Slights by Kaaron Warren Page B

the end of the day they both stunk of milk.
      Darren was one of those kids who never took their jumpers off. Why was that? He wasn't a particularly dirty child; even then I knew there was a difference between arriving dirty and getting dirty. Your mum didn't clean right if you were dirty to begin with.
      He would kick a ball around with the other kids, they'd slough off jumpers, undo shirts. He just kept running, redder and redder. He always reminded me of milk; he was pale and skinny. He looked like milk in a short glass; like Dad's favourite glass.
      When Darren got hot he looked like strawberry milk.
      Darren got in trouble at home that night – Peter told me. He got it for getting his jumper dirty. No big deal. Just wear your spare.
      "I would if I had one, stupid," Darren said when I made my suggestion.
      "Ooh, stir," I said, my arms miming the stirring of an enormous pot.
      Peter dobbed when we got home, and got in trouble for not looking after me. "She started it," Peter said.
      "I thought you were going to look after your little sister."
      "She won't let me," he said, and that's always been the truth. I don't want his lectures, his hospitality, though a bit of his money wouldn't hurt. "I was trying to get her to wash her hands and stuff. That's all."
      They called Peter the Milky Bar Kid after that, even though none of us could afford chocolate. We knew the ad, though.
      So I recognised the sensation of dying, without understanding it, two years later. I barely remember anything about being seven years old; I mostly remember just being eight one day, not seven any more, and people saying, "You're a grown-up now."
      This I remember; I couldn't breathe, I was in pain, but still I wasn't scared. I still wasn't up on death.
      All I knew about my illness was what the adults had told me; consequently my memory of it is adult.
      When I felt pain in my side, I ignored it. I told no one. I invented chants to keep my mind off it and waited for it to go away.
      Then I was in agony and I couldn't hide it. Mrs Sammett moved slowly, unused to emergencies. She assumed I was playing around. The other kids told me later she nudged me with her toe as I lay writhing on the floor.
      "Get up, Steve," she said. The other kids said I drooled and wet my pants. They said I shit my pants and showed everyone what I had under there. The stories got more and more extreme until I said, "I remember exactly what happened."
      I didn't, though; it was frustrating. The other kids never knew that, and they looked so guilty I wondered what they had done to my prone body.
      No one would ever tell me. The teacher nearly confessed once, when she said, "I'm sorry for my part in it." The fact that I had seen most of them in a strange room when I was in hospital made me feel stronger than them. Mrs Sammett never believed a word I said. She tuned out. My favourite song was "What a fat we have in Jesus," or any other where I could say fat. Because she was fat. Talcum powder got stuck in her folds. I got the feeling the class was mad at me for making them feel guilty.
      This was the first of my special experiences. I didn't recognise it as such, then. I wasn't even aware I had almost died. My mother told me I had been asleep, that I had visited a lovely place. The place I visited wasn't lovely, though. It scared me; it remains the only thing I am scared of.
      I was taken to hospital with a burst appendix, and I almost died. I did die for a while.
      I heard clicking and smelt mothballs and these people leaned over me and I was only seven and I screamed.

    I knew the room was very strange, because it was cold, and not well-lit. I was uncomfortable, something I still associate with death. I cannot bear discomfort. I never wear tight, revealing clothes or confining underwear. My hair is cut short so it doesn't itch or become heavy. I have one large, perfect armchair in my home. I pay for central heating