"Do you suppose that we've died without realising and we're in hell?"
Polly asked Fiona the question in tones of glum seriousness, as they examined their A-level exam timetable posted on the notice board in the hallway outside the gym. "Modern history in the morning and English Lit 2 in the afternoon of the same day!" Polly wailed. "And on Friday the thirteenth, too."
"You sound like your Granny," Fiona replied. "Look - my week doesn't look any too promising either, with both those chemistry papers to kick it off. I don't need any superstition to tell me how fun a day that'll be."
"Well, I suppose we'd better get started," sighed Polly, and they turned their backs on the sunshine beckoning from outside and went to the library. They easily found a large unoccupied table, because all forms except the upper sixth were still in class, and they spread their books over it.
Polly turned to the practice essay questions her English literature teacher had set, starting with the first: "Discuss the poetic treatment of children and childhood by Philip Larkin." Polly remembered a line from a poem not really about childhood at all, and reached for her book of set poems to find it. "I, whose childhood is a forgotten boredom". She didn't much like Larkin at that stage of her life, but the phrase arrested her, somehow. Her own childhood, of which at nearly eighteen she supposed she was now draining the dregs, had been no more boring than that of most people, she imagined, but she suddenly felt as though it had been extremely boring, and that the boringness was linked in some way to something that she'd forgotten. It gave her a niggling, uncomfortable feeling, like when you are about to sneeze.
To distract herself from it, she opened her mouth the ask Fiona what she thought of the Larkin poem. "By the strange gods of the heroes, Polly," Fiona expostulated before Polly had said three words, "if you must talk, let's talk about the reproduction of plants. You can test me, if you like."
"All right." Polly took Fiona's notes and ran her eyes down them to make up some questions to ask her. She smiled as she did so, adding "That one's my favourite of all your expressions of wrath."
"What, that one about the gods of the heroes?" Fiona sounded surprised. "I got it from you."
"Did you?" Polly was surprised, too. "I know I say it too, but I thought I'd learned it from you."
"Nope, it was definitely yours first," said Fiona, firmly. "Come on, what about these questions?"
Polly obligingly interrogated Fiona as to the minutiae of plant reproduction, and then turned back to her own work. But she wondered about that expression, and looked out of the window. It wasn't something that Granny would have said, still less either of her parents. She supposed that she must have read it in a book. The thought of that expression, combined with the thought of books, gave her a jolt. Floating up from a forgotten corner of her mind swam a half-image, something to do with a book turned over on its face, something to do with music, something to do with safety after a storm, and something to do with love.
Fiona coughed pointedly, and Polly looked back to the blank paper on which she should be writing her practice essay. What did she know about love, that kind of love, anyway? Well, of course, she immediately corrected herself, she had a handsome, clever, rich and adoring boyfriend, so she supposed she knew about as much about it as anyone. All the same...
It was no good. The thought of Seb had quite chased the half-image away. Polly set herself to work at her essay, and in less than a minute had forgotten whatever it was she had been trying to remember. It was if the moment had never been.