Ways to Live Forever (2 page)

I like facts. I like
knowing
things. Grown-ups never understand this. You ask them something like, “Can I have a new bike for Christmas?” and they give you a waffly answer, like, “Why don’t you see how you feel nearer Christmas?” Or you might ask your doctor, “How long do I have to stay in hospital?” and he’ll say something like, “Let’s wait and see how you get on”, which is doctor-speak for “I don’t know”.

I don’t have to go into hospital ever again. Dr Bill promised. I have to go to clinic – that’s it. If I get really sick, I can stay at home.

That’s because I’m going to die.

Probably.

Going to die is the biggest waffly thing of all. No one will tell you anything. You ask them questions and they cough and change the subject.

If I grow up, I’m going to be a scientist. Not the sort that mixes chemicals together, but the sort that investigates UFOs and ghosts and things like that. I’m going to go to haunted houses and do tests and prove whether or not poltergeists and aliens and Loch Ness monsters really exist. I’m very good at finding things out. I’m going to find out the answers to all the questions that nobody answers.

All of them.

My sister Ella went back to school today too. She and Mum had a huge fight this morning about it. She doesn’t get why I stay at home all day and she doesn’t.

“Sam doesn’t go to school!” she said to Mum. “You don’t go to work!”

“I have to look after Sam,” Mum said.

“You do not,” said Ella. “You just do ironing and plant things and talk to Granny.”

Which is true.

My mum named me Sam, after Samson in the Bible, and my dad named Ella after his aunt. If they’d talked to each other a bit more while they were doing it, they might not have ended up with kids called Sam ‘n’ Ella, but it’s too late to change that now. I think Dad thinks it’s funny, anyway.

Ella’s eight. She has dark hair and bright, greeny-brown eyes, like those healing stones you buy in hippie shops. No one else in my family cares what they look like. Granny goes round in trousers with patches and padded waistcoats with pockets for pencils and seed packets and train tickets. And Mum’s clothes are all about a hundred years old. But Ella always fusses about what she wears. She has a big box of nail varnish and all of Mum’s make-up because Mum hardly ever wears it.

“Why don’t you wear it?” says Ella. “
Why
?”

Ella always asks questions. Granny said she was born asking a question and it hasn’t been answered yet.

“Was I?” said Ella, when she heard this. “What was it?”

We all laughed.

“Where am I?” said Mum.

“Who’re these funny-looking people?” said Granny.

“What am I
doing
here?” said Dad. “I was supposed to be a princess!”

“Who’d make
you
a princess?” I said.

It’s afternoon now and I’m still writing. I bet I could write a book. Easy. I was going to do some more after Felix went, but Maureen from Mum’s church came round, so I had to be visited. She only left when Mum went to fetch Ella from school. I was thinking up “Questions Nobody Answers” at the dining table when they came back. Ella ran straight over to me.

“What are you doing?”

“School stuff,” I said. I curled my arm around the page. Ella came right up behind me and peered over my shoulder.

“
Ella
. I’m busy,” I said. It was the wrong thing to say. She tugged on my arm.

“Let me
see
!”

“
Mum!
” I wailed. “Ella won’t let me work!”

“Sam won’t let me
see
!”

Mum was on the phone. She came through with it pressed against her chest.

“Kids! Behave! Ella, leave your brother alone.”

I pulled a face at Ella. She flung herself on to the sofa.

“It’s not fair! You always let him win!”

Ella and Mum
always
fight. And Ella always says it’s not fair. I bet that’s the only reason I win, because I don’t throw baby tantrums like she does.

Mum put down the phone and went over to Ella. Ella shouted, “Go away!” and ran upstairs. Mum gave this big sigh. She came over to me. I closed my pad so she wouldn’t see the writing.

“Secret, is it?” she said.

“It’s for school.” I held my pen over the closed pad. Mum sighed. She kissed the top of my head and went upstairs after Ella.

I waited until I was quite sure she was gone, then I picked up my pen and started writing again.

Today we had school again. I told Mrs Willis I was going to write a book.

“It’s about me,” I said. “But also it’s a scientific inquiry. I’ve done loads.” And I showed her my first “Question Nobody Answers”.

“Very commendable,” she said. “How exactly are you going to find the answers to these things?”

“I’m going to look them up on the Internet,” I said.

You can find out anything on the Internet.

Mrs Willis let me and Felix look up how you know that you’ve died today. We had to bring Dad’s laptop down from the study, because Felix has a wheelchair at the moment. When I first met him he was only in it some of the time, but he’s almost always in it now. He can walk really. He just likes having people wait on him.

We started with www.ask.com and ended up with this website on near-death experiences. A near-death experience is when someone almost dies but changes their mind at the last minute and comes back. The website said this happens to five per cent of adult Americans.

“So they
say
,” said Felix.

All sorts of things happened to these people, according to the website. They went down dark tunnels. They saw bright lights and angels. Sometimes they floated over their body and saw their doctors talking about them or giving them electric shocks. It was exactly the sort of science I want to do. I thought it was brilliant. Felix didn’t.

“It’s not real,” he said. “How can everyone see angels? What about serial killers?”

Mrs Willis made us write out all of the evidence for and against, like a proper scientific study. It was yet another ploy to make Felix do something, but it worked. He wrote eight whole sentences “Against”.

Near-Death Experiences – Against

by Felix Stranger

Near-death experiences aren’t actual death

experiences because people don’t actually die.

They’re just people’s brains going funny because

they haven’t had enough oxygen or are on weird

drugs. If they’re real, then why do different things

happen to different people? And why do only good

things happen? Why don’t people get devils or

something? Also, it’s the sort of thing people make

up to get attention. Like crop circles. Everyone

thought they were made by spaceships, but

actually it was just farmers with lawnmowers

trying to be famous.

He was the cynical public. I was the groundbreaking scientist, so I did “For”.

Near-Death Experiences – For

by Sam McQueen

Near-death experiences have been happening since

Plato, who lived thousands of years ago. We know

because he wrote about them. In a near-death

experience, the person actually dies. And then

comes back. So obviously what happens to them is

real. Also, they see real things. For example, one

woman was floating on the ceiling and she heard

her doctors saying all this stuff which she found

out later that they’d actually said. Only she

couldn’t have known about it because she was

dead at the time. And bad things do happen to

people sometimes. One guy had elves poking him

with pitchforks.

Mrs Willis said we clearly had very scientific minds and she was sorry she’d ever doubted us. Felix and I spent the rest of the lesson planning our perfect near-death experience. We got a bit stuck because we both wanted to go to Heaven, but only if we got the elves with pitchforks as well.

My mum used to work for this charity that does things with kids with learning disabilities. She stopped when I got ill the second time. Now she stays at home and takes me to clinic and looks after everyone who comes to visit. She gets Sundays off to go to church and sing in the choir. Ella goes sometimes too, but only because everyone fusses over her. I used to as well but I don’t now, because I hate people fussing over me. Dad never does.

Dad is very clever. He knows a lot of things, but I could never ask him any of my questions. He doesn’t talk about me being ill. I’ve never tried to talk to him about it, but Granny has and some of my aunties. He just says, “We’re not going to talk about this,” and walks out of the room.

I have a lot of aunties and uncles. Mum has one brother, but Dad has one brother and four sisters. Mum says that’s why he’s so quiet and likes having time to read the newspaper in peace, because he never got any space when he was a kid. I think that’s rubbish, because my aunts and uncle never got any space either and they’re always talking and laughing.

Dad’s just quiet, like me. He’s shy. When it’s just our family, he’s not quiet. He talks and tells jokes and stories. He knows a lot of stories. He just doesn’t like it when there’re loads of people in the house, like now when they keep coming to visit us. He reads his newspaper and doesn’t talk, or if it’s people he really doesn’t like, he goes and reads in the study.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I wish I could go and hide sometimes too.

Granny gets angry with Dad sometimes, because she says he makes Mum do everything. But Dad does do things. He earns money. And he
does
help. Like one time when I was in hospital, Mum got home and there were four different types of soup on the doorstep. Dad and Ella heated them all up and brought them back to hospital and gave a cup to all the people waiting in casualty.

Everyone thought they were mad. But it got rid of the soup.