Visions Read Online Free Page B

the class file I was given, I knew most had special educational needs, but I wasn’t given any information on Amelia. She sat alone and remained quiet throughout the lesson. When I checked what writing she had done, it was minimal and it looked like the writing of a very small child. Amelia seemed embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
                  “Did you not understand the work?” I asked gently, kneeling beside the desk much as I had when she was sick. She looked at me, confused, and shook her head.
                  “I meant, I’m sorry about ruining your lesson before summer when I was sick. I’m glad you got the job, though. When they asked for feedback, I wasn’t there but I would have said to pick you.”
    I was touched. Amelia took her dark ringed eyes away from me and went back to staring at her desk. Stepping back, I took in how dishevelled she looked. Her arms were no thicker than my wrists. In comparison to the other girls in the class, she was practically waif-like.
                  That evening, I thought about Amelia a lot. In fact, I was picturing the way she had looked at me when she apologised for ruining my lesson when the pattern on the wall I was staring at started to fade. When I came back, my cup of tea had gone cold and I’d brought with me a new image to add to my nightmares. Amelia was walking down an unknown street. The sky was dark and starless. She was walking past terraced houses, some of which had windows that had been boarded up with chipboard or were adorned by ragged curtains. The most worrying thing was the way that Amelia was dressed. She still had her school uniform on, which comprised of a short skirt and I suspected that, unlike the other girls, she didn’t roll it up to show off her legs. It was more likely that the skirt was several ages too young for her. Her blouse was thin and her arms pulled her tattered blazer tightly around her. On her feet she wore dirty, pink slippers. Where were her shoes? What in God’s name was she doing out in the dark wearing slippers and no coat? There was only one answer I could think of; she was running away. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.
                  By morning, I couldn’t be sure whether I’d slept or not. A variety of different scenarios had run around my mind all night. I wondered what would happen if I did phone the police. Yes, I’d like to speak to somebody about a daydream I had. You see, in the daydream, a girl was running away, which means that it is either already happening or is about to. I wondered what Dr Arnold would say if he saw me being dragged through the wards to the psychiatric block, fighting against a strait-jacket.

4
     
    I found myself hovering outside the form room, greeting my year sevens as they arrived, but concentrating on Morgan’s classroom door. When the bell had rung and I still hadn’t gone into my room, Morgan came outside. “Is everything alright, Gill?” she asked.
                  “Fine,” I answered, trying to sound casual. “Has Amelia turned up?”
                  “Amelia Carr? No, not yet, but that’s normal, really. She usually strays in sometime after the bell. Do you want me to send her to you when she comes in?”
                  “No, it’s fine. I’ll catch up with her later.” But that didn’t happen. Amelia Carr did not come into school at all. At break, I went to sit with Morgan and have a cup of tea.
                  “She’s not in today. Amelia, I mean,” she elaborated, as if I wouldn’t know who she meant. “She’s not off very often. In fact, she pretty much needs to be on death’s door to be kept off school. They’d rather not have her at home and they don’t make any secret of it. Her stepfather is a real piece of work. In fact, he’s actually put a complaint in before when the school sent Amelia home after she was sent in with a