My alarm goes off.

I get up, showered, and wake her up, ready to face the day.

I ensure there is a blue bowl with corn plates ready on the table with a spoon and a jug of milk next to it.

It has to be the blue bowl, not the white one with the blue flowers on or she will not even sit at the table.

I have left the shower running, and laid out her uniform ready for her to put on.

I have to use the brush with a long handle to do her hair.

Not the other one.

Oh, I hope it’s in the drawer. Where I left it,

We wait for the school transport which is due to arrive at 7:30 a.m.

If it is more than one minute late, she starts to pace up and down, flapping her hands anxiously and make sure she has the right change with her dinner and that she’s picked up her PE bag and napsack.

Oh, no. The bus is late.

And always the same questions.

​​Has a bus crashed?

Is Audry the driver dead?

Has Catherine, the escort, got stuck and a seatbelt wouldn’t unfasten.

Over breakfast, I had to reassure her constantly that I’d be home.

When she got dropped off.

The bus arrives, she turns and hugs me for the longest time.

My own anxiety only reveals itself when the bus disappears around the end of the street.

A poem by Yvonne Ugarte:
My name is Amali. I’m an angel or pest,
the Asperger chick in the autism nest.
I’m bold and I’m stubborn. I’ll always ask why
but I don’t know what tears are. When I see mummy cry,
I flap and I fidget.
I giggle and spill.
I laugh loud at nothing. I cannot sit still
At school it’s a struggle but some call me names.
I’m not invited to parties or to join in their games
and the hum of that street light like it’s so loud to me
and the fly at the window; the creek of the tree.
I remember in detail each place I go
and that man with a bulldog, the smell of the snow.
I can’t read expressions.
I dawdle on roads.
I have no sense of danger, no fear and no codes.
I know I am different.
I know this is true
for, I don’t see the world through the same eyes as you
But I’m blessed with Asperger’s.
It’s the essence of me.
A light and shade world where I’m happy to be
as bold as a lion as meek as a lamb.
I am a Amali
Amali I am.