Free Dot (Araminta Hall) by Araminta Hall

so that Mavis had to run to catch up with her. She pulled on her friend’s arm and Dot turned round, anger flickering in her eyes.
    ‘Dot, I’m sorry, really it wasn’t you.’
    ‘I don’t know if I care any more.’
    ‘Please.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Look, I’m starving. I really fancy a Maccy D’s.’
    ‘You hate McDonald’s.’ But they started to walk towards it anyway. ‘You went on that protest in year eleven, remember? You stood outside this very McDonald’s and handed out leaflets about how they were ruining our environment and our health.’
    ‘Yeah, I know.’ They walked through the doors and the smell of reheated grease assaulted their nasal passages.
    ‘So, what’s changed?’
    ‘Nothing I expect, I just want a Big Mac.’ Mavis heard Dot sighing. ‘Look, who am I to change anything? Me not eating a Big Mac isn’t going to change the world. I was a prat for thinking it would.’ Mavis recognised this argument as dangerous and was shocked to hear it coming from her own lips.
    They stood in the queue behind a girl their age with a crying toddler and a gaggle of spotty young boys. ‘If we all thought like that nothing would ever change,’ said Dot.
    ‘Nothing ever does change, Dot, or hadn’t you noticed?’
    ‘Nothing will change if you don’t go to university and stay here all your life, that’s for sure.’
    ‘Look, it’s not possible.’
    ‘Not possible? What are you talking about?’
    They reached the front and Mavis ordered a Big Mac meal with Coke, knowing that Dot would refuse to eat anything. She leant against the plastic counter. ‘Just drop it, OK?’
    ‘Not really. But guess I don’t have a choice as you don’t tell me anything any more.’
    Mavis’s meal was put on to the counter way too quickly for any proper cooking to have occurred and they went to sit at a sad table for two by the wall. The toddler was eating chips and his mother chicken nuggets as she stared out of the window. Mavis wished she’d thought to sit with her back to them. She bit into the foamy bun, her teeth connecting with air and cattle innards, sugar-sweet condiments and limp lettuce. Her desire faded as suddenly as it had arrived, her stomach repulsed by what she was asking of it. She imagined the factory, the meat-recovery process, the chemicals, the lack of air, the underpaid workers and then Dot was swimming in front of her, her vision shaky and disconnected. She stood up.
    ‘Are you OK?’ Dot was saying from the other side of the room. ‘You’ve gone white.’
    Vomit was travelling up her gullet and all Mavis could do was stumble to the loo where she retched into the toilet, its rim dotted with someone else’s piss. Her body contracted, sending heat pulsating through her in waves again and again until she thought she was finished and leant weakly against the wall of the cubicle. Dot was on the other side of the door, knocking and asking if she was OK. Mavis flushed the loo and emerged into the dingy bathroom. She splashed some water onto her face and then drank some but it tasted of the sweetness of sickness.
    Dot rubbed her back. ‘Hey, are you OK? Is this what’s wrong?’
    Mavis looked at herself in the mirror and was surprised by how pitted and pale her skin was, how deep the black circles under her eyes, how greasy her hair, how chapped her lips. ‘I’ve been feeling shit for a while now.’
    ‘Maybe you should see a doctor.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’
    ‘But your dress?’
    ‘It’s fine.’
    They had only been in Cartertown for just over an hour and Mavis couldn’t shake the feeling they were somehow leaving in disgrace as they waited on the opposite side of the road for their bus home.
    ‘I could call my mum if you can’t face the bus. Or your dad,’ said Dot.
    ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ Mavis’s head was too tight, as if her skin had shrunk or her bones had grown. But Dot was being so nice when she had no reason to even like her any more. She