Free A Proper Family Christmas by Chrissie Manby

contained ingredients even wise-guy Saul had never heard of. Suddenly Izzy was unable to control her body temperature. She hadn’t been drinking enough water anyway. She was already dehydrated from all the cider she’d had that day. She got too hot. She started boiling on the inside. Her organs couldn’t cope.
    As the Buchanans sat in the waiting room, a television they couldn’t turn off kept them company. There was an item on the local news. ‘A Midlands schoolgirl,’ said the presenter, ‘attending the SummerBox Music Festival was taken to hospital in Northampton earlier this evening. It’s believed that she may have suffered an extreme reaction to the drug ecstasy, which has been known to cause overheating and acute organ failure. A hospital spokesperson described her as being in a stable but critical condition.’
    Then the newsreader was on to the next story. Noisy neighbours had forced an elderly pensioner out of her home. She was planning to sue the council for having failed to protect her from emotional distress. Then there was a segment about a local school choir that had made it to the national finals of a singing competition.
    Life was going on.
    All night long, the ward was busy. The night shift made no concessions to the late hour, bustling around every bit as noisily as their day-shift counterparts. Vital signs were taken every hour on the hour. Izzy’s blood and urine were tested. The presence of MDMA, amphetamine and benzylpiperazine was confirmed.
    Annabel and Richard looked to every hospital worker who entered Izzy’s room for the slightest indication that the situation might be improving. They even asked a cleaner what he thought. No one would tell them anything without a doctor’s approval, though the cleaner said that he had seen another kid in the exact same position the previous year and that kid had pulled through.
    ‘Woke up asking for chocolate milk,’ the cleaner added.
    Annabel and Richard fell upon the cleaner’s anecdote as though it was a consultant’s report. But the comfort didn’t last long. Izzy was attached to half a dozen drips and a frightening array of monitoring machines. She was still barely conscious. She didn’t speak.
    Whenever she could get close enough, Annabel held Izzy’s hand and talked to her. She reminded her of the funny things she’d said as a small child. She told her that Jessica, Gina and Chloe were all keen to know when she woke up. Annabel talked and talked and talked while the plastic bags hanging from the drip stands emptied themselves into Izzy’s tainted bloodstream, flushing out whatever was ailing her. More medics came and went, taking measurements and consulting screens.
    As dawn began to break, Annabel convinced herself that Izzy was starting to look better. Her skin was pinker, wasn’t it? Annabel showed Richard Izzy’s hand. ‘Look, you can see it in her nails. Her circulation is coming back.’
    Richard wanted to believe it too
    Annabel’s mother Sarah arrived around half eight, having started driving from Hertfordshire as soon as it was light. There was no one else to come. Annabel’s father and Richard’s parents had all unfortunately passed away. Sarah burst into tears the moment she saw her daughter at her granddaughter’s bedside.
    ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t cry,’ she snorted into Richard’s swiftly proffered handkerchief. ‘Oh, Izzy! Oh, Annabel. What on earth happened?’
    Izzy still wouldn’t wake up. She’d been sedated so that the medics could do their work. More blood was taken. More tests.
    Jessica came to visit at about ten o’clock. Her mother Jodie was with her. As soon as her mother was out of earshot at the coffee machine, Jessica began to tell her side of the story. She was distraught. She was full of guilt.
    ‘I told her not to, Mrs Buchanan. Saul was trying to get us all to take them but I told him I wouldn’t and he called me a baby and me and Gina and Chloe walked off. I thought Izzy would come