Magic at Silver Spires Read Online Free Page B

everyone’s day. Miss Graham’s voice turned gentle one last time as she spoke to me. “Next time we see you, you’ll be feeling a million times better, you know!”
    The girls were moving off with their bikes but Nicole didn’t move a muscle. “I’m staying with you, Antonia.”
    â€œNo, it’s okay, you don’t want to miss the barn and the lunch and everything,” I said in a gabble, because she’d get left behind if she didn’t go quickly.
    â€œI want to stay with you,” she answered simply, just before a great swishing surge of bicycle tyres and voices started up all around me.
    â€œGlad you’re okay, Toni,” said Emily, holding her bike awkwardly and trying to bob down in front of me. “We’ll be thinking about you.”
    â€œAnd Nicole will tell us how you’re getting on,” said Bryony.
    Then Sasha and Izzy both blew me kisses.
    â€œSee you soon, Antonia.”
    â€œYou’ll be better in no time.”
    And as they cycled off behind the others, from somewhere in the distance I heard the ambulance siren wailing.
    The lovely ambulance people gave me a painkiller but it didn’t take effect straight away. It hurt when they examined my leg.
    â€œLooks like it’s definitely a fracture,” said the kind man in a green uniform.
    Miss Stevenson and Nicole travelled in the back of the ambulance. Nicole was closest to my head and kept whispering things to me as though it might hurt me if she spoke any louder. “They’re worried you might have concussion,” she explained after the ambulance man shone a tiny torch light into my eye.
    â€œJust checking your pupil response to light,” he told me. It was strange because he was quite the opposite to Nicole and spoke in a loud voice, as though I might not be able to hear properly as well as everything else that seemed to be wrong with me.
    â€œRight, that seems to be fine. Let’s check out these cuts and grazes,” he then said, moving my hair very carefully.
    It turned out that I’d scraped some skin off my shoulder and the top of my arm, but the man told me it was nothing serious. “Just needs a bit of dressing here and there,” he said. And the fold of skin under his chin wobbled the tiniest bit as he flicked his head to look at my hand. “Someone’s made a neat job of this bandage.” He nodded. “Mmm. Excellent.”
    It suddenly struck me that I was noticing everything in such detail. Nicole’s soft voice, the man’s loud voice and wobbly chin, the different rooftops that I glimpsed through the ambulance’s blacked-out windows. My whole world was crystal clear, and right in the middle of it was my throbbing leg and a feeling of helplessness that made me want to cry. And then a few tears did squeeze their way out of my eyes and rolled down the sides of my face. Nicole asked the ambulance man for a tissue and I dabbed at my cheeks, feeling silly and babyish. But then I saw that Nicole had tears in her eyes too, so I stopped thinking about myself for a few seconds, until another wave of pain hit me.

Chapter Three

    â€œIt hurts quite a lot,” I told the doctor in the hospital through clenched teeth, wishing desperately that I could have something stronger to make the pain go away.
    â€œWe’ll get you straight in for an X-ray,” he said, looking down at me carefully. “Apart from your leg, how do you feel, Antonia?”
    I told him I thought I was all right, but I didn’t tell him I hated lying on this stretcher bed because I felt so helpless. Then I had to give lots of details about myself, like what I was allergic to and what history of illness there was in my family, and halfway through I realized that Mrs. Pridham was right beside me. She reached for my hand – the one that didn’t have the bandage – and held it tight, which made me want to cry again. But I