Miss Mercury

A Friend

By the time August of 1989 came around, things feel very different at Garden Lodge. Amelia has bloomed in confidence, she is excited to start what should have been her second year of nursery next week and is determined to make some friends. As he said he would, Jim takes her to the park or play area a few times a month.

Freddie on the other hand is deteriorating quickly if he's not recording he's in bed. He's lost a lot of weight, he's let the stubble grow to hide the sores on his face but he's constantly tired. The thing that annoys Freddie most though is that Amelia seems scared to touch him in case she hurts him.

He lay in bed quietly, Jim is at work and Amelia is amusing herself in her room. She usually spends most of her day sitting with her dad watching TV, reading books, helping him with songs but sometimes she likes to play alone or with the cats.

His eyes grow heavy and he was just dropping off to sleep when he hears music down the hall. More specifically he hears Keep Yourself Alive playing, it's not extremely loud but enough for him to hear it from his room.

Pushing the covers away, he slowly climbs out of bed and heads down the hall, Keep Yourself Alive turns into Doing Alright as he reaches Amelia's room.

Peering through the gap in her door he sees her dancing about the room, singing along with the words using her hairbrush as a mic. Smiling he watches for a few minutes before leaving her to it, returning to his bed.

------

Monday morning Amelia tiptoes into her dad's room to say goodbye before going to school, "Daddy?" she whispers, "Are you awake?"

Rolling on his back with a groan he smiles sitting up in bed, "Yes, I'm awake. Can I have a hug before you go please?" He holds his arms open for her and she carefully climbs onto the bed cuddling into him.

"Are you going to be okay without me?" She asks him. Since Amelia keeps him company for most of the day and she's worried he will get bored without her now she's going to school full time.

He chuckles, "I'll be fine, don't you worry about me. I might even go to the studio for an hour or two but I'll be here when you get back and I can't wait to hear all about your day."

"Okay," She nods kissing his cheek before dashing off the bed, "I love you! See you later."

------

Arriving at the nursery gate, Jim gets a sense of deja vu Amelia hugs him and walks inside. He watched her feeling certain that things will go much better this time.

Amelia is greeted at the door of her classroom by Miss Poppy she smiles happy to see her back and instructs her to go and sit at the fox table by the window.

Looking around the table as she approaches it, she takes the last available seat next to a ginger hair little girl, "I'm Milly," Amelia introduces herself.

"I'm Jessy," the girl replies smiling shyly.

Miss Poppy tells the class that they are going to be doing adding and subtracting, something Amelia finds rather easy thanks to the impromptu maths lessons she gets from Brian. She quietly got on with her work but stops when she notices that Jessica isn't doing anything, "Do you need some help, Jess?"

"Yes please," she nods. Amelia shows her how to work out the sums the way Brian had taught her, "How are you so good at this?" Jessica writes the last answer dumbfounded by how easy she makes it look.

Amelia shrugs, "My uncle used to be a maths teacher and he's been teaching me."

Miss Poppy comes over to their table sitting on the floor next to the low table, "How you are girls getting on?"