Monster Belt - Chapter Ten .........'We were in the science lab,' she hoped her story would make him open up, 'I sat on the second row from the back. Mr. Newman stood on the platform at the front showing us how to take a blood sample. He pricked his thumb and smeared blood onto a slide. One minute I was watching and the next, dangling from my stool. Martin Rose sat behind me, shouted out that I'd fainted and tried to lift me back up but I was a dead weight so I slipped through his arms. People kept telling me about it afterwards,' she built momentum, 'I banged my chin on the desk and the back of my head on the floor. I remember that. When I opened my eyes, I was staring at Mr. Newman's grey beard. Scary.' A small laugh. 'He said I didn't have to do the test,' she paused now, conscious she'd been rattling on and he stared, so slowing down, 'that's the last time we saw him. When he looked at his blood under the microscope,' suddenly, she felt breathless and the words came out stunted, 'he couldn't find any white blood cells, so went to see his Doctor. I can't remember who told us, but he had leukaemia and died about three months later. I suppose I'm telling you this so you know I can't stand the sight of blood.' You idiot, she thought, boring, boring idiot, boring him with stuff and sounding so shallow. He didn't say anything. She'd spoken about death when that was already foremost in his mind. She'd made him think of Jonty. She always rambled and people went quiet and she knew she'd said too much but she couldn't tell him that she was sick of people dying; that at twenty-one she'd already had a lifetime of dead relatives and old people her mum had known and got her to care about.