Two Weeks with the Queen

by Morris Gleitzman

  Matron, hands on hips, ignored him and continued to glare at the nurses.

  ‘Did you see Luke’s six?’ Colin said to Mum and Dad, who were standing behind her. ‘I wasn’t bowling my best but it was still a good hit. Reckon he must be almost better, eh?’

  He waited for them to look happy about this, and say how pleased they were that he’d brought the bat and ball in so Luke could get back to playing cricket instead of weaving baskets and making ashtrays out of bottle tops and all that boring stuff you have to do in hospital.

  They didn’t. They stood staring across the ward at Luke and their faces were so pale and unhappy that for a moment Colin thought they’d got gastric too.

  Colin sat on the hard vinyl chair in the matron’s office and watched Mum and Dad standing by the bed talking to Luke.

  It was too far away to hear what they were saying but they were smiling, sort of, and touching him a lot. It didn’t look as though there was much telling off going on.

  In the nurses’ room there was a lot of telling off going on. Matron’s voice had been raised ever since she’d led the two nurses in there and slammed the door.

  Even above the noisy air-conditioner rattling in matron’s wall, Colin could hear the odd word. ‘Irresponsible’ had been used several times and ‘very sick’.

  She must be telling them she’s very sick and tired of them being irresponsible, thought Colin.

  He started writing a letter to matron in his head in case she gave the nurses the sack and he had to get their jobs back.

  ‘Dear Matron, Overseas, where they have the best hospitals in the world, cricket is often used to help patients get better. Spin bowling is good exercise for people who’ve done their wrists in and batting is specially good for gastric because it strengthens the bowel muscles . . .’

  Dad came into the matron’s office and closed the door behind him. He still looked pale and unhappy. Colin waited for a telling off.

  Instead Dad put his hands on Colin’s shoulders.

  ‘The hospital in Sydney that did the tests on Luke’s blood want to do some more,’ he said in a strange, low voice. ‘Luke has to go down there, today.’

  Probably so they can check out his poos, thought Colin. Boy, those Sydney hospitals are thorough all right.

  ‘Are we all going in the car?’ he asked.

  ‘That’d take too long,’ said Dad. ‘They’re flying him down in the air-ambulance this afternoon.’

  Colin felt the blood drain from his face.

  ‘There’s only room for one passenger in the plane so I’m going with him,’ said Dad. ‘You and Mum’ll come down on the train tomorrow.’

  He crouched down in front of Colin and looked into his face. ‘I know it’s a shock, old mate, but we’ve got to be tough, eh?’

  Colin barely heard him. His blood was pounding in his ears and he felt sick in the stomach.

  It was a shock all right. A plane. He’d never even been in an ambulance and Luke was flying to Sydney in a plane.

  ‘You ever had a crash?’ Colin asked the air-ambulance pilot.

  ‘Nope,’ said the air-ambulance pilot, biting into his baked bean and salad sandwich.

  Colin squinted out over the dusty airstrip. Gusts of hot wind were whipping up spirals of dirt and flinging them against the side of the little white plane.

  ‘Probably be a bumpy flight,’ said Colin.

  ‘Yep,’ said the pilot, taking a mouthful of chocolate-flavoured milk.

  ‘Probably be a bit harder to navigate than usual,’ said Colin.

  The pilot shrugged.

  ‘I’m pretty good at reading maps,’ said Colin.

  The pilot took another bite of his sandwich and another swig of his drink and chewed it all up together.

  ‘And I’ve got a compass so we wouldn’t wander round in circles gradually getting weaker and weaker until we perished from thirst if we did crash,’ said Colin.

  The pilot swallowed the last of his chocolate milk, burped, and stood up.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘we’re full up.’

  He walked out of the tiny terminal and over towards the plane. Colin watched him go, then went over to where Dad was sitting, elbows on his knees, squeezing his hands together.

  ‘Pilot reckons it’ll probably be a bumpy flight.’

  ‘Probably will,’ said Dad, not looking up from his white knuckles.

  ‘If you’re feeling a bit nervous about it, I’ll go,’ said Colin.

  Before Dad could answer, the ambulance from the hospital arrived and Dad jumped up and went out to meet it. Colin followed him, wishing that Luke would full out of the ambulance and need microsurgery on his neck so at least there’d be a reason for flying him around in planes at the taxpayer’s expense.

  Mum got out of the ambulance first, looking even tenser than Dad. Not surprising, thought Colin. Being stuck in there with Luke rabbiting on about how excited he was and whether they’d be attacked by MiGs on the way to Sydney would make anyone tense.

  Then the ambulance men wheeled Luke out and Colin suddenly felt strange.

  Luke wasn’t rabbiting on about anything. He was just lying on the stretcher looking pale and sad. He looked up at Colin and spoke in a tiny voice.

  ‘See ya, Col.’

  ‘See ya, Luke,’ said Colin and suddenly it was swirlier inside his chest than it was out on the airstrip.

  A horrible thought snuck up on him. What if it’s something worse than gastric? Something really crook like glandular fever or hepatitis?

  Just for a second Colin’s guts went cold, like when he remembered he hadn’t done his homework, only worse. Then he did what he usually did with homework.

  He stopped thinking about it.

  Mum hugged Luke and Dad and then Luke was being wheeled across the bumpy dirt towards the plane. Dad started to follow, then turned back and crouched down in front of Colin.

  ‘Look after Mum for me, old mate,’ he said and squeezed Colin’s shoulder and was gone.

  Colin moved closer to Mum, who had wet cheeks and was pressing her lips together very hard.

  Colin watched the little plane soar into the hot sky, and once it was safely up he turned away. OK for kids, he thought, all that flying stuff, when you haven’t got responsibilities.

  He took Mum by the hand.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Looks very nice,’ said Mum, poking the green lumps on her plate. ‘What exactly is it?’

  ‘Curry,’ said Colin.

  ‘Why’s it green?’

  ‘Well,’ said Colin, ‘the sausages burnt a bit while the rice was boiling over so I put some peas in.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mum. She put a green lump into her mouth and chewed slowly.

  Colin watched anxiously.

  ‘Like it?’

  He’d already tasted it himself and it wasn’t bad though it could have done with a few less glacé cherries.

  Mum swallowed and gave him a strange little smile.

  ‘Very nice, love.’

  She hates it, he thought. Right, that’s it, I’m never putting dried fruit in a curry again.

  ‘I like the cherries,’ she said.

  It’s the onions, he thought, I knew I should have chopped them up.

  Mum put her knife and fork down and took a deep breath. Oh no, he thought, I didn’t get all those lumps of curry powder out.

  He had a vision of what Dad would say when he heard. ‘I asked you to look after her for me, you drop-kick, not poison her.’

  He grabbed a glass, filled it with water and pressed it into her hand. She seemed not to notice. It couldn’t be the curry powder.

  ‘Colin,’ she said, ‘there’s something we haven’t told you about Luke. The reason they’ve sent him to Sydney is cause they think he might be pretty crook.’

  I don’t believe it, thought Colin. I’ve just spent ages slaving in the kitchen cooking tea and now it’s getting cold while she rabbits on about Luke.

  ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘you’ve seen tho
se Sydney hospitals on telly. They’re huge. They’ve got equipment down there that can cure a horse.’

  Mum looked at him for a moment, then smiled wearily. ‘Good on you, Colin. You’re right. No point in moping till we know what’s what.’

  ‘Now stop worrying,’ said Colin, ‘and eat your tea.’

  He watched her lift a green lump on the end of her fork, look at it and put it back down.

  ‘Sorry, love, I’m just not hungry.’

  Colin’s heart sank.

  Then the phone rang.

  Mum rushed into the hall and answered it in her long-distance voice. It was Dad, ringing from the Sydney hospital to say that Luke had just been taken away for his tests and to see how she and Colin were.

  ‘I’m fine,’ yelled Mum. ‘Colin’s just cooked me a wonderful tea and I feel awful cause I’ve lost my appetite.’

  In the kitchen, Colin, who was about to scrape the curry off Mum’s plate into the garbage, grinned and put the plate into the fridge instead.

  Colin had a busy evening.

  While Mum packed her bag for Sydney, Colin told her about a documentary he’d seen on TV where a man whose heart had gone bung had someone else’s heart fitted into his chest. And another bloke who’d chopped his foot off with the lawnmower had it sewn back on. And a kid who’d swallowed several bits of her dad’s record player had her tummy cut open and inside they found all the bits and a torch key-ring.

  Then he heard Mr O’Brien’s dog in the porch chewing the front door mat and he went out and threw some lumps of wood at it, just like Dad did most nights, and stood with his hands on his hips watching it run across the street to rub its bottom on Mrs Widdup’s chook-wire fence.

  Best of all was when Mum jammed her finger in the zipper of her suitcase. Colin put some Dettol on it and a Band-aid.

  ‘It’ll sting for a bit,’ he told her.

  ‘It already is,’ she said.

  ‘I like the smell of Dettol,’ he said, to take her mind off it.

  ‘Me included,’ she said.

  She let him stay up with her to watch the late news.

  There was a story from England about two little kids born joined together who’d just been separated in a successful operation which, Colin thought, must have been a great relief for both of them.

  Then he did his packing, just a couple of things in his cricket bag because they’d all be coming home on the train in a few days. Unless Luke had a very rare type of gastric which Channel Nine wanted to make a TV show about and Luke had to stay in Sydney for a couple of years.

  Colin went to sleep thinking about that and slept soundly except for a couple of times when the phone rang outside his room and he could vaguely hear shouting, which might have been Mum or it might have been a TV producer telling Luke to relax and act natural.

  He opened his eyes and it was still dark.

  Somebody was squeezing into bed next to him. For a second he thought it was Luke, sneaking in with wet pyjama pants like he did last year after he’d turned his own bed into a one-boy irrigation area.

  Then he realised it was Mum.

  She pressed against him and she was wet too, on her cheek.

  ‘Mum?’ he whispered.

  ‘Do you mind?’ she said.

  ‘Course not,’ he replied.

  Must be her finger, he thought. They can hurt a lot at night, fingers.

  When he opened his eyes again it was morning and the big holiday suitcase was open on his bedroom floor.

  The holiday suitcase?

  Then he saw that inside it were just about all of his clothes.

  He sat up.

  Mum was sitting on the end of the bed looking at him.

  ‘Colin,’ she said softly, in a voice he’d never heard her use before, ‘me and Dad’d like you to go and stay with Uncle Bob and Aunty Iris in England.’

  Colin stared at her.

  ‘We’re not going to make you go,’ she continued, ‘but we’d like you to go. For you and for us.’

  Words and questions and panic flew around in Colin’s head but all he could say was . . .

  ‘Why.’

  Mum looked away. ‘You’ll have a great time over there. Uncle Bob and Aunty Iris live near the zoo and Uncle Bob goes to the cricket all the time. And your cousin Alistair’s virtually your age.’

  Colin’s chest was pounding like a bore-pump.

  They were sending him away.

  They didn’t want him any more.

  ‘I can’t go,’ he said. ‘I’m in the middle of a science project. Cricket practice starts next week . . .’

  Mum moved up the bed and hugged him to her and he could feel sobs booming around inside her chest. She took several deep breaths.

  ‘The doctors say Luke isn’t going to get better,’ she said. ‘They showed Dad the X-rays.’

  X-rays? For gastric?

  ‘I can help you,’ he shouted. ‘Make tea so you and Dad can look after him, bring his homework home from school. You don’t have to send me away.’

  ‘Colin,’ said Mum, ‘a terrible thing’s happening and we don’t want you to have to suffer too.’

  What could be more terrible than sending him away?

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ said Mum, and it was almost as if she was pleading with him. ‘Luke’s going to die.’

  Colin sat on the roof of the shed and stared out over the paddocks. The sun-scorched corrugated iron stung his legs and he didn’t care.

  How dare they, he thought. How dare they give up and let Luke die.

  Did they expect him to believe that they could take a bloke’s heart out and put another one in and sew a foot back on and pull a torch key-ring out of a girl’s stomach and yet they couldn’t cure his brother of cancer?

  Bull

  What about the man in the newsagent’s? He’d had cancer on the head and they’d cured him.

  In the far distance he could see a tiny machine stirring up a huge cloud of dust.

  Did they expect him to believe that modern technology could bring the cricket live from India and make bombs that could blow up the whole world and build a combine harvester like Ian Pearce’s dad’s over there, with air-conditioning and built-in stereo headphones, and yet it couldn’t stop Luke dying?

  Bull.

  They had millions of dollars worth of modern technology down there in those Sydney hospitals, he’d seen it on TV.

  It was the doctors.

  They weren’t trying hard enough. The automatic aerials on their cars were probably playing up and they couldn’t concentrate on their work.

  He thought for a while about going down to Sydney and telling them to pull their fingers out. Then it occurred to him that perhaps the Sydney doctors just weren’t good enough.

  What Luke needed was The Best Doctor In The World.

  I’m going to need some help on this one, thought Colin, someone important who knows the phone number of the world’s best doctor.

  He thought a bit more.

  Then he went to tell Mum he was going to England.

  Chapter Five

  On the train to Sydney, Colin tried to tell Mum about his plan.

  ‘You don’t have to worry,’ he said, ‘everything’s going to be OK.’

  She was staring out the window at the Wheat Board silo, the one Luke always said was a secret fuel dump for MiGs, and dabbing her eyes.

  ‘Luke isn’t going to die,’ said Colin.

  He was about to tell her the details of his plan when he realised she was still staring out the window.

  ‘Mum, I said Luke isn’t going to die.’

  She turned to him sharply.

  ‘Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,’ she said in a loud whisper.

  Colin saw her glance at the other people in the carriage, who had been looking at them with interest. The other people suddenly became even more interested in the black and white photo of the Lithgow suspension bridge screwed to the wall over Colin’s head.

  ‘I do unde
rstand,’ said Colin.

  ‘Love,’ she said in a softer voice, ‘it’s not up to us.’

  ‘I know,’ said Colin, ‘that’s what I’m trying to explain.’

  ‘Look, why don’t you think about all the exciting things you’re going to be doing with Uncle Bob and Aunty Iris and Alistair?’

  Stack me, thought Colin, some people don’t want to be cheered up.

  ‘Mum, I’m trying to tell you about Luke.’

  Suddenly he found himself being pressed to her shirt, her quivering arms locked tight round him.

  ‘Don’t talk about it,’ he heard her sob into the top of his head, ‘please don’t.’

  All right, he thought, I won’t.

  At the hospital in Sydney he tried to tell Dad about Luke not dying and Dad asked him not to as well.

  ‘We’ve got to be strong, old mate, and cop it on the chin,’ he said, his voice shaking.

  Colin looked at his father’s red, bloodshot eyes and wondered why nobody wanted to hear the good news.

  Mum and Dad stopped him as he was about to go into Luke’s room.

  ‘Don’t say anything to Luke, old mate, about . . . you know,’ said Dad. ‘The doctors haven’t and we’ve decided not to.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ said Colin.

  Say what, thought Colin, that he’s going to die? Well I wouldn’t say that, would I, cause he’s not.

  As it turned out, Colin didn’t have a chance to say anything. Luke was asleep, his small figure completely surrounded by quivering dials and flickering gauges and blinking lights and glowing screens.

  He looks like he’s flying a MiG, thought Colin. The electricity that must be going into that lot. He’d remind Dad of that next time Dad yelled at him to turn a light off.

  The international airport was full of people bawling their eyes out.

  Colin watched them throwing their arms round each other and making damp patches on each other’s clothes.

  Perhaps grown-ups like crying, he thought. That would explain Mum and Dad’s behaviour, and why so many people fly overseas. Adults aren’t allowed to cry when they fall off a bike or hit their thumb with a hammer, but they can howl like five year olds when they’ve got a duty free bag in their hands.