Ligament

Hobbled in to school, my ankle feeling sore, and spent the day hopping and limping around and being lighthearted about my injury. Deborah is the nearest to being OK she's been for weeks and was positively friendly after school. In Art, Lee rolled up in a big baggy ‘50s style suit he bought from a Farnshaw Oxfam.

When I got home Mum insisted she ring for a taxi to Easterby General Infirmary. Once there, my ankle was fondled by a foreign doctor and I had an X-ray (“probably a sprained ligament”), all the while hopping self-consciously about through bright antiseptic sterile corridors and waiting rooms with a bare foot in my big old floppy coat, feeling like Long John Silver. Had a long wait with Mum and silent staring patients until X-ray results came through, and then a young nurse bandaged my leg, her hands warm on my knee.

Dad picked us up. I’d wanted a pot on my ankle and somehow felt sad to be leaving the bright, lively hospital.