Ways to Live Forever

by Sally Nicholls

  “An infection, Gillian said. She’s up there now.”

  Gillian is Felix’s mum.

  I was still staring. I didn’t expect this to happen. It was like a small pit had opened in my stomach. I mean, I knew Felix was pretty ill, like me, but I didn’t expect him to actually get ill.

  “He’ll be all right,” I said.

  Mum didn’t say anything.

  “He’ll be fine,” I said.

  KIDNAPPING THE PHONE

  4th February

  Two whole nights have gone by. Felix is still in hospital. I tried asking Annie if she knew anything when she came to give me platelets, but she said she didn’t. Mrs Willis came again and asked me if I’d written any more book. I said no, even though I have. We just played Othello for school. I wish I’d never started writing a stupid book about getting ill. It doesn’t seem funny any more. I wanted Mum to ring Felix’s mum and find out what’s happening, but she wouldn’t. She said Gillian had enough to worry about without us bothering her.

  I said, “What about me? I’m worried. At least she’s there. Can’t we go see him?”

  Mum said, “No.” She said, “He’s very poorly, Sam. He wouldn’t want you there. And we wouldn’t want you catching anything, would we?”

  I wanted to scream. That’s so unfair. It’s one thing to say nobody can go, but to say only I can’t because it’d make me ill is horrible. Anyway, it doesn’t make sense. You’d think I’d have more resistance to infections, not less, with my mega-reinforced resistance army of white blood cells.

  I said, “That’s discrimination! And anyway, people are only infectious when they first get ill, they aren’t later.” (I wasn’t entirely sure this was true, but I said it anyway.) “And he would want me there, he would. He said so.”

  Mum said, “Sam. . .” She reached out her arm. I pulled away.

  “No!” I shouted. “It’s not fair!”

  Mum sighed. “No,” she said wearily. “It’s not, but that’s the way things are and you’re just going to have to live with it.”

  “No!” I shouted. I pushed her. Then I ran out into the hall and slammed the door. I picked up the phone and started dialling. I don’t know Felix’s mum’s mobile, but I know their home number.

  Mum came after me and saw what I was doing. She grabbed for the phone. I pulled it away as far as the cord would go. The phone fell off the table and landed on the floor with a clunk. At the other end, I could hear a sleepy voice saying, “Hullo? . . . Hullo?”

  “Mickey!” I said. “Mickey—”

  Mum yanked the receiver off me. “Mickey, I’m so sorry—”

  “Ask him!” I begged. “Ask him!”

  Mum took the phone through into the living room. I followed. “Sam!” she said. “Mickey, I’m terribly sorry about this, but Sam’s been so worried—”

  I am an expert at eavesdropping, but even I couldn’t tell much from Mum’s “Right”s and “Of course”s. I had to sit there squirming until she put down the phone and glared at me.

  “Well?” I said.

  Mum opened her mouth like she was about to shout and then shut it again. “He’s still in hospital,” she said.

  “And?”

  “And he’s still very poorly.” She hesitated, then she said, “Mickey says he’ll tell his mum we rang, but he said there isn’t really much point in visiting him. He’s sleeping a lot, he said.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “His dad’s coming up tomorrow, but they’re not sure when he’s going to get in. Sam—”

  I didn’t want to hear whatever she was going to say.

  “He was all right on Saturday,” I said. I couldn’t get over how unfair it all was. “There wasn’t anything wrong with him!”

  THE STORY OF THE CURE

  This is a story that I made up.

  It starts with me at home. I’m cross and miserable. Mum’s cross too. We’re fighting. Mum’s crying.

  It seems as if nothing good is ever going to happen again.

  And then the phone rings.

  On the other end of the phone is Annie. She’s very excited. A team of scientists has found a new drug, which has cured leukaemia in lots of laboratory hamsters and mice. All the laboratory hamsters and mice were lying there, about to die, but after they were given this drug they got better and now they’re living happy lives as pets of the scientists’ children.

  The scientists need some human beings to test this drug on. They ring our hospital and talk to Annie.

  “We need lots of people with leukaemia,” they say. “Give us your sickest patients. The sicker the better. This drug is so good, they’ll just take one sniff and they’ll be disco dancing.”

  “Right you are,” says Annie. And straight away she rings up all her patients and tells them about the scientists.

  Some of the patients are doubtful.

  “No way,” they say.

  “He’s having us on.”

  “No drug can be that good.”

  But I say I’ll give it a go.

  The next day the scientists come round to our house. They give me a packet of little red-and-white striped pills.

  “Here you go,” they say. “This is it. Take two a day with a drink – whatever type you like best.”

  The drug is very good. As soon I have taken one pill I start to feel better. After I have taken two pills, I stop feeling tired. And after three pills I get up and start jumping on my bed. I run all around the house. I get out my bike and ride it up the hill and back down. I play basketball with Ella on the old hoop on our house and I beat her thirty-eight hoops to six.

  After I have taken all the pills in the packet I am completely cured. The scientists are delighted. I am on the World News. All the newspapers in the world have pictures of me coming down our hill on roller blades and visiting other children with leukaemia to tell them about the pills.

  The scientists make billions of pounds selling their pills to hospitals.

  They give some of the money to me and I go on a world cruise with my family and Felix and Granny.

  And no one ever dies of leukaemia. Ever again.

  A PHONE CALL

  5th February

  Felix’s mum rang the next evening.

  You could see Mum jump when the phone rang. She’d already jumped for Grandma-in-Orkney and a man selling kitchens. She shut the living-room door again, so me and Ella couldn’t hear what she was saying. I hate secrets and so does Ella. We looked at each other. Ella’s face was white and her eyes were huge. We would have listened anyway, but Dad was there and he turned the news right up so we couldn’t hear. Dad hadn’t said anything about Felix being in hospital.

  Not a thing.

  We heard Mum’s voice stop in the hall. There was a long, grippy silence. Then she came back in and sat on the edge of the sofa. She was wearing her serious look again. All of a sudden, I didn’t want to know.

  “Was it Felix’s mum?” said Ella.

  “Yes,” said Mum. She hesitated. “Sam, Gillian says – if you want to – she thinks maybe you should come and say . . . come and see him.”

  “Is he awake?” I said.

  “No,” said Mum. “Not really.” She rubbed her hand across her leg. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  I didn’t want to.

  Yes, I did.

  No, I didn’t.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll go.”

  WHAT HAPPENED

  6th February

  It felt weird being back on our ward again. The nurse on the nurses’ station was new and didn’t recognize us. She said Felix had a private room. I trailed the tips of my fingers along the corridor walls as I followed Mum, remembering. Felix always used to say the sicker you got, the better service they gave you. Once, him and me emptied a whole bottle of vampire blood over his sheets to try and get this student nurse to bring us a bottle of Coke from the machine. She went absolutely white and screamed for one of the proper nurs
es to come. We didn’t half get told off.

  And she never got the Coke for us.

  “There you are!”

  I jumped. It was Mickey, Felix’s brother, smiling at me and Mum over two cups of plastic hospital tea. He looked the same as always: big and rumpled, like a sleepy bear, with what looked like egg yolk down his T-shirt. He started talking to Mum. I listened at first, in case they said anything about Felix, but they just went on about his dad and his grandparents and someone else I’d never heard of. I stopped listening. I went and stood by his door, wanting to go in but not daring.

  I felt sick.

  When we finally did go in, it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. Felix was lying in bed, on his back, in ordinary pyjamas. He looked asleep. His mum was sitting by the bed, holding his hand. She turned when we came in. She and Mum stared at each other, over the bed.

  Then her face seemed to crumple and she burst into tears.

  Me and Mum and Mickey just stood there in the doorway. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen Felix’s mum cry before. Maybe Mum had, though. She went right over to her and put her arms around her.

  “Shh. . .” she said. “Shh . . . It’s all right. It’s all right.” With her arm around her shoulder, she guided her towards the door, still talking in the same quiet voice. “Come on. Come on, now. Let’s go somewhere quiet.” And just like that, they were gone.

  “It’s all right,” said Mickey. “There’s a special room to flap in.”

  “I know,” I said. I suddenly remembered what Felix had said, that he didn’t want his mum to be there when he died, in case she got upset. I looked quickly at him. He hadn’t moved.

  “Would you like to come sit by him?” said Mickey. I nodded. He gave me a little push towards the chair.

  “Hold his hand if you want. And talk to him. Let him know you’re here.”

  “Can he hear?”

  “Maybe.”

  I wondered if he was in a coma or just asleep. Probably a coma, I thought. You can’t hear people when you’re asleep. I wondered what would happen if I shook him and yelled, “Wake up!”

  Maybe he’d open his eyes and shout, “Where’s my Coke, then?”

  Maybe not.

  I sat in the chair but I didn’t hold his hand. I felt very silly, sitting there. I know it was awful, but I couldn’t help it. I wondered if he could see us, or hear us. If he could, I bet he was laughing at me.

  “Hello,” I said.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Not with Mickey there. But Mickey seemed to understand. He said, “I’d better give Mum her tea. Would you like a cup?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Please.”

  “You’ll be all right on your own, won’t you?” he said. “You won’t be frightened?”

  “No,” I said.

  I wasn’t frightened. He was just Felix.

  He looked just like he was asleep.

  What happened next was something incredible.

  Something I didn’t tell Mickey or Felix’s mum or anyone.

  Something secret.

  I felt better after Mickey had gone. I sat in my chair looking at Felix, scuffing the soles of my trainers across the floor. It was quiet. Nice. Just the two of us.

  “I wish you’d hurry up and wake up,” I said. I knew he wasn’t going to, really, but I still said it.

  And then he opened his eyes.

  He was looking right at me. I stared at him. I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe I should shout for Mickey, but I couldn’t move. It was like he wanted me to do something, or say something, and I didn’t know what.

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  He kept on looking. Then, suddenly, he smiled. More than smiled. He grinned, a big, wide, face-splitting grin. He looked so pleased that I found myself smiling back, without meaning to.

  And then his eyes closed and his body relaxed.

  I sat there on my black plastic hospital chair, by the bed, next to him. I knew I ought to go and get Mickey or a nurse or someone, but I didn’t. I just sat there, quiet and close beside him, until they all came back.

  WHAT IS DYING?

  Death: The final cessation of vital functions in an organism; the ending of life.

  The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition

  When someone dies it means their body no longer works. Their heart stops beating, they no longer need to eat or sleep and they do not have any pain. They do not need their bodies any longer (which is good because their body doesn’t work). Because dead people do not need their bodies we can no longer see them like we used to do before they died.

  Children and Death by Danai Papadatou and

  Costas Papadatos

  ALONE IN THE NIGHT

  6th February

  I didn’t sleep much the night Felix died. I felt very, very tired, but I didn’t sleep. I stayed awake and listened. I listened to the central heating making noises. I listened to the rain pattering on the roof. I followed the familiar shapes of the shadows and tried to remember what each one was. That was my notice board, stuck up with all my cards. That was a laundry basket, full of clothes waiting to be put away. I lay awake and tried to breathe it in and save it up somewhere where I would remember it always.

  Very late at night, I heard footsteps creaking down the stairs and my door opened. It was Ella. She was holding her big stuffed elephant and crying. I sat up in bed and looked at her. She didn’t say anything. I think she was half asleep still. She padded over to the bed and sort of patted me, as if making sure I was still there. Then she climbed into bed beside me, wrapped her arms round the elephant and closed her eyes.

  She’s never done anything like that before.

  I lay for a while pressed up against the wall, feeling her cold toes against my leg and the soft warmth of her body through her pyjamas. Then something seemed to relax inside me, and I closed my eyes and slept.

  MUM

  8th February

  I stayed in bed the next day. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I didn’t get up. Outside was grey and cold and full of rain. Annie came in the morning, but Mrs Willis didn’t. Mum kept putting her head round the door and saying, “Are you all right?” or “Don’t you want something to eat?”

  I felt strange and heavy and not quite there. My bones were hurting again.

  Mum kept looking like she wanted to say something and then not. I didn’t want to talk to her. I didn’t know what to say.

  I could see she had been crying. Her face was red and watery and full of tears.

  That evening, she came and sat by my bed.

  “Sam. . .” she said. “Sam, do you think you could eat something? For me?”

  I shook my head. My insides were all churned up, as if I was on a ship that wouldn’t stay still, as if the whole world was a ship, rocking and swaying in a storm. Mum nodded once or twice. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

  “Maybe you could have some milkshake. . .”

  She went away and made me some milkshake. I held the glass, awkwardly. It felt smooth and heavy between my fingers. The skin on my hand felt tender and numb at the same time. I could feel every prickle of my jersey against my arms and my neck.

  Mum was looking at me.

  “Please,” she said.

  I drank about half of the milk. And then I was sick, all over the duvet and down my jersey.

  Mum just sat there looking at me.

  I began to shake. I couldn’t stop myself. And then I realized I was crying, although whether it was because of Felix, or because I’d been sick, or because I felt so tired and ill, I don’t know.

  Mum reached out and put her arm around me but I cried out, because it hurt. So then she took her arms away and she was crying too.

  “I hate it,” I said. My voice came out in this high squeak, all shaken up with sobs. “I hate it. I hate it.”

  Mum nodded. Her face was shiny with tears.

  “So do I,” she said. “Oh, love. So do I.”

  I can’t re
member how long we cried for. But I do remember when we were finished she gave me some tissue and I rubbed my face with it and she dried her eyes. And I could see how much she wanted to make it all right again, but she couldn’t. So she went and got a new duvet cover and helped me put on a clean T-shirt. And she brought me a night light on a saucer and turned out the big light so that there was just this one little circle of candlelight on my bedside table. And then she sat there on the chair, beside the bed, beside me, until I fell asleep.

  MORE FIGHTING

  9th February

  I woke late next morning. I lay on my side and listened to the noises of my family. Ella was watching Saturday morning cartoons. I could hear the muffled noise of the television and Ella laughing. Mum was in the kitchen, clattering about with the pans. She was listening to Radio Four and talking to Dad. I could hear their conversation but not what they were saying; just the old, familiar sounds of their voices, rising and falling, as if from underwater or from a long, long way away.

  “This is what it’ll be like when I’m gone,” I thought. I felt half gone already, lying there behind my door. I was very tired. I thought about Felix. Felix, locked in a box and dropped down a hole. I closed my eyes.

  I don’t know how long I’d been lying there when someone knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  Ella opened the door and stood there, looking at me.

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She came in a little further.

  “You don’t look all right,” she said.

  She was standing on one foot in the doorframe, her dark hair all about her face. She looked so pink and solid I wanted to hit her. “Lemme alone,” I said. “I’m fine. Go away.”

  “I’m getting Mum,” she said, and she vanished. I moaned and buried my head in my pillow. I didn’t want to face Mum again.