Warning: chick lit with a sinister underbelly! Chapter 1 – part 2 

Jenny woke up surrounded by a bustling atmosphere. There was a kind of fuzzy sensation. She could see events around her but felt almost paralysed by her surroundings. After what seemed like a lifetime, the fog began to lift. She could hear voices and then she felt someone gently grabbing her hand. It was a kind of white figure. Jenny wondered if she had died. Was this it? Had she reached the end of the road? She didn’t know whether she was happy or not but she knew that Granny and Grandad must be around here somewhere if she was. Maybe they didn’t know yet. Maybe the death announcements in the paper in heaven hadn’t got her name on it yet because it was so new. Give it time, she thought. Then the shuffled sound came again. It was gradually becoming clearer.

“Jenny, Jenny, can you hear me, Jenny, pet are you okay?” She heard it, and thought they must be here, though it didn’t sound like Granny. Then she looked up. She could see brown hair and a woman with a concerned expression on her face looking at her. She was pretty. She had big brown eyes and a perfect mouth. Her lips weren’t big but they weren’t small either. Her front tooth, second on the left had a slight twist but it didn’t look ugly, like Martin McGarry’s did…he was in Jenny’s class. It seemed to suit her. She had a loving look in her eyes, one that she saw sometimes from her teacher, Miss Mallon. The woman was asking Jenny if she was okay.

Finally, it became clearer. Jenny could see her properly and she began to speak. “Where am I?” she said, timidly. Jenny was scared. Then she noticed that she was still holding her hand. The woman said “you’re okay pet, you’ve had a little bump on your head and you are in the hospital. My name is Eileen, I’m one of the nurses here and I’ve been minding you since you came in. How do you feel?”

Jenny wasn’t quite sure what to say. She hadn’t banked on this situation. You see, anytime she spoke to anyone big, she had always thought long and hard before she gave them an answer. She rarely answered questions about herself with a truthful reply. It was a game in a way. Jenny had to pretend that she was this happy child, that her home was fantastic, that her parents were wonderful people who looked after her so well. If she didn’t they would take her away and put her in a cellar in the basement of some dirty man’s house and she would never see the light of day and would starve to death. That’s what her Dad said and as bad as it was, that would have been a lot worse. You see, Jenny didn’t like the dark. Bad things happened when the lights went out.

Eventually Jenny spoke. “I feel okay,” she said. Then Eileen asked her if she felt a bit dazed and she said “I do”. What harm was there in that, she thought. Eileen stayed with her for a while and Jenny gradually got to understand the situation. Shane Whelan had knocked her out with the ball and now she was in hospital. That’s great, she thought, now we’ll both have big heads! It was a strange situation. When she put her hand up to my head she could feel bandages and it was sore. There was a needle in her arm and tubes. Eileen said it was a ‘drip’ and that it would make her feel a lot stronger. Jenny liked Eileen, she seemed determined on making her better.

After a little while she fell back asleep. Her body ached all over, but the bed was so comfy. She snuggled up in a ball. It was the nicest sleep she had possibly ever had.