Swallowing Grandma by Kate Long

to set you a competitive task. We’re going to observe the different strategies people use to deal with it, the task, and evaluate which one is the most successful.’
    Bollocks, I thought. Psychologists never tell you what they’re observing.
    ‘So we need you to get into pairs.’
    No one moved.
    ‘Chop chop,’ said Mrs Law.
    Alex sighed and slouched forward, pulling Sita by the hand. ‘Sooner we get this started, sooner we can get back. To our A LEVEL REVISION,’ she finished, glancing back over her shoulder at Mrs Law. Jasmine nodded at Zoe and I thought, oh fuck, I can see where this is headed.
    ‘Jenny, do you want to go with me?’ I asked, in an utterly crap, pathetic way. But Jenny and Lissa were already turning to go, together, which left –
    Donna’s head was well down. ‘I feel sick, Mrs Law,’ she mumbled. ‘Need to go and get some Paracetamol.’
    ‘Paracetamol won’t help with nausea,’ said Mrs Law briskly. ‘What you need is to take your mind off it. Get cracking now; you’re holding the others up and I don’t believe they’ll thank you for that.’
    Donna and I trudged across the slippery gym to where our knot of Lower Sixths were seated, holding on to their clipboards. Donna flopped down onto the crash mat and lay full length on her front, as if she was sunbathing, while I stood above her, chewing my nail and feeling like hell.
    ‘Right,’ said Emily. ‘I need you all to watch this carefully.’
    She peeled a page of newspaper off the pile nearest and began to roll it up diagonally so it formed a long, thin tube. A Lower Sixth assistant handed her a bit of parcel tape and she stuck the final corner down so the tube couldn’t unravel itself. Then she took the ruler, held it against the middle, and bent the tube down at both ends. ‘You need to make each central strut exactly thirty centimetres long,’ she explained. ‘Do you see? Mand, can I have those ones I did earlier?’
    Assistant Mand scrabbled under the wall bars and pulled out a bundle of other tubes, all with their ends bent over.
    ‘Now, what you’re going to do is use these struts to build three regular solids. A tetrahedron, a cube, and a dodecahedron.’ Mand started rooting in some binbags that she’d hauled out from behind the benches.
    ‘Come again?’ said Alex. ‘I quit maths after Year Eleven, you know.’
    Emily wasn’t fazed. ‘Like this.’ She held out her arms and Mand handed her two finished shapes, well-jointed with parcel tape and plastic ties. They were pretty rigid considering they’d been made from paper. ‘Can you all see? A tetrahedron, like this, is a four -faced solid, and a cube, here, has six faces, and a dodecahedron, that’s what Mand’s holding, has got twelve .’ Silence. ‘OK? Great. And because this is a competition, we don’t want you to talk to any of the other couples, or ask us anything either. We’re here to observe. Ignore us. We’re invisible.’
    ‘Is there a prize?’ Alex again, just this side of insolent.
    ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Law. ‘A beautiful box of Belgian chocolates for the winning couple.’
    ‘Oh my God, really?’
    ‘No. Emily?’
    Emily shouted, ‘3-2-1- go ,’ as if it was a proper race. The competitors exchanged disgusted glances, but started anyway.
    Two minutes in and it looked as if Donna and I were going to be winning a category all of our own; the only team to complete the task without actually speaking. We sat at opposite edges of the crash mat with our backs to each other, while the clipboard girls scribbled away. I started rolling up tubes and taping them, because I’d worked out we only needed six to make up the tetrahedron and it seemed sensible to start with the easiest. Then, when I got to the fifth, Donna said, ‘ Shit ,’ under her breath. ‘Shit shit shit.’
    I moved aside my curtain of hair and peeped out. Donna’s shoulders were jerking oddly but I couldn’t see what she was doing.
    ‘All right?’
    ‘Shit,’ she said,