While I was lying there trying to wake up a bit more I started thinking about if that’s what Jax felt like the last time he was awake. Before he wasn’t. Like he was in a speeding rocket heading for space and looking back and seeing the Earth spiraling below him. I really hope so, because I reckon he would have loved that.

Even though I still looked pretty bad I actually felt pretty good when I woke up after our tea party, which is what Leonard called it. Of course I knew it wasn’t really a miracle cure or anything, because I reckon my psoriasis is always going to come back. What I mean is, it’s not like I’ve ever said this to Mum or anything, but I know pretty much for sure that it’s an actual proper supposed-to-be-there part of me. Like an arm or a leg or an ear. And sometimes I don’t even mind.

Anyhow, all I knew for certain was that my outsides hadn’t felt that good since before Jax went. Loads of bits of my skin had fallen off while I was asleep and they were all lying around me on the bed, and even though that was kind of gross it was also a bit cool. But the absolute best thing was that nothing seemed to hurt like it did before. Not even the scabs that were still attached to me. And it was weird, but it seemed like maybe my insides felt a little bit better, too.

I knew that Chinese tea stuff was going to work as soon as Leonard put it on my skin, because it was like my whole entire body stopped itching straightaway and everything just kind of relaxed. I reckon it was probably the best and most amazing thing I’ve ever used, and it didn’t even smell bad. Because by the way that’s usually how it works, that the worse the smell is, the better the ointment does its job.

It was also the first time I’ve ever put something on my skin and then got to drink the rest, and if you smelled some of the other stuff I’ve used, that would probably make you feel quite happy for me. Jax once said that the one I got Mum to put on me before Leonard’s tea smelled like the wee of a thousand Egyptian camels. Which he would know, because he went to Egypt on the school holidays a few years ago with his mum and stepdad and actually got to ride one. Which is the coolest thing ever, but even that cream doesn’t really work that well, to be honest.

After she woke up, once Mum got over how happy she was that the tea had actually done something, she told me about meeting Adam Linley, who could have been my dad. She said she’d found out loads of things about him and that none of them were too good, except then she said he wanted to meet me. Just in case, he reckoned. Mum said it was up to me because she’d already seen quite enough of Adam Linley, thank you very much. But she smiled when she said it so I knew she really did mean that it was up to me and that maybe he wasn’t that bad.