Penny Black

Chapter 7

Penny paced the floor of the corridor outside the school sick room. Voices from within told her that Ella would soon be on her way to hospital. It was just a matter of waiting for her Mum to arrive.
 
Finally, the door to the room opened and Miss Mollis, the school nurse closed it softly behind her. Penny clearly wasn't getting in the room that easily. She ushered Penny to one side and, in her gentle Irish lilt, she said, "Now then, Penny. I understand that you must be very concerned about Ella. She is your best friend after all but you must let her rest until her mother arrives. Now, off you go. Lunch time is nearly done and you must get to your next lesson."
 
Penny nodded diligently and turned to walk away but with one ear to the footsteps of Miss Mollis as they fell away into the distance towards the other end of the corridor. Penny turned into the toilets with no need for them but to find a place to hide until the coast was clear and she could sneak back to the sick room. She quickly slippped into the furthest cubicle from the door, locked the door behind her, pulled down the toilet seat and stepped up on it, crouched with her feet beneath her. If anyone came in, they would assume the toilet was unoccupied and out of order. She needed time and space to make sense of what had happended to Ella but she needed to do it quickly, before Ella was taken to hospital. And she had to make sense of  what had happened to herself. Why did she feel the light so strongly within her when Ella was clearly feeling pain? And what on earth had Ella got herself into, that she had fought with a bird, to the death? She needed answers and she needed them now. She had never missed a lesson before but this was too important. It's not like she'd get in any trouble at home either; Mum never asked about school and she never kept up with anything that went on there. That had been Daddy's job. Penny was totally alone on this and she didn't have a clue where to start. Ella was the only way forward.
 
It seemed like a minute or two before Penny realised she was holding her breath, with her body tense in an effort not to move a muscle, when the school bell rang to signify the end of dinner time. She knew then that she was in the clear. No-one would come into the toilets now and she could make her escape to the sick room. She covered her ears as she waited for the bell to finish ringing. She did this every time. That bell made everything hurt, as its sound rattled around her body. She tried to hide her fear of it every time but every time the other girls teased her. She was the girl with her head in her hands as they laughed and she pressed her ears harder to drown them out too. When she was certain that the last vibration of the bell had faded and shook itself off the tips of the hairs on her skin, she slowly lowered her  hands and began to extend a leg towards the floor, ready for a hasty exit. The tip of the broken sole of her shoe hung down and was a hare's breath away from the floor when the main door to the toilets swung open hard, smashing the wall. Penny's heart froze and the Tummy Turns leapt into her throat.

"Penny Black. I know you're in here."
 
Penny winced as Miss Mollis' harsh voice rebounded off the walls of the small room that housed the cublicles. She had never heard Miss Mollis speak so harshly before and it frightened her. There was no way she could know that Penny was in here. Penny had doubled checked that there was no-one around and that Miss Mollis was well out of sight. She started to feel the realisation of what she was trying to do. She had never skipped class before, never been in propoer trouble and never, ever been brave enough to try anything so daring as this. She didn't quite recognise herself. Except now, she was feeling the full reality of her situation. And the whole time she was thinking how the possibility of seeing Ella was slipping further and further away. Despite her fears, she needed to know what she was supposed to do and that was becoming greater than any worry she had, about trouble at school. She could feel the light within her begin to glow again and as it did so, she heard Miss Mollis stumble as she retreated from the room and muttered under her breath, "Next time, Penny. Next time."