Charlie Franks is A-OK

by Cecily Anne Paterson

  Fozzles rubbed her nose against my arm. She actually looked happy. But then I got worried. ‘Oh. I hope you’re not jealous. I rode Cupcake, but I mostly thought about you. And your baby.’ I reached down to gently rub my hand over her tummy. ‘Are you going to be okay? You aren’t going to have any problems, are you?’

  She nickered again, and this time I leaned down and spoke right against Fozzles’ belly. ‘Hey, baby. You’re going to be okay. I know you are. The vet’s going to be on call just in case. But it’s going to be fine.’

  I was good at reassuring Fozzles but I wasn’t so good at reassuring myself. For the rest of the afternoon, all I could hear were Ness’s words, replaying over and over again in my head.

  Babies and mothers dying.

  Babies and mothers dying.

  Babies and mothers dy—

  I put my fork down at dinner. It made a crashing sound. Coco and Josh looked at me. Dad looked like he was trying not to notice.

  ‘Dad, I have a question.’ My words were louder than normal. I was sick of the scaredy-cat feelings I’d had all afternoon. I needed them cleared up once and for all.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Is Mum going to die when she has this baby?’

  ‘Charlie!’ sang out Coco. ‘You can’t ask that!’

  ‘Far out,’ said Josh. ‘Way to bring up the panic level.’

  But Dad just sat there with his eyebrows halfway up his forehead. ‘Where’d you get that idea?’

  ‘Well, for a start, she has to go to the hospital to have it. And that’s in case she dies. Or the baby dies,’ I added. ‘Plus she’s old. Like, really old. And people that old don’t have babies without it being dangerous.’

  Dad smiled, but it wasn’t a relaxed smile. He looked like he had thoughts in his head he wasn’t going to tell me. ‘I’ll be straight with you,’ he said. ‘Yes, Mum’s old to have a baby. And yes, there are higher risk factors because of that. But she’s got a great doctor and they’re keeping a good eye on her. If anything even looks slightly tricky, they’ll be all over it.’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘You still didn’t answer my question, though.’

  Dad looked shifty. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Is Mum going to die?’

  Coco let out a huge breath and looked away. Josh rolled his eyes.

  Dad leaned in towards me. ‘Sweetheart, no. I mean, okay, maybe there’s a small chance of her dying. A bit like there’s a chance of you falling off your horse when you jump.’

  ‘No there’s not. I stay on. I’ve never fallen off.’

  Coco rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, you say that, until it happens. I fell off. I didn’t die, though.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Josh’s voice was full of fake wonder. ‘You didn’t die? I thought you did.’ Coco reached out and slapped his forehead, but I ignored them.

  ‘A small chance?’ I said to Dad.

  ‘An infinitesimal chance. Who knows when anyone’s going to die? But it’s pretty unlikely she’ll die when she has the baby because she’ll be in the hospital, with great doctors and nurses and excellent care.’ He put his hand out to cover mine. ‘You okay?’

  I nodded my head, but inside I felt like crying. ‘How long does she have now? When’s it due?’

  ‘You really should say, “when’s she due?” you know. You’re having a sister. We saw it on the ultrasound.’

  The lump in my throat got bigger. I didn’t want to say ‘she’. That baby was an ‘it’, forcing its way into our lives, and making my mum sick. I forced the words out. ‘When’s she due?’

  ‘Three more months. It’s not long. And pretty soon, Mum will start to actually feel better. She should be up and around again. You’ll see.’

  I had one more question for Dad before I went to lie on my bed and look at my Champion ribbon again. ‘What if Mum can’t get to the hospital?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she be able to?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe the car breaks down?’

  ‘If the car breaks down, we’ll get an ambulance.’ He smiled without hiding anything now. ‘It’s going to be fine. Don’t worry. Where’s my unfussable, unflappable Charlie-girl gone?’

  I shrugged. Maybe the version of Charlie everyone seemed to have in their head wasn’t as accurate as they all thought. Ever since Mum had gotten sick, I’d felt just a little bit crazy. Definitely not unflappable. Maybe it was Mum who made everything, and me, A-OK. Not having her there every day was turning me into some kind of weird, nervous disaster zone.

  I went into Mum’s room after dinner. I wanted to give her a hug, to tell her she’d be okay, and that I would try not to let anything happen to her, but she was asleep. I sat on the edge of the bed and tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Mum?’

  She stirred and half opened her eyes. Not in a good way. ‘What? Charlie?’

  ‘I just wanted to give you a hug.’

  ‘Some other time,’ she said, still half asleep. ‘I’m so tired. Can you let me sleep?’ She turned to the other side and adjusted her quilt. I stood up and looked at her for a minute, but she didn’t move, and I crept out of the room.

  Lying on my bed that night, with my purple and gold ribbon off the wall and draped over my knees, I forced Ness and the vet and Mum and the baby out of my head, and stared at the ribbon instead.

  I liked the colour. I liked the felt it was made from, and the black letters printed on it. Champion. I liked the feeling I got when I won it; the excitement and heat of the show. I liked riding. No, I loved riding. I even quite liked Cupcake. When she cooperated, she was almost on a level with Fozzles. I really liked the idea that maybe Jake Smith might be at the next event. I’d forget about babies and hospitals and all that scary stuff. I’d think about what made me feel not-scared.

  I sat up, swung my legs off the side of the bed and put my ribbon, folding it neatly, into my school bag. This was the thing that helped. This was the thing I’d take with me wherever I went.

  14

  Chapter 14

  Mum was up and out of bed the next morning.

  ‘Have you packed your bag, Charlie?’ she asked. ‘Coco. Do you have all your homework? Who wants eggs?’

  We looked at her and then at each other. We’d been sorting ourselves out and getting our own breakfast for months. What was this?

  I shrugged my shoulders and opened my mouth to speak, but Josh jumped in. ‘Eggs? Yeah. I’m hungry.’ He sat down at the table looking eager while Mum cracked eggs into a bowl and began to whip them up. Her face seemed happy.

  ‘Are you feeling better?’ I asked.

  She flashed a smile, but it wasn’t quite up to par with her old smiles. ‘So far, so good. Anyway, it’s terrible being in bed. I’m missing out on everything. Life.’

  ‘Homework and breakfast,’ said Josh. ‘Not that much.’

  ‘It is that much,’ said Mum, but then she put down the fork she was beating the eggs with. Her face looked grey again. ‘Sorry, Josh. Do you mind?’ She gestured at the stove. ‘I just need to sit down.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘You go back to bed.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I thought I could.’

  ‘It’s okay. It’s fine. Anyway, Josh is nearly sixteen. He should be making his own eggs.’

  ‘Yeah, Josh,’ said Coco. ‘Make your own.’

  I scrambled the eggs for Josh, who was not as grateful as I thought he should have been, and did myself a piece of toast and avocado before finding a school uniform that was mostly clean and at least half ironed. Coco stuck her nose up at me in the hallway. ‘Hmmm,’ she began, but Dad cut in. ‘No time. You’re nearly late already. Let’s go.’

  ‘It was the eggs,’ I said over my shoulder to Josh, as we ran out the door and threw ourselves into the four wheel drive. ‘You made us late.’

  ‘You cooked them too slowly. Actually, you didn’t cook them enough. Raw eggs. They would have failed you on Masterchef.’

  I smiled and pretended to ignore him, reaching my hand
into my bag and finding my purple and gold ribbon. I pulled it slightly out of my bag and fingered the felt. Mum couldn’t even make eggs for us. It felt like she’d been away forever.

  We got to the bus stop ten seconds before the bus pulled up, hissing and wheezing. I found a seat on my own and rested my forehead on the window, far away in my thoughts. When we finally pulled into the concrete set down area at school, I was surprised and had to scramble to get myself together, get my bag zipped up and get off the bus.

  ‘You okay?’ said Coco, falling in beside me on the long walk down the path into school. ‘You seem odd.’

  ‘You mean more odd than usual?’ I smiled, but I was faking.

  ‘Yeah. More than usual.’

  She made a face at me, but I turned away from her. ‘I’m okay.’

  She left it at that, although I knew she wasn’t satisfied. Coco liked to know what was going on. She’d be back once she’d spent enough time chatting with her friends, to find out what was really going through my mind.

  ‘Coco!’ It was a cry from one of the girls from across the quad—one of the ones Coco liked the most. Her name was Hannah, but Coco called her ‘Hannie’. Hannah returned the favour with ‘Cokie’. Ugh. Now Hannah was yelling again. ‘Hugs!’

  Coco held out her arms. ‘Hugs!’ And the two of them pretend-raced across to each other, where they gave each other a hug, with lots of patting and air kissing. I winced and scratched my nose. Here was another perfect demonstration of how, even if we looked alike, practically nobody would ever mistake Coco and me for identical twins.

  ‘They’re so cute, aren’t they?’ came a voice beside me. I turned to see Baylor standing next to me, with her nice face on.

  ‘Hum, I guess so.’

  Baylor turned towards me and reached out towards my bag. ‘You’ve got … something.’ She pulled at it a bit. ‘Sticking out. I can fix it.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, as she pulled a little more, and adjusted the zipper. ‘Thanks,’ but then she took a step back. In her hand was my Champion ribbon, and before I knew it, on my face was a red blush of embarrassment.

  ‘What’s that?’ she said. ‘Is that the ribbon you won from the show?’

  ‘Um, I guess.’

  She made a strange, curious face at me and held it like it was dirty, dangling between her fingers. ‘What are you carrying it around for?’

  ‘Oh, ‘I needed it for something.’ I could feel my cheeks getting hotter, but I put them out of my mind and held my hand out towards Baylor. Please give me the ribbon back. She shrugged a little and put it back in my hand, her face a mix of something, I just didn’t know what. ‘Thanks. I’ve got to go.’

  I headed for the girls’ bathroom, splashed my face with water and let out a few deep breaths. I wasn’t upset. I hardly even knew why I was embarrassed. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with bringing a ribbon to school in your bag, right? I put it out of my mind and decided that I’d play soccer at both recess and lunch that day.

  It didn’t happen. At least, not straight away. At lunch, Miss Baker, one of the PE teachers, and the one who organised all the inter-school sports comps, came looking for Baylor and me just after the bell rang, with notes in her hand.

  ‘Girls,’ she called. Our whole group stopped and waited for her to cross the quad. She walked fast, with really strong calf muscles. She’d make a good horse rider, I thought to myself.

  ‘Baylor,’ she said, when she got closer. ‘And … Charlie, is it?’ She looked at her piece of paper before speaking to me. ‘Short for something?’

  ‘No, Miss. Just Charlie.’

  Miss Baker’s eyebrows went up and she made a face like ‘Okay then’. ‘Baylor and Charlie. And anyone else who’s a horse rider, I suppose,’ she said, looking around her. ‘I’ve got the information for the Inter-schools equestrian competition. Baylor, you did this last year, didn’t you?’

  Baylor looked like she was trying to stifle a grin. She settled on a ‘bored but cool’ face. ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘She won it,’ offered Hannah. ‘The show jumping part.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Baker. ‘How could I forget?’ I snuck a look at her face, but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. ‘And Charlie, you ticked the box when you enrolled, for information. So here it is. Let me know if you girls need any help with anything, of course, but mostly it’s up to you to get yourself there.’

  She passed out some papers. I took some and Baylor took the rest. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Yes, right. Thanks,’ said Baylor.

  Miss Baker raised her eyebrows and then her hand. ‘Okay then,’ she said, and walked off.

  There was silence, then everyone was all over Baylor. ‘When is it? What day? Do you think you can win? Of course she will, why wouldn’t she?’

  I took a deep breath in, then silently let it out. Then I put my bag on the ground and unzipped it. The purple and gold ribbon was sitting there on the top of all my stuff. I took it out and put it on my lap, hiding it slightly under some other things, and then pulled out a folder Mum had bought me right at the beginning of the year exactly for this purpose—to put school notes in. I placed the note in the folder, put the folder back in my bag, and then folded the ribbon up again, and put it in carefully on top. I didn’t look up. Instead, I just picked up my bag and walked off to the oval and the year seven boys and their soccer game.

  Later that night I looked at Facebook. I don’t even know why I did it. Dad was reading his paper, Josh was watching something stupid on TV and Coco was trying to avoid her phone and focus on her maths homework.

  ‘Is Mum okay?’ I asked Dad.

  He shook his head from behind the paper. ‘Sleeping again.’

  I made a bored face. Maybe I could talk to Tessa online. I opened up Facebook, sent her a quick ‘hi’ and waited for a bit, but got no reply. I decided to give her five more minutes and started scrolling down the feed. It was mostly the usual rubbish. Memes about dogs and dance moves, videos and pouty pictures from some of Coco’s friends. Like for a like. Like for a message. Like for eternal friendship. Yeah, right. I forgot this was why I hardly ever go on Facebook. Maybe if people had original stuff to say, I’d be more interested.

  I kept scrolling until Baylor’s name flashed past my eyes. She’d written a lot. I scrolled back up and had a look.

  ‘It really ticks me off when people think they’re just so much better than everyone else. They think they’re so smart and so talented, and such a good rider, but actually, they’re just lucky beginners on average horses. It really ticks me off when people show off at school about how good they are, and try to get everyone to think that they’re better than everyone else. People who show off like that are just attention seekers. And instead of letting it get to me, I’m just not even going to respond. Like, I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life. I know who I am. I know what I’m worth. I’m just trying my best, and trying to be a good person. You can’t bring me down, so don’t even try, ’cos I’m gonna fly, okay.’

  I read it. Then I read it again, with a cold feeling in my stomach. Was this me? Did Baylor really think I thought I was better than everyone else? I started to feel shaky. Josh’s TV show was still going, and Dad was hidden behind the paper, with tiny snores starting to come from his general direction. I stood up and took the laptop with me to Coco’s room.

  ‘Look.’ I put the laptop down on her bed and pointed at it. I didn’t have anything else to say. ‘Look at that.’

  She put her head back and made a dog growl at me. ‘Urrrrgh. I’m doing this, okay? Do you want me to fail? I need to get it done. How come you’re so quick anyway?’

  ‘Just look. You have to see. It’s Baylor.’

  Coco sat up immediately. Her focus, which had seemed blurry when it came to her maths, appeared to be laser-sharp now. She read Baylor’s status, then she read it again, and put her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Is it me?’ I asked. ‘Is that who she’s talking about?’

  ‘It’
s you.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘No doubt. It’s what happened today. I didn’t catch all of it; I was with Hannah. But I heard a bit. She was mad at you about the ribbon in your bag. Then she said you snubbed her after the teacher gave you the notes.’

  I made a face. ‘I didn’t. I was just bored, and sick of her showing off. I wanted to play soccer. Why is she even doing this?’

  ‘She’s causing a fight,’ said Coco. Her eyes were intense and focused, like she was solving a really tricky puzzle. ‘She wants to put you on the outs. She wants to make everyone think you’re bad.’

  ‘But why? I haven’t done anything to her.’ I grabbed my head and ruffled all my hair up. Some of it went over my face, and past my eyes. ‘This is so crazy.’

  ‘You’re a good show jumper and she hasn’t had any competition. Ever. Now you’re winning and she can’t handle it. She has to bring you down another way.’

  ‘But I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t mean. I wasn’t, like, ‘Oh Baylor, you’re so great’, and being super nice to her like everyone else is, but I wasn’t horrible either. I was just normal.’ I shook my hair out of my eyes. ‘Girls are nuts. Why can’t they just be nice to each other?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Coco. ‘Do you want me to do something? We could put her in her place. Get people on your side. We could make a Facebook group and talk about it.’

  I shrugged. This was already too much drama. ‘What’s the point? I don’t need this. I’ll ignore it and it’ll go away.’

  I closed the computer and walked back into the lounge room. Dad was really snoring now. I chucked a pillow at him and he sprang to life.

  ‘Sorry?’ he said, and then settled back into his seat again. I threw myself down into the rocking chair and sat there for a while. I just didn’t understand this kind of stuff. My question to Coco was genuine. Why couldn’t we all just be nice to each other? Be normal. I didn’t want Coco going in and making a fuss for me. I’d rather just pretend it didn’t hurt me.

  The truth, though, if anyone had asked me, was that it did hurt. I’d cried once this year. It had been the first time in a long time. And now, for the second time in a long time, I felt like crying again.