except that in its current decline it appeared to be merging physically with both Nat West and Cash Generators in a bizarre, unsettling, cross-road amalgamation that made no sense to her.
What on earth was this? Rhiannon asked herself, as a strange buzzing noise began sounding inside her ears. Why, the whole financial world of Wales appeared to be toppling sideways like a deck-of-cards, just as the whole universe of Rhiannon Cook felt like it was spinning and sinking into oblivion. She blinked three or four times in an attempt to trigger some powers of apprehension, but she could swiftly tell that it didn’t seem to make things the tiniest bit clearer.
Then a single thought struck her like a jolt of electric current. Could this particular credit-crunch in Merthyr High Street be related to the, strangely painless, collision her head had made with the iron fence behind her? she wondered. As yet she couldn’t tell for sure, but she felt that if she chose to do A-level Economics next year instead of Music, then perhaps everything would make more sense to her. Rhiannon then rolled over onto her back, and her smart, new jacket fell wide open at the front.
Soon a greasy, curved length of brown sausage, liberally covered in, what appeared to be, bright-red blood, was all that filled Rhiannon’s immediate field-of-vision. Then the cold, slender hand that tugged at the neck of her blouse, scattering several silver buttons across the pavement, seemed to possess its own queer, amplified voice that was pleading loudly, ‘Lie on your side, girl, and for heaven’s sake try to cover your chest up!’
Yes, this definitely had to be done, Rhiannon told herself, but, try as she might, she quickly realised that she wasn’t able to move a solitary muscle, and the only reply she found she was able to give was, ‘Yes, I already know I’m a slut, Mrs. Cillick, and - and you’re right to think I deserve to go straight to hell!’
Science on a wet afternoon, he thought. How on earth am I supposed to put up with it? A pensive, unusually depressed, Chris sat staring out of the first-floor window at the classroom directly across the grass in the Maths Block, where Rhiannon usually sat watching him like a feeding hawk at this exact time every week while studying GCSE Maths, but where, at present, her chair now stood empty, and was being used as a temporary receptacle for what appeared to be two drying anoraks and a boot-bag.
Chris’s teacher, Mrs. Hussain, was standing close at hand, waving her purple-nailed hands about, and talking to his table-group in her usual, unnecessarily harrying fashion. But Chris wasn’t at all interested in anatomy - not on paper, at any rate - and bemoaned the fact that the year-group had moved on from the science-units on astronomy, light and sound that they had touched on in the early Spring Term, having the previous Autumn exhausted fuel and power completely, ironically, perhaps, without having tackled ‘green issues.’
What’s the matter, Chris?’ the teacher suddenly asked him, leaning forward and emitting the most annoying and fakest of smiles, that each time, quite literally, set his teeth on edge. The word going round the Sixth-Form Common Room had been that Mrs. Hussain was now divorced from her husband, and that Chris’s dad was the new object of her affections. So, out of familial loyalty, if nothing else, Chris was determined he wasn’t going to be smiling back at her under any circumstances. Instead he decided, for now at least, that honesty would be the best policy, and replied abruptly that he simply couldn’t understand what the group were expected to do.
‘Tell him, April,’ the teacher retorted, gripping the shoulder of a bespectacled student sat just across from him, and whose eyes lit up like a startled rabbit.
‘Well, it’s just a starter-task for the new unit, right Miss?’ the studious girl replied. ‘And, so as to provide a bench-mark for future learning, I think it’s
What on earth was this? Rhiannon asked herself, as a strange buzzing noise began sounding inside her ears. Why, the whole financial world of Wales appeared to be toppling sideways like a deck-of-cards, just as the whole universe of Rhiannon Cook felt like it was spinning and sinking into oblivion. She blinked three or four times in an attempt to trigger some powers of apprehension, but she could swiftly tell that it didn’t seem to make things the tiniest bit clearer.
Then a single thought struck her like a jolt of electric current. Could this particular credit-crunch in Merthyr High Street be related to the, strangely painless, collision her head had made with the iron fence behind her? she wondered. As yet she couldn’t tell for sure, but she felt that if she chose to do A-level Economics next year instead of Music, then perhaps everything would make more sense to her. Rhiannon then rolled over onto her back, and her smart, new jacket fell wide open at the front.
Soon a greasy, curved length of brown sausage, liberally covered in, what appeared to be, bright-red blood, was all that filled Rhiannon’s immediate field-of-vision. Then the cold, slender hand that tugged at the neck of her blouse, scattering several silver buttons across the pavement, seemed to possess its own queer, amplified voice that was pleading loudly, ‘Lie on your side, girl, and for heaven’s sake try to cover your chest up!’
Yes, this definitely had to be done, Rhiannon told herself, but, try as she might, she quickly realised that she wasn’t able to move a solitary muscle, and the only reply she found she was able to give was, ‘Yes, I already know I’m a slut, Mrs. Cillick, and - and you’re right to think I deserve to go straight to hell!’
Science on a wet afternoon, he thought. How on earth am I supposed to put up with it? A pensive, unusually depressed, Chris sat staring out of the first-floor window at the classroom directly across the grass in the Maths Block, where Rhiannon usually sat watching him like a feeding hawk at this exact time every week while studying GCSE Maths, but where, at present, her chair now stood empty, and was being used as a temporary receptacle for what appeared to be two drying anoraks and a boot-bag.
Chris’s teacher, Mrs. Hussain, was standing close at hand, waving her purple-nailed hands about, and talking to his table-group in her usual, unnecessarily harrying fashion. But Chris wasn’t at all interested in anatomy - not on paper, at any rate - and bemoaned the fact that the year-group had moved on from the science-units on astronomy, light and sound that they had touched on in the early Spring Term, having the previous Autumn exhausted fuel and power completely, ironically, perhaps, without having tackled ‘green issues.’
What’s the matter, Chris?’ the teacher suddenly asked him, leaning forward and emitting the most annoying and fakest of smiles, that each time, quite literally, set his teeth on edge. The word going round the Sixth-Form Common Room had been that Mrs. Hussain was now divorced from her husband, and that Chris’s dad was the new object of her affections. So, out of familial loyalty, if nothing else, Chris was determined he wasn’t going to be smiling back at her under any circumstances. Instead he decided, for now at least, that honesty would be the best policy, and replied abruptly that he simply couldn’t understand what the group were expected to do.
‘Tell him, April,’ the teacher retorted, gripping the shoulder of a bespectacled student sat just across from him, and whose eyes lit up like a startled rabbit.
‘Well, it’s just a starter-task for the new unit, right Miss?’ the studious girl replied. ‘And, so as to provide a bench-mark for future learning, I think it’s
Similar Books
