Among Others

believes, he does believe, at least, he believes something. But standing in the wood with fairies I can see and he can’t if it comes to that is going to be very awkward, because he’s going to think I’m mad or lying, and either would be pretty awful.
    Oh well.
    T HURSDAY 17 TH J ANUARY 1980
    It didn’t feel this bad even right after I did it.
    They took more x-rays. Dr. Abdul wanted to talk to Daniel, and seemed cross that he wasn’t there, as if I kept him in my pocket. They let me go, eventually, insisting I take a metal stick instead of using my perfectly nice fairy one. I only just made it to the bus stop, and then from the bus stop to the other bus stop. It’s a good thing there are walls to sit on. It was never this bad before. I think they’ve made it worse, I think they’ve wrecked it forever and that’s what he wanted to tell Daniel and wouldn’t tell me.
    I’m back in the library. Miss Carroll thinks I should be in bed. She brought me a barley sugar and a glass of water, even though eating in the library is strictly forbidden.
    Pain, pain, PAIN.
    F RIDAY 18 TH J ANUARY 1980
    In bed in the San. Lying down with pillows and no rack is wonderful. Lying still doesn’t hurt all that much. I never appreciated school food before either. Of course, one good thing about hospital was visitors. Nobody can visit me here except Deirdre and Miss Carroll. They’d have a fit at Janine or Greg, and probably expel me if Wim came, not that he would.
    I’m catching up on the school work I missed, well, I’ve done it all except the maths. I don’t have maths brain anyway, and somehow I can’t keep the numbers straight when there’s all this pain. In geography, we are doing Glaciation. I have done this before, so I have no trouble with it. In fact, it’s boring, yes, glaciers, cwms or corries, terminal moraines, u-shaped valleys. Deirdre hadn’t heard of it before and confessed to nightmares about it. I was very good and didn’t tell her the story of Clarke’s “Forgotten Enemy.”
    I won’t be able to go to town tomorrow, but I hadn’t arranged to meet anyone anyway. Miss Carroll will take my library books back and collect any new ones. Maybe by Tuesday I’ll be all right. Or as all right as I was before.
    I want my mobility back. I feel trapped. I hate this.
    Return to Night is excessively and unsubtly Freudian. It does have some good bits though.
    S ATURDAY 19 TH J ANUARY 1980
    Daniel came to see me, which was a surprise. He put his head around the door. “Who do you think I’ve brought?” he asked.
    I hoped for Sam, but I guessed right that it was his sisters. I was surprised that it was only one of them. “Hello, Aunt Anthea,” I said, which made her jump. It was just a guess of course, but a guess based in experience. Usually if there’s just one of them, it’s Anthea, who is the oldest.
    “I just couldn’t resist coming to see the old place,” she said.
    “I’m surprised the others could resist,” I said, as Nice Niece as I could be.
    “There wouldn’t have been room in the car, dear.”
    Now Daniel’s car, like most cars, like every car in the world apart from maybe Auntie Teg’s little orange Fiat 500, holds four people. Even Auntie Teg’s car, which we call Gamboge Gussie the Galloping Girl—Gussie because the registration number starts GCY—can hold four, it’s just a bit of a squash, especially if any of them are tall. So that was when I realised that they’d come to take me back with them.
    “To convalesce,” Daniel said.
    It seemed to me that it would have been more use if Daniel had come on a weekday and talked to Dr. Abdul, but it seemed he’d spoken to him on the phone—I wonder who initiated that call? In any case, it seemed as if the school thought it would take me a little while to be back in class, and I’d be better off being nursed at home. Well, that might be the case, for people who have homes. I tried every argument I could think of to stay in school, including a few outright Nice Niece ones, like not wanting to miss the hockey match against St. Felicity’s, but none of them held water.
    I found myself being helped down to the car. That sort of help is actually a hindrance. If you ever see someone with a walking stick, that stick, and their arm, are actually a leg. Grabbing it or lifting it or doing anything unasked to the stick and the arm are much the same as if you grabbed a normal person’s leg as they’re walking. I wish more people