Lisa Heathfield - Paper Butterflies

The bus is almost full. I have to take my bag from my shoulder and hold it by my side. There’s a seat and I must sit down, but it squashes my stomach and I know I can’t hold it.

I scratch my arm, over and over. One two three one two three.

My arm stings, as I feel the wet between my legs. I can’t stop it. It soaks my skin and the seat underneath me. I feel it slide its warm path towards my shoes. If I looked down, I know I’d see it on the floor.

I sit still. I don’t move even the slightest bit. Just my eyes, which I close and wish that I was anywhere but here. That the seat I’m on would float off through the roof of the bus and take me away forever.

Paula is next to me. She doesn’t say a word. Maybe she hasn’t noticed. Her face is still pressed tight to the window. The pain in my bladder has gone. But soon I’ll have to stand up and everyone will know.

I could pretend that I’m sick. The bus driver would let all the other children off and he’d have to drive me home. He’d ask me why I did it. Why I didn’t use the toilet at home and I’d tell him. Everything. And he’d take me away from Kathleen and I’d never have to see her again. His wife would cry with happiness when she saw me and they’d lead me up to my own pink room, with my own desk, with colouring pencils sitting on the top.

The bus stops.

The children are getting out. The seats are emptying and Paula has picked up her bag and she’s ready to move.

‘All out,’ the bus driver calls.

‘Move,’ Paula says.

She knows, as soon as I stand up. I look back at the seat and the material is soaked through.

‘Ugh,’ she says, loud enough for others to turn and look. I put my bag on my shoulder and walk down the aisle. The wet sticks my skirt to my legs. I know that there’ll be a big dark patch. The smell is sharp and sits on my tongue.

I want to hold my head up, but I can’t.

‘Ugh. Stinks of piss,’ Ryan says. ‘Was it you, Lauren?’

‘No!’ she laughs, and swings her bag towards his head.

‘Well, someone’s pissed themselves.’ He ducks again, just in time. And he must see, because there’s a prod on my shoulder and although I don’t turn round I know it’s him.

‘Oi, Juniper. You’ve wet yourself.’

‘My name’s not Juniper,’ I say quietly as I keep walking.

‘You stink.’ And the girls with him laugh.

My wet legs rub against each other as I walk. With every step, my ankles can feel the stickiness. The canvas of my shoes rubs against my skin.

‘Do you need a diaper?’ Ryan says. I won’t look at him. I can’t let him see that I want to run far away from here.

We go through the school doorway and the corridor is swirling with people. I think I might cry, but I won’t let myself.

‘Ugh!’ the girls from the bus shout loudly. They squeeze their noses with their fingers. ‘Someone’s wet themselves.’ And they’re pointing at me and everyone is laughing as the bell rings.

‘You’ll have to come to class now,’ Ryan says. ‘You don’t want to get into trouble, do you?’

Somehow, I get to the classroom. Miss Hawthorne is already here. She’s sitting on her chair, talking to the children on the carpet in front of her. I go to my peg, take off my coat and hang it up. I hang up my bag too. When I turn round, all I can see is them pointing and sniggering and waving their fingers under their noses, their voices screwed up in disgust.

‘What is it?’ Miss Hawthorne asks. Her smile is warm, but she looks confused. My feet won’t move. I don’t know what to do, where to go.

‘June had an accident ,’ Cherry says. They’re all laughing and looking at me. The smell of what I’ve done stings my skin.

Miss Hawthorne comes towards me. She knows, as soon as she comes close, that it’s true.

‘Come with me, June.’ We step outside the classroom, all eyes watching. Miss Hawthorne closes the door so they can’t hear us. And so I can’t hear them laughing. I look down at the floor. I feel myself blushing violently, but she will barely see it through my skin. I wish I could sink into the ground and never come back.

‘What happened?’ she asks kindly.

‘I couldn’t hold it in.’

‘You should have gone before you left home.’

‘Sorry.’ I won’t cry.

‘You’ll have to go to the nurse. She’ll sort you out with clean clothes. Then you can come back to class,’ she says. I look up at her. ‘I know it’ll be hard, but you have to come back. They’ll all have forgotten about it, you’ll see.’ Her hand is on my shoulder and she’s smiling, but I know she’s lying.

It’s quiet in the corridor. It’s just the sound of my feet, soft on the floor. I could walk along here, turn the corner, push open the door and never come back. I would survive – I know I would. I would hitchhike all the way to the coast and I’d meet a family on the beach. They would love me and they would be mine.

The nurse’s door is slightly open and I barely knock before I go in. She’s standing by the chair, shaking a thermometer. A girl sits with a bowl on her lap. Her skin is so white she looks dead, and I know I shouldn’t stare.

‘I’ll get the office to phone your mother,’ the nurse says briskly. ‘She’ll have to come and pick you up.’

‘She’s at work,’ the girl says.

‘Well, she’ll have to come back.’

The girl nods and hunches further over the bowl. The nurse squeezes past me, heads out of the door and is gone.

‘Are you OK?’ I ask the girl. She looks up at me briefly and turns away.

The window is pushed halfway up. Somewhere, someone is mowing a lawn. The hum stretches into the room.

I can hear the nurse coming back before I see her. Her shoes click on the polished floor.

‘Right. That’s sorted,’ she says.

And then she turns to me.

I could tell her, tell her the truth, tell her everything.

‘I need some clean clothes,’ I whisper. And now I know that she can smell my damp ones.

‘Right,’ is all she mutters as she reaches into a cupboard. She holds up some underpants and chooses a pair. ‘A little bit small, but they’ll have to do.’ She passes them to me. ‘Come over here and I’ll draw the curtain.’

I do as she says. I pull my wet underpants down. I don’t know what to do with them and she looks like she doesn’t want to touch them, so I put them on the floor.

I step out of my skirt. The material is damp to touch. I don’t want to look at the size of the wet patch that everyone has been laughing at. My shoes feel sticky. And the smell is glued to my skin.

‘Let’s wipe you down a bit,’ the nurse says. She’s at the sink, squeezing out a cloth and then using its warmth to clean me.

When she’s dried me, she helps me into another skirt. It’s tight over my legs and on my belly. I know what she thinks. It’s what everyone thinks.

The nurse picks up my clothes and puts them into a plastic bag. She ties a knot in the end of it and passes it to me. I’ll have to walk through the corridors holding it, but I can’t throw it away. I can’t go home without it.

‘Thank you,’ I say, and I look hard into her eyes. Please ask me , I beg her. Ask me now and I’ll tell you everything .

‘You’re really a bit old for this,’ she says. ‘Try not to let it happen again.’

And I’m gone, walking back to the class of circling sharks, my bag of clothes waiting to be hung like bait on my peg.

I wake up early the next morning, because it’s my special day. I imagine plucking the butterflies out of my belly and putting them in a box by my bed – I’d like to watch their colours, to see their wings beating against the glass.

The door opens and they’re all here. Kathleen, Megan and Dad. He promised he’d go into work late this morning.