I tell her she looks good. She says I can have as many Mars bars as I want. I eat four. 

The Mars bars they always go on the brown plates. And when I drink orange juice I always have to drink it in the glass with the orange stripes and if someone gives me orange juice in the glass with the blue stripes I pour it in the sink when they’re not watching. Blue is for water I can’t have orange juice in the glass for water. I always give Mum the yellow cutlery because the science teacher said the sun with the water is good the sun with the water is good and yellow is the colour of the sun.

I watch all three episodes of Charmed every day after school and no one tells me to turn off the TV. 

Dad tells me to stop asking Mum about my Spanish homework but I don’t mind because I’m good at it I just wanted to make sure. And anyway I wasn’t going to ask anymore because now when she tries to say things she’s not always very clear. For example the other day she wanted me to fetch her a glass of water but she asked me to hoover the road-signs and I only understood because she made a gesture of drinking. She says there’s a pocket of water in her brain. I wonder where the water comes from. 

Mum leaves home and goes to a hospital and in the hospital there are lots of plugs above the bed and tubes too and wires too and Mum tells me to stop pulling my eyelashes. Your beautiful eyelashes she says Your beautiful eyelashes. There’s also a balcony very high up and you can see the river down below. The river it glitters the river it’s soft.

I can watch even more TV. I can go on the computer all the time. I tell Juliet and Mallory everything I’ve been watching and eating and they’re jealous and they say I’m so lucky. They say maybe I can ask for more stuff since my parents don’t say no anymore so I ask for a pair of sneakers and Dad buys me the most expensive ones the purple ones and then I ask for a Sims game and he buys me two. 

On a Friday afternoon I’m eating ice-cream in front of the TV and my aunt Virginia calls and asks how I’m doing and I say I’m fine. And she says Darling you’re not fine and I laugh. I say I have to go do my homework because I want to keep watching Charmed. I’m really worried when it looks like Piper is going to die but then her sisters cast a spell and Piper is fine and I put chocolate chips in my ice-cream. 

My uncle Peter comes round and gives me twenty pounds and he and Dad remove the carpet from the office and they take away all the furniture and lay down linoleum on the floor. It’s like wood except it’s not like wood at all. I wonder where the furniture has gone. There were bookcases and two desks and three chairs and a bed and it was always so messy. Now it’s all clean and they install a hospital bed and then Mum’s in the hospital bed. I’d like to know where the computer is because I’d just started a new family on The Sims with Luke Glass as my husband. I don’t ask where it is for now. 

When Grandma comes she puts up a picture of the Pope on the bedside table. And when Grandpa visits he takes it down and he gives me an MP3 player. 

At school during breaks I let Mallory and Juliet listen to the song on my MP3 player. They have to take it in turns because there are two earphones and three of us. There’s only one song on my MP3 player and it’s a sad song but Mallory and Juliet they say it’s not a sad song but maybe that’s because they haven’t listened to it in their beds when it’s all quiet and dark. 

Now we always have to spend our breaks in the playground. Before we could go around the school and if someone saw us in the corridors I could just say I’m going to see my mum I could say My mum’s Mrs. Hale.

I get As on all my tests and the teachers congratulate me but Mr. Benson the Maths teacher he asks if my mum still has sciatica when he gives me my exam back and I say yes. I say sciaticas are really bad. He says he put a note for her inside my test and I tell him I’ll give it to her. At first I think maybe he’s her secret lover and if I don’t give it to her my parents won’t get a divorce. But then I read the note and it just says he hopes she’s feeling better and to call him if she needs anything and he wrote down his address and phone number. Which means he’s not her lover because she would already know where he lives if they were having an affair. So I tell Mallory my parents are going to stay together. 

Mum dies on a Thursday. Dad comes into my room to tell me and he cries on my bed and he gives me tissues and he doesn’t actually say she is dead he just says it’s over it’s over it’s over. 

I don’t go to school on the Friday and Monday is a bank holiday. It’s very convenient for the funeral because it means everybody can come. The priest says something about teachers bringing in crowds and it’s true the church is full very full. Aviva Cleo and Abigail wrote a poem for her and they recite it and everybody says what a lovely poem it was. At home afterwards there’s all my favourite food like mini pizzas and sausage rolls and Monster Munch. Some people give me gifts. A woman gives me glittery pens. 

The computer is in the living room now and I play The Sims all Tuesday. I make my couple have sex a lot. I make them have lots of babies. Babies babies babies. I make them eat too much so they’ll get fat. I buy twelve swimming-pool ladders so they can always get out.

I go back to school on Wednesday. Everyone says they’re sorry and they’re all kind to me. Even the people I don’t know even the beautiful girls even the handsome boys in the years above. Everybody wants to talk to me. Even Luke Glass. Luke Glass gives me a hug and my heart beats really fast and I tell Juliet and Mallory that Luke Glass gave me a hug and we get all excited. The English teacher starts her lesson by telling the class I’m so brave to come back to school so soon and she tells everyone to clap for me and they all clap which is very nice. 

These days people send lots of flowers to the house. Always flowers in the house. 

The rooms they smell good. 

And everything is pretty.