Lifesaving for Beginners

better make sure it’s artificial. Otherwise, it’ll be long dead by the time Christmas comes around.
    They don’t have banana muffins so I just get an apple and cinnamon one, which happens to be my second favourite. It’s good, but there’s icing on the top. Muffins aren’t supposed to have icing on the top.
    I don’t order the hot chocolate with the marshmallows because it’s three euro and twenty cents. I haven’t changed my one hundred and thirty-six pounds and fifteen pence into euro yet and I don’t know how much money Faith brought with her. I know she’s in a band and everything, but I don’t think she makes very much money. It’s not that they’re no good or anything. It’s just that no one’s ever heard of them and their songs aren’t on the radio yet. When their songs are on the radio, I expect Faith will have more money for hot chocolates. I ask for a glass of water and when the man says, ‘Sparkling or still?’ I just say, ‘From the tap, please.’
    Right about now I’m missing maths, which is fine by me, but in twenty minutes, I’m supposed to be in the library with Carla. It’s our turn to help Miss Rintoole tidy up and put the books where they’re supposed to be. The library is just a classroom really. And Miss Rintoole is not a real librarian. She’s a teacher who happens to be in charge of the library. Miss Williams always gets me and Carla to do jobs together, like bringing books to the office to get photocopies. Carla’s got one of those laughs that make no sound, which is probably why she never gets in trouble. Her hair is very long. She can sit on the ends of it when it’s not in plaits. She looks a bit like Pocahontas, when her hair’s in plaits. And she never wears anything but jeans. She was the only girl wearing jeans at Stephanie Nugent’s party. Stephanie’s mam said it wasn’t fair to leave people out so she had to invite everyone. Even George Pullman.
    Faith says, ‘You’re miles away. What are you thinking about?’
    I say, ‘Nothing.’ If I tell her about Carla, Faith will think that Carla is my girlfriend, because that’s what adults say when a boy happens to be friends with a girl who happens to be in his class.
    Faith says, ‘You never tell me anything anymore.’ She’s sort of smiling but I think she’s being pretty serious too.
    I say, ‘I do so,’ even though I don’t. Not really. Not anymore. Because Faith is sort of a bit like Mam now. Like, she’s supposed to make me my dinner and make sure I brush my teeth and check that there’s no dirt under my fingernails and that I say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when I’m talking to adults. Stuff like that.
    Before, I might have told her about Carla. Not that there’s anything to tell, exactly. I might have said something about me liking Carla, not because she’s a girl or anything but because she happens to be a pretty interesting person when you think about it. She knows a lot about the Big Bang.
    Faith looks at her phone again. It hasn’t rung or beeped since she left the note in the letterbox but she keeps checking it as if it has.
    So I say, ‘I was thinking about school.’
    ‘What about it?’
    ‘Me and Carla usually help in the library on Tuesdays. Just before break.’
    ‘Carla?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Is she your friend?’
    ‘She’s in my class.’
    ‘Is she your girlfriend?’ See what I mean?
    I shake my head.
    Faith checks her phone.
    Before Faith goes to the loo – she calls it the Ladies – she checks her phone again. It hasn’t made one single sound since the last time she checked it.
    Then, the minute she’s gone, her phone starts to ring. If Mam were here, she’d say, ‘Typical!’

 
    Ed says, ‘Kat, do you think the baby will mind that I have Down’s?’
    I say, ‘She’s not a baby. She’s twenty-four.’
    Ed says, ‘Is she ten years younger than me, Kat?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So that means I was ten when she was born.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I don’t remember seeing her when I was ten.’
    ‘You didn’t see her.’
    ‘Did you see her?’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘That must have made you sad.’
    Ed and I are ice-skating in Smithfield. Well, Ed is ice-skating. I stand outside the rink, on the green felt that is reserved for anxious parents so that they can watch their offspring wobble round the rink.
    I am not anxious. Not about Ed ice-skating, at any rate. He loves falling as much as he loves skating. He has no fear of falling, which sets him apart from