Free Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls

awkwardly. It felt smooth and heavy between my fingers. The skin on my hand felt tender and numb at the same time. I could feel every prickle of my jersey against my arms and my neck.
    Mum was looking at me.
    “Please,” she said.
    I drank about half of the milk. And then I was sick, all over the duvet and down my jersey.
    Mum just sat there looking at me.
    I began to shake. I couldn’t stop myself. And then I realized I was crying, although whether it was because of Felix, or because I’d been sick, or because I felt so tired and ill, I don’t know.
    Mum reached out and put her arm around me but I cried out, because it hurt. So then she took her arms away and she was crying too.
    “I hate it,” I said. My voice came out in this high squeak, all shaken up with sobs. “I hate it. I hate it.”
    Mum nodded. Her face was shiny with tears.
    “So do I,” she said. “Oh, love. So do I.”
     
    I can’t remember how long we cried for. But I do remember when we were finished she gave me some tissue and I rubbed my face with it and she dried her eyes. And I could see how much she wanted to make it all right again, but she couldn’t. So she went and got a new duvet cover and helped me put on a clean T-shirt. And she brought me a night light on a saucer and turned out the big light so that there was just this one little circle of candlelight on my bedside table. And then she sat there on the chair, beside the bed, beside me, until I fell asleep.



 
     
MORE FIGHTING
9th February
     
     
     
     
    I woke late next morning. I lay on my side and listened to the noises of my family. Ella was watching Saturday morning cartoons. I could hear the muffled noise of the television and Ella laughing. Mum was in the kitchen, clattering about with the pans. She was listening to Radio Four and talking to Dad. I could hear their conversation but not what they were saying; just the old, familiar sounds of their voices, rising and falling, as if from underwater or from a long, long way away.
    “This is what it’ll be like when I’m gone,” I thought. I felt half gone already, lying there behind my door. I was very tired. I thought about Felix. Felix, locked in a box and dropped down a hole. I closed my eyes.
    I don’t know how long I’d been lying there when someone knocked on the door.
    “Come in,” I said.
    Ella opened the door and stood there, looking at me.
    “Are you all right?” she said.
    “Yes,” I said.
    She came in a little further.
    “You don’t look all right,” she said.
    She was standing on one foot in the doorframe, her dark hair all about her face. She looked so pink and solid I wanted to hit her. “Lemme alone,” I said. “I’m fine. Go away.”
    “I’m getting Mum,” she said, and she vanished. I moaned and buried my head in my pillow. I didn’t want to face Mum again.
    I heard someone come into the room and felt the bed move as they sat down beside me. I kept my head in the pillow.
    “Sam?” Mum said. “Sam? Are you all right, love?”
    “I’m fine !” I said, into my pillow.
    Mum smoothed my hair off my forehead. I jerked my head away.
    “Did that hurt?”
    “No!” I said.
    She touched my shoulder. I cried out.
    Mum sighed. “Maybe we should call Annie—”
    “Leave me alone!” I shouted. And then, because I knew she was going to argue, “I want to go and see Felix.”
    Mum drew in her breath. For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Then she said, “I don’t know that that’s a very good idea.”
    “I want to,” I said.
    “I know you do. But . . . it can be quite upsetting, seeing someone who’s dead. And you’re really not very well. Wouldn’t it be better just to remember him like he was?”
    “No,” I said. “No!” I turned my head away. All the time I was thinking, ‘Why can’t I see him? What does he look like? What’s wrong with him?’
    “You’ve got to let me see him,” I said. “It’ll make me worse, if you don’t let me.”
    Mum drew a deep