Catherine came home and got the usual kiss on her cheek from her daughter, when she felt an unexpected smell. She immediately recalled Helen's strange talking about smoking.
- WHAT have you been doing? You're smelling of smoke!
Helen had made sure to get rid of the cigarette butt outside and to hide the matchbox on a safe place. She didn't understand that one single cigarette would reveal so much a whole hour later. She had to go through a short but intensive questioning before an admonition.

The next day, Helen decided to be more careful. She got herself a new cigarette the same was as the day before, but decided to try it during the lunch break but she feared that some teacher would notice that she smelled of cigarette smoke. Therefor, she had brought some menthol chewing gum to use afterwards. After having lunch, she left her mates and hid among the cars in the car park before lighting up. She filled her mouth with smoke like she had learnt to do, but for some reason it just happened that she took a breath before blowing it out. She was almost shocked by the feeling in her chest and started to cough intensively and totally uncontrolled. After an almost painful coughing fit she just stared at the cigarette. Had she got a cough like Mrs Ryder? How would she ever been able to hide this from her mother? She crushed the cigarette under her shoe and ran back to the school yard, almost in panic. However, since the cough didn't come back, she calmed down a bit, but still feared it would start again. Just to be sure, she chewed a menthol chewing gum on her way home. The first her mother did when she came home was to check her breathe. No sign of cigarette smoke, but that menthol chewing gum made her suspicious. She didn't say anything, but she decided to be attentive the next days.

The days passed, Helen didn't try to smoke again, and her mother calmed down. A few evenings later, they sat together in the TV room.
- It's your birthday soon dear, is there anything in particular that you want for it?
Helen mentioned a few things that came to her mind.
- and... and I would like you to start smoking, she then added. - I want you to pull smoke down into your chest, to smoke cigarette after cigarette until you get a deep, hot smoker's cough. I want your mouth and nose to smell of cigarette smoke and...
- Now, just stop that crap, Catherine interrupted her. - I have never smoked in my life (which wasn't completely true) and I will never do. And, neither will you!

On the actual birthday, Helen and her mother would be on their own, but some aunts and uncles, cousins and her best friends would come to celebrate her the day after, on the Saturday. Helen got some birthday gifts from her mother and they had a nice evening. When Helen thought it was the end of the evening, Catherine suddenly switched off the TV and told her daughter to sit down in the sofa. She sat down herself and opened her blouse a bit so her chest became visible. Helen gasped and her heart started to beat when her Mom smiled and put a cigarette between her lips. Catherine lit the cigarette and filled her mouth with smoke. She left her mouth open for a few seconds and Helen's heart was beating even harder. Catherine suddenly inhaled the smoke but started to cough. Helen watched her mother cough and cough, it was totally out of her control, and she cupped her hand over her mouth and turned her head to the side. Her coughing fit ended with a sound like if she was whooping. She smiled again and took a new drag. This time, she inhaled a bit more carefully and managed to just cough with a few hacks, with her mouth closed. As smoke was pumped out through her nostrils, Helen was in another heaven. Catherine took a new drag, inhaled, but started to cough again. Helen moved over to her and put her young, warm hand over her mother's mouth and felt her intensive cough in her palm.
- Thanks so much, Mom, she moaned, but Catherine said she hadn't finished.
- I'm going to fill my lungs with all of this cigarette, she said in a low, soft voice. - And, since you seem to like be close to my little coughing, why don't you stay here and enjoy it?
She deliberately took a longer drag than before and inhaled all of it, to provoke a new coughing fit. Helen now put both her hands up over her Mom's mouth and nose, and Catherine first pumped out the smoke in the girl's hands, before her chest was shaken by an uncontrolled, long coughing fit ending in another whooping sound behind Helen's hands. Immediately after it, Helen finished the cigarette in another long drag, closed her eyes before inhaling and giving her daugther a new, bad, lovely birthday coughing fit.

Helen understood her mother would never allow her to start smoking, but she felt sure she would sooner or later start anyway, but perhaps not now. Catherine promised that she would make more shows like that if Helen promised not to start, and Helen got at least one "show" per month. However, her real paradise was still Mrs Ryder's coughing fits since after a few months, Catherine had got more used to smoking and therefore coughed less. She had to increase her smoking from showtime to showtime to make herself cough. When Helen was 14, she realized that her dream suddenly had become true. Those shows had made her Mom more and more used to smoking cigarettes, and she was now a real smoker. Some of Helen's friends had started too, but Helen actually did not, until she met her old mathematics teacher in the street two years later. The woman had a sort of deeper smoker's cough now, and Helen thought she looked so great; her teeth, her fingers, her breathe, everything revealed that she was a heavy smoker. They had a short chat only, but Mrs Ryder got two deep, chesty coughing fits during that time and Helen immediately decided to have a talk with her mother in the evening...