Katy Read online

  Trust Ryan not to beat about the bush.

  ‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘Still, who needs legs when you’ve got wheels?’

  It just sounded pathetic. Then thank God the door opened and a teacher walked in.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Slater!’ said Eva, rushing back to my side. ‘This is Katy. She has to use a wheelchair. Mrs Matthews says I have to show her round.’

  ‘Hello Katy,’ said Mrs Slater. Thank goodness she said it in a perfectly ordinary way, not as if I were a toddler in a buggy. She was a plain woman, thin and tall, with a long horsey face and horsey teeth too, but I liked her because she was brisk and no-nonsense. ‘Now, where shall we sit you?’

  ‘Please, Mrs Slater, she’d better come and sit with Maddie and Sarah and me so we can look after her,’ said Eva.

  ‘I don’t need looking after,’ I said through gritted teeth.

  ‘No, you look like a girl who can look after herself,’ said Mrs Slater. ‘I think we’ll put you at the front, so you don’t have to go barging up all these narrow aisles.’

  I used to hate sitting at the front under the teacher’s nose. I was often put there as a punishment for messing about in class. But I’d much sooner be stuck under Mrs Slater’s long nose than squashed up with poisonous Eva and Maddie and Sarah. Our first lesson, maths, was right there in our classroom, because it was Mrs Slater’s subject.

  She gave me a textbook and an exercise book, and then started explaining some new kind of problems, writing stuff on the whiteboard. I stared at it, my heart thumping. I’d always been good at maths, generally second or third in the class. Swotty Simon always came effortlessly top. He’d gone to some posh private school now, so I’d secretly hoped I had a chance of coming top at Springfield. That would show them that I might have rubbish legs but I still had a brain in full working order.

  Ha! And ha again. I couldn’t understand a word of what Mrs Slater was saying. I strained my ears. I could hear her all right, I just couldn’t make sense of it. I looked at the board but all the numbers and squiggles were meaningless hieroglyphics. I peered round at the rest of the class. Perhaps they were finding it incomprehensible too. Half of them were barely paying attention. Eva and Maddie and Sarah were whispering among themselves. Ryan was yawning and cracking his knuckles. Yet when Mrs Slater wrote another sum on the board and told everyone to try and work it out, they all started scribbling busily in their exercise books. Everyone except me.

  Mrs Slater was watching me. She came forward, bending down near my ear.

  ‘Do you have problems writing, Katy?’ she whispered.

  Oh God. Perhaps she thought I was quadriplegic. It was tempting to pretend that was the case.

  ‘No, I can write OK. I just don’t know what to write. I – I don’t quite get it,’ I said, and I blushed, because I so hated to sound stupid.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ve missed a lot of schooling. You’re bound to be a bit rusty,’ she said cheerily. ‘Here, I’ll go over it again for you.’

  She went through it all again, doing it quietly and discreetly, but of course it was obvious to everyone in the class that I needed extra help. I knew it was important to concentrate, but my mind skittered all over the place. Mrs Slater tried giving me a little refresher course, going back to stuff I’d learned in Year Six at primary school – and at last something went click in my brain. I could follow what she was saying and relaxed a little, but every time she tried to edge me forward towards learning something new I went blank again.

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll come,’ she said. ‘You just need to get your brain in gear. I’ve seen your reports, Katy. I know you’re a bright girl.’

  I could have thrown my arms round her and kissed her.

  I didn’t feel a bright girl though, especially not in the next lesson, French. The languages classrooms were right the other end of the school and it was a long trek, following in the wake of Eva and all the others. My arms were aching horribly already and my hands felt like they were getting blisters.

  ‘Are you all right? I mean, would you like a push?’ Ryan asked, hovering.

  I would have liked a push, but I shook my head fiercely.

  ‘She’s determined to be independent, Ryan,’ said Eva, looking round. ‘I’m supposed to be pushing her, but she won’t have it.’ She walked along beside him, abandoning Maddie and Sarah. ‘So, did you go up the park on Saturday? I didn’t see you there.’

  ‘No, I had to help my dad take some stuff to the tip,’ said Ryan. ‘Sorry if you went specially.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I was there with all my mates,’ said Eva. ‘Still. I’ll come again next Saturday.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. OK,’ said Ryan.

  I felt a terrible pang. I’d been going to meet him at Baxter Park the day of the accident. And now I was the girl in the wheelchair and no one was ever going to hang out with me down the park. Ryan was looking at me anxiously and I gave him another glare, daring him to feel sorry for me. Let him trot round after pretty, poisonous Eva. See if I cared.

  I sat at the front again in the French classroom. We called the teacher Monsieur Brun, but he was no more French than I was, though he rabbited away in French all the time. I didn’t understand a word. He was quite nice though, spending time chatting to me and giving me special lists of vocabulary. I felt they’d all think I hadn’t a clue and always needed tons of support.

  He encouraged me to join in the conversation, so I mumbled, ‘Je m’appelle Katy,’ and managed to tell him my age correctly. Then he wanted to know what hobbies I had. I was a bit stuck there. In the end he helped me say that I liked to read, which sounded pretty lame.

  Then it was break time and Cecy came dashing up, as she’d promised. We went out into the playground together and sat in a corner for a bit, chatting. Some of the girls in Cecy’s class were messing around copying the dance moves from a music video. I saw Cecy’s foot tapping away and wondered if she was wishing she could be with them.

  ‘Can you do that dance?’ I asked.

  ‘Well. Sort of. It’s easy, actually.’

  ‘Not for me,’ I said.

  Cecy gave a little shudder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘No. No, I meant I’ve always been useless at dancing. You know I have,’ I said.

  Cecy took a deep breath. ‘You can do wheelchair dancing, you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There was this programme on telly once. It showed all these wheelchair dancers. It was beautiful. They were ever so graceful.’

  I pulled a face. ‘OK. I’ll do a wheelchair tango, shall I? I’ll stick a rose in my teeth and then I’ll whizz right across the floor and run Eva Jenkins over. Yep, that would be fun.’

  ‘Is she being hateful to you?’

  ‘No more than normal. But listen, I need you to help me find the staff toilets on the ground floor. I’ll die if I have to get Eva Snotnose Jenkins to help me. Can we go and check it out now?’ I asked.

  We went back inside the school, though Cecy was looking anxious.

  ‘We’re not really supposed to be indoors before the bell goes,’ she said.

  ‘Stick with me, babe. We’ll break all the rules,’ I said, in a silly American gangster voice.

  Halfway down the first corridor a teacher came clip-clopping along in high heels.

  ‘What are you two girls doing in school? You know you’re supposed to be in the playground,’ she called.

  ‘I’m taking my friend to the toilets. She’s got special permission,’ said Cecy.

  ‘Oh, yes, I see. Sorry, girls,’ said the teacher, and walked on.

  Cecy and I did a high five behind her back.

  She waited for me outside the staff toilets. It was harder than I’d thought to squeeze the wheelchair inside and get the door locked. I managed to sort myself out OK, which was a relief. There was a big mirror that went almost down to the floor. It was weird seeing myself properly. All the mirrors at home were too high for me now.

  I didn’t look