Goldsmiths - University of London

It's a cold winter's afternoon and the wind threatens to bite me with its teeth. I hold my mother's hand as we mount the steps. Gran dips her fingers in a bowl of water that is embedded in the wall. She makes a sign like she's pointing out different parts of herself. My mother doesn't do this, she just pushes open the large wooden door. It creaks on its hinges and then shuts behind us with a sigh.

Inside is dark and spooky. There are rows of wooden benches. The roof is very high above us and there are pictures painted in the windows so that you can't see out.

'So where is he?' I demand loudly. My voice echoes strangely.

'Who?' Gran whispers back. I don't know why she's whispering.

'God,' I say. 'Isn't this his house?' I've never been in a church before. I'd no idea they were so big. Or so cold. I shiver even though I'm wearing my coat. God needs to turn the heating on.

'Yes, yes it is God's house, but he's not here.' My mother is whispering too. She pulls me closer to her. I can tell she doesn't want me to ask any more questions but I can't help myself.

'If this is God's house, why isn't he home?' I lower my voice. It seems whispers are contagious.

Gran is glaring at my mother. 'God is here, you just can't see Him.'

'Can you see him, Gran?' I ask. Sean, the boy who lives across the road from me, has an invisible friend that only he can see.

Gran hisses at my mother, 'Do you teach the child nothing?' and walks off in a huff. She kneels in front of a large cross with a man pinned to it. The man looks very sad like he's been crying.

My mother squeezes my hand so tightly she hurts my fingers. 'Ow,' I shout. I feel like crying myself.

'Just try to keep quiet.' My mother lets go of my hand and rubs her stomach. Her stomach is very big because there's a little brother or a little sister inside. I wonder if the baby knows we're in a church. Is the baby able to see out of my mother's stomach, perhaps through her belly button, or is it just dark in there? I wouldn't like to be inside someone's tummy. I think I'd be scared. My mother says I was inside her once, I just can't remember it.

'I wanted to meet God,' I say. It's not my fault my mother hasn't taught me what she was supposed to.

'God's just a story,' my mother says. 'He's not real.'

'Then why does he have a house?' I ask.

My mother sighs. 'Maybe we'll meet him next time we come.'

I'm disappointed. I think it's rude of God not to be here when we've come all the way across the road from Gran's house to visit. I wish we'd stayed at home.

Gran is still on her knees. She's mumbling to herself. I walk over to her before my mother can stop me. 'What are you doing?'

'I'm praying.'

'What's praying?'

Gran sighs. 'When you pray God hears your wishes and He answers them.'

'How does it work?' I don't understand how God can answer when Gran has been speaking very quietly and isn't on the telephone. 'How can he hear you?'

'God hears everything. He sees everything too. He can read your mind.'

'I'm learning to read, amn't I, Mammy?' My mother has come up behind me and is standing over me and Gran. She's teaching me to read with the Humpty Dumpty club. You have to match the right words with the right picture and if you get it right, you get a Humpty Dumpty sticker. Maybe God is in the Humpty Club too.

'I'm praying to God to save your mother's soul and return her to the true faith,' Gran says.

My mother sucks her teeth with annoyance. 'Don't wear yourself out on my account,' she says.

'Can I pray?' I ask. My mother gives me a look that makes me wish I hadn't asked this.

'Of course you can,' Gran smiles at me. 'All you have to do is wish for God to enter your heart.'

'Do you need a coin? Like for the well in the shopping centre,' I say.

My mother laughs. I love when she laughs but Gran doesn't look happy. Sometimes it's hard to get people to laugh at the same time.

Eventually the little girl's mother got tired of this so she searched high and low to find a priest. She wrapped up the little girl in a big white shawl to keep her warm and then she walked through a dark forest until she came to the priest's house. There were wolves howling all around and the snow fell thick and fast but the little girl wasn't scared. The priest was quite kind for a priest and he took the little girl and her mother into his church. It was a very small church because there aren't too many Catholics in a Swedish forest. He poured water over the little girl's head and even though she was only a small baby and the water was icy cold, the little girl didn't cry.

He christened her Aoife because that's what her mother wanted even though it wasn't a name you could find in the Bible or that he'd ever heard of before. The little girl's mother had to say her daughter's name lots of times until the priest got the hang of it. Before he wrote it into his book of names, he asked the little girl's mother to spell it. The priest looked confused so the little girl's mother spelt it again. When he asked her to spell it for the third time, the little girl's mother took the pen out of his hand and wrote it in the book herself. She had nicer handwriting than the priest anyway. And that is how the little girl got her name and lived happily ever after.

'So you see, you have been to a church before,' my mother informs me.

There is the smell of sawdust mixed with blood. I'm wearing my new Clarks shoes and my winter coat and my mittens. In my left hand, I'm holding a packet of chalk. I keep my hand with the chalk hidden under my coat. This is because I have just stolen the chalk from the supermarket next door. My mother is ordering a pound of round steak mince for our dinner. My hands are sweating inside my mittens but I can't take them off because then my mother will see the packet of chalk.

I turn away from my mother to look through the glass pane of the counter. There is a pig's head on a plate. His mouth is slightly open and he is staring straight at me. I'm so startled by this, I lose my grip on the packet of chalk. It clatters loudly to the floor. My mother, the butcher, and all the other customers turn to stare. The pig's head is staring too. He knows I'm in big trouble.

My mother leans down and picks up the packet of chalk. 'Where did you get this?' she asks.

'I found it,' I reply. My tongue is dry in my mouth.

The pig's head knows I'm lying and so does my mother. 'We didn't pay for these,' she says.

'I wanted them for my drawing,' I explain.

'Why didn't you just ask me to buy them for you?' My mother sounds disappointed.

I say nothing. I don't know why I didn't ask; I don't know why I stole the chalk. I wish I hadn't. The smell of pig's blood is making me feel sick. I wish everyone would stop looking. I wish I could just disappear. Now I know how the pig's head feels being put on display like that in all his ugliness.

I get the wooden stool and drag it over to the counter. It's heavy. I balance one hand on the counter and the other on the stool. With a kind of jump, I manage to haul myself up so one knee is on the counter and one knee is on the stool. The stool rocks a little and there is a strange dropping feeling in my stomach.

I reach up and manage to grasp the wooden knob on the press door. I grab hold of it so I can stand up on the stool. Once standing, I very carefully pull open the door. Now I can see the tin of biscuits. It's a bright orange and it's on the second shelf, up in the far corner. I reach up on tippy toes but the end of my fingers can only just about touch the metal bottom of the tin. I manage to push the tin a little bit closer to me. Just a little bit more and I can grab hold of it properly.

But suddenly the tin slips from my grasp and comes tumbling down. It opens on the way and biscuits rain out everywhere. Some are chocolate, some are wrapped, but most are plain and broken. Biscuit dust and sugar cover me.

Because I'm no good at stealing biscuits, my friends don't want to play with me. Apart from Sean who always wants to play. He has a red sports car that he pedals over to my house so that he can give me a ride. It's quite squished with the two of us in his car and he never lets me have a go at pedalling. Still I like the way he can make different engine noises, especially the one for when he pedals very fast.

Sean's father was my mother's first boyfriend. If she'd stayed with him, Sean would be my brother. It's a pity cos even though Sean doesn't let me drive, he's much more fun to play with than my real brother.

My real brother is called Stephen. He's so small he lives in a cot. When I first met him, he lived in a basket. It was really disappointing because my father told me I was getting a brother or sister to play with. I thought that meant he would be my size. You can't play with my brother. All he does is cry and eat. He's very boring. The only good thing about him is that he doesn't like his desserts. He gets this special baby banana dessert that comes in a jar. My mother tries to make him eat it but he just screams. When she gets tired of him screaming, she gives up and lets me eat the dessert. Obviously I'm not a baby so I can eat it by myself with a small spoon. It tastes delicious. I'm only allowed to eat it though if I ask first. My mother says I have to be patient, which is annoying.

My mother also says when I grow up I should marry a man who has a real sports car. But I don't want to wait till I grow up, I want my own car with my own pedals now. My mother says I can't have one but Santa might bring me a bike if I behave myself. If I'm bold I'll get nothing but a sack of soot. That's why I have to be nice to my brother even if I don't feel like it.

Stephen has the evil black army germs inside him but because he's just a baby he can't fight them the way I did. So now they've got really strong and turned into something called pneumonia. I practice saying pneumonia to myself. It's a hard word to remember. It doesn't seem to want to stay still but jumps around like the germs do and makes my head hurt. I think about how my germs jumped from me into my brother. Maybe it happened when I was eating his food. They ran out along the spoon and into his mouth.

My brother turns bright red when he coughs but it doesn't stop him screaming. Before he used to eat everything apart from his banana desserts but now he won't eat anything. He just drinks milk that comes from my mother. The only time he's not coughing and screaming is when he's drinking.

At first I'm happy because I get to eat all his food for him. Then the doctor tells my mother that it's lucky he's being breast-fed or he might not get better. My father says of course my brother's getting better but he doesn't sound so sure. I ask Gran what happens if people don't eat and she says that if you don't eat for a long time, you die. Dying is when God takes you back up to heaven. Heaven is the most beautiful place where everyone is happy forever.

I ask my mother if Stephen is going to die. She starts to cry. I don't ever remember her crying before. I guess being taken back up to heaven is not such a good thing. I look at my brother in his cot. He's sleeping but then his face creases up like something's hurting him. He begins to make a funny noise like our next-door neighbour's cat when she's been left outside. Then he starts to cough and cough and my mother comes running and picks him up. I know if he dies, it's going to be my fault. I try praying like Gran told me to. Dear God just because I don't like my baby brother doesn't mean I want you to take him back up to heaven. I would like you to leave him alone. Please.

My brother keeps coughing, though, he coughs all night. I go into my parents' room and ask if he's going to be okay. My mother tells me to go back to bed. I say I can't sleep with the noise of the coughing. My father shouts that I'm to get back to bed whether I can sleep or not.

I tell Gran I don't like God very much. She says I must never say such an awful thing ever again because if I do I will be smote down. Smote is when a bolt of lightning comes out of the sky and turns you into ashes. Gran makes me apologise for what I said because I've hurt God's feelings and made him angry. I know God will steal my brother if he's angry so I tell him I'm very sorry. Then I promise that if he makes my brother better, I will never be bold ever again.

I go and sit by Stephen's cot. For once, his eyes are open but he's not crying, he's just breathing. He makes a funny snuffling noise when he breathes. His eyes are bright blue, even bluer than mine. I put my hand on his forehead like I've seen my mother do. It's very hot. This is because he has a fever. My father says the fever is because the white army and the black germs are fighting like crazy. I imagine the big battle that is happening inside my brother. I wish I could kill the black germs and make them go away.

I put my hand inside the cot and my brother catches hold of my finger. He holds on very tight, he's stronger than I thought.