Chapter 15

I woke up with a start. In the split second it took me to get my bearings, I was struck by several things at once. I’d been dreaming I was having sex with a girl in my class, although I couldn’t quite remember who. The strange headache had come on as my arousal raced towards the point of no return, but I had woken up just in time. Except that I still had a headache. Then I realised I had been masturbating in my sleep and my hand was instinctively still massaging my achingly hard dick. I had actually reached the point of no return and the headache mushroomed overwhelmingly throughout my skull.

When I next woke up, I was headache-free and in a strange bed in a strange bedroom. It hadn’t been just a convoluted nightmare.

There was a pink night light glowing and I could make out that the room decor and bedlinen were violently pink, as was the nightdress worn by the girl in bed with me. As before, the girl was facing away from me. She had short black hair with a reddish undertone. I could think of only one girl in my class with those characteristics, Brenda Rodgers.

Brenda was a Celtic beauty. She had an athletic build in keeping with her prowess at sport and she was acclaimed as proficient at martial arts with a trophy cabinet to prove it. On dress-down Fridays days she wore Goth-style clothing to show the scant regard she held for societal norms. The reddishness of her hair matched her fiery temper and she was not someone you’d want to mess with; even the boys in my class were afraid of her. She was definitely not someone I should have been masturbating to.

I would never in a million years have suspected that the school Valkyrie had such a pink princessy side.

The girl beside me stirred. The only difference I had discerned with the Sam Allardyce incident was that Sam didn’t scream. I decided to play possum in the hope it was less likely to provoke a scream and I might stay awake.

Brenda had obviously detected that she wasn’t alone in bed any longer because she very cautiously turned over. Then she saw me. Seemingly without taking in a breath, she emitted an ear-splitting martial arts screech. My headache came back with a vengeance but, just before I blacked out, I saw her clawed hands coming at my face.

I woke in my usual hospital bed. My head didn’t hurt but my face did, and I could feel dressings stuck to it. Electrodes were stuck to my skull and I guessed Dr Kelleher had hooked me up for an EEG.

Mum was also in the room, asleep in a chair and snoring gently. There was no sign of Dad or Janey. I decided to let Mum sleep rather than wake her.

Some time later Dr Kelleher bustled into the room. She looked at me with disapproval. “I was hoping not to see you again like this,” she said.

Despite being asleep, at some level Mum must have heard because she stopped snoring. However she didn’t open her eyes.

“Likewise,” I replied. “I hoped the sleepwalking had finished.”

Mum jerked awake at the sound of my voice. “At last,” she grumbled. “It seems your latest victim didn’t approve of your visit.”

“The damage is only superficial,” assured Dr Kelleher. “I think she tried to pull out when she recognised you. There shouldn’t be any long-term scarring.”

“Do you need anything?” asked Mum. “If not, now that I know you’re still alive, I’ll go back home to bed and return in the morning.”

“No, I’m good,” I replied.

Mum stood up, put her coat on and left.

“Oh dear, someone’s not flavour of the month,” joked Dr Kelleher.

“Having been incident-free for so long, I was planning on going back to school on Monday. Then yesterday a Welfare Officer called to check up on me, and I invited her in, even though I shouldn’t have because my mum was still at work. Then this happened,” I explained.