After The Fall

Chapter Seven

Monday. My first day at my new school. 

I hoped that I'd be ill, or that it would snow and I wouldn't have to go. I hear it's supposed to snow all the time in Scotland, especially at this time of year. But no.

I've switched schools once before, but this time I'll be all alone.

My throat constricts as we reach the entrance. Starting at my last school was bad enough, even when Callum was here to help me. What will happen today doesn't even bear thinking about.

My day starts with a long meeting with the headteacher, so it's breaktime by the time I actually have to face the other children. I wheel slowly into the playground, and stop a short distance away from a group of kids who look about my age. After a while, they turn and see me.

"Are you the new girl?" One of them asks, in a thick accent that I can barely understand. I nod, and wait for the next, inevitable question.

"What's wrong with your legs?" There it is. I suddenly realise that, without Callum's defense, I have absolutely no idea how to answer. I do my best to piece together an explanation.

"Before I was born... the bones in my back... didn't form properly. There's a kind of hole in my spine because of it... and it means that I can't walk or move my legs."

I'm not sure they even heard me. All they can do is stare.

I have to endure so much more of this treatment, that by the end of the day I just want to collapse. When I get home, I go into the front room. For the first time in ages, I decide to turn on the TV.

It's the end of an episode of Little House on the Prairie - the one where Pa has to try and find a home for the orphaned Sanderson children, and Laura has to try and find homes for a litter of puppies. It's just got to the bit where Laura has stormed off after getting angry at Pa's decision to split the Sandersons up and send Alesha to Minneapolis by herself. She's sitting on her own by a lake with the last puppy in the litter. She says she's going to take it to Nellie, even though she won't love it, because "it doesn't matter if he's happy, just so long as he's got a home." Just like Alesha.

Then Ma comes and finds her. She tells Laura that Pa doesn't want to split the children up, but he knows that it's the only way he'll find homes for all of them. He's had to make a very difficult decision and he needs the whole family's support, not their anger.

What an idiot I've been.

My parents never wanted to leave, they just wanted to escape the pain of losing Callum. They're blaming themselves just as much as I've been blaming them, even though it's not their fault. An accident is just that, an accident, and if we start blaming people for it then everything we hold close will begin to fall apart. I need to tell them just how sorry I am.