Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan Read Free Book Online Page B

he said. 'Poppy Shakespeare,' says Goldilocks.
    I don't know when the sofa stopped farting, but I reckon it must of been saving them up for half an hour at least. 'Cause now
     as I jumped up, it let rip a stunker. The loudest, smelliest, most inignorable stunker you heard in your life! And Poppy and
     the male nurse, they spun round like the sofa exploded behind them.
    I couldn't of told you what I said. It all come tumbling out so fast. All jumbled together and tangled so bad Professor McSpiegel
     couldn't of made no sense of it. I know I told them I was her guide, and I must of said it like seventeen times, if not seventeen
     times seven, and the three of them stood there staring at me, least Poppy and the nurse was stood; Sharon sat like a mountain
     behind them. And each time I said it I kicked myself, but almost straightaway I said it again.
    Later when we was friends and remembered about it, Poppy said I didn't come over too bad. She said maybe I'd seemed a bit
     hyper and that but it weren't like I said nothing stupid. I kept holding out this leaflet, she said, then pulling it back
     and shooking it up and down like a leaf of lettuce ('Welcome to the Dorothy Fish', the leaflet was called; I'd got it off
     Tony). But apart from that I come over alright. And she said, 'cause I asked her, it didn't even show how this was my first
     time guiding. But she weren't really focused on me, she said, being as how she was having a stressful morning.
    I don't remember shooking the leaflet, maybe I did; I know I give it to her. And she held it up, like to have a quick look
     and I noticed the skin on her hands was as smooth as butterscotch Angel Delight, and her nails wasn't chewed but filed to
     perfection and painted to match her lips. And I'm stood there staring at her hands, one either side of the 'Dorothy Fish'
     on the leaflet, and I'm thinking this must be some strange sort of dribbler when all of a sudden, that perfect right hand
     it takes the leaflet, scrumples it up and lobs it at the bin beside the sofa.
    I thought it was going to miss it at first, but it caught the far side and balanced right on the edge, and all four of us
     staring; it balanced for maybe a minute, sometimes leaning a little bit one way, sometimes leaning the other, but balancing
     all the time like a pair of scales, till suddenly it give up and fallen inside, and we heard it bounce off the empty metal
     bottom.
    We was halfway up the stairs to the first-floor landing. The fag smoke funnelling down from the common room, it made like
     this tunnel around us and in the tunnel everything seemed echoey and louder. I could hear Poppy's breathing next to me, and
     the tap-tap-tap of her snakeskin heels on the stairs.
    'It ain't much further now,' I said. But Poppy didn't say nothing.
    'I'll take you to meet Tony first,' I said. 'He's the manager. Then probably you'll see the doctors.'
    'I don't care who I see,' said Poppy. I've just got to get this sorted! I've got a fucking kid, do you know what I'm saying!'
    'You got a kid?' I said.
    'I just said so, didn't I?'
    'Alright,' I said. We gone on a bit in silence.
    'So you neurotic, psychotic or what?' I said, like just making conversation. Ask most dribblers what's wrong, they's that
     fucking grateful, they'll talk till their throats is raw, but Poppy just stopped where she was, head down, not moving so much
     as a muscle and she didn't say nothing for maybe a minute then, I can't describe it like anything else, she turned to me and
     she give me this look like I'd pissed on her mother's grave. 'Let's just get one thing straight,' she said. 'I Am Not A Nutter.
     There Is Nothing Whatever Wrong With My Head! Alright?' She spelled out the words like I was foreign or stupid, tapping her
     head to make sure I got the point. Then she pulled out her Bensons, lit up a fag and carried on climbing the stairs.
    Now it weren't like I hadn't met dribblers before made out there was nothing the matter, but they made sure