My Brother's Shadow (9 page)

“Today, we're gonna see what you've learned,” Ben said, first thing. “We're going on a ride, further than we've been before. You'll need to show us all your new skills.”

“We'll be watching all the time,” Mary added.

But they weren't, were they? If they were … well, if they were, it wouldn't have happened. Not that I blame them at all. No, I blame me.

We'd cycled for maybe fifteen minutes and we were already further than we'd been before. Ben and Mary had been cycling in amongst us, encouraging, reminding us of what we'd learned.

“I can see you've remembered to look behind you, Luz.”

“Make sure you indicate, Shadid. Put your hand out, that's it.”

“Yes, excellent, a good straight line, Kaia.”

I was beaming.

Now we'd hit a hill, not the steepest, but certainly the longest of the day. And little by little, bit by bit, they were pulling away.

“Come on, slow-coaches. Keep on pedaling,” Ben called as he glanced back along the line.

I was at the back with the boy; Luzie a little way in front. Under my thin T-shirt and baggy jumper I could feel droplets of sweat tickling their way down my spine. Ahead, my friends were standing on their pedals, pushing down, shooting forwards, little spurts of speed. I was steady, sitting in a low gear.

Gradually the instructors got further and further away. Cars didn't pull round us as a group now; they went round me and the boy, then in, then round Luzie, then in, then round the rest.

As we reached the top of the hill, the road split. To the right, where Mary and Ben continued,
the road flattened with houses on either side. To the left, the long height we'd just climbed slid down, much steeper than the road we'd taken. Off past the steep descent, over the roofs and chimneys of lined-up homes, a sea of green appeared—trees and trees, unidentifiable at that distance. The sea of Giant Park.

I stopped to see the view and catch my breath. The boy stopped, his feet hitting the tarmac heavily. A car swung round us, the driver beeping his horn. We shuffled closer to the curb.

The boy eyed the hill, his eyes flashing. I eyed the boy.

“Shall we?” I asked.

The boy eyed me, glinting gray piercing.

“OK.” I grinned, pushing away from the tarmac, heading left.

We picked up speed quickly, no matter how I squeezed the brakes. The boy giggled and I gasped. It was scary. It was exciting. It was wild.

Parked cars flashed past, green, blue, white, white, red, yellow, blue, green, red, red, red, red.

My helmet slipped backwards. I reached up to reposition it. It felt flimsy compared to the power of our descent.

The bottom of the hill rushed up to meet us: a crossing, some shops, traffic lights.

Traffic lights on green.

Traffic lights turning amber.

I squeezed both brakes. They squealed. I slowed, a little, but not enough.

The boy was no longer laughing; he tried to place his odd-shod feet on the ground, tried to stop. Brakes squealed.

Traffic lights turned red.

We careered forwards.

I see it coming. I think I see it coming. From the right, red, blood red, filled my vision.

I heard it. A third set of brakes squealed. A horn blasted. The boy shouted.

I feel it. Air driven from my lungs. Pain beyond feeling.

Then nothing.

Nothing.

Darkness.

Darkness for a long time. Dark and cold. I heard
voices.

“Broken,” they'd say.

“Lost blood.”

“Too much damage.”

Tears I heard too, muffled, as if from behind a thick curtain.

“Kaia.”

“My Kaia.”

“Please wake up.”

But mostly it was dark, dark and cold.

Then it was light. Not the light of the waking world. A light all around, coming from everywhere, and I wasn't there, but I was there. And
there was Moses and he was there. No cap on this time, eyes alight with a secret smile.

“Well, that was stupid, wasn't it, Tiny?” he said.

I laugh, but I don't laugh because I'm not there, not really.

Now, looking back, I know that I should have been wondering if I was dead. But I wasn't thinking that at all. I wasn't thinking at all.

“You know what I need to say, don't you?” the angel Moses said. And I
did
know.

“Well, goodbye, then,” he says.

“Goodbye,” I say inside.

Then it's dark again.

I woke up today. Warmth first, then light, real light this time.

Have you ever woken up and just felt so hungry that you're not sure you'll even make it to the kitchen before you collapse and are forced to eat your own arm? No, perhaps not that hungry. Anyway, as hungry as you've ever been, I
was hungrier. I felt like someone had removed my stomach. I just had an empty space where it should be.

There was no food around when I awoke and no people either. I was in a white room, white walls, white window frames, white ceiling, white sheets on my bed, firmly tucking me in. The door was blue, though, and the floor speckled blue linoleum. And one wall was covered in a multicolored array of cards, some shop-bought, most hand-drawn, which I assumed must have belonged to the person who slept here before me. I certainly didn't have that many friends.

To my right was a machine, which gently bleeped away; to my left a metal stand with a bag hanging from it. Both of these had tubes or wires connecting them to my body, one up my nose, one into my wrist, several stuck to my chest.

My body, my body, the crash came flooding back to me: red, blood, blood, red. My body didn't feel too bad. My right arm was set in a cast. I could
feel bandages wrapped around my chest. My face felt tight, almost rigid. But apart from that, I felt all right.

I knew it must be a hospital room, I'd seen enough on TV. Even though my hunger was crippling I didn't call for a nurse, not right away, at least. I stared out the window.

I could only see sky, blue, blue sky, washed in a few places with a wisp of white cloud. High above, a lone gray gull squawked and carried on its way, down to the river, then out to sea. I could have kept staring into that blue abyss but my door opened with a sigh and in came a large, singing woman.

“When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun,” she sang as she backed into the room, her backside wiggling.

The bucket she wheeled in told me that she was a cleaner. She began another line, “We've no less days …,” then turned and saw me staring.

“Hello,” I said.

“Oh, sweetheart, hello,” she said, then straightaway, “I'll get the nurse.”

“Wait!” I called out, but I was too slow; she was gone. I stared out the window again but the gull did not return.

“She can't be awake, Janelli.” A voice drifted down the corridor towards me, followed by a tired and pregnant nurse.

“Hello,” I said again.

“Oh my word!” the nurse exclaimed, then quickly, “I'll get the doctor.”

My “Wait!” was too slow again and I watched both the cleaner and the nurse rush from the room.

I had a little longer to stare out into the world this time, and I found myself thinking about the boy. He must, I thought, be just next door, or at least on the same ward. With this thought I decided not to wait for the doctor and slipped out from under the sheets. Then I did what on reflection I can see was another stupid thing: I pulled the wires off my chest and the tubes out of my
nose and arm. Instantly the machine let out a constant beep and the tube that had been in my arm leaked a clear liquid onto the bed. Like I said, I felt all right.

I was wearing my own pajamas, and in a tall, thin cupboard I found my own dressing gown, a hand-me-down from Moses. I sniffed it, as I always did, hoping to catch a long-lost scent of my brother like a message from the past in nasal form.

It's strange finding something you own somewhere you've never seen it before; you know someone's tampered with it, rifled through your belongings. I stuck my hands into the threadbare pockets. Something dry and crisp and rough tickled the fingers of my left hand.

Just then, giving me no time to glance at the mystery object, the doctor appeared.

“Hello,” I said for a third time.

“Hello,” said the doctor, a beautiful woman. I could not say whether she was young or old. She
wasn't black or white either; her skin was a dark hazelnut. “I'm Dr. Sanogo,” she went on. “I am one of your doctors, Kaia.” I had
doctors
, not just
a
doctor. “Can I just check you over quickly?”

I nodded and Dr. Sanogo nodded. Her big frizzy hair tied up above her head nodded too.

“And I think Laura here”—indicating the nurse, who had returned without the cleaner—“better get you plugged back in.”

While the nurse eased me back into bed, Dr. Sanogo did her checks. She held my wrist and felt my pulse. She took my temperature. She asked me a few questions, like my name, my mum's name, my date of birth. I think I got them all right.

When she was done, she turned to the nurse, who was long finished and had been hovering nervously by the door. “Laura,” the doctor said, “have you called Kaia's mum?”

“I thought I'd better wait,” she replied.

“Well, that's the first thing to do now.” The
nurse left. “Second,” the doctor went on, “I'd better get you something to eat. You must be starving.”

She turned to leave, but I was quicker this time. “Wait,” I said, and my doctor turned back towards me. “Please, Doctor, where is the boy?”

“Boy?” the doctor replied.

“The boy. My friend.”

She stared at me blankly and I started to panic, my breath coming in short spurts and the machines beeping, getting faster and faster.

“The boy,” I tried again. “He would have arrived with me. He was in the crash too.”

The doctor stared some more; then, when she began to speak she did so slowly, like I was madder than I knew I was. “You arrived on your own, Kaia. There was no one else in the crash. Do you mean the driver? He wasn't hurt.”

My eyes were filled with tears now. “Not the driver,” I said. “The boy, the boy.”

The doctor took a step back towards me, placing her hand on my shoulder. “I'm going to see
about that food. Then I think we'd better do a few more checks, sweetheart.”

I didn't reply but watched the doctor disappear through the door.

I sat stunned for some time, possibilities racing through my head. Then I remembered the something rough lodged in my pocket. It rasped against my dressing gown as I pulled it out and brought it up to my face.

A long, green-brown horse chestnut leaf. I saw him then, my boy, a smiling face, deep gray eyes, hair as black as coal. The world spun around him.

Summer had almost arrived when he left. I had been asleep, “in a coma,” the doctor said, for four weeks. And in that time a warm breeze had crept in to replace the spring rain and remove any doubt that the frost was over. The boy had left. I asked after him one last time. I asked my mum, but she stared at me as blankly as the doctors.

“Oh, my Kaia” were her first words when she
walked in yesterday, the day I woke up. “I'm so sorry I wasn't here.”

I looked her up and down. She was wearing a white shirt and a green vest over the top. Pinned to the vest was a name badge, her name badge. It looked distinctly like a uniform.

“You've started your job, Mum,” I said.

We grinned at each other for a long time. Then hugged for a long time. I cried and laughed and we hugged some more, me and my mum.

“I'm sorry, Kaia,” my mum whispered again and again into the top of my hair, and I knew that she meant it. I knew she meant it for everything. I was sorry too.

When we finally let go of each other, Mum took hold of my hands and kissed my forehead.

“Have you seen all your cards, Kaia?” she said.

I looked back at the wall, covered in cards. “
My
cards?” I said.

“I didn't know you were such a popular girl, sweetheart.”

I
didn't know I was such a popular girl.

“Some of your friends have been in so many times, bringing you all sorts of things. Luzie and Angelica and a boy.” At this my mum winked at me. “Shadid.”

I found myself blushing.

My mum leaned across me, behind the metal stand (an IV drip, I now know), to a bedside cabinet. She opened the top drawer. It was stuffed with books, bags of sweets, pencils and paper, and on top, Luzie's magnet game.

“Some teachers came too—Mr. Wills came on the first day; Harry came, he brought you these paints.” Mum held up a tin of watercolor paints, a pad and paintbrush. “Jo's been a few times, been telling you about some sunflowers she's planted for you, getting big, she says.”

Again my eyes filled with tears and I thought of the boy, my boy, who had made all this possible.