Vicky Angel Read online

  Vicky's hand is still warm. I know it as well as my own, her little rounded nails with their silver nail varnish partly nibbled off, and the special silver thumb ring I gave her for Christmas. I wanted it for myself but I didn't have enough cash for two and it turned out it was way too big for me anyway. I'm clutching Vicky's hand so hard I'm deepening all the delicate whorls on her palm. We found this book on palm reading at a rummage sale but I couldn't work out which line was which. Vicky made out she could read her own palm and said she was going to have a very long life and have two husbands and four children.

  “You've got a long life, Vicky. Remember the two husbands and all the children?” I remind her, squeezing her hand. She doesn't squeeze back. She lies there, her face pale, her eyes shut, her mouth slightly open as if she's about to say something—but she stays silent.

  I'm the one who talks all the way to the hospital, holding her hand tight, but I have to let go when we arrive outside Casualty. I run along beside her until she's suddenly wheeled right away from me by an urgent medical team.

  I'm left, lost.

  A nurse talks to me. She's asking me my name but I'm in such a muddle I give her Vicky's name instead, Vicky's address, as if Vicky has taken me over completely. I only realize what I've done when she gives me a cup of tea and says, “Here, drink this, Vicky.”

  My teeth clink on the china.

  “I'm not Vicky,” I say, and I start to cry. “Please, what's the matter with her? Will she get better? There isn't a mark on her so she has to be all right, doesn't she?”

  The nurse puts her arm round me.

  “We can't say yet—but I think she might have pretty bad internal injuries. Now we need to get hold of her parents as quickly as possible. Would you know where they work?”

  I give her the names of the places. I see a policeman and try to tell him stuff, but I can't think straight anymore. I have another cup of tea. There's a chocolate biscuit too but when the chocolate oozes around my teeth I have to run to the toilet to be sick.

  I can't get rid of the taste now. Different nurses come and talk to me but I'm quieter than ever in case they think my breath always smells bad. I don't know what to do. We've got heaps of homework tonight, French and history and math. We always do our math together, Vicky's much better at it than I am. We test each other on French too. I can't do it on my own. I'm mad anyway, fussing about stupid things like bad breath and homework when my best friend is down the corridor, maybe dying….

  Of course she's not dying. Vicky is the most alive person I've ever known. She will get completely better and we'll talk about this time with a shudder. I'll give her a big hug and say, “I thought you were really going to die, Vicky,” and she'll laugh and pull a funny death face, eyes bulging, tongue lolling, and spin some yarn about an out-of-body experience. Yes, she'll say she flew up out of her own body and cartwheeled along the ceiling and peered unmasked at all the operations and tickled the handsomest doctor on the top of his head and then she swooped all the way along the corridors and found me weeping so she linked little fingers with me in our special secret way and then whizzed back into her own body again so we could grow up together and be soul sisters forever….

  Can't I go and sit with Vicky?” I beg. “No, pet, the doctors are busy working on her,” says the nurse.

  “I wouldn't get in the way, I swear. I could just hold her hand. I did in the ambulance.”

  “Yes, yes, you've been a really great girl. You've done your best for Vicky—but maybe you should go home now.”

  “I can't go home!”

  “What about your mum? Won't she be worried about you?”

  “Mum's at work. And Dad will think I'm round at Vicky's.”

  “We should try to get hold of them all the same.”

  But she's distracted from the subject of my parents because Vicky's mum and dad suddenly run into Casualty. Mrs. Waters has come straight from her aerobics class. She's still in her shocking pink leotard with someone else's too-big tracksuit trousers pulled on top for decency. Mr. Waters is still wearing his yellow hard hat from the building site. They gaze round desperately and then see me.

  “Jade! Oh God, where's Vicky? We got the message. Is she badly hurt? What happened?”

  “She got knocked over by a car. I … she stepped out—she just went straight into it,” I gabble. I hear the squeal of brakes and that one high-pitched scream.

  The scream won't stop in my head. It's so loud maybe everyone else can hear it too.

  “Knocked over?” says Mrs. Waters. “Oh God. Oh God.”

  “Now, we mustn't panic. She'll be all right, just you wait and see,” says Mr. Waters. He looks at the nurse with me. “Where is she?”

  “Just wait here one second, sir,” she says, and she rushes off.

  “We're not waiting! She's our daughter!” says Mr. Waters, and he hurries after her.

  Vicky's mum is staring at me.

  “Did you get knocked down too, Jade?”

  I shake my head.

  “It was just Vicky. Like I said, she dashed out—”

  “Couldn't you have stopped her?”

  She doesn't wait for an answer. She runs after Mr. Waters. I stand still. I don't know I'm crying until the nurse comes back and presses a wad of paper hankies into my palm.

  “There, now, don't worry. She didn't mean it. She didn't even realize what she was saying. She's in shock.”

  “But why didn't I stop her?” I weep.

  “There now. Come on, let's try ringing your mum at work. You need someone to be here for you.”

  The only one I want is Vicky. It's so unfair. They let her mum and dad see her but they still won't let me.

  They come back and sit on the chairs opposite me. Mr. Waters has taken his hard hat off but Mrs. Waters can do nothing about her leotard. Her face is white above the bright pink.

  “She's in a coma,” she whispers. “The doctor says—” She can't finish the sentence.

  “Now then, they don't know everything. People come out of comas all the time.”

  “But—her brain …”

  “We'll help her. Teach her everything all over again. She'll be fine, I just know she will. And even if she's not she'll still be our Vicky and we'll love her and care for her,” he says.

  “Our Vicky a vegetable,” Mrs. Waters gasps.

  “No, no. We'll be quiet now, we're frightening poor Jade,” says Mr. Waters, reaching over and giving my knee a pat.

  I can barely look at either of them. I close my eyes instead and start praying. I make all kinds of bargains. I'll promise anything just so long as Vicky can be all right. It's lengthy and involved, because I repeat everything seven times to make it more magic. I keep my eyes squeezed shut. They think I've fallen asleep and start to whisper. They go over and over it, trying to puzzle it out.

  “Why our Vicky?” Mrs. Waters keeps saying.

  I know what she really means. Why couldn't it be Jade?

  I have it all worked out. I'll always be here for Vicky. I'll have to go home sometimes but I won't go to school, I'll spend every single day at her bedside. I'll hold her hand and talk to her all the time and maybe, just maybe I'll crack some joke or sing some song that will seep through the fog in her brain and she'll suddenly open her eyes and grip my hand back, Vicky again. But even if she doesn't I'll still be there for her. When she's allowed home I'll visit her every single day. I'll take her out in a wheelchair and take her round all our special places and I'll do her hair for her just the way she likes and I'll dress her in all her coolest outfits. I'll make sure she stays looking like Vicky no matter what. And when we're both old enough I'll see if we can get a flat together, Vicky and me. We'll live off benefit or whatever and be just fine together. People will think I'm making this huge sacrifice, giving up my whole future for Vicky, but I don't want any future without her. There isn't any other future for me. I can't exist without Vicky.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Waters—I wonder, would you come into my office, pleas