Page 126 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

9st alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0, potatoes 12.

Went to the chemist to discreetly buy a pregnancy test, I was just shoving the
packet at the girl on the till, with my head down, wishing I'd thought to put my
ring on my wedding finger, when the chemist yelled, 'You want a pregnancy
test?'

'Shh,' I hissed, looking over my shoulder.

'How late's your period?' he bellowed. 'You'd be better with the blue one. It

tells you if you're pregnant on the first day after your period is due.'

I grabbed the proffered blue one, handed over the eight pounds sodding
ninety-five and scuttled out.

For the first two hours this morning I kept staring at my handbag as if it was
an unexploded bomb. At 11.30 I could stand it no longer, grabbed the handbag,
got in the lift and went to the loo two floors down to avoid the risk of anyone I

knew hearing suspicious rustling. For some reason, the whole business suddenly
made me furious with Daniel. It was his responsibility too and he wasn't having
to spend £8.95 and hide in the toilets trying to wee on a stick. I unwrapped the
packet in a fury, shoving the box and everything in the bin and getting on with it,
then put the stick upside down on the back of the loo without looking at it. Three
minutes, There was no way I was going to watch my fate being sealed by a
slowly-forming thin blue line. Somehow I got through those hundred and eighty

seconds - my last hundred and eighty seconds of freedom - picked up the stick
and nearly screamed. There in the little window was a thin blue line, bold as
brass. Aargh! Aargh!

After 45 minutes of staring blankly at the computer trying to pretend Perpetua
was a Mexican cheeseplant whenever she asked me what was the matter, I bolted
and went out to a phone booth to ring Sharon. Bloody Perpetua. If Perpetua had