Half Bad by Sally Green Read Free Book Online Page A

of sticky mucus. A dome has grown on the top of my head.
    * * *
    Gran bathes my face and puts lotion on the bruises that have appeared on my back and arms. My scalp starts to bleed again and Gran shaves the hair around the cut and puts some of her lotion on that too. She does all this in silence once I’ve told her whom I’ve been fighting.
    I look in the mirror and have to smile despite my fat lip. Both my eyes are black and there are other colors too—purple, green, and yellow—coming out. My right eye is swollen shut. My nose is puffy and tender but not broken. My hair is shaved above my left ear and the skin covered with a thick yellow lotion.
    Gran allows me to miss school until my eye heals. Thankfully by then my bald patch has begun to grow over.
    On my first day back Annalise sits next to me as I paint. She whispers, “They told me what they did.”
    I have been thinking about Annalise and her brothers a lot in my days at home. I know it would be sensible to ignore her, and I’m fairly sure that if I ask her to she will avoid me. I have a little speech about it worked out, something along the lines of, “Please, don’t talk to me anymore and I won’t talk to you.”
    But Annalise says, “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
    And the way she says it—the way she sounds like she is sorry, like she is genuinely upset—gets me angry. I know it isn’t her fault and it isn’t even my fault. And I forget my crummy speech and all my crummy intentions and instead I touch her hand with my fingertips.
    * * *
    Annalise and I spend the art lessons whispering and looking at each other, and I build up to well over two and a half seconds. I want to stare in private, though, and so does she. We begin working out how we can spend time together, alone.
    We devise a plan to meet at Edge Hill, a quiet place on Annalise’s way home from school. But every time I ask if today is the day that we can meet, Annalise shakes her head. Her brothers are guarding her, sticking close to her whenever she is out of classes and out of school.
    Annalise isn’t the only one being guarded. Once I am back at school, Arran and Deborah make a point of staying with me from the bus to the classroom. Arran escorts me home and misses lunch to be with me.
    School is becoming unbearable, despite Annalise. The noises in my head are still there, and although I do my best to ignore them, sometimes I want to rip them out of my head and scream in frustration.
    A few weeks after my beating, my head is hissing. It is Computer Technology and I don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing, I’m not interested, I don’t care. I make an excuse that I need the toilet, and the teacher doesn’t seem to mind as I walk out of the classroom.
    The quietness of the corridor is a relief, and with nothing better to do I amble to the toilet.
    I walk in just as Connor is coming out of a stall.
    I take less than a second to register my chance and launch at him, landing a flurry of punches, and when he sinks to the floor I put in a few kicks.
    Connor does nothing but try to protect himself. He never even tries to hit me. My attack isn’t stopped by him but by Mr. Taylor, a passing history teacher. He drags me off Connor and I am swamped in Mr. Taylor’s sweaty chest, where he keeps me tight while Connor writhes on the ground, whimpering for all he’s worth.
    Mr. Taylor tells Connor, “If there’s something seriously wrong with you, stay still. If not, get up and let’s have a look at you.”
    Connor stays still for a few seconds before getting up.
    He doesn’t look too bad to me.
    “Come with me. Both of you.” It isn’t a request or even an order, more of a resigned comment.
    Mr. Taylor has a grip on my wrist so tight that blood is cut off from my hand. We head down lots of empty, squeaky corridors at speed and abandon Connor at a medical room I never knew existed. Then Mr. Taylor swerves me in the direction of the headmaster’s office and we come to a