Charlie Franks is A-OK

by Cecily Anne Paterson

  Dad shook his head. ‘No. It’s normal. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Okay.’ But my arms felt tense and I noticed my hands were clenching a bit.

  Fozzles snorted, but now instead of the foal inching out when she pushed, nothing happened.

  Ness looked at her watch. ‘I’m going to help her. She’s slowing down.’

  She let herself into the pen and gave Fozzles a pat on the muzzle. ‘It’s okay. Let’s pull this baby out.’ She took herself down to where the foal was half out; a slimy piece of wet membrane, shining in the moonlight.

  ‘That’s it. Push,’ she said to Fozzles, and when Fozzles breathed and pushed, Ness pulled.

  Not too hard, I thought to myself, dancing up and down a little, with nerves. Don’t hurt it.

  Fozzles breathed and pushed again, and Ness pulled again. ‘Nearly there. One more.’

  Fozzles gave another breath and push, and Ness pulled one more time, and this time the whole foal slid out onto the grass and straw below.

  ‘Oh!’ I cried. I had no other words. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’

  It was tiny and wet, and covered in goo, but it was already strong and alive. It sat there, unable to really move, but clearly wanting to get up. You could see it. It moved its head and tried to move its legs, and looked towards Fozzles, who was still sitting in the same position.

  ‘Is she going to get up?’ I said to Dad.

  ‘Soon. She’ll rest, and then she’ll stand.’ He looked at me, amused. ‘It’s hard work, you know, having a baby.’

  I hardly heard him. We must have stood there for quite a while, because later Ness said it took half an hour for Fozzles to stand up, but it felt like nothing at all. My eyes were on the foal, who was breaking out of the membrane. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I could hardly breathe, as I watched its little muscles tensing and flexing and its little eyes looking around.

  ‘Look, it’s watching us,’ I said to Dad and, at that very moment, Fozzles struggled to her feet and began to lick her baby. There were tears in my eyes. ‘Oh!’ I said again, just because I needed to say something. My heart was beating fast, my throat had a lump in it, and my feet wanted to spring up out of my boots and fly. ‘It’s so beautiful. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘She’s so beautiful,’ said Ness, correcting me. ‘Your foal is a filly. A little girl.’

  ‘And she’s okay? And Fozzles? Is she okay too?’

  ‘Have a look at her.’ She was smiling. ‘She looks great.’

  Fozzles was licking and neighing and nickering over the baby. She looked as happy as a horse can look. I reached in to give her a hug, but Ness stopped me. ‘Give her a bit of time. She needs to focus on the foal first. You’ll have lots of hugs tomorrow, with both of them.’

  I stepped back a little. I was disappointed, but I understood. ‘I think it is tomorrow.’ The sky had gone from black to grey to the faintest tinge of pink. You could still see the moon, a silver circle above us, but it was getting lighter.

  ‘What are you going to call her, Coco?’ asked Ness.

  ‘You mean I get to choose?’

  ‘Of course. She’s your foal.’

  I thought for a moment. I looked up at the sky, now starting to curl orange on the edges, the grass, covered in dew, and the moon, nearly finished for the night.

  ‘Mika. Mika, for moon. Because it’s the first thing she saw when she was born.’ I didn’t add what I really wanted to say, which was, ‘and because she’s a light’. It sounded stupid to say out loud, but I meant it inside.

  Just then, almost the second after I said her name, Mika struggled to her feet, on her little, tiny legs, wobbling and bracing, and trying so bravely to keep upright and meet her mummy. Fozzles licked her and nuzzled her and the two of them were so beautiful that, standing out there, watching all this, I didn’t even feel the pain in my back or my arms or my legs. It had disappeared. Fozzles and Mika were the important ones. All the troubles of the day now seemed tiny.

  Things would be fine tomorrow.

  18

  Chapter 18

  I gave up the ribbon. As I stood, watching little Mika wobble and balance that first day, imprinting on her like Ness showed us, with lots of hugs and touching, I imagined myself letting the ribbon go; allowing it to slip from my hand and fly, purple and gold, in the breeze across the trees, into a different place.

  If Baylor wanted it, she could have it. I still loved it and it wasn’t that I didn’t think it mattered anymore; it did. But I knew I didn’t want to get upset, cause a fight or go to any trouble to get it back. At school, I smiled at Baylor, told everyone I was alright after the fall, and went back to playing soccer at lunch time.

  Things were fine.

  The other thing I did was get back on Cupcake. It took a week for my bruises to go down, which was probably just about the right amount of time to get back my courage. I’d never thought that getting back on a horse after a fall would be difficult. It probably wouldn’t have been if the horse was Fozzles. But this was Cupcake we were talking about.

  ‘You’ve got to help me,’ I said to Coco from the door of her room. ‘Like you promised.’ She was lying on her bed, eating a packet of chips and reading a magazine. I was insistent. ‘I’m not riding her without you.’

  She turned her face to me. ‘This is not the Charlie I know and love. You’re normally all gung ho. Back on the horse! Keep going! Never give up!’ She made some enthusiastic hand gestures to illustrate the point.

  I wrinkled my nose. ‘Older. Wiser. And plus, falling off hurt. Just help me, okay?’

  She shrugged and went back to her magazine. ‘Whatevs. Okay.’

  We went out that afternoon. Coco gave my jodhpurs and dirty-ish t-shirt the evil eye. ‘What are you wearing at the Schools comp?’ she said as she pulled on her boots. Her voice had an edge to it.

  ‘It’s got to be a school blazer; the instructions said. And under it, the usual stuff. White joddys. Chaps. And that shirt of Ness’s. If it’s clean, I mean.’

  Coco’s face was unimpressed. ‘Your chaps are yuck. Really scruffy. And you need a new shirt. Something more …’ she rolled her eyes, ‘up to date.’

  ‘It’s perfectly okay.’

  ‘It’s perfectly not. It’s a hand-me-down from Ness from about twenty-five years ago. Baylor had a shirt that looked awesome. And have you seen her chaps? They’re gorgeous. You need something like them.’

  I made a face. ‘Seriously. It’s a shirt and some material you fasten around your legs.’

  ‘Leather.’

  ‘Well, not mine. Leather’s the expensive stuff. Anyway, it’s not a fashion parade. It’s a show jumping competition. They’re looking at how you ride.’

  ‘Not everyone.’ Coco winked at me. ‘Not,’ and she mouthed a word that looked suspiciously like ‘Jake’.

  ‘Stop it.’ I slapped her arm. ‘I’m done with all that.’

  ‘Ja-ake,’ she half-sang. ‘Ja-ake and Char-lie.’

  ‘Seriously. You’re like a twelve year old,’ but I felt my face getting red. I turned away to hide it. ‘Just come help calm this horse down, okay?’

  We caught Cupcake and saddled her up. I was nervous, but with Coco there, she was perfect. She was calm, beautiful and fast, and she didn’t put a foot wrong.

  ‘I’ll take her down past the creek and back,’ I said to Coco, but from the look on her face, I could tell she was dubious.

  ‘Really? She still hates the water.’

  ‘She should be fine. Come on, Cupcake.’ I pressed in with my knees to get her to move and she slipped into a medium paced canter, down the paddock, past Fozzles and Mika, who were grazing in another fenced off area, near the horse shed Dad had just finished putting up. ‘For shelter,’ he’d told us. ‘In the rain, a foal needs a place to go.’

  I’d laughed at him. ‘It hasn’t rained for ages. She’ll be a year old before it rains again.’

  It was a six or seven minute ride to the creek, the halfway point between our
property and Ness’s place. And Cupcake was perfect.

  ‘You’re doing well,’ I told her. ‘Much better. See? It helps when Coco’s around.’

  I could see the creek, which was really just a tiny little dribble of water in this dry weather. Last year, when it had rained a lot, it had become an actual stream for about three days. Josh even took his boogie board down there for a bit, and we all went crashing down over the rocks in the current, gasping and laughing, until Dad told us not to; it was dangerous.

  ‘Come on, Cupcake. Across we go.’

  Tiny flecks of sunshine pierced the shade from the overhanging trees and made the water into a flashing, gleaming ribbon. It looked amazing; clear, twinkling and refreshing. But Cupcake didn’t think so. She came to a stop, even though I hadn’t told her to, right on the edge of the water, pawing and snorting and refusing to go any further.

  ‘Come on, Cupcake.’ I pressed in with my legs, but it made no difference. Cupcake refused to cross the water. She shuffled sideways, breathing out hard, and flicking her tail around.

  And then I did something I don’t normally do. I got scared.

  A wave of fear came over me, and for a half second, all I could see was the bright sky above me from when I opened my eyes after coming off Cupcake. It was a flashback but it felt real. Real enough, anyway, for me to pull the reins sharply, turn Cupcake around, and head back up the hill. Under my shirt, I could feel myself breathing hard, and not because I was tired. My mouth was dry and my arms were shaky.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I told Cupcake. ‘I didn’t want to go over the creek either. This way’s better.’

  Coco was waiting for us on the fence. ‘Did she cross? The stream, I mean.’

  I shook my head. ‘We decided not to.’ I turned my face so she wouldn’t see my mouth. Coco always says that when I lie, she can tell from the way my lips move. ‘We thought we’d come back. Had enough for now.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Coco, obviously unsuspecting. She took Cupcake’s rein and started leading her back to the tack shed. ‘Anyway, Dad said to come in. He’s got something to tell us.’

  I looked at her with fake alarm in my eyes and she grinned. Whenever Dad has something to tell us now, we never quite know what’s going to happen. Moving to the country, Mum being pregnant. What would come next?

  It wasn’t anything serious. At least, not really.

  ‘We’ve got to go to a funeral,’ Dad said, when we were all assembled in the lounge room, Mum included. ‘It’s next week, on a Saturday, which is unusual, but …’ he gave us all an amused, knowing look. ‘Well, that was Aunty Dot.’

  Josh made a face. Aunty Dot had never been his favourite of the three great-aunts we had, unlike me, who thought she was hilarious with the jokes she told and the doughnuts she served up. The three of them, Dot, Beryl and Gloria, had all helped to bring Dad up. Second, third and fourth mothers, he’d called them, although they were much older than his actual mother, and, Dot excepted, much more cranky, according to his ‘when-I-was-a-little-boy’ stories.

  When we were very tiny, we’d visited their musty house, eaten their food and played with their boxes of old toys kept in dusty cupboards for us. As we got older, our home visits turned into nursing home visits once or twice a year, until one by one, Gloria and Beryl had passed away, leaving only Dot.

  Now she was gone too. I felt sad, but in a nostalgic sort of way.

  ‘What do you wear to a funeral?’ asked Coco.

  ‘Will there be food?’ said Josh.

  ‘Are you okay, Dad?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, I am. I mean, she was old, and ready to go. She had a good life. The funeral will be in Sydney. Early afternoon, plus a light dinner afterwards.’

  There was a noise from the corner of the room. It was Mum. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to go, sweetheart. A full day, and all that travelling. I mean, I loved Dot, but I won’t cope.’ She looked exhausted as she said it. Also, quite like a balloon. Her belly was getting bigger and bigger. I could almost see the dent she was making in the couch.

  ‘I get it,’ Dad said, but his voice fell. ‘Do you want me to stay behind with you?’

  I looked from Mum to Dad and back again. Mum’s face was white and exhausted. Dad’s looked torn. ‘I’ll stay. You go, Dad. I’ll look after Mum.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ He looked at Mum’s tummy. ‘Four weeks to go. Do you think it’ll be okay?’

  Mum made a face. ‘It’ll be fine. Four weeks is really early. The baby’s not going to come, I know it. She’s still really high and stable. And if anything does happen, which it won’t, Charlie will call the ambulance for me. They can get here in twenty minutes. Or I’ll call Ness and she’ll take me to the hospital and we can call you from there. You’re only two hours away, anyway. Less if you drive quicker.’ She gave him a knowing look.

  ‘Shhh,’ said Dad with a ‘behave’ face to Mum. She made a ‘sorry’ mouth back to him, with a smile. We all knew Dad drove too fast sometimes, but he obviously thought he could still keep it a secret.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be okay to stay with Mum?’ Dad asked me. ‘I know you liked Dot.’

  ‘Yeah,’ came Mum’s voice from the sofa. ‘It’s really sweet of you to stay back to help me and the baby.’

  I ignored her. I wasn’t helping the baby. I was helping her and Dad.

  ‘Mum can’t go. Look at her. So I’ll stay home.’ I gave Dad a grin. ‘Mum and I will be fine.’

  19

  Chapter 19

  I didn’t do it for the baby, no matter what Mum thought.

  The truth was, I still didn’t want that baby, no matter how cute the little pink and white jumpsuits, teddies and blankets were that were starting to accumulate in piles around the house. Everything smelled like talcum powder and the place was beginning to look like some kind of sparkly, happy-family nappy advertisement you see on TV. I was doing my best to ignore it all.

  I was also doing my best to ignore the fear that was still creeping up the walls of my stomach. It was the Inter-schools event, looming over me even in my dreams. Even Baylor seemed nervous; at school she was being even more obsessive about her riding outfits than normal. I needed to practice—in a big way, and especially after the fall—so I went out jumping on Cupcake every afternoon after school, but to get myself there I had to drag Coco after me and shout down her protests.

  ‘You’ve done it,’ she said every time. ‘You got back on. Cupcake is fine with you. And anyway, I’ve got homework. Plus I’m face-timing James. Do you really need me?’

  I held the fear in my stomach secretly, so Coco wouldn’t see it. ‘You’re still the Cupcake secret strategy.’ I wasn’t lying, I just wasn’t telling the whole truth. ‘She’s still better with you around, and there’s no way you’ll be inside doing your homework. James can wait. I still need you. In fact, I’m going to need you with me right up until I get to Inter-schools in two weeks’ time and win it.’

  ‘Do I get a day off from school for it?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ll even write the note to get you out of there.’

  The Friday afternoon before the funeral, Dad picked us up from school early. The weather was getting cooler and the sky was grey.

  ‘We’ll leave early for Sydney,’ he told Josh and Coco. ‘Tonight, in fact. I’ve got things to do for tomorrow.’

  Half an hour after getting home they had their bags packed and by the door.

  ‘Oh,’ said Dad. ‘I forgot.’ He called my name. ‘Charlie.’

  I stuck my head around my bedroom door, halfway through changing out of my school uniform into old jeans and a t-shirt. ‘What?’

  ‘I need to tell you. There’s a storm warning for tomorrow. It’s not serious. At least, they say probably not. But keep an eye out in case you need to go and put Fozzles and Mika under the shelter.’

  ‘Okay.’ I did up the button on my jeans and pulled my t-shirt straight. ‘And you’ll be back tomorrow night?’

  ‘By nine, hopefully. We’
ll try not to be too late.’

  I grinned. ‘Josh will be pushing you out the door.’

  ‘He’ll have to wait. We all know Grandma loves to talk. And at family funerals, Grandmas get to talk.’

  I grabbed some bags and helped them load the car. ‘Be good,’ said Coco, air kissing me. ‘Take Cupcake for a ride.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ I hefted Josh’s backpack into the boot. ‘Maybe.’ My stomach clenched as I said it, and I knew I wouldn’t be riding. Not without Coco there.

  ‘Bye,’ they called, and, ‘Bye,’ Mum and I answered and waved, and then it was just the two of us, on the deck, and in the house, for the night, on our own.

  We sat for a while, then Mum had a rest on the sofa while I made some pancakes for dinner. It was Mum’s choice. ‘If you can’t have pancakes for dinner for a treat when you’re pregnant, what’s the point of having a baby?’

  I just nodded. I couldn’t see the point of having a baby at all, but if you had to have one, I supposed there might as well be pancakes involved. We ate them together, watching the sunset, and then I washed up while Mum picked a night of TV viewing for us.

  ‘The reception’s bad tonight,’ she said, after about the sixth time the sound went patchy and the picture scratchy.

  I got up to look outside. ‘The wind’s coming up,’ I said. ‘I might get Fozzles and Mika in the shed tonight. It might be that storm that Dad told me about.’

  ‘It’ll probably blow through pretty quick. That’s what they’re forecasting. Will little Mika be okay?’ Her voice sounded plaintive and concerned.

  I smiled at her. ‘She’s adorable. She’ll be fine in the shelter.’

  Outside, the wind was fierce, and getting colder. I wrapped a jacket around me and headed over to the paddock to find the horses. Fozzles was easy to catch, and Mika followed along behind her into the shelter where I gave them some feed and spread some fresh straw out. Cupcake would be alright in the paddock overnight, I decided, but when I opened the shed door to go back to the house, there she was.