MAUREEN

I d never met an American before, I don't think. I wasn't at all sure he was one, either, until the others said something. You don't expect Americans to be delivering pizzas, do you? Well, I don't, but perhaps I'm just out of touch. I don't order pizzas very often, but every time I have, they've been delivered by someone who doesn't  speak English. Americans don't deliver things, do they? Or serve you in shops, or take your money on the bus. I suppose they must do in America, but they don't here. Indians and West Indians, lots of Australians in the hospital where they see Matty, but no Americans. So we probably thought he was a bit mad at first. That was the only explanation for him. He looked a bit mad, with that hair. And he thought that we'd ordered pizzas while we were standing on the roof of Toppers' House.

'How would we have ordered pizzas?' Jess asked him. We were still sitting on her, so her voice sounded funny.

'On a cell,' he said.

'What's a cell?' Jess asked.

'OK, a mobile, whatever.'

Fair play to him, we could have done that.

'Are you American?' Jess asked him.

'Yeah.'

'What are you doing delivering pizzas?'

'What are you guys doing sitting on her head?'

'They're sitting on my head because this isn't a free country,' Jess said. 'You can't do what you want to.'

'What did you wanna do?'

She didn't say anything.

'She was going to jump,' Martin said.

'So were you!'

He ignored her.

'You were all gonna jump?' the pizza man asked us.

We didn't say anything.

'The f—?' he said.

'The f—?' said Jess. 'The f— what?'

'It's an American abbreviation,' said Martin. ' "The f—?" means "What the f—?" In America, they're so busy that they don't have time to say the "what".'

'Would you watch your language, please?' I said to them. 'We weren't all brought up in a pigsty.'

The pizza man just sat down on the roof and shook his head. I thou............