Stay Well Soon (16 page)

‘Maybe,' I say.

‘Do you think they might be too big? They might drag down your ears.'

‘Apple pips are deceptively light,' says Charlotte.

‘So these are the ones you want?' says Lara.

‘Yes please,' I say.

Charlotte wraps them up in tissue paper. She smiles when she gives them to me.

‘Make sure they don't get wet,' she says.

At home time I wave goodbye to Lara at the gate.

‘I'll see you at the hospital,' I say.

‘Actually, no,' says Lara. ‘I'm not at the hospital anymore. I'm at home now.'

‘Oh. That's good.'

‘Kind of,' says Lara. ‘Anyway, thanks for a great day. It's been awesome. You should come and visit me sometime.'

Grandparents and Friends Day has been better than I ever imagined. And now I'm allowed to be friends with Lara, we can do heaps more things together. I can visit her at home and maybe we can go see Finnigan and Buttercup again. There's a lot to look forward to.

17

Pony

Kaylee, Teegan and Morgan are sitting on the portable bench when I arrive at school on Monday. I think Morgan and me are in a group with Teegan and Kaylee now. It makes a lot of sense since we are spending so much time together anyway.

‘How much fun was Grandparents and Friends day!' says Morgan.

‘Yeah, it was pretty fun,' says Teegan.

Morgan says, ‘Did your friends have a good time, Stevie?'

‘I think so.'

‘Who was that girl, Lara? How do you know her?'

‘From the hospital.'

‘Does Lara have cancer like Rhys?'

‘No. Well yes, but I think it's a different kind of cancer.'

‘Is she really sick?'

‘Yes.'

‘Is she going to die?'

‘I don't want to talk about it,' I say.

‘I'm just making conversation,' says Morgan.

‘But I don't want to talk about it.'

‘Fine then.'

Dad Ben picks me up from school because Mum has taken Rhys to the hospital for an appointment. At home I help him get tea ready. We are having a casserole. I chop up the onions and when I start crying Dad Ben takes over and I do the carrots.

‘How was school?' he asks.

‘Fine,' I say.

We keep chopping.

‘Hey, Dad Ben?'

‘Hey, Stevie?'

‘You know my friend Morgan?'

‘I do know her, yes.'

‘She's always getting mad at me.'

‘What about?'

‘She thinks I don't talk to her enough about Rhys being sick. She loves talking about cancer and death and stuff, but when I'm at school I just want everything to be normal.'

‘That's fair enough,' he says.

‘I don't know what to do.'

‘You could tell her you don't feel like talking about it.'

‘I've already told her! Heaps of times. But she won't stop going on and on.'

‘That sounds tricky.'

Dad Ben and I have not come to any conclusions, but I feel better after talking to him. Sandra may have a point.

The rest of the week goes really quickly. It is a lot more fun having a group with four people in it instead of just Morgan and me. Dad Ben was right, variety is the spice of life. Morgan doesn't get mad at me again either. Perhaps she is getting over it.

On Saturday I go to the Captains Hill market but I am not window-shopping. I am real shopping. Dad Ben has given me money to buy Christmas presents for the family.

I do a full lap of the market before I commit to buying anything. I walk past Charlotte's jewellery stall. Charlotte is working on the stall with her mum. April isn't with her, so maybe there is trouble in paradise.

After looking at all the stalls, I make my decisions.

I buy some soap in the shape of a swan for Nana Dad Ben. She loves soap in different shapes. I get Mum a new indoor pot plant. Her old one died because we forgot to water it, what with always being at the hospital and everything. I buy Dad Ben a DVD of
Red Dog
because he really likes that film. I buy Rhys a box with a lock for his valuables.

I still have some money left over. So I buy a photo frame for Lara. I am going to draw my best picture of Finnigan and give it to her.

After tea, Dad Ben and I play Scrabble. He will win as usual because he knows heaps of words that you think aren't even proper words until you look them up in the dictionary. The phone rings and Mum answers it and then goes to her room. When she comes out she asks Dad Ben to come to her room.

My Scrabble letters are a nightmare. Almost all of them are vowels.

Mum and Dad Ben walk back in together. Some-thing is wrong.

‘There's some bad news,' says Mum. ‘Lara's got very sick.'

‘I know,' I say.

‘No, you don't understand . . .'

Mum looks at Dad Ben and he says, ‘Lara's mum called to invite you to visit Lara – to say goodbye.'

*

All the houses on Lara's street are enormous and some of them have turrets like castles or columns like ancient Greek buildings. Lara's house doesn't look old; it is a big white box and the entire front is glass looking over the sea.

Lara's mum answers the door. There is a pile of shoes in the doorway, so we take off our shoes as well. Then we follow Lara's mum down the white-tiled corridors. My socks leave wet marks on the tiles because my feet were sweating in my shoes. One side of the corridor is a window to the backyard looking out on a long skinny swimming pool that runs all the way along the house.

We walk through a room with a big dining table. A white staircase leads upstairs. It is one of my dreams to live in a two-storey house. We keep walking through the room down another corridor until we get to the end, where there is a kitchen and lounge room all in one. There are red leather couches in the middle of the room and a big television suspended from the ceiling. Lara's mum tells us to have a seat so I sit on the couch and Dad Ben sits beside me.

In front of me is a coffee table covered in magazines about houses. There are no signs of horses in this room. Lara's mum must be very different to her dad.

‘Her cousins are in with her now,' says Lara's mum.

Another lady in the kitchen says, ‘Can I get anyone a drink?'

‘This is my sister, Louisa,' says Lara's mum.

‘We're fine,' Mum and Dad Ben say together.

I shake my head.

The adults talk. I can't concentrate on what they're saying.

Two high school girls come into the room. One of them is crying. She goes to Louisa in the kitchen, who hugs her.

Mum, Dad Ben and Lara's mum are all looking at me. It must be my turn.

Dad Ben and I follow Lara's mum back down the corridor to the room with the big table and then up the stairs.

‘You mustn't get a shock, Stevie,' Lara's mum says. ‘Lara's very different. She can't talk to you, but she can hear you.'

We go into the first door at the top of the stairs.

Lara looks smaller than I've ever seen her. Her face is grey. He eyes are closed and she is shaking. Her mouth hangs open and her breathing sounds like it hurts.

‘Don't be scared,' says Lara's mum.

Dad Ben takes me by the hand and we take a couple of steps closer to the bed.

‘Is there anything you'd like to say to Lara?' asks Dad Ben.

I want to get out. I want to go away. I wish I was galloping on a horse across a green field at dawn.

I shake my head.

‘That's okay, you don't have to. You can just say goodbye to yourself.'

I should say goodbye in my head, but it won't come. When Lara breathes out a blob of saliva appears on her lips and is sucked back when she breathes in. I watch it go in and out, in and out.

On the bedside table next to Lara is
The Phantom Stallion.
I don't know whether she finished it. Just in case, I tell her what happens in the end. It turns out that the Phantom Stallion is not a ghost, but a real horse that had lost his owner and was living in the woods. The girl in the story adopts the horse, so there's a happy ending.

When we get home from visiting Lara I go to my room. I want to lie down but I took the sheets off my bed to wash and I haven't put the new ones on yet. I go to the linen cupboard and take out a fitted sheet, a doona cover and a pillow case. I put the doona cover and pillow case on first and put them on the floor. Then I try to put the fitted sheet on but the sheet is just a bit too small. I get three corners on fine, but the fourth corner won't go on. Dad Ben taught me how to banana a mattress to get a sheet on. I lift the mattress up, rest my foot on the bed and prop the mattress corner on my knee while I try to tug the sheet over. I'm nearly there when my foot slips off the bed and the mattress falls down. The sheet corner flies away. I try again. The same thing happens. I try again. It happens again.

I sit on the floor and cry and cry. Mum comes running in. She sits beside me with her arm around me, while I rock back and forth. ‘I'm so sorry, Stevie,' she says. ‘I didn't want this to happen.'

Mum thinks I'm upset about Lara, and I should be, but really I am just angry at the sheet.

Morgan and I play handball at recess and lunchtime. It is my suggestion. I don't want to just sit around. Rory, Brendan and Teegan come and play too. There is no time for talking when you're playing handball, which suits me.

Lara died last night. Mum told me this morning when I woke up. Mum said I didn't have to go to school, but what would I do at home? At least at school I am busy even if I am just chasing a little green ball around.

When I get home from school that afternoon Rhys is watching the television but he turns it off.

‘Hi, Stevie.'

‘Hi, Rhys.'

I go to the kitchen to make myself some toast then I come back to the lounge room. I sit beside Rhys on the couch.

‘Are you watching the TV or what?' I ask.

‘I was.' He turns it back on, but then he turns it off again.

‘Mum told me your fried Lara died,' he says.

‘Yeah.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything.'

‘Well, it is kind of my fault. You wouldn't have met her if it wasn't for me. If I hadn't got sick you would have been a normal kid instead of hanging out at the hospital all the time.'

‘But I'm glad that I met her.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Okay then.' Rhys turns the television back on.

Rhys is worried about me but I should be the one who is worried about him. He's the one with cancer. Rhys has cancer too. Suddenly, I am crying.

‘What's wrong?' says Rhys.

It's hard for me to talk because I'm crying so much. But I manage to say, ‘I . . . just . . . don't want . . . anyone else to die.'

Rhys puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘Me neither,' he says.

Today we are going to Lara's funeral. I am wearing the earrings that Lara bought for me. When I look at them I remember how great Grandparents and Friends Day was. It was less than a month ago, but everything has changed.

I haven't been to school for the past two days. Dad Ben said I needed some downtime so I stayed home and helped him build a new fence for the backyard. Angel got through the hole in the old fence so it had to be done.

When we arrive at the church it is full already and we have to stand outside. Rhys can't stand up that long though, so Mum pushes inside with him to find a seat while Dad Ben and I stay outside. There is a big screen and speakers so we can see and hear what's happening in the church. On the screen I can see the priest standing next to the coffin.

After the priest talks for a while, Lara's mum goes to the front. She reads from a piece of paper. She says lots of things I didn't know, like how Lara sold some of her drawings before she got sick. And she says some things I did know: that Lara loved horses and loved her horse Finnigan. She talks about Lara as a baby. But she can't keep reading because her voice gets all choked up, and her sister Louisa has to help her finish.

Two girls wearing school uniforms read out a poem for Lara. They each take a turn reading a line. But they are crying and it is hard to hear what they are saying. Something about meeting again and flowers. Beside me a girl wearing a school uniform starts crying too. Her shoulders are shaking. Someone needs to give her a tissue, her face is getting messy.

The priest is talking again. I keep shifting my weight from foot to foot. We are standing in the sun, and I am very hot. I think the back of my neck is getting sunburned.

Music starts to play and six men go up to the front and, with three on each side, they wheel the coffin down the aisle. Lara's dad Tim is one of the men. He is crying. The tears have rolled down his face into his beard and he wipes his beard with his other hand. They carry the coffin down the steps of the church past me.

Behind the coffin come the rest of Lara's family, walking in pairs with their arms around each other. Then everyone in the church follows them out.

People stand around talking and some people are crying and hugging each other. Mum and Rhys come out of the church and join Dad Ben and me.

I hear a voice say, ‘Stevie.'

I turn around and see Morgan with her mum.

Morgan thinks going to a funeral is fun. Like watching a movie. Well it's not fun for me, and it's not fun for Lara's mum and dad and the girls from her school. We're never going to see Lara again.

‘What are you doing?' I say. I am the one who's angry now.

‘Nothing,' says Morgan.

‘I mean, why are you here?'

‘Because I'm your friend.'

Morgan looks like she might cry. It's not like when she talks about her funeral, or wants to play Murderers. She's not having fun and she is my friend. Maybe I need to get over it.

There is an afternoon tea at Lara's house after the funeral. There are lots of Tim Tams. I tell Morgan that we have to have seven each. I don't tell her why, and she doesn't argue.

When we get home from the funeral I ride my bike to visit Star. Mum doesn't want me to go but Dad Ben says I'll be fine. I want to see Star because I love horses and Lara loved them too.

Star is in the middle of the paddock but he walks over to the fence because he knows I will have a treat for him. I have brought a carrot. I give it to him and pat him on the forehead. He shakes his head and I get a fright.

I sit on the stump and get out my drawing journal and my good pencils, but I don't want to draw. I look at the picture of the horse that Lara drew for me and the message ‘Stay Well Soon, Stevie'. She was so talented, she could draw my dream horse without even trying.

Back at home, I sit on my bed looking at the empty photo frame on my chest of drawers. I was supposed to give it to Lara with the picture of Finnigan in it for Christmas. Maybe if I stare at it long enough the picture of Finnigan will appear. And if that happens, Lara won't be dead anymore, it will have just been a dream.