Read Online Swallowing Grandma by Kate Long - Free Book Online Page A

asked. ‘Didn’t you enjoy it?’
    ‘No,’ I said, ‘it made me cry.’
    ‘Do you wish you hadn’t read it?’
    I thought about it. ‘No.’
    She seemed pleased.
    One month after that conversation, I was expelled from Bank Top Primary in disgrace and it was Miss Dragon who helped pick up the pieces. She even offered to come to my first parents’ evening at the grammar school, when she heard Poll wasn’t going. I sometimes look at Miss Dragon and I think, she wouldn’t have given up a baby and swanned off into the blue.
    Nowadays she lets me have first pick of any books they’re selling off, and asks my opinion on the ones they order in new. My opinion; fancy. And when I mentioned to her about calling me Kat, she didn’t laugh.
    ‘Kath?’ She put a hand behind her ear.
    ‘No. Kat. With a K.’
    ‘Kategorically?
    ‘Katastrophically.’
    ‘I hope not. I’ll katalogue it in my brain, though it may take a while for my mouth to make the switch.’
    I knew Miss Dragon wouldn’t disturb my research, and if anyone else asked, it was a school project. I typed in the Talking Helps address and waited for the page to load. Scrolled up and down, found the right link, and clicked.
    Here we go, I thought.

    Bulimics (people who make themselves sick after eating) often have LOW SELF ESTEEM. They may have experienced A MAJOR STRESSFUL EVENT in their lives. They may have difficulty dealing with NEGATIVE EMOTIONS such as ANGER or LONELINESS. Some people who suffer from bulimia say they feel an overwhelming NEED TO BE IN CONTROL of their lives by strictly monitoring what they eat. Almost all say they are under SOCIAL PRESSURE to be thin from TV, magazines, peers etc.

    The site had clearly been put together by a panel of doom-merchants.

    Physical Dangers associated with self-induced vomiting: dizziness, weakness, confusion, temperature sensitivity, low blood pressure, high blood pressure, low platelet count, hyperactivity, chronic fatigue syndrome, brittle nails, hair loss, swollen legs, muscle wasting, cramps, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, incontinence, coeliac disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, degeneration of the jaw hinge, loss of periods, infertility, tooth erosion, easily bruising skin, hypoglycaemia, hyperglycaemia, diabetes, anaemia, respiratory infections, hairiness, temporary paralysis, peptic ulcers, tearing of the oesophagus, gastric rupture, gastrointestinal bleeding, cancer of the oesophagus, cancer of the larynx, seizures, kidney failure, liver failure, brain damage, blindness, stroke, arrhythmia, heart failure, death.

    Well, OK, but the main thing was you’d be losing weight.
    I clicked onto the next page, but it was all about breaking out of the cycle and loving and valuing yourself, absolutely nothing about what to stick down your throat. So I called up a search engine and started looking for Eating Disorders. What I wanted was a sort of user’s manual.
    I caught a movement out of the corner of my vision. Miss Mouse, Miss Ollerton, was wandering over, clutching a stack of books and looking sad. She always looks sad. She’s very nervous too, never looks you in the eye. I couldn’t imagine her doing any other job than this, living anywhere other than in this castle of words. I leaned over the screen casually, blocking out what was loading; occasionally it’s useful being so wide. Miss Mouse drifted past in her long droopy clothes, gave me a half-smile, and disappeared into the Hobbies and Crafts section. I could hear the gentle thump thump through the back of the shelves as she slid each volume into its correct place. Her skin and hair are so pale I think she sleeps inside a book cupboard.
    When I sat back, the computer was displaying a blue sky bisected by a rainbow, and a sparkly waterfall in the bottom left-hand corner. Welcome to Cherry’s Home Page, it twinkled. It didn’t look like a site about making yourself sick.
    Cherry-not-her-real-name was twenty, and at college in Wisconsin. Her