Lifesaving for Beginners

same as our house but it smells funny. Like the cloakroom in school after it’s been raining. And she makes me eat gingerbread men with Smarties stuck on them. Like I’m a little kid. And cups of tea. Even though I don’t drink tea. She still makes tea. She never remembers.
    I’m sorry about Mrs Barber’s other hip but at least I don’t have to go to school. Damo doesn’t think it’s fair that I’m going to London on a school day. ‘You could go to school and then come home with me afterwards,’ he says. Damo is lucky. He has his own key to the front door. And his mam works in the factory where they make the biscuits with the chocolate on the top. There’re always bags of biscuits in Damo’s house. Some of them are broken but they taste just as nice. I don’t tell Damo that I’m not allowed to go to his house anymore when his mam or his big sister, Imelda, aren’t there.
    Me and Faith are on the bus. It takes a long time. I like sitting on the top deck, right at the front. Faith says it makes her feel sick but she comes up with me anyway. She sits beside me, texting. Probably Rob. He plays the guitar in the band and he has long hair. Damo says that Rob thinks he’s so cool, but Rob has shown me how to play a G on the guitar and he says he’ll show me a C next time. He says once you know G, C and D, you can be a guitar player in a band. I don’t want to be a guitar player in a band, on account of the lifesaving. But maybe I could play in a band on my day off. Rob is left-handed like me, so his guitar is easier for me to play. It’s still hard, though. Playing the G. It hurts the tips of my fingers.
    I say, ‘Are you texting Rob?’
    Faith says, ‘Mind your beeswax.’
    She puts loads of XXXXXs at the end of the text. They’re mad about kissing, Rob and Faith. I don’t know how they can breathe when they kiss for that long. French-kissing is when you put your tongue in and lick the other person’s teeth. Damo says he French-kissed Cathy in our class. Cathy has braces. Sometimes bits of her sandwich get caught in the wires. I don’t think you could French-kiss someone who has braces on their teeth.
    I look out of the window of the bus. London gets busier and busier the closer you get. Much busier than Brighton. Mam said she liked Brighton because it was beside the sea and it reminded her of home. She still called Ireland home, even though we’ve lived in Brighton for years. Since I was a baby.
    We are on a road with lots of traffic. I read all the ads at each bus stop, to pass the time. Faith is still texting.
    I say, ‘Are we there yet?’
    She says, ‘Do we look like we’re there yet?’ Faith’s accent gets really Irish when she’s cross. It’s because she was born when Mam and Dad still lived in Ireland.
    Faith doesn’t look like me, or Ant or Adrian either. Damo looks exactly like Imelda but don’t ever say that to him because he’ll give you a dead arm and a wedgie if you do. Faith has black hair and green eyes and white skin. Mrs Barber says she looks a bit like Diana, who happens to be Mrs Barber’s cat. She calls her Diana after Princess Diana, who got killed in a car crash too. The cat is huge and very old. Faith doesn’t look anything like Diana, except for her green eyes and black hair. Rob thinks Faith is beautiful. He’s always saying stuff like that to her. He tells her she looks amazing, right in front of people.
    Reading the ads at the bus stops is starting to make me feel a bit sick so I have to stop.
    I say, ‘When will we be there?’
    Faith says, ‘Soon.’
    ‘You said that the last time.’
    ‘Knock it off, Milo.’
    ‘I’m hungry.’
    ‘Here, have a banana.’
    ‘I don’t want a banana.’
    ‘If you were hungry enough, you’d have a banana.’ Sometimes Faith sounds exactly like Mam.
    I blow on the window of the bus until it clouds up. Then I draw a picture with my finger. Me with my life jacket on. I don’t have a life jacket, but next summer – if Faith lets me – my class is going to do some training on the beach instead of at the pool and Coach says you have to wear a life jacket. Life jackets make you look a lot bigger than you really are.
    ‘Where are we going anyway?’
    ‘I already told you.’
    ‘You said an office.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Whose office?’
    ‘No one you know.’
    ‘Why are we going to an office?’
    Faith throws her phone into her bag and zips it up, really quickly. I can’t see her face anymore because her hands are