Carry Me Down by M. J. Hyland

runs down my legs and into my socks and shoes. ‘Please, miss,’ I say. ‘May I be excused?’
    Miss Collins turns from the blackboard. ‘John, can you not wait till lunch?’
    I stand, and the urine sloshes underfoot and the smell rises up to meet me.
    ‘No, miss. I need to go now.’
    The slope of the floor carries a small trickle of urine towards the front of the room.
    Miss Collins doesn’t notice the piss heading towards the blackboard, nor the stench, but Jimmy the red-headed boy with the desk in front of mine notices.
    ‘Oh, miss!’ he cries. ‘John’s wet himself.’
    Everybody turns to see what I have done.
    I have my hand in the air, as though waving at a bus that has already sped past. Miss Collins walks towards me with her mouth open, showing her underbite and the stained and crooked teeth of an old dog.
    ‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘You’ll need to see Sister Bernadette about getting something to clean yourself up.’
    Sister Bernadette will take me to the district nurse’s room, which is in the convent next door. I don’t want to go there.
    I run from the classroom, down the corridor, past the coat rack, past the other classrooms and out the front door and I keep running until I get to the laneway and the darkness and privacy and stillness of the fir trees, and then my skin begins to sting from my wet trousers rubbing together and chafing my legs.
    I want to get into my pyjamas and I want to get into bed and destroy time. I want to sleep, then wake to the smell of tea and sausages, to find that what has happened has been erased.
    I don’t think I can ever go back to school.
    I sneak through the back door and tiptoe to my room. I take my wet trousers off and change into clean, dry ones. I go to the bathroom, run a sink full of hot water, and scrub my trousers clean.
    My mother is coming down the stairs. ‘Hello?’ she calls.
    ‘Hello,’ I say.
    She comes into the bathroom. ‘What are you doing home?’
    I felt sick, I tell her, and Miss Collins has sent me home.
    She asks me why the school didn’t call. ‘I would have come and got you.’
    When I lie, I feel heavier and when I try to move it is as though my legs are filled with hot water. The lie moves through every part of my body, like sickness.
    They rang twice, I say, but there was no answer. I use fewerwords, just in case they get stuck in my throat, besides, my voice is tighter, almost squeaky. She asks me why I’m washing my clothes and I tell her I vomited on them.
    ‘Again?’ she says. ‘More lying?’
    ‘I wasn’t lying.’
    ‘I didn’t say you were. You jumped to that conclusion all by yourself.’
    She smiles now and I wonder if I have been caught out.
    ‘Oh,’ I say.
    She holds my hand up and feels my palm. I’m not sweating, if that’s what she’s checking for. Most people sweat when they lie. But I don’t.
    ‘Smiling stops the gag reflex,’ she says. ‘Did you know that?’
    ‘Da already told me that.’
    ‘Well, he’s right. And you’d better get straight into bed if you’re sick.’
    I sit on the bed and wait for her to come to see me for a chat, but she doesn’t. I hope she’ll go to the kitchen and make me a toasted ham sandwich or get me some biscuits and a cup of cocoa, but she doesn’t.
    I listen to her go up the stairs to her bedroom, and then I hear my father.
    They are talking in loud voices. Something falls on the floor, and then they are silent.
    I lie under the covers for a while, and think of a funny thing to tell my mother. I wish that she’d come to me.
    Please come, please come, please come.
    She does not come.
    I lie in bed but can’t read or sleep.
    I talk to myself for an hour or so. I talk to myself in two voices, as though two people are having a conversation.
    I talk about what has happened. I ask myself questions in one voice, and answer them in another, different voice. I talk about what I will do tomorrow.
    I would rather die than let my father find out. I would rather die than