Birdy Flynn by Helen Donohoe

Author:Helen Donohoe [Donohoe, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2017-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

I felt bad to be thinking it, but I was comfy there, at peace. At first. I liked the hazy air and the disinfectant smell – it made the world seem fresh and well. I was tucked away in the corner, a big, wide window beside me. My own locker and a brown plastic chair. It was cosy. I was happy. I felt at home. I watched as draughts blew bits of fluff along the floor while, outside the window, small lazy clouds drifted along, nice and slow. If Mum had been there when I’d woken up, she would have said, ‘Well, Birdy, haven’t you been lucky. Don’t you have all the luck.’

When the nurses weren’t fussing around me, it was calm. The light above me buzzed and flickered, and I could hear clanking down the corridor and grown-ups moaning about things that didn’t work. But there was no shouting. And I was not bored or scared. ‘You look as lonely as a teaspoon,’ Nan would have said, if she’d been in that room.

Lie back was all I needed to do. I had four clean white pillows to hug me. I knew Mum would marvel at how they got them looking so brand new. My bed was metal. The floor was smooth. The sheets were also white and my blankets were too. I had a pale blue sort of nightdress on, but I didn’t mind. I was still alive.

My eyes felt puffy, like I’d had a long cry. I wanted Mum there. She would have said, ‘Have yourself a good cry.’ My eyes were stinging; the lids were pressing heavy on my cheekbones. My cheekbones were aching like they’d never ached before. When I breathed, my ribs hurt. I hadn’t spoken and I didn’t want to try. My jaw was locked.

My arm was attached to a long tube hanging down from a bag; the bag was held up high on a metal pole with a hook. ‘More than a dab of whiskey for a throbbing tooth,’ a man nurse had said. He was Scottish, his name was Rab and I believed everything he told me. Drips dropped down the tube and ran into my body. A clever tube, like a bendy straw, was under the skin of my left hand, disappearing into a tunnel. It made it easier to breathe. Rab said it would.

When I woke up that morning, every bit of me ached, but I felt easy. There was another bag attached to a tube, hanging the other side of me. Rab told me not to worry about that – it meant I wouldn’t need to get up for a wee.

If Mum were there, she’d have said, ‘What did you do, Birdy?’ She’d dream up, ‘Were you climbing trees again or playing in the brook?’

There were five other beds near me. Rab said, ‘Sorry, you’re stuck with the grown-ups, but it’s only for a day.’ Mr Leonard was in the bed opposite, ‘losing his marbles’ Rab explained. Next to him was a football injury.

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