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shoes I bought last month, a vest and a cardigan. I pick leaves off my cardigan until it’s all pristine. You can see veins on the leaves that look just like the lines on your hand, especially if you hold them up to the sun.
    Pull out my new feather headdress from my school bag, and fasten it at the back so it fits perfectly. The leaves whisper – I know exactly what they mean. Nod my head and the feathers ruffle out around me. I pick a flower and admire the tiny hairs on its stem. The clouds begin to race, and I decide on who my parents were, right there and then.
    I am a love-child, conceived during a ritualistic peyote shaman trip. I am the sole offspring of Timothy Leary’s spirit-guide (an Amazonian eagle-woman) and a forest nymph. Teresa met Leary once. She walked his dog. I wasnae ever really sure what she meant by that.
    Lay down and run my bare feet across the grass. I’m on the bank near a river, I can smell wild garlic and wet ferns, water and deodorant. I’ve run out of perfume, I’ll need to buy some when my clothing allowance comes in; that’s the only perk of being in care, ay, a monthly (pitiful) clothing allowance. Some foster-parents dinnae let you have your clothing allowance, though, they just keep it for themselves! Beard gives me mine. God bless Beard.
    Flip onto my stomach and weave a daisy chain. I make it super-long, so I can wind it around twice. Lace the flowers through my hair, lay back and watch the clouds drift.
    The third trip sits on my tongue at noon. It’s here I begin to tip, everything goes a little bitty sideways, so I walk kindae crab-like. My arms feel strange and my skin goes all see-through, and it feels dirty and just like – wrong hair. Just wrong. Hair so wrong it’s not funny, it feels big on my head, and fluffy. Like a mane. Long and fluffy. Long dark fluffy hair. Fuck!
    ‘Alright, Anais?’
    I sit up and shake my headdress. It takes a minute tae remember his name. Little gnome. Odd wee gnome in a tracksuit. He’s wearing two-stripe trainers and gold rings. He’s short. I bet his balls are bald. Man, the birds are loud up there in the trees. ’S like the fucking rainforest. ’S so pretty.
    ‘Mark?’
    ‘Are ye going somewhere, Anais?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘Noh? No like, a fancy-dress party?’
    He’s staring at the headdress.
    ‘D’ye like it?’ I ask him.
    ‘Aye, I s’pose so. You dinnae want any gear, do you, Anais? Hospital speed, like?’
    ‘Aye! Sound. Can I get it on chucky?’
    ‘Cash up front.’
    ‘How much, like?’
    ‘Seeing as it’s you, I’ll give you three grams fir a tenner?’
    Three grams for a tenner’s alright, though it’s probably cut. It’s still cheaper to buy it in bulk but I cannae get bulk any more. I count the money out. I’ve been saving up from my outing allowance; on my outings I’m meant tae go and do shit that will help heal me after seeing Teresa dead. Okay,then. I’ll bowl myself better. I’ll ice-skate tae fucking happiness every Friday fucking night.
    I dinnae go on outings with the money. I just get wasted and go and rub up and down on Jay when we’re kissing, I prefer that to the other stuff, but he prefers the other stuff.
    ‘So what have you been up to?’ I ask Mark.
    ‘Just kicking aboot, Anais – wee bit of this, wee bit of that, keeping my fingers in plenty pies, ay, hen. I’ve been working for they guys Jay knows, d’ye ken them, fae the top flats?’
    Jay cannae stand they guys, he’s always owe them money. Now I think about it, he cannae stand Mark. I take the wrap off him and stuff half the money I should intae his hand.
    ‘Ta, Mark, see ye.’
    ‘I thought you werenae going anywhere?’
    ‘Later!’
    ‘Wait a minute, are you busy the day?’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Well, you could pick up some stuff for me. I’ll give you a few pills for going, like? The guys name’s Roo. He lives here.’ He holds out a scrap of paper with an address on it.
    I read the address. It’s about a million miles away.