Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan

ruins of the fag-butt sheep pen. Like not content
     with starving us, the flops had been cramming their pockets with butts and stuffing their slippers and anywhere else they
     could think of to squeeze them into. So the flops stood behind seen the butts disappear and they reckoned it wasn't fair,
     and it weren't democratic neither they said 'cause they should of got shared out equal. And they all pushed forward to grab
     their butts and the flops behind them pushed forward as well and just as Brian and Michael come in, the whole thing collapsed
     like dominoes and everywhere's flops on top of each other all kicking and fighting and scratching and biting and Brian he
     turned white as a sheet, grabbed a hold of his chest and fallen on to the floor.
    'Press the alarm!' called Middle-Class Michael. 'Astrid! Press the alarm!' So Astrid reached round, all puffed up and pleased,
     and pressed the alarm by my head and instantly there's this shrieking screech like drilling a hole through your eardrums and
     the flops all stop fighting and jump into line, and everyone gets up and rushes over to have a look at Brian. Everyone except
     me that is; I stayed sat where I was with one eye on the queue. 'Cause whatever gone on with Brian the Butcher, I didn't see
     how me missing my dinner was going to help no one at all.
    Brian was laying flat on his back on the floor and his skin was so white it looked like marble - like a tomb in Ream's cathedral,
     said Michael, and Astrid sniffed and said how she wouldn't know. And Tina said they ought to loosen his collar. She didn't
     know much about first aid, but she did know they ought to loosen his collar. So Wesley pulled down the neck of Brian's sweatshirt
     and taken a look at his shirt underneath and the top button weren't done anyway - 'It's not done up,' said Middle-Class Michael
     - but Wesley undone another one just to be sure.
    'He sweatin' man,' White Wesley said.
    'Oh Lord!' said Rosetta. 'Think he's taken something?'
    'They'll have to pump him out,' said Candid. 'Same as they done with me.'
    Well I reckoned I'd heard enough by then, do you know what I'm saying, that's the trouble with dribblers, overdosing all over
     the place, it done your fucking head in; so I gone and joined on the end of the queue, stood with my back to it all, and I
     stuck my fingers in my ears and shuffled along behind Jacko the Penguin, kept checking his wrist - he weren't wearing no watch
     - see how long till the hatch come down.
    So all I'm saying is what happened next, I didn't actually see it, which I ain't got a problem repeating stuff, but I can't swear to it, that's the only thing, I mean not like I seen it myself.
    With a single sweep of her manicured hand (I believe that alright), Poppy brushed everyone aside. And she knelt beside Brian
     and looked in his mouth to see if he'd swallowed his tongue, and she put her ear to his nose to check he was breathing, then
     what happened next depends who you listen to. Most people said Brian was breathing OK, so she taken his wrist (right, said
     Sue; left, said Michael) and felt for his pulse and started to count his heart rate. But Astrid said Brian weren't breathing
     at all. She said Poppy had gave him mouth-to-mouth, she'd seen her do it, she said. And when that didn't work she ripped off his sweatshirt, straddled him and started to pump his chest. Just like on Casualty, she said, and after a bit Brian come back to life and started to beep and everyone sighed with relief. But he couldn't of
     beeped, Rosetta said, there weren't no monitor to beep, and Astrid said he did because she heard it.
    Tina said he might of beeped, but then again he might not, she couldn't remember. And she couldn't remember if Poppy had straddled
     him neither, but if Astrid said she did then she must of done. Poppy said the whole thing was bollocks and she couldn't believe
     the fuss they was making. All she done was ABC. And ABC was what she'd learned at Harbinger Krapwort