notice just inside the main door saying they were between one thirty and three o’clock, so that was OK.
I figured a quarter of an hour would be more than enough. Two minutes would have been more than enough.
The hospital smelt like bleach and rashers. I tried to make myself look as old as possible, in case they had a rule about not allowing children in, but the woman behind the desk didn’t seem too bothered about my age, just told me where to go when I said I’d come to see Ruth Wallace.
I wondered if Ruth had a room to herself, but I was too nervous to ask.
I had to go up two flights of stairs. I could have taken the lift, but lifts make me want to throw up, and since I already felt a bit like that I thought I’d better stick to the stairs. There were loads of people walking about, some just in dressing gowns and slippers.
I didn’t see anyone in a wheelchair.
Halfway up the second flight of stairs, I suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten to bring the apples from the fruit bowl. I thought about going back down to the hospital shop and getting something there, but when I checked my pockets I only had sixty-seven cents, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get anything for that.
Anyway, maybe when you were visiting someone to apologise for assaulting them, you weren’t supposed to bring them a present. Maybe that was what Granny Daly would call ADDING INSULT TO INJURY .
When I got to the second floor I looked for room 23A. My tummy was flip-flopping like anything, and my legs felt pretty wobbly. I tried taking a few deep breaths, but that just made me feel like I was eating bleach-flavoured rashers.
The door of 23A was closed, so I gave a little knock and waited. I didn’t hear anything, even when I pressedmy ear up to it, but there was a lot of noise in the corridor, trolleys wheeling and people talking and cups clinking. In the end, I just opened the door a bit and peeped in.
First I thought I must have got the wrong room, because there was a girl I didn’t recognise in the bed. She was facing the door and she looked very pale, and when she saw me she closed her eyes. I was just about to say ‘sorry’ and back out when I saw the end of a second bed poking out from behind a curtain, and my heart began to thump all over again.
I walked over to the curtain and peeped around.
Ruth Wallace looked at me and I looked at her, and for what seemed like ages none of us said anything. I was too busy trying to find the right words, and she was probably too gobsmacked.
At least she didn’t look like she was dying. She was a bit pale, but not ghostly white. She did look small though, smaller than when she sat in her wheelchair, and not half as tough. I think it was the first time I had seen her without a hat on. I could see the pink of her head under her hair.
There was something big under the bedclothes around where her legs were, like a frame or something – probably to keep people like me from whacking them again.
At last I opened my mouth and ‘I came to see you’ was what fell out. Which I know was pretty idiotic, but it was all I could think of.
Ruth Wallace blinked once, and that was all she did. Her face was blank – she didn’t look cross, or sad, oranything. Just small and thin, with that big boxy shape around her legs.
There was a tube of something going into the back of one of her hands, and a white plastic-looking strip around the same wrist, like a skinny bracelet, with something written on it that I couldn’t read.
Then I said, ‘I’m sorry I hit you with the milk.’ Quietly, so the girl in the next bed wouldn’t hear me.
And all the time, my heart was pumping away in my chest, and my tummy was doing somersaults. And then, because Ruth was still just looking blankly at me, I said the next thing that popped into my head, which was ‘I forgot to bring you anything’.
Still no answer. I was beginning to feel a bit desperate – was she just going to keep staring at me until I left?
I figured a quarter of an hour would be more than enough. Two minutes would have been more than enough.
The hospital smelt like bleach and rashers. I tried to make myself look as old as possible, in case they had a rule about not allowing children in, but the woman behind the desk didn’t seem too bothered about my age, just told me where to go when I said I’d come to see Ruth Wallace.
I wondered if Ruth had a room to herself, but I was too nervous to ask.
I had to go up two flights of stairs. I could have taken the lift, but lifts make me want to throw up, and since I already felt a bit like that I thought I’d better stick to the stairs. There were loads of people walking about, some just in dressing gowns and slippers.
I didn’t see anyone in a wheelchair.
Halfway up the second flight of stairs, I suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten to bring the apples from the fruit bowl. I thought about going back down to the hospital shop and getting something there, but when I checked my pockets I only had sixty-seven cents, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get anything for that.
Anyway, maybe when you were visiting someone to apologise for assaulting them, you weren’t supposed to bring them a present. Maybe that was what Granny Daly would call ADDING INSULT TO INJURY .
When I got to the second floor I looked for room 23A. My tummy was flip-flopping like anything, and my legs felt pretty wobbly. I tried taking a few deep breaths, but that just made me feel like I was eating bleach-flavoured rashers.
The door of 23A was closed, so I gave a little knock and waited. I didn’t hear anything, even when I pressedmy ear up to it, but there was a lot of noise in the corridor, trolleys wheeling and people talking and cups clinking. In the end, I just opened the door a bit and peeped in.
First I thought I must have got the wrong room, because there was a girl I didn’t recognise in the bed. She was facing the door and she looked very pale, and when she saw me she closed her eyes. I was just about to say ‘sorry’ and back out when I saw the end of a second bed poking out from behind a curtain, and my heart began to thump all over again.
I walked over to the curtain and peeped around.
Ruth Wallace looked at me and I looked at her, and for what seemed like ages none of us said anything. I was too busy trying to find the right words, and she was probably too gobsmacked.
At least she didn’t look like she was dying. She was a bit pale, but not ghostly white. She did look small though, smaller than when she sat in her wheelchair, and not half as tough. I think it was the first time I had seen her without a hat on. I could see the pink of her head under her hair.
There was something big under the bedclothes around where her legs were, like a frame or something – probably to keep people like me from whacking them again.
At last I opened my mouth and ‘I came to see you’ was what fell out. Which I know was pretty idiotic, but it was all I could think of.
Ruth Wallace blinked once, and that was all she did. Her face was blank – she didn’t look cross, or sad, oranything. Just small and thin, with that big boxy shape around her legs.
There was a tube of something going into the back of one of her hands, and a white plastic-looking strip around the same wrist, like a skinny bracelet, with something written on it that I couldn’t read.
Then I said, ‘I’m sorry I hit you with the milk.’ Quietly, so the girl in the next bed wouldn’t hear me.
And all the time, my heart was pumping away in my chest, and my tummy was doing somersaults. And then, because Ruth was still just looking blankly at me, I said the next thing that popped into my head, which was ‘I forgot to bring you anything’.
Still no answer. I was beginning to feel a bit desperate – was she just going to keep staring at me until I left?
Similar Books
