Storm by Virginia Bergin Read Free Book Online Page B

seriously hard and seriously…real.
    â€œI’m so sorry!” I shouted.
    It wasn’t just an apology for the pregnant belly poke; it was a sorry for…uh. Dressed up or not dressed up, I could see immediately that she couldn’t have been much older than me. Nah—it was worse than that. She was younger.
    â€œYou do look brilliant though,” I told her.
    â€œYou look awful,” she shouted but in a kind way. In the din, in the madness, I heard that kindness.
    â€œI feel awful!” I shouted.
    I did feel awful. I mean, it all looked great and stuff—the party, the food—but… Oh, my body! It hurt! And my head, which so often seemed to have a separate life from my body, it hurt too. It hurt a lot.
    â€œI think I might have been in a coma,” I shouted.
    And Grace—that’s what I was just about to find out her name was—said, “Oh my!” and stared at me, oozing big walrus sympathy.
    I could have cried right there and then, because that sympathy felt so gorgeous. I put down the plate I’d grabbed.
    I want to warn you about this. I want to warn you that if you know you should be hungry because you can’t remember the last time you ate but you no longer feel hungry—for whatever reason—YOU SHOULD STILL EAT. Just something. Eat something. Same way with drinking (water!). YOU SHOULD JUST DRINK. Just take some stuff in, so your body and your brain will at least stand a chance of making some sensible decisions about things.
    I gave neither of them a chance.
    â€œDo you wanna dress up?” she yelled. “We could get you an outfit and stuff.”
    â€œYeah! Yeah, sure!”
    I mean…why not, eh? Why not?
    That’s how I ended up in a room with Grace, the party blasting on downstairs. In a plush, wood-paneled bedroom of the sort you’d normally have to stand behind a red “Keep back, you visitor” rope to look at—me and Grace and a bottle of champagne.
    â€œI know I shouldn’t drink,” she said, rubbing her walrus belly as she glugged a glass of bubbly, “but it’s hard not to. You know, under the circumstances .”
    â€œWhen’s it due?” I asked her. But “it” sounded so harsh. “The baby,” I said.
    That’s what people ask pregnant people, isn’t it? That’s what they’re supposed to ask.
    â€œThe seventh of October,” said Grace. She rubbed her tummy. “But they do say a first baby usually comes early. Up to two weeks, the midwife said…”
    Guess that had been said to her in the time before the rain. Guess that had been said to her when there were still midwives, when there were still people around to help and there was no reason—or at least a lot fewer reasons—to be scared. Guess there was now.
    This girl, Grace, I felt so sorry for her. She ditched her glass and rummaged through the pile of costumes on the (four-poster) bed.
    I tried on stuff—because she was so happy, playing dress-up like that. I mean, most people like dressing up, don’t they? But Grace? Ah, she was loving it!
    â€œSee?” said Grace as I looked at myself in the mirror.
    The costume…I guess you could call it Evil Fairy. Like, it had the puffy skirt and the glitter and the wings and stuff, but it was jet-black.
    I did, really, just want to go then—like, just dance myself stupid and forget about the whole thing—but she pulled the panda card on me.
    â€œI could do your face,” she said.
    â€œCould you?” I asked. I so just wanted to go. “Like how?”
    â€œLike,” she said, “just wait there!”
    I sat on the bed. In the moments that she was gone I did briefly think, What am I doing here? But then she came back, bubbling with excitement, and dumped out the world’s most massive makeup bag.
    And I smiled so hard it hurt. She had A LOT of products. A LOT of products.
    Grace rolled up her