by Penny Tangey
At lunchtime Morgan is being all quiet and funny so I get out Prancer in the Dark.
I have not even read a page when Morgan says out of nowhere, ‘What did you do yesterday?’
‘Not much,’ I say.
‘You didn’t go anywhere, visit anyone?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘I know.’
‘Know what?’
‘About your big secret.’
I don’t say anything.
‘Your brother Rhys has cancer,’ she says.
‘How do you know?’
‘Brianna told me. I saw her at Bunnings on Sunday.’
‘Why were you at Bunnings?’
‘Dad’s building a mezzanine.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s like an extra storey for the house but it doesn’t go all the way across. It’s going to overlook the lounge room. But I don’t care about that. Don’t change the subject. Brianna told me about Rhys.’
‘How would Brianna know?’
‘From her mum, Mrs Anselma.’
Of course. Brianna can’t keep a secret.
‘That’s why you can’t do anything after school. You go to visit Rhys at the hospital.’
‘So?’
‘So why did you keep it a secret from your best friend? Friends should trust each other. You’re not my friend at all! You’re wearing that bracelet as though it means something, but it doesn’t. You may as well be walking on Indigo and Jade’s graves.’
Morgan walks away.
She passes April, who’s coming back to the classroom with her lunch box. April says, ‘Trouble in paradise, ladies?’
When I get home from school I put my bracelet in the bin. I don’t want to remember stupid old Indigo and Jade anymore. They’re not even real.
Morgan doesn’t even like horses, and horses hate her. All that time I’ve been wasting with Morgan, I should have been trying to get my horse, Atta Girl. She would never trample me.
I go back to Rhys’s room. No-one knows that I took the money for the sausage roll from his savings jar but I know it was the wrong thing to do. I didn’t really need a sausage roll. I could have saved that money for Atta Girl.
I take the stopper off the jar. I will just take the same amount as I did the other day, but this time I will save it for horse equipment.
I take out a two-dollar coin, a one-dollar coin and a fifty-cent piece. Then I quickly go back to my room.
There is a knock on my door as I’m putting the money in my top drawer.
‘What?’ I say.
Mum opens the door. Angel is standing beside her; she likes to follow Mum around. ‘Stevie, love,’ Mum says. ‘I found this in the bin.’ She’s holding the stupid blue bracelet.
‘So?’ I say.
‘So, why are you throwing away your good things?’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘But it’s lovely.’ She puts the bracelet on my bedside dresser. ‘I think it’s made of real stones.’
‘I said I don’t want it!’ Angel turns and runs away down the corridor because she doesn’t like shouting.
‘Stevie . . .’
‘I don’t want it. Why can’t anybody understand that? I don’t want a stupid bracelet. I don’t want to be friends with stupid Morgan. I don’t want to go to the hospital. I. Just. Want. A. Pony. Is that too much to ask?’
5
Beach Horse
Because of when I shouted and then I couldn’t stop crying, I have to go to the hospital. It means I don’t have to go to school today, so that’s something.
We have to wait for ages, but luckily I am good at waiting because of Rhys. I imagine that I am riding Atta Girl along the beach with an orange and pink sunset over the water. The wind whips through Atta Girl’s mane and my hair. I can almost smell the sea and hear her hooves on the sand. Atta Girl’s silver mane would start to glow gold as it catches the light of the last rays of the setting sun. There are some places in Mornington where you can ride horses along the beach. But it wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t with Atta Girl.
Finally, a lady comes out to get us. The lady has curly hair and looks a bit like Miss Ellis but I am supposed to call her Sandra. Mum waits outside while I go in to talk to Sandra. Her office is a small room with a big desk but she doesn’t sit at the desk, she sits on a chair in front of me.
First, Sandra explains to me that she’s a counsellor and she helps people with their feelings. Sandra asks me lots of questions about school and Rhys being sick and Mum and Dad Ben and about how I feel. Then she asks me to do a drawing of my family. The crayons she gives me are not as good as my pencils, so it won’t be my best drawing. When I’m finished, she asks me to describe what I’ve drawn, even though it’s obvious because I have labelled all the people like she asked me to.
She finally lets me go and then she asks Mum to come in to speak to her.
Mum tells me to wait outside. They are as slow as a wet week. I can’t concentrate on reading my book because I know they are talking about me.
Eventually, the door opens again and Sandra pokes her head out. ‘Would you like to come back in, Stevie?’ she says.
The things they tell me are:
•Rhys has cancer in his blood. It is called acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Sandra says it doesn’t matter if I can’t remember the name.
•Rhys will have to have chemotherapy to get rid of the cancer.
•In Rhys’s operation they put a tube in his chest so they can give him the chemotherapy drugs more easily.
•The chemotherapy might make Rhys feel very sick.
•Rhys is coming home next week but he’ll have to keep coming to the hospital for his treatment.
•It’s not my fault that Rhys has cancer.
•I can’t catch the cancer from Rhys.
•It’s okay for me to talk about how I’m feeling. It’s healthy to talk about your feelings. Leaving your feelings bottled up won’t work for long and that might be why I shouted and then couldn’t stop crying yesterday.
•Sandra wants me to keep a drawing journal about my feelings.
•I can ask any questions I want.
‘Do you have any questions?’ asks Sandra.
I don’t want to make Mum cry like with the make-a-wish thing. I look at Mum. She seems okay. ‘Is Rhys going to die?’ I ask.
Mum says, ‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it.’
Sandra says the doctors are doing everything they can for Rhys.
‘Rhys is sick now,’ says Mum. ‘But he’s going to get better. He is. This is just something we have to get through.’
On the way home Mum says she can’t be bothered going home and cooking. So Mum and I have pizza at a proper restaurant with tablecloths in Frankston. It is delicious.
After Mum drops me off at school the next morning I go straight to the portable benches and get out my book. I didn’t want to come back to school today. Morgan hates me now because I kept secrets, and I still don’t have a horse, so I can’t be in the group. But I can’t stay away from school forever, so I am here.
‘Hi, Stevie,’ says a voice.
I look up and it is Morgan. She sits beside me.
‘Guess what?’ she says.
‘What?’
‘I’ve had an idea!’
‘What is it?’
‘As part of our suffragette presentation, we could re-enact Emily Davison being trampled by a horse. One of us could be Emily and the other one could be the horse.’
That is a really good idea.
‘Can I be the horse?’ I ask.
‘Okay,’ says Morgan.
So we are friends again, even though I still haven’t told Morgan anything about Rhys, and he still has acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
&n
bsp; Mum meets me at school at the end of the day, but instead of going straight to the hospital we are going to a special meeting with Mrs Anselma and Mr Parks.
Mum talks to them on her own first. I sit on the couch outside Mrs Anselma’s office. The couch is black leather and very comfortable. I have never sat here before because you only go to Mrs Anselma’s office if you are in big trouble, and I have never been in big trouble before.
I look at the Prep art stuck on the corridor wall opposite. Preppies are only little and they don’t know how to draw properly yet. Most of the people in the pictures don’t even have proper hands and feet. One of the preppies has drawn a horse. They have written horse underneath the picture, which is how I know, because otherwise it just looks like a brown blob with sticks coming out of it. I think the horse is supposed to be at the beach because there is a blue wavy line behind it.
What if Atta Girl is scared of waves? I guess that would be the end of my dream to ride her on the beach. But we would find other places to go.
Mr Parks opens the door and says, ‘Stevie, you can join us now.’
Mrs Anselma and Mr Parks are sitting on one side of the desk. I sit in the empty chair beside Mum on the other.
‘Now, first,’ says Mrs Anselma, ‘you’re not in trouble, Stevie. Not at all. We just want to talk to you about how you’ve been going.’
‘I know it’s difficult for you with Rhys being sick,’ says Mr Parks. ‘If you need help with anything, you can ask.’
But I don’t need any help; I’m not the one who can’t go to school. ‘I’m okay,’ I say.
‘Would you like me to talk to the class about what leukaemia is?’ asks Mr Parks.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’ asks Mum. ‘It might help them understand what’s going on.’
‘No.’
I don’t want everyone at school to know about Rhys. When I come to school I just want everything to be normal.
We are late to the hospital because of the special meeting at school. Lara isn’t in the Kidz Space when I arrive so I go back to Rhys’s room with Mum. He is still asleep so I get out my drawing journal to draw my feelings.
I draw me and Morgan at Grandparents and Friends Day.
Rhys wakes up.
‘What are you drawing?’ he asks.
I show him my picture.
‘That’s pretty cool,’ he says. ‘But you should add some blood.’
He’s right. Rhys does have good ideas. He used to do really good drawings of murders. But when you’re in Year 7 you don’t do illustrations anymore.
I show Rhys the picture with the blood.
‘That’s awesome,’ says Rhys.
6
Two Horses
I am not in the mood for afternoon maths today. I am especially not in the mood for doing maths races. Mr Parks gives us a sheet of maths questions and we have to write down as many answers as we can in two minutes. It makes my head hurt from concentrating. I notice that Morgan keeps looking at her fingers while we’re doing it.
At the end of the two minutes we have to mark each other’s sheets. Morgan marks mine and I mark hers. Morgan got them all right but I got three wrong.
Miss Ellis walks past the classroom and Mr Parks has to go talk to her. He tells us to review the answers that we got wrong with each other.
I ask Morgan why she kept looking at her hands. She says she knows a trick for her 9 times tables. Morgan explains her trick to me. You hold out both your hands with your palms facing up and for 3x9 you put down your third finger. You have two fingers to the left of the finger that’s down and seven fingers to the right so the answer is 27. It works with all your fingers up to ten. Then you only have to learn 11 and 12x9.
‘That’s so great!’ I say.
‘What’s great?’ asks Teegan.
I explain it to her and she passes it on to the next person.
When Mr Parks comes back in we are all talking. ‘I told you to review your answers; I did not tell you to descend into chaos,’ he says.
‘We’ve been doing maths,’ says Brendan. ‘I can do my 9 times tables now.’
‘Really?’ says Mr Parks. Brendan usually doesn’t even know his 6 times tables. ‘What’s 9x7?’
Brendan looks at his hands. ‘Sixty-three,’ he says.
‘Very good,’ says Mr Parks. ‘How did you learn that?’
‘The others taught me,’ says Brendan.
‘Well, well, well. I’m very proud of the way you’ve worked together today.’
And he puts two marbles in the jar!
That means we have twenty-nine marbles. There is only one marble to go. It is awesome.
The bell rings for the end of the day and we clean up in record time. There is no rubbish left on the floor. We stand behind our chairs and look at Mr Parks.
He walks slowly over to the marbles. He picks up the last marble from inside the coffee cup and puts it in the jar.
At the start of the day we only had twenty-seven marbles in the jar. There are now thirty marbles in the jar. We’ve made it!
Morgan’s parents are running late again so we wait at the gate together after school. I really hope Morgan’s parents pick her up before me. But then I see Mum’s car. And I can see that there is a passenger. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen.
‘David’s in your car again,’ says Morgan while Mum does the U-turn.
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Are you all going to the hospital to visit Rhys?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could I come to the hospital to visit one day?’
Morgan doesn’t even know Rhys.
Mum has pulled up so I pretend I haven’t heard Morgan and quickly get into the car. There is no way that I want Morgan to come to the hospital with me. She would think it was all a big fun adventure and it isn’t.
David and I play car cricket on the way to Melbourne and that passes the time. Mum plays too and she even laughs once.
*
When I get to the Kidz Space Lara is lying in a beanbag with her iPad on her knees. She is asleep, unfortunately. I will have to wait for her to wake up.
I sit in a beanbag next to her and get out my drawing journal to draw about the day. It takes me a long time because I put a lot of individual detail into each marble. The good thing about this drawing is that I hardly use any black pencil.
Lara still hasn’t woken up.
I stare at her as hard as I can. I imagine wake-up rays coming out of my eyes and drilling into Lara, but she still doesn’t wake up. It’s almost time for me to go back to Rhys’s room or Mum will come looking for me.
I stand up. All of my pencils fall out of the box with a big clatter on the floor. It was an accident.
Lara sits up quickly and says, ‘What?’
I say, ‘I accidentally dropped my pencils.’
Lara sits up. ‘Sorry, you gave me a fright. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Have you been here long?’
‘A little while.’
‘Oh. Sorry. How was your day anyway?’ She rubs her eyes.
‘Awesome,’ I say.
‘What happened?’
‘We got thirty marbles in the jar!’
I can see I will have to explain. ‘When we have thirty marbles in the jar, we get to have a class treat.’
‘That’s awesome,’ Lara says. ‘What kind of treat will you have?’
‘We don’t know yet. We’re all going to make suggestions and then vote on them.’
‘Democracy in action. That’s worrying.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, what if the rest of the class chooses a bad treat?’
I guess that is a risk I will have to take.
‘I wish our treat could be horse riding,’ I say.
‘Could it be?’
‘Nah, it would be too expensive. It’ll have to be something at school. It’s hard to think of fun things for school.’
‘You may have a point.’
Lara and I are both quiet for a while. I am trying to think of ideas for the treat. Horse riding would be the best treat ever but it’s not going to happen.
‘Hey, Lara?’ I say.
‘Hey, Stevie?’
‘When I get my horse, Atta Girl, could we go riding together? You could ride Finnigan again.’
‘Maybe.’
‘It would be so great.’
‘Yeah, it would be.’
I imagine Atta Girl and Finnigan meeting each other. The two horses would complement each other perfectly, Finnigan black and Atta Girl grey with a silver mane and tail. Lara and I would go for a ride and stop at a dam for water. The two horses would drink together and then stand under a tree nuzzling each other. They would be best friends.
7
Mountains
Morgan and I discuss the treat options before school. Anonymous suggestions are due in the box on Mr Parks’s desk by the start of recess.
‘We could watch a movie,’ Morgan suggests.
‘Yeah, but Mr Parks will pick it,’ I say. ‘And that will be a nightmare. You weren’t here when we had to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.’
‘We could have a party,’ says Morgan.
‘Maybe.’
‘We could visit prisoners in jail.’
‘We’ve already had our excursions for this year,’ I tell her.
‘Someone famous could come to the school,’ says Morgan.
‘Would someone famous come?’ I ask.
‘Probably not.’
Thinking of ideas for treats is harder than we thought.
After recess, Morgan and I walk into the classroom together.
‘Look!’ says Morgan, pointing.
On the board Mr Parks has written up a list of our treat suggestions: