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thing was really real, that I wasn’t inventing it, but I decided I’d put it to the test. I lay there forcing myself to think about one thing and one thing only. I focused my mind entirely on Zola’s shirt. Inside my head I said to her: “Tracey, I want you to put it on me. I want to wear it. Ever since Zola came to see me and gave me his number 25 shirt I’ve wanted to wear it. It’ll bring me luck. I know it will. Put it on me, Tracey. I want to feel its magic.” And that’s all I thought of as Tracey was giving me my bedbath. “Put the shirt on me, Tracey. Please. Please. ” I tried not to listen to anything she wassaying, tried to close my ears, to shut out her voice. Zola’s shirt. Zola’s shirt. Number 25. Chelsea Blue. Chelsea 1, Arsenal 1. It’s the shirt he wore against West Ham. I pictured me in it. I pictured Zola in it, and those were the pictures I kept trying to send into Tracey’s mind.
    At first it didn’t seem to work. No matter how hard I tried I just could not make her understand. So in the end I gave up trying altogether. I’d been kidding myself all along. Of course I couldn’t make contact. Vegetables can’t communicate, and I’m a vegetable, nothing but a lousy vegetable. I was feeling very angry with myself for ever believing that such a thing was even possible.
    She was brushing my hair and arranging my pillows when she suddenly said it.“I know what you want, Robbie. You want your Zola shirt on, don’t you? You want to wear it. I’ve hung it up on the back of the door so it would be the very first thing you see when you wake up. But I think you’re trying to tell me you want to wear it. All right, if that’s what you want, Robbie. It’s your shirt. It’ll be a bit big, mind, but who cares?”
    It took her a while to wriggle me out of my hospital gown and into my Chelsea shirt. She was right. It was big for me, big and loose and lovely. I lay there basking in my bed in Zola’s Number 25 shirt. And then Tracey said: “Hey Robbie, you look cool, really cool. And you look happy too.” And I was. I am. Not only because I’m wearing his shirt, my shirt, but because I told her what I wanted her to hear, andshe heard it. I had passed a mind-mail message from me to her and she had received it! I don’t feel alone any more, and it’s the greatest feeling in the world.
    Dad’s just come in. “Hello Robbie. You all right, then?” Same old Dad. But when he kisses me, I know it isn’t the same old Dad at all. It’s someone else, someone softer who smells a lot like Mum. It is Mum! It’s her! They’ve come. Mum, Dad, they’re both here, together! I wonder if Ellie is there too, but she isn’t. There’s no one leaping on the bed, no wet licky kiss in my ear. I miss that. I like her being here. She makes me laugh inside. But this is cool. I’ve got Mum and Dad together again. Maybe it took me being knocked down and Lucky being killed to bring them together, but between us we did it.
    The funny thing is that no one’s saying a word. Not me, not them. Then Dad’s whispering to Mum, “You first. You tell him.”
    “No, you.” And suddenly I have this horrible thought in my head. Maybe they’ve come here to tell me the worst news, that they’ve decided it’s not worth keeping me alive any longer. They’re going to unplug me from my life support system, and let me drift away and die. I’ve seen it on TV, when someone’s been in a coma for ages and ages, and they just make up their minds that there’s no point in going on any more. They just flick the switch and that’s that.
    “Robbie?” It’s Mum, and she’s sounding so solemn, and serious, and sad. Don’t say it, Mum. Please, I’m fine inside here.I’m going to wake up. Just give me time. Don’t do it, Mum.
    “Robbie, your Dad and me have been talking.”
    Oh God! Please, Mum. Can’t you be like Tracey? Can’t you read my thoughts? I want to live, Mum. I want to stay with you. Please.
    “Well, it’s