Free Zelah Green by Vanessa Curtis Page B

back to allow me to approach the bowl.
    I’m so stressed that a weird Olympic-style commentary starts up in my head.
    And here we have Zelah Green, the fourteen-year-old champion of rituals, attempting the afternoon toilet-touching event for the first time
. . .
    I take my first faltering step towards the rim.
    And she’s approaching the target
, booms the voice.
Steady approach, good footwork
. . .
    My right hand, naked and trembling, is now hovering over the inside of the toilet.
    Will she set a new world record?
screams the voice.
Will Zelah Green take the gold medal for bravery and/or total stupidity?
    ‘I’m going in!’ I say.
    I skim the curved cool surface of the bowl with the fingertips of my right hand and jump back as if I’ve been electrified.
    And she’s done it!
shrieks the commentator.
Zelah Green wins the gold medal for toilet touching!
    Next thing I know I’m sprawled on the cold bathroom floor retching and gagging and the Doc is trying to help me up without handling me.
    ‘Good girl, good girl,’ she says. ‘No, don’t do that,’ as she sees me heading towards the sink with a purposeful glint in my eye.
    Me, the Doc and my soiled hand go back into the bedroom.
    ‘Out of ten now?’ she asks.
    ‘Ten,’ I say, straight away. This is withoutdoubt the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life.
    The Doc ferrets around in her bedside drawer and comes up with a squashy pack of organic chewing gum.
    ‘Want one?’ she says, offering the green tube.
    I reach towards it with my left hand. She shakes her head.
    ‘I want you to take it with the right hand,’ she says.
    ‘But that’s the – oh, crap,’ I say. Of course she wants me to take it with the contaminated hand.
    I take a sliver of wrapped gum from the packet and drop it like a hot potato.
    ‘Pick it up and unwrap it,’ commands the Doc.
    She’s got to be kidding, right?
    ‘My stress level is now off the scale,’ I say, but I pick up the piece of gum, unwrap it with my dirty right hand and hold the greying stripup for her inspection. I can’t believe I’m doing all this, but I am.
    ‘Do you like chewing gum?’ says the Doc.
    ‘No,’ I say. I think of all the horrid cold hard lumps of masticated gum stuck underneath my desk at school and how I would try not to let the underside of the desk touch my school skirt.
    ‘That’s a shame,’ she says. ‘Because I want you to put that gum in your mouth and chew it for ten seconds, please.’
    What???
    I’ve touched the revolting gum with my horrid germ-infested finger and now she wants me to put the whole death-inducing combination inside my nice mint-fresh mouth where it will seep into the sanitised temple that is my body and cause undue havoc and destruction.
    The Doc pops a stick of gum on to her own tongue, using her unwashed hand, and chews with her mouth open whilst staring me straightin the eye. The stick-stick noise of her chewing reminds me of the boys at school.
    I fight it, but I feel a giggle coming on.
    She winks and carries on.
Stick-stick-stick
.
    ‘Oh, what the heck,’ I say.
    I shove the mint stick in, close my eyes and chew as hard as I can. The Doc counts down from ten seconds to one. I’m sure I can taste the germs.
    ‘You’re done,’ she says.
    I projectile-spit the gum out into her bin and run to the bathroom where I wash my hands thirty-one times on each side and rinse my mouth out until my teeth ache.
    When I come out, we go back to the office and sit down. She says, ‘Stress levels, out of ten?’
    The strange thing is, I don’t feel all that bad. Shaky, yes, but not as sick as I thought I would be.
    ‘Six,’ I say. ‘And a half.’
    ‘Good,’ says the Doc. ‘And remember – nothing bad will happen because of what you just did.’
    I nod.
    A faint glimmer of hope is trying to push through the big grey fug of fears and rituals.
    Just as I’m getting up to leave, there’s a tap on the door.
    ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ says Josh. ‘There’s