Trouble by Non Pratt Read Free Book Online Page A

phone – email, iTunes, Facebook… I wonder if anyone’s commented on my status…
    Focus, Hannah.
    I type so quickly that it takes a second attempt before Google asks me if I mean “pregnancy symptoms”.
    I suppose I do.

FRIDAY 23 RD OCTOBER
    HANNAH
    It’s the last day before half-term and it’s raining when I walk out of the school gates and up the road. Katie is steaming because I’ve told her she can’t come round to mine straight from school, that I’ll come over to hers later. I’ve told her there’s somewhere else I’ve got to be.
    I hurry past the cemetery and try to forget it’s where I pulled Mark Grey. He trod on my foot so hard as he grappled with my bra that I thought he’d broken it (my foot, not the bra). It kind of brought home to me that maybe he wasn’t my type. Too chunky. And sweaty. You should see him during PE – gross. I wasn’t joking when I said I can’t forgive Katie for her bad taste.
    By the time I get to Cedarfields and sign the visitors’ book, water is running off my chin and it blurs my signature. I head to the end of the corridor, where I knock on the door and wait, listening to the shuffling and kerfuffling on the other side. Then the door opens.
    “Hannah?”
    “Gran.” I step in and give her a hug, resting my nose on her tiny, bony shoulder and smelling her lily-of-the-valley perfume. I close my eyes, trying to remember what it was like when I was smaller than her and she was the one who had to be careful not to squeeze too tight. Tiny, bird-like body or not, she’s the strongest person I know. The steadiest. The least judgmental.
    “You’re soaked.” She steps back and eyes me suspiciously. “Don’t sit down until you’ve dried yourself – there’s clean towels in the bathroom. This place ain’t no hotel, but they do have plenty of fresh linen.”
    I like the way she says “hotel” – as if there’s no “o” in it. I spend a long time in the bathroom, towelling my hair dry, looking at my reflection, going to the loo just in case…
    Gran watches me carefully when I come out and sit in the chair opposite. “What’s up, pet?”
    That’s when the tears come and I reach out, knotting her fingers with mine. When my eyes clear I see there’s a tissue on my knee that wasn’t there before. It’s rumpled and very, very soft and I know it’s come from Gran’s sleeve.
    I open my mouth, but I can’t form the words. Instead I just shake my head and start crying again, snuffling into the tissue until it’s soggy with snot.
    “Come on, now, Hannah, you’re scaring me.” I look through my tears to see her fix me with a stern glare. “What’s the matter?”
    “I think I’m pregnant.”
    The word seems to hang in the air for an impossibly long moment. Everything has stopped and the room holds its breath, waiting for the meaning to sink in. Pregnant . My insides are hollow and I can hear the word echo through me. Except I’m the opposite of hollow, aren’t I? That’s the problem.
    Gran blinks once, then a couple of times, her lids fluttering over her eyes.
    “Oh. Really?”
    I nod and take a deep breath that wavers in my lungs like it’s not sure it should be there.
    “Oh,” she says again, blinking some more. “Are you sure?”
    “I looked up the symptoms on the Internet.” She huffs at that. I’m always telling her stuff I’ve read on the Internet and every time she says that if everyone was meant to know everything, then God would have made us all much cleverer. “I’ve not been sick, but I’ve got the other symptoms – my boobs are tender, I’m tired…”
    “You’ve not had your monthly visitor?”
    I shake my head. “It should’ve been and gone by now.”
    I look up to see Gran looking at me with wise eyes, twinkly with the moisture that always seems to be trapped there. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. Is she disappointed in me? She must be. The thought makes me start to cry again, silent, sad tears spilling off my face