Ways to Live Forever (7 page)

After we’d said goodbye to Kayleigh, me and Felix went and bought Refresher bars at the corner shop and sat and ate them in the park.

“Well?” said Felix. “Was it gross?” But I wouldn’t tell him.

“We’re getting there, you know,” said Felix. “Airships, being famous and space – that’s it, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Is that what we’re doing next, building a rocket?”

“Why not?” said Felix. He was sitting on the swing, legs dangling. He leaned back as far as he could. “We can do anything!” he shouted. “Anything!”

I started swinging, as high as I could. I was tired, but I hadn’t felt as happy as this in ages. “We’re going to the Moon!” I shouted.

It’s mad, I know. But who knows? Maybe we could.

Do you know where we came from? True fact: we came from stars.

When old stars die, they explode in this gigantic explosion, which makes a nebula. Nebulas are clouds of gas and dust. That’s where baby stars grow. All the gas and dust gets compressed, gravity sucks them in and they turn into stars. The bits that don’t turn into stars float around in space as planets or moons or comets, and if the conditions are right, plants and stuff start to grow and people are born. So we’re all made of bits of old star. But it’s a cycle. Because after millions of years the new star gets old and tired too and it explodes and more baby stars get born. If the old stars didn’t die, you’d never get new ones.

Here’s another true fact. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen are the elements you need for life. And if you look at comets, you see that they have pretty much the same proportion of these elements as we do.

I asked Mrs Willis about rockets today. “Could we build one, a proper one? Would it count as school?”

“Anything counts as school if you try hard enough,” she said. “Rockets are clearly science. What do you want one for?”

“To go up in space,” I said.

“Ah,” she said. “Slightly harder. That probably comes under . . . um . . . imaginative learning.”

“Does that mean no?” I said.

“It means, don’t tell health and safety,” said Mrs Willis. “And don’t expect the education authority to pay. They can barely keep me in lighter fluid.”

We had a good lesson. We did “Making Fireworks”, which really meant throwing iron filings and things into the burner on the cooker and watching them explode. Mrs Willis likes an explosion as much as anyone.

The only thing was, Felix didn’t turn up.

Mum rang Felix’s mum after lunch. She stayed out in the hall for ages. Then she came and sat at the table and watched me without saying anything. I was doing a tracing of a supernova.

“Sam. . .” she said.

“What happened to Felix?” I said.

Mum wouldn’t answer properly. “Well,” she said. “That’s kind of what I want to talk to you about.”

I looked up. Mum’s face was serious. She was twisting the cuff of her jumper, turning it round and round and round.

“What?” I said. “
Mum
. What?”

She took a deep breath. “Sam, Felix went into hospital this morning.”

I stared. I didn’t know what to say. “But he can’t!” I thought.

“Why?” I said.

“An infection, Gillian said. She’s up there now.”

Gillian is Felix’s mum.

I was still staring. I didn’t expect this to happen. It was like a small pit had opened in my stomach. I mean, I knew Felix was pretty ill, like me, but I didn’t expect him to actually
get
ill.

“He’ll be all right,” I said.

Mum didn’t say anything.

“He’ll be fine,” I said.

Two whole nights have gone by. Felix is still in hospital. I tried asking Annie if she knew anything when she came to give me platelets, but she said she didn’t. Mrs Willis came again and asked me if I’d written any more book. I said no, even though I have. We just played Othello for school. I wish I’d never started writing a stupid book about getting ill. It doesn’t seem funny any more. I wanted Mum to ring Felix’s mum and find out what’s happening, but she wouldn’t. She said Gillian had enough to worry about without us bothering her.

I said, “What about me?
I’m
worried. At least she’s
there
. Can’t we go see him?”

Mum said, “
No
.” She said, “He’s very poorly, Sam. He wouldn’t want you there. And we wouldn’t want you catching anything, would we?”

I wanted to scream. That’s so
unfair
. It’s one thing to say nobody can go, but to say only I can’t because it’d make me ill is
horrible
. Anyway, it doesn’t make sense. You’d think I’d have
more
resistance to infections, not less, with my mega-reinforced resistance army of white blood cells.

I said, “That’s discrimination! And anyway, people are only infectious when they first get ill, they aren’t later.” (I wasn’t
entirely
sure this was true, but I said it anyway.) “And he would want me there, he
would
. He
said
so.”

Mum said, “Sam. . .” She reached out her arm. I pulled away.

“No!” I shouted. “It’s not
fair
!”

Mum sighed. “No,” she said wearily. “It’s not, but that’s the way things are and you’re just going to have to live with it.”

“
No!
” I shouted. I pushed her. Then I ran out into the hall and slammed the door. I picked up the phone and started dialling. I don’t know Felix’s mum’s mobile, but I know their home number.

Mum came after me and saw what I was doing. She grabbed for the phone. I pulled it away as far as the cord would go. The phone fell off the table and landed on the floor with a clunk. At the other end, I could hear a sleepy voice saying, “Hullo? . . . Hullo?”

“Mickey!” I said. “Mickey—”

Mum yanked the receiver off me. “Mickey, I’m so sorry—”

“Ask him!” I begged. “Ask him!”

Mum took the phone through into the living room. I followed. “
Sam!
” she said. “Mickey, I’m terribly sorry about this, but Sam’s been so worried—”

I am an expert at eavesdropping, but even I couldn’t tell much from Mum’s “Right”s and “Of course”s. I had to sit there squirming until she put down the phone and glared at me.

“Well?” I said.

Mum opened her mouth like she was about to shout and then shut it again. “He’s still in hospital,” she said.

“And?”

“And he’s still very poorly.” She hesitated, then she said, “Mickey says he’ll tell his mum we rang, but he said there isn’t really much point in visiting him. He’s sleeping a lot, he said.”

I didn’t say anything.

“His dad’s coming up tomorrow, but they’re not sure when he’s going to get in. Sam—”

I didn’t want to hear whatever she was going to say.

“He was all right on Saturday,” I said. I couldn’t get over how unfair it all was. “There wasn’t anything wrong with him!”

This is a story that I made up.

It starts with me at home. I’m cross and miserable. Mum’s cross too. We’re fighting. Mum’s crying.

It seems as if nothing good is ever going to happen again.

And then the phone rings.

On the other end of the phone is Annie. She’s very excited. A team of scientists has found a new drug, which has cured leukaemia in lots of laboratory hamsters and mice. All the laboratory hamsters and mice were lying there, about to die, but after they were given this drug they got better and now they’re living happy lives as pets of the scientists’ children.

The scientists need some human beings to test this drug on. They ring our hospital and talk to Annie.

“We need lots of people with leukaemia,” they say. “Give us your sickest patients. The sicker the better. This drug is so good, they’ll just take one
sniff
and they’ll be disco dancing.”

“Right you are,” says Annie. And straight away she rings up all her patients and tells them about the scientists.

Some of the patients are doubtful.

“No way,” they say.

“He’s having us on.”

“No drug can be
that
good.”

But I say I’ll give it a go.

The next day the scientists come round to our house. They give me a packet of little red-and-white striped pills.

“Here you go,” they say. “This is it. Take two a day with a drink – whatever type you like best.”

The drug is very good. As soon I have taken one pill I start to feel better. After I have taken two pills, I stop feeling tired. And after
three
pills I get up and start jumping on my bed. I run all around the house. I get out my bike and ride it up the hill and back down. I play basketball with Ella on the old hoop on our house and I beat her thirty-eight hoops to six.

After I have taken all the pills in the packet I am completely cured. The scientists are delighted. I am on the
World News
. All the newspapers in the world have pictures of me coming down our hill on roller blades and visiting other children with leukaemia to tell them about the pills.

The scientists make billions of pounds selling their pills to hospitals.

They give some of the money to me and I go on a world cruise with my family and Felix and Granny.

And no one ever dies of leukaemia. Ever again.

Felix’s mum rang the next evening.

You could see Mum jump when the phone rang. She’d already jumped for Grandma-in-Orkney and a man selling kitchens. She shut the living-room door again, so me and Ella couldn’t hear what she was saying. I hate secrets and so does Ella. We looked at each other. Ella’s face was white and her eyes were huge. We would have listened anyway, but Dad was there and he turned the news right up so we couldn’t hear. Dad hadn’t said anything about Felix being in hospital.

Not a thing.

We heard Mum’s voice stop in the hall. There was a long, grippy silence. Then she came back in and sat on the edge of the sofa. She was wearing her serious look again. All of a sudden, I didn’t want to know.

“Was it Felix’s mum?” said Ella.

“Yes,” said Mum. She hesitated. “Sam, Gillian says – if you want to – she thinks maybe you should come and say . . . come and see him.”

“Is he awake?” I said.

“No,” said Mum. “Not really.” She rubbed her hand across her leg. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

I didn’t want to.

Yes, I did.

No, I didn’t.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll go.”