Hello God (6 page)

Today we looked at all the different plants, and Mr Daley, who is good at that kind of stuff, told us their names, which was soooooo boring. I guess you have your own names for them, God. We were also taught how carefully you have to put out campfires, because just a spark can start a bushfire.

Then came the fun stuff. Canoeing and swimming. And dumping each other. Mrs Kettlesmith was wearing her swimmers, and she’s built
like a tank, so when she jumped into the water the water jumped back. She landed on Adam. He wasn’t thrilled about that. Steph got tipped out of our canoe and came up to the surface laughing.

Something strange happened then. Steph made her way to the shallow water, fell, tried to stand, then limped, hunched over, up the bank. Matt ran over to her, took her arm and helped her. She sat near a big tree and rubbed her legs.

When I curled up beside her and put my towel around her shoulders, Steph told me that her legs still hurt.

I pointed to some round purple spots on her legs and asked her if she’d knocked herself.

Steph said that her mum was taking her for blood tests. I hiccupped and Steph said it was nothing really, just a few aches and pains left over from the flu.

‘Mum thinks I got the bruises when I fell at school. I didn’t. I don’t know where they came from. Anyway, they’ll go away soon.’

Flu.
That word hit me like it had been fired from a gun. I tried to tell myself that she could have caught it from anyone, another kid at school, anyone at all. God, we should both feel guilty. You especially. I’m just a kid. You’re the boss. You make the decisions.

It’s our last night. Adam and Matt spent a lot of time with us at camp. I think Matt likes Steph. I caught him looking at her in that way that boys look at girls they like. Matt doesn’t look at me that way. It’s disappointing, God. I thought you might put in a good word for me.

Adam’s fun. He likes to jump out at me from behind trees and dump me in the river. He did a great Tarzan impersonation after lunch, except the ‘vine’ he tried to swing through the trees on was the rope for our washing line and it collapsed.
So he decided to be Cheetah instead and made sad ape sounds. I think he must like me a lot because he walked me to the smelly toilets and told me to be brave.

After dinner, Steph looked at Matt and he looked at her at exactly the same second, and even though it was night-time, and the only light came from the moon and the campfire, you could see them both turn bright red. Steph gave Matt a shy smile and when he smiled back his teeth gleamed, just like in a toothpaste ad. I wonder if the other girls in the class have noticed. I hope they have.

Every girl in the class likes Matt. The weird thing is that he could be full of himself, because he’s got it all—good looks, not
too
clever, good at sport, liked by everyone. But he’s not like that. He’s kind. He helped Steph when she had trouble getting out of the water because her legs hurt. He offers everyone his chips, especially the stray cat that hangs around the camp site. I know you’ll be cheered up to know that Matt took the cat to
Mrs Kettlesmith, and she fell in love with him (the cat, I mean) and is finding a box to take him home in.

I’m only a teeny bit jealous, God, that he prefers Steph,
hic
.

Adam’s more like me. He runs around, finds trees to climb, pulls things apart to see what makes them work. Talks quickly. Interrupts everyone. Wants to be an astronaut. He’s fun.

Danielle and Stacey are okay. They didn’t have a bad attitude all camp, and it’s a relief really. They acted like we’d always been good, though not best, friends. Maybe they’re over the teasing. Maybe that’s what happens to most of us sooner or later. If you were to keep teasing forever, you’d grow up into a nasty kind of adult. You’d start wars and all kinds of things.

Something amazing has happened. Mrs Kettlesmith came to the library while Steph was telling her story about the bear and the pussycat and she’s asked her to enter it into the Best Young Australian Writers’ Competition. First prize is a chance to present the story to a publisher, and wow, that means Stephanie’s story might be in a book in a library some time.

So Steph now spends a fair bit of time in her tree house writing and thinking. She doesn’t mind if I’m there. I feed the lorikeets and watch the tops
of houses, and I take along the binoculars from home and spy on people. Then when Steph has a break from her writing, we talk and play board games and today we spoke about Matt.

I told Steph that Matt really likes her. As in,
really
likes her. I could tell by the way he looks at her and then quickly turns away. It was a sure sign.

Steph was puzzled. Why would the class hunk be interested in
her
?

So I told her she had great eyes, lovely skin and a wonderful smile, plus she’s smart and thoughtful. She does have great eyes and she smiles more nowadays, a big open smile, and her skin is very clear though pale.

Then, God, Steph told me that Adam likes me. That maybe half the boys in the class like me. That I have hair like brown popcorn, that my glasses make my eyes look bigger and that I have the cheekiest grin. While I felt like a peacock, preening myself, Steph said she was getting her blood tests done tomorrow.

I felt a wave of panic, an emptiness in my stomach. I asked her if she was okay and then hiccupped.

Sure she was, she told me, and then went back to writing her story.

I wanted to know what adventures the bears and the pussycat would have next. Would the pussycat find its way home?

Steph just grinned and told me to wait until she’d finished.

Sharmi, the smallest bear cub, saw that the small cat couldn’t catch food easily and needed more attention from his mother than the other cubs. He didn’t care that the little cat was different. They were friends.

There was something wrong. You knew all along, didn’t you? So why let me down? Why let me hope everything was okay?

Steph was taken to hospital last night.

Mum told me when I got home from school today. Her face was serious when she talked to me and she didn’t pat her baby bump once.

We sat at the kitchen table, and Mum poured me some chocolate milk.

She told me in a quiet voice that Stephanie was very sick. I was shocked, yet a part of me knew
that Steph wasn’t getting better. I asked Mum what she meant. I’d seen Steph after school just yesterday. She’d been off school for a few days after her tests, so I visited her at home. She couldn’t climb up the rope ladder to her tree house, so she wrote her story lying back on her bed while I read, and in between we talked and laughed. She seemed okay then. A bit tired, but she’d had a bad dose of the flu, hadn’t she?

Mum could see that I was upset. ‘How bad is she?’ I asked. ‘How bad?’

Mum took my hand. She stroked it. She told me, God, that Steph has cancer. She’s in hospital having treatment, and they’re doing everything they can to make her better.

I wanted to say something important, God, but nothing came out of my mouth except for a long hiccup.

I thumped my hand on the table. Some of the chocolate milk spilt. Mum and I ignored it as it dribbled onto the floor.

‘Why did it happen?’ I asked Mum.

How could it happen? I liked her. She was my best friend. It couldn’t happen. I was to blame, I told Mum, though you, God, played a big part in it. After all, I didn’t intend it to go this far. I thought she’d be sick for a day, that was all.

Mum didn’t understand what I was talking about.

I told her how I’d asked you to make Steph sick so she wouldn’t come to dinner that night a few months ago. That you and I had been very stupid, God.

Mum came over to me and ran her hands through my hair and kissed my cheek and told me I didn’t make Steph sick. She’d been sick for a long time. No one can make people sick by wishing them so. And that you, God, didn’t have anything to do with this. It was my thought. Not especially a nice one, but we all have bad thoughts from time to time. Sometimes these things just happen and no one knows why.

She said I could visit Steph in hospital. A big rope knotted my stomach.

Is Steph really so sick? Does that mean she could die? No, that isn’t possible. Kids don’t die. They live to ripe old ages, get married and have children and one day they babysit their grandchildren. Most of them do, anyway. Steph will do that. Won’t she?

The treatment has to work. So, God, it’s over to you. I want you to make her better. The doctors are going to try, but they need help.

And please, give me a sign, any sign, that you’ve received this message. I need to know you’ve heard me.

The hospital is a stone building with large windows and a bitumen driveway. Beside the driveway are garden beds filled with purple and red flowers. There’s a cheery sign out the front that says
Children’s Hospital.
Each letter is a little lopsided and brightly coloured and beside the sign is a clown’s smiling face.

When you enter the hospital the first thing you notice is that the lady at the desk is wearing an alien mask. ‘I’m Molly. Who do you want to see?’ she asked.

She didn’t look at all embarrassed that she had a green rubbery face. She looked up Stephanie’s name and ward, lowered her head and pointed her green antennae, stuck to the top of her mask, down the corridor. I’d brought Steph copies of Dad’s pictures of Mars.

When I walked into Steph’s ward, my stomach was jumping. I saw balloons tied to the end of every bed. There were four children in Steph’s ward. One boy sat in a wheelchair talking; to his dad, I guess. Another boy sat up in bed reading a book. He had a yellow beanie on his head. A girl lay in bed with something attached to her arm. Her mother was sitting next to her in an armchair, leaning back, her mouth slightly open, fast asleep. I figured she’d been there an awfully long time.

Steph was in the bed near the window. She was propped up with pillows and was scribbling in her notebook.

Out of the long window, I could see cars queued up at traffic lights. People walking down streets. Mums wheeling babies in prams.

I said ‘Hi’ and sat beside Steph on her bed. She looked a bit pale, but she’s always been pale. I wondered if the doctors had made a mistake. She didn’t belong in hospital with the other sick kids.

Then I saw a tube coming from her arm. I began to hiccup.

Steph told me in a small but firm voice to stop hiccupping and reminded me what I had to do. I poured myself some water from the jug next to Steph’s bed and, feeling very sooky, held my breath, counted to ten then swallowed.

I asked Steph when she was coming home. She shrugged and said that she had to have some treatment and then she should be okay. She told me to stop looking scared. That now she would get
to do all her writing in hospital. That school was sending her homework, and she could take her time doing it. And that she gets to eat ice-cream, to see me and talk to other kids.

She made it sound like a birthday party, God.

Her eyes lit up as she told me she was going to read her story to all the kids in the ward, one chapter at a time.

I looked at the kids in the other beds. They were about our age or a bit younger. Steph introduced me as her best friend, Kate. Everyone said hello except for the girl who was lying very still on her bed.

We talked. Stephanie’s mum and dad arrived with books for her. They leaned over Stephanie and kissed her on each cheek. Stephanie’s mum looked tired and a little worried, but she had a big smile for Steph.

Then I told Steph I’d better go and that I’d be back after school tomorrow. As soon as she was better, I said, we’d go to the tree house again.

Steph seemed cheery. ‘We sure will,’ she said. I’d feed the parrots and she’d write. We’d play games and spy on the school and the people at the beach. She’d be home in no time.

You know something, God. You haven’t sent me any signs. I keep looking at the sky, waiting for a double rainbow, but it doesn’t come. If you are busy on some other planet, I hope you get this thought and come back soon.

You’re needed.

As the weather grew colder, the bears slept a lot in their cave. Sharmi snuggled up to the small cat who was cold and shivering.