Towards the Sky

They first appeared on Tuesday, three o'clock, when I was elbow-to-elbow in Room 28, creeping through a page of trigonometry. They'd itched beneath the surface since lunch, pushing up against the inside of the skin, bristling briefly and urging me to scratch. But no actual buds appeared 'til three.

They started on the left forearm, leant on the table to keep the book in place, pushing through white and thin and painless, three in five minutes, one on the inside of the elbow and two more up towards the wrist.

I tried to cover them, stop Norris from noticing, but when I glanced down at my writing hand and saw a creamy stem peeking eagerly up between my thumb and index finger, I couldn't help but shriek and toss my triangles to the floor.

Norris looked up from the shoulder of a struggler on the front row and, as he did so, the class all swivelled to stare. I was up out of my chair, through the door and away down the corridor, my face watered with tears, Norris' fat roar bouncing around the walls behind me.

I ran into the loos, rushed into a cubicle, swung the door shut and locked behind me. Lifting my shirt, I counted - seven, eight, nine plants sprouted from my chest and belly, white and delicate and now beautiful. I could see them emerging, slick and bloodless, with fresh buds following behind - twelve, thirteen, fourteen - creeping up and shooting through the skin. I fell back onto the seat, pushed off shoes, unpeeled socks and looked down at my foliaged feet, plants peering up between my toes and what felt like roots suddenly pulling from inside down towards the floor, yearning for turf. I was to be planted, I realised now, and suddenly it didn't feel like such a horrible thing.

But the boys' toilet would never do. I unlocked the door and walked out, caught sight in the mirror of my still unblemished face, then strolled down the corridor and stairs, barged open the big double doors and stepped into the sunlight of the yard. I knew where I should go now and headed straight there, marching through the gates, across the road and into the park.

There I stood, my feet together, in a nice south-facing flowerbed and let the roots push down at last, relieved, through my soles and into the soil. I sighed, leant back towards the sun and felt my face give in to the flowers, arrowing through my cheeks and lips and eyes, stretching up and out towards the sky.