“Yes, Emma?” Miss Walmsley turned from the blackboard, chalk in hand.
“Teacher, may I be excused? I have a splitting headache.” The English teacher raised her eyebrows. This wasn’t like Emma. She was one of her better students. The poor girl must be ill.
“Emma, go down to the nurse’s office. Maybe she can give you something.” Emma gathered her belongings and wandered down the hall.
“Hi. Can I go home? I have an awful headache. Miss Walmsley sent me down.”
“Emma, go home and rest. Maybe Mom should take you to the doctor.”
Emma let herself in the front door and made for the kitchen. Her parents were both at work. She grabbed a bag of chips and opened the frig. Then she hit the butterscotch ice cream, spooned it into a bowl and topped it with a banana. She threw the whole thing into a plastic bowl and climbed upon her bedroom duvet. Shivering, she pulled the duvet over her. She ate her snack and got chip crumbs all over the duvet. She brushed them onto the floor, along with the banana skin. She lay down and closed her eyes. Maybe, if she lay very still, the headache would go away.
But when Emma closed her eyes, all she could see was Jeff and Lori kissing in the school library. She had caught them there this morning. Jeff and she had been close for at least a week. He had kissed her under the shade of a chestnut tree that was in full bloom. She was thrilled by his kiss—her first real kiss. But her heart had turned to stone when she saw him with Lori. At the memory, her tears welled up and her nose started to run. She wiped it with the edge of the pillow case.
She heard the sound of a key in the front door. Emma staggered out of bed and went out into the hall. Mom stood at the bottom of the stairs with a concerned look on her face.
“Whatever is wrong? You look terrible!” Mom ran upstairs and put her arms around her distraught daughter. Emma laid her head on Mom’s shoulder and sobbed her heart out.
Mom rubbed Emma’s back. “Dry your eyes, darling. I am going to go and turn the Jacuzzi on. You can relax while I cook dinner. We have butterscotch ice cream for dessert. You love that. Maybe we should do a girls’ night out? We could take in a movie, just the two of us.”
Emma sat next to her Mom in the darkened theatre. She loved the movie, about a female vampire that made short work of her unfaithful boyfriend. Emma found herself seeing Jeff’s tortured face replacing that of the male actor. The fact that she watched Jeff expire, even if only in her imagination, cheered her up no end. With a sigh of relief, she realised that her headache was gone.
