Free Face by Benjamin Zephaniah Page B

this mirror in here?’ Martin asked.
    â€˜Are you sure you want to? It may not be such a good idea.’
    Martin raised his voice slightly, his tone assertive. ‘I want to, I know what I want. You said I’ve got tocome to terms with the way I look, so I am. I want to see me, and I want to see me when I like, OK?’
    Passing Martin the mirror Alan said quietly, ‘All right, just don’t torture yourself. You’re still the same guy. And remember that I am one member of staff you can get any time. The nurses can even ring me at home, so use me if you need me.’
    Martin felt much better after the conversation with Alan. He realised that nothing was solved, but he needed to sound off to someone and that was what Alan was there for. Soon Alan was saying goodbye, leaving Martin to sleep with the mirror leaning against the fruit bowl. Martin had decided that he wanted to see himself when he woke up.

Chapter 10
~ To Do or Not to Do ~
    Every day for the next week Martin woke up looking at himself. It was an unusual way of doing things. For a while it worried Alan and his parents but Martin would not let the mirror leave his room. He watched every inch of his face as it healed. He noted that it didn’t take very long for the bruises on his legs to disappear. He was fascinated by the stitches on the two larger cuts. He dreaded the day when they would have to be removed but when he asked when that would be, he was told that the stitches would simply dissolve, and so they did. Every day bits of stitching just disappeared until there was nothing left.
    Martin began to move around his small room. He was determined to be independent, and that meant being able to wash himself. And being able to wash himself meant walking out of his room and through the ward to the shower. For his first venture out he chose a Sunday morning when the ward was at its quietest. With his towel in hand he stood by the doortaking deep breaths. He opened the door slowly, stepped through and turned back to close it. Then he turned to see the ward. Most people were asleep, some were reading newspapers and a couple just seemed to be looking and thinking. Those who looked at Martin just looked away. Martin was relieved.
Of course
, he thought,
why should they find me so odd, they are all burns victims themselves, I am on a Burns Unit
. Now it was him doing all the staring. As he walked down the ward he began to look at other people’s injuries. A few people didn’t look like they had injuries at all but Martin knew that these people probably had burns on their bodies. For Martin this was a liberating moment. Anyone who noticed Martin didn’t give him a second look and by the time he’d reached the end of the ward he wanted to walk back just for the fun of it. Soon Martin was showering or going for walks on the ward anytime he felt like it. Being seen by other people got easier each time.
    Martin’s parents still visited him every day and every couple of days Natalie, Matthew and Mark would visit. The visits by his friends were the most difficult. Matthew and Mark always had very little to say; they never spoke about the events surrounding the crash now unless they were quoting newspapers. Although Natalie was polite and helpful, Martin spent very little time alone with her.
    As the days went by Martin began to feel more at home in his room. The football posters and creature comforts had helped and he was beginning to develop a real appreciation of rap music. Natalie brought him new tapes with every visit and Martin’s headphones were now usually found on his head. The front of his hair was beginning to grow back and with the help of the hospital’s visiting barber, he had the rest of his hair cut short so that the new growth would not be so obvious. His face was not really healing but settling down. The extremely red parts and the extremely white parts were trying to find their natural colour but the damage