(i raised the frequency and presence penalty a bit: 0.47 and 0.29 (max is 2.0) on, may have helped) The whole fridge fell on the ground. ----------------------- The whole fridge fell on the ground. It landed on the tiles with a big bang. I was shaking so much, I couldn't think of anything else. The door was bent, and the fridge was lying on its side. I couldn't see inside. My vision was blurry and my head felt like it was filled with cotton wool. I tried to move, but I couldn't. I was just lying there, with my eyes closed, trying to get control of myself again. I was vaguely aware that the door was being pulled open, and someone was shouting my name. "Paddy? Are you OK?" I felt myself being shaken. I opened my eyes. It was my dad. He was looking down at me, his face like a big, worried frown. "What happened?" he shouted. "Are you all right?" I tried to speak, but I couldn't. My mouth was too dry. "Paddy?" my dad shouted again. I tried to sit up, but I couldn't do that either. I was shaking too much, and my legs didn't seem to want to work. I looked down at them. My legs were sticking out from under the fridge. I realised that I was lying on the cold tiles. I tried to say something, but I couldn't. I felt my dad's hands on my shoulders. He was trying to pull me out, but I was stuck. We both tried to pull me out. I bit my tongue, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. I managed to pull my legs out from under the fridge, and I tried to stand up. "We'll have to tip it over," my dad said. I tried to push the fridge, but I couldn't. It was too heavy. "Come on," my dad shouted. "We've got to get it out of the way. I can't see what happened." He was shaking the fridge. I could see him trying to tip it over. I tried to help, but I couldn't. I was feeling really dizzy. I pushed against the fridge, but it wouldn't move. "We're not going to get it out," my dad shouted. "I've got to see what happened. Where's the light switch?" He found the switch and turned it on. The fridge was facing the wall, so I could see the back of it, and the floor underneath. The light came on, and I could see that there were two cans of juice and a bottle of Coke lying on the floor next to the fridge. There was a big pool of something dark on the floor. There was a big pool of something dark on the floor. "Oh my God," my dad said. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to my feet. "Come on. Let's get out of here." I tried to speak, but I couldn't. I could only moan and groan. My dad steered me towards the door. I could feel him shaking. He was shaking so much, he could hardly walk. "What happened?" I managed to gasp. "It's OK," my dad said. "I'll tell you when we get out of here." He half carried, half dragged me out of the kitchen and into the hall. He stopped and let go of me. He looked back at the kitchen door, then he turned to me and grabbed me by the shoulders. "Paddy," he said, "where's your mum?" I stared at my dad. His face was white, and he had tears rolling down his cheeks. "I don't know," I said. "Where is she?" My dad suddenly let go of me and ran back into the kitchen. "Mum!" he shouted. "Mum!" I stood in the hall, waiting for him to come out again. "Mum!" he shouted again. He opened the door and shouted into the kitchen. I could see the fridge. It was still lying on its side, and the door was still open. I could see the edge of a brown shoe sticking out from under the fridge. That's when I realised that there was a whole leg sticking out from under the fridge. I stared at it, and I suddenly felt sick. I ran into the kitchen and pulled at my dad's arm. "She's in there," I shouted. "Mum's in there!" My dad turned round. He looked at me. His eyes were wide and his mouth was open. "I can't see her," he said. "I can't see her." "It's Mum," I shouted. "I know it's Mum. She's under the fridge." "Oh my God," my dad shouted. "Oh my God." He bent down and started to crawl under the fridge. I was shaking so much, I couldn't make myself move. I just stood there and stared at the fridge. My mum's leg was sticking out from underneath it, with a brown shoe on her foot. A dark pool of something was all around her leg. It looked like it was coming from a big cut in her knee. There were pieces of glass lying on the floor next to her leg, and they were covered in blood too. "Mum," I shouted. "Mum." I started to crawl under the fridge after my dad. He stopped half way, and pushed back against me to stop me going any closer to my mum's leg. He looked like he was going to be sick again, but he managed not to be sick this time. He grabbed hold of me, and pulled me back out from under the fridge. I tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn't let me go. He sat down on his knees and started to cry. He held onto my arm and cried into my shoulder. I saw a brown shoe sticking out from under the fridge. It was covered in blood. "It's not fair," he kept saying. "It's not fair." I couldn't make myself think straight. I couldn't make sense of what had happened. I just stood there, staring at my dad crying, and watching the blood coming out of my mum's leg, with her foot sticking out of the hole in her jeans, like it was dead or something. Chapter 8 I didn't know where I was going until I got there. My legs just carried me off the bus and up to my house without me thinking about it at all really. I had to walk past the back of our house. I saw the light on in the kitchen. The door was open. I walked up to it, and I could see my dad in there, sitting at the table. He had his head in his hands, and he was stabbing at a piece of paper with a pen. He didn't look up when I came into the room. He kept staring down at the paper and stabbing away at it with his pen. He didn't say anything either, not even when I sat down opposite him at the table and stared at him for ages without saying anything until he looked up and saw me looking at him. "What's wrong?" he said. "What happened?" "She's dead," I said quietly. "Mum's dead." My dad stared at me for ages before he spoke again. His eyes were wide open, and he looked really scared. "What happened?" he said. "What did you say?" I couldn't speak. I couldn't make myself tell him what had happened. I just sat there staring at my dad, waiting for him to get it right in his mind. He stood up and walked over to the phone on the wall by the door. He dialled a number and stared at me while he waited for someone to answer the phone at the other end of the line. He kept looking at me while he was waiting, then he spoke into the phone. "Ambulance," he shouted into it. "I need an ambulance." He put down the phone and grabbed my arm across the table again, as if I was about to go somewhere without him. Then we both sat down again, and stared at each other for ages until we heard a siren outside our house. It sounded like it was coming from round the corner, so we went out into the hall to look out of the window. I could see a big red light flashing and two of the doors in the back of an ambulance were open. It was parked at the end of our street, and two people were running up towards our house with a trolley between them. My dad opened the front door, and they came inside with us. They walked over to me, and one of them put his hand on my shoulder. "Are you all right?" he said quietly. "Can you tell us what happened?" I didn't say anything to them, but I let him lead me into my bedroom. They shone a torch around the room, and I saw that my bed was still made. It looked like I hadn't used it all night. "What happened?" the ambulance man said again. "Where's your mum? Where is she?" I kept staring at him until he took his hand off my shoulder, then I sat down on the edge of my bed and pointed at the wardrobe. He walked over to it and opened the door. He shone his torch inside, but he must have seen what I'd seen earlier because he didn't say anything about it or call anybody else in from outside in case they saw too. He just shut the door again and came back over to me. "Come on," he said to me. "Let's go to the hospital and see your mum." I stood up and followed him out of my room. My dad was waiting for me in the hall, and he took hold of my arm again when I walked past him. "Come on," he said. He led me down the stairs like a little kid, with the ambulance man following us behind. He held onto my arm all the way across to the kitchen, and then let go of it when we got there. I sat down at the table while they went over to the phone together and dialled another number. "It won't be long," my dad said to me when they'd finished on the phone. "The ambulance is on its way." I sat there staring at my dad and the ambulance man for ages. They were both leaning against the counter by the sink, and they didn't say a word to each other. The ambulance man kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye, then he'd look away again. It wasn't long before I heard a siren again outside our house. It sounded like it was coming down our street this time, so I got up off my chair and went over to the door to see which way it was going to come round the corner. I was standing there in the doorway when it came around the corner, and I saw that it had two blue lights flashing on top of it. "The police," I said. My dad and the ambulance man looked at each other, then they started to walk towards the front door. I followed them out into the hall, and we stood together with my dad's arm around my shoulder while we waited for someone to come inside to talk to us. There was a big guy standing on the pavement outside our house talking into a radio when he saw us all standing in the doorway. He walked up to us and stopped right in front of me. "What happened?" he said. "Where's your mum? Where is she?" I didn't say anything to him either, but I let him lead me back out through the front door and into the street. He shone a torch into my face, and I saw that he had two big blue lights on the top of his helmet. "Come on," he said to me. "Let's go down to the station." He kept looking at me while we walked together down the road. Then he took hold of my arm and led me towards the police car that was parked outside our house. I let him get me into the back, and then I sat there staring out of the window while he got into the driver's seat and started up the engine. He drove down our street with his blue lights flashing, then he turned right into another street, and right again at a T-junction before we came out onto the main road. The police car was going really fast down the main road, with its blue lights flashing and its siren sounding like it wasn't going to stop for anything. I suppose he knew where he was going without looking at a map or anything, because we didn't stop anywhere on the way to wherever it was we were going. The police man kept looking in his mirror at me every now and then. He was watching me out of the corner of his eye, but I didn't speak to him. I just sat there staring out of the window and trying not to think about what had happened. We drove for ages before we stopped at a big building with two red radio masts on top of it. A policeman opened the back door of the car for me, and I got out. The policeman led me across to the building, and we went inside. Then he took me down a corridor and into a room with some chairs in it. He walked over to one of them and sat down. "Sit down," he said to me. "Make yourself comfortable." I didn't say anything to him but I sat down where he'd told me to sit. He was sitting across the table from me, with his hands on top of it, so that I couldn't see what he was doing underneath them. Then a man came in through a door at the side of the room and sat down next to him. He was wearing a blue uniform, and he had a big black notebook with lots of writing in it. He looked at me for ages, then he opened up his book and started to write things down in it. "What's your name?" the policeman said to me. "Can you tell us that? What's your name?" I didn't say anything to him, so he asked me again. "Your address too," he said. "Can you tell us where you live?" I kept staring at him and I went on not saying anything. I think I was trying to work out what was going on, but I couldn't think straight or make sense of anything that had happened to me. All I could think about was what it looked like when Mum's foot came sticking out of her jeans, with the hole in them and all the blood coming out of it. The policeman started writing something in his notebook again. He wrote down "No Reply" at the top of a page, then he wrote some more stuff under that and shut his book. Then he stood up slowly and walked around to my side of the table. He sat down beside me and put his hand on my arm. I didn't say anything to him, but I let him hold onto my arm for a while. "What's your name?" he said to me. "Can you tell us that? What's your name?" I didn't say anything to him, but I nodded my head gently. I think I was nodding it because I wanted someone to tell me what they thought had happened. I couldn't believe that Mum wasn't going to wake up from whatever it was she'd done to herself, and tell me that everything was all right and that she didn't want to hurt me anymore. "What happened?" the policeman said. "Where's your mum? Where is she? I kept staring at him and I didn't say anything. I don't know why, but it was like I was pretending that he wasn't there or something. Like I was pretending that he wasn't there any more and that everything was still all right and that Mum would be home soon and ask me what I'd done with her slippers and tell me to eat my supper before