Opinion  

Private School sent them home injured, declares Mrs Dramatic, so it's urgent. Apparently Spoiled socked Dreadfully with Macbeth (abridged, hardback) while Dreadfully was reading the part of Duncan (he's very bright, Doctor. Gifted, actually).

Dreadfully, who has a wart on his knee, began to bleed, and Private School decided that both twins should be retired on account of the risk of haemorrhage, hypotension and the violence spreading to involve Banquo. Before ejecting Dreadfully they wrapped six feet of bandage around his knee, so he looks like a casualty from Sebastopol. Spoiled looks grimly triumphant, like Macduff when Macbeth comes out with that terrible line about no man of woman born standing a chance against him (try telling my patients that having a Caesarean doesn't count as childbirth and see where it gets you). It seems, moreover, that a girl is involved. Come to my woman's breast and take my milk for gall, she apparently said, before admitting she fancied Macbeth anyway. Dreadfully is devastated.

Suffice to say I find a blood blister the size of a bacterium on Dreadfully's knee, and a small wart clinging to the wreckage. Jolly good, I say Mary Poppinsishly, the wart will probably drop off now.

Mrs Dramatic isn't sure. What if the blister bursts? Will the whole family be washed to Norfolk on a wave of straw-coloured fluid? Could Dreadfully be scarred for life? Should Spoiled be told? He is in the waiting room, drawing moustaches on Jordan in Hello magazine, but he is already suffering from acne. When Lady Macbeth said 'out damned spot,' he took it personally. This could be the final straw. Finally she wants to know, with rolling eyes, if I think it could be Puberty. At least then she could prepare.

I remain unsure as to how one prepares for puberty, and say so, then explain how to spot that your child is bleeding to death (actual blood). None of this has any impact so I change tack. Everything, I add with flourish, is bound to be puberty. Fair is foul and foul is fair. For life's but a walking shadow that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. I can tell she's impressed. Fifteen love.

Dr Selby is a GP from Suffolk. Email her at GPcolumnists@haymarket.com.