Swallowing Grandma by Kate Long Page B

we? Didn’t we win?’
    ‘You are so sad, Donna French,’ said Alex, but in that way which means it’s only a friendly thing to say and not bullying.
    ‘Sad yourself, loser. Look, I’ve made myself a victory wreath.’ She was stringing cable ties together into a large-looped chain. ‘Smart, eh? Might wear it tonight, essential clubwear.’
    ‘Looks a bit spiky to me,’ said Lissa. ‘You’d have somebody’s eye out if they came up for a snog.’
    I was hanging at the back of the group when Donna turned to me. ‘You are so fucking clever, though. You deserve this.’ She draped the plastic chain over my hair. ‘Honest,’ she turned back to the others. ‘You should have seen her. Dead organized, worked out how many struts we needed for each shape before we started, had a proper strategy, no, stop laughing, to finish each shape before we started the next because that was quicker—’
    I was half-smiling in case it was a piss-take, to show I was in on the joke.
    ‘No, seriously,’ Donna went on. ‘If you’re ever in desperate need of a paper polyhedron and time is of the essence, Katherine’s your girl.’ She raised her palm to me.
    I gawped for a second, then it clicked what she wanted and I slapped her hand. ‘Yo,’ she said.
    ‘Actually, it’s Kat,’ I said. ‘My name. Kat. I’ve changed it.’
    ‘Miaow,’ said Alex.
    Nicky appeared round the corner and Donna let out a squeak of joy. ‘Nicks, Nicks, wait up.’ She broke into a run. Nicky held her arms open for Big Hugs.
    ‘See you then, Kat,’ Donna shouted over her shoulder.

    *

    I don’t know how long I was there. Time’s different in hospitals. I don’t even know if it was another part of the same building, or a different place altogether. There was still that giveaway smell of cleaning fluid and canteen. There was still nowhere to be private, people asking you questions constantly and putting needles in your arm. I didn’t take much notice. I kept my eyes closed a lot of the time because it was better in my head.
    The night before we did it, he took me to a playground and sat me on a swing. He swung himself like a maniac.
    ‘You could launch yourself off into the sky, it’d be easy. Lose yourself in all them stars,’ he shouted as he swished past me. ‘Go higher. See if you can go right over the top bar. I bet you could if you got enough momentum up.’ His hair flowed round his face, then back, blown tight away from his hairline. I slowed down to watch, saw the chain links shift, heard the creak of the giant bolts.
    Then, without warning, he jumped right off in mid-swing, legs flailing. He landed hard and staggered, but didn’t fall. ‘Hit the ground running, that’s what they say. That’s the secret,’ he called across the darkness.
    He strolled over and stood close in front of me, gripping the chains near my hips. ‘There’s no need to be scared. I’ll show you something.’ He drew the swing seat towards him and held it for a moment, then let me fall away. ‘Come on.’
    I remember scuffing my shoes hard into the grass to stop myself, and the whole metal frame shuddering around me. He took my hand and led me over to the roundabout.
    ‘We’re at the centre of the universe, you and me,’ he said.
    I laughed.
    ‘No, we are. I can prove it. Hop on.’
    The roundabout was a solid cylinder shape with bright tube handles intersecting the top into cake-slices. We each sat in a slice and he pushed hard on the ground with his foot to start us moving.
    ‘Lie back. Go on.’
    I rested my neck on a cold handle.
    ‘No, don’t close your eyes. Look up.’
    Orion whizzed round, Ursa Major wheeled from one edge of my vision to the other.
    ‘I told you. The stars revolve around you. You’re the centre of everything. We are. Us.’
    A nurse came in. ‘You’ve got visitors,’ she said brightly. ‘Shall we have these curtains open, let a bit of sunshine in?’
    I wriggled myself up in bed, heart beating in case one of them