All of Me by Kim Noble

cutlery down in front of the pair of us. Miss Kerfoot’s face was a picture. She had a knife balancing on top of a folder and a fork mounted on what looked like a book but it could have been her glasses case.
    ‘Well, I …’ she began, but there were no words. What could anyone say?
    Both of us stunned into silence, our guest carefully folded back the cover and retrieved her things. While Mum carried on bustling around the kitchen as though nothing had happened, Miss Kerfoot didn’t take her eyes off her. Only when she was ready to leave did she take me to one side.
    ‘I should warn you, I’m going to recommend getting you out of here,’ she said.
    ‘Why? This is my home.’
    She smiled. That’s her ‘nice’ smile, I thought. Her sympathetic one is probably the same.
    ‘I don’t know what the reasons are, but this is not a healthy atmosphere to be living in. I think you need time away.’
    ‘What atmosphere? What are you talking about?’
    ‘Your parents don’t have a civil word for each other. They make no attempt to hide it when you or Lorraine are in the house. Everyone’s obviously struggling to cope with your father’s illness, your mother’s accident and now your grandmother. And then there’s your sister’s marriage problems.’
    I shrugged. It didn’t sound good when she put it like that. But they were still my parents. The only ones I knew. Their behaviour was what I was used to. I wished they’d get on better but it didn’t bother me. I was like this, they were like that. That’s the way it was. The only thing I cared about was learning why the hospital kept kidnapping me and subjecting me to God knows what.
    According to the medical reports and various hearsay assessments from my friends, the reason I kept being admitted into hospital was for treatment for pill overdoses. Dad had stacks of distalgesic tucked away and, he’d told the doctors, I was downing them by the handful.
    Utter rubbish.
    I didn’t know why he would make up something like that or why the hospital would believe him. I didn’t dare question him about it. He obviously had his reasons.
    Later that night I wondered whether the social worker was right. Maybe I should get out. But where would a fourteen-year-old go? It was completely impractical. I suppose if Lorraine was still with her husband I could have moved in with them. As it was, I had no options. I was stuck at home. Stuck with all the lies. I wasn’t going anywhere.
    I just have to make the best of it.
    Soon I discovered the decision wasn’t mine to make.

CHAPTER SIX
    You’re in the system now
    Ken opened his eyes and automatically blinked in the sunshine. The warm breath of the wind in his hair felt good. He felt like staying there all day.
    But where was ‘there’?
    Didn’t matter. It felt good.
    He was sitting on something hard, possibly concrete, probably a wall or something similar. He could feel that without even looking. His hands, planted beside him for support, pressed against the rough painted brick surface. His legs swung free over the side of the bench or block, or whatever he was sitting on. That’s all he could tell. After that he was lost, fresh out of ideas, but in no hurry to find out. The breeze on his face felt so good.
    One more moment, he promised himself. Then I’ll get up.
    Ken had things to do. He always had things to do and so little time to do them in. Where did the time go?, he found himself wondering.
    He enjoyed the quiet warmth of his solitude for another few seconds, then, prepared for the glare this time, opened his eyes into a careful squint.
    And then he nearly fainted.
    Directly opposite him was the middle section of a block of apartments. He was level with floor six or seven. Between him and it there was nothing but air. No road, no path, no walls, no glass.
    Ken looked down, then left and right. His mind was spinning. Why hadn’t he figured it out? He was perched precariously over a ledge at the top of a multi-storey