Higher English

Sitting in the hospital, the smell I’m getting used to.   All around in the ward children are playing with toys and are happy.   Some don’t even look ill.   I want to go and play, but I can’t.   I can’t do anything.   I have multiple broken bones with my right arm and both legs being in casts.   My left arm is covered in bruises; the bones are badly bruised as well.   I have a drip in my left hand and blood is being pumped into my body.   I’m glad I never saw them putting the drip in – which would have given me the creeps.   The doctor said I’m lucky to be alive with the state my body is in and that I should be grateful to the person who helped me – they found me in the middle of the desert alone.   The doctors, police and most of all social services are desperate to know what happened, they keep coming to ask me.   They never talk to me about anything else.   I won’t tell them though.   There are two reasons why, but they don’t know that.   I like having their company; it’s boring in here.   No one talks to me about anything and I get lonely.   All I can do is think of what happened in the desert last week.

It had all began when I moved to yet another school.   It always happens.   I move to a new school, settle in and then have to move again.   At other schools I made friends quickly, but this time it was different.   I went into school on the first day, having a general idea of what to expect.   I had started my classes, expecting that I’d make some friends soon, but I was wrong.   Everything I did made someone hate me more.   I’d walk about at break and lunchtime alone.   I saw people laughing, I just knew they were laughing at me.

I’d been at school for two weeks and still no-one spoke to me unless they were taking the Mick.   Sometimes I got the feeling teachers were saying stuff about me too.

During the two weeks nothing exciting had happened, but on my second Friday at the school I was given a note in maths.   I don’t know who sent the note, it said:

‘’Be in the desert...