THE GLUCOSE

Loxley Hall sits in a small valley in the Cotswolds, honey-coloured stone walls, grey slate roofs furred with moss, and a wide lawn where boarding students do PE every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

My name is Cordelia Ashworth, seventeen years old, in my second year of Sixth Form.

I have Addison’s disease — adrenal insufficiency, a rare condition a doctor in Oxford once told my mother was “not dangerous if properly managed, but one moment of carelessness could cost a life.”

Properly managed, for me, means always having a tube of glucose gel in my blazer pocket.

My body can’t regulate cortisol on its own, so any time I overexert myself — a long run, sprinting up stairs, or simply skipping breakfast — my blood sugar can crash faster than I can register before I fall.

The school nurse, Dr. Hartley, noted it clearly in my medical file kept in the office, and privately told Miss Whitfield, the PE teacher, that I had to be allowed to carry glucose gel to every session, even when other students weren’t permitted to bring food onto the field.

On the personal bag I carry every day hangs a small red medical card printed with “Medical Priority — Adrenal Insufficiency,” along with Dr. Hartley’s emergency number, issued by the John Radcliffe Hospital itself, so that anyone who saw me in an abnormal state would know to act immediately, without stopping to ask questions first.

My closest friend is Amelia Fairfax, my roommate since Year Nine.

She’s the only person besides the staff who knows every detail of my condition, every night I’ve had to go to the medical room because my sugar dropped, every morning she’s woken up early just to make sure I’d eaten breakfast before I could forget.

Sitting at the desk just in front of mine in Geography is Rosalind Blackwood.

She’s beautiful in the way that makes everyone look twice, blonde hair always neatly tied back, her voice perpetually soft, as if she’s forever whispering some gentle secret.

The whole school calls her “the heart of Loxley” — because Rosalind is always the first to stand up for a Year Seven being bullied, always donates the most at the charity fundraiser, always the one reminding everyone about “fairness” in any situation at all.

But I noticed something no one else seemed to: Rosalind’s fairness only ever switched on when someone was watching.