Mum still looked worried. ‘Let’s get you home and clean that up.’ She was right: it’s not just that you bleed easily if you’ve got leukaemia; since your immune system is all stuffed up, you can catch infections.

The bleeding was still going as we crossed the bridge. My elder brother, Cam, was helping Uncle John spray thistles in the home paddock. They stared when they saw us hurrying along, Mum’s handkerchief pressed to my cheek. Cam dropped the spray-pack he held, and rushed towards us. ‘You OK? What happened?’

‘I’m fine,’ I went again. ‘Man, those magpies are killers!’ He kept staring, and I realised how worried he was. Like I said, boys are pretty useless, and my brothers are especially useless. Sholto’s only interested in computers and stuff; he should have shown Mum how to use the Web, but he couldn’t be bothered. Cam’s keen just on farming — and girls. But sometimes I understand that they do want to help me, and today was one of those times.

Uncle John was talking to Mum. ‘Kate’s got the car, Ailsa; it’s the girls’ jazz ballet lessons. But I can call Marama.’

My mother carefully lifted her handkerchief away from my cheek. ‘It’s stopping. I’ll put antiseptic cream on it. We should be right.’ She picked a couple of twigs from my hair; I wondered if I should mention that her own looked a bit like the magpies’ nest. ‘I was silly, love. And I was really silly to be wearing this.’ She fingered the silver bracelet. ‘They went for my hair clip when I was a kid. They must have been tossing up whether to grab or stab just now!’

So yeah, that was an adventure, all right. And I did tell the kids at school.

Just as well I wasn’t wearing the bracelet, though. A few stabs on the hand or wrists from those evil beaks and I could have been in trouble. The hospital has blood transfusions ready for me if I ever cut myself badly, but I haven’t used them yet, and I hope I never will. I heard Cam tell Mum once that if I ever needed blood, he wanted to help. Sholto went ‘Me, too’, even though he was too young to properly understand. I didn’t say anything, but I reckon that was neat.

Mind you, my bros owe me a transfusion. One time a few years ago, when we were arguing over who could choose the TV programmes, I lost my temper and yelled ‘You guys only want to watch stupid wrestling stuff like Royal Rumble. They’ve got even less brains than you two!’ Cam gave me a shove; I thumped against the edge of the living-room door, and the whole top part of my right arm came up in this huge purple swelling: a haematoma, they call it.