Hello God

by Moya Simons

They got on really well with my parents, who are easy to get on with and like almost everybody, except for Mr Walters down the road, who kicks his dog. We reported him, by the way, God, to the RSPCA, and he was in big trouble and the dog was taken away and given to a good home. I know you’ll be pleased to hear that.

  Anyway, after dinner, Dad took out his telescope. The night sky was clear and the moon was full and it was a great night to stargaze. Stephanie’s parents looked through the telescope first, and they were of course amazed. Everyone is, but with Stephanie it was different.

  When she looked through the telescope, God, she was so overcome she was silent for a long, long time.

  A little later, while our parents talked about greenhouse gases, I asked Stephanie what she thought of Saturn. ‘Isn’t it great to be able to see the rings? And aren’t there just so many stars in the sky?’

  ‘We’re part of it all,’ Stephanie said. ‘I’ve read that every bit of the smallest bit that makes up you and me is found throughout the universe. We’re all part of the stars. All connected.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, though I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant.

  Hello God,

  Mum’s tum is growing. The baby kicks a lot. Dad goes goofy feeling it kick. He talks to Mum’s stomach and says things like, ‘Wait until you get out of there. We’ll have a lot of fun.’ Sometimes he sings songs to the baby. He doesn’t sing in tune, and I am sure the baby must put its tiny hands over its tiny ears. Mum gets a bit tired and sometimes her back aches. Both Mum and Dad kiss and hug me a lot, and my hiccups are getting better. They only come back when I feel really upset.

  It’s strange being part of the out set at school. I miss cycling down side streets with Danielle and Stacey and practising netball together. Stephanie’s kind of quiet. Apart from swimming, she doesn’t like sport. She especially finds running hard she told me.

  We get along fine though, because sport isn’t everything. Danielle and Stacey ignore us. They act as though we are bad smells. I ignore them, too. Adam’s become part of our group. He likes to tell jokes and does the most amazing magic tricks. He’s had special treatment on his birthmark and it’s beginning to fade. That’s what he told me, but the weird thing is, I’d stopped noticing it, so I didn’t realise he’d had treatment. Matt, the class hunk, sits with us at lunch sometimes. I’ve hiccupped a few times when he’s been around.

  Hello God,

  Stephanie invited me to her tree house today. Her parents built it for her. She has a rope ladder to climb up to it.

  Well, God, it’s a very cool tree house. You can look out the open window and see hills covered with red tiled roofs and cars travelling along roads and the school. You can even see the waves rolling onto the beach. Because it’s up so high, you can see birds’ nests in the branches above. Stephanie brought mushy fruit for the parrots that live on the top branches, and they came right into the tree house and stood near the open door, fighting each other for their dinner. They have their own little society. Like people in a way. Some birds were timid and stood back while the bigger birds ate first. Other birds just dug right in and gorged themselves and ignored the rough birds. Once they’d eaten they didn’t hang around though, which was good. When you made parrots, God, you should have made them quieter.

  Stephanie’s tree house has little shelves in it filled with books and games. She even has a shelf where she keeps biscuits and jelly babies and her mum gave us icy cold cans of lemonade to take up with us. In one corner there was a small, stiff broom. Stephanie swept all the leaves out of the door, and then we sat on cushions on the floor and played board games or just read. I never hiccup when I’m with Stephanie, God. I think this is a good sign.

  ‘This is my quiet place,’ Stephanie told me. ‘I sit here and make up stories about the bear and the pussycat. And I do my thinking here.’

  So, God, I bit my lip, because I wasn’t sure what she’d think of me. I told her about you. About how I talk to you when I can last thing at night in whispers or in my mind.

  I thought she might find it strange, but she just said to me, ‘Oh, that’s your quiet place.’

  When we left the tree house, Stephanie’s legs hurt and she had some trouble getting down the rope ladder.

  She must have fallen because I noticed some bruises on her legs. Her skin’s really pale, so the bruises stood out.

  She said it was nothing, that the doctor said she’d had a bad dose of the flu that time when she was sick and stayed away from school.

  I felt so bad when she said that. She’s had aching legs since she had that illness, which I wanted you to give her. That all seems a long time ago now, and we were stupid, weren’t we, God.

  Hello God,

  Seeing Stephanie’s tree house last weekend and where she writes her stories was inspiring. Today I went to the library to listen to Steph tell her story to the kids. In one part of Mum’s library they have a small room where there are brightly coloured beanbags and posters of story-book characters on the walls. Lots of little kids were sitting on the bags, looking around, waiting for Steph. I sat on a beanbag at the back, because I didn’t want to make her feel nervous.

  But I needn’t have worried. She wasn’t nervous at all, God. She came into the room and the kids cheered, and the boy next to me called out, ‘Stephy! Steph!’ She’s a celebrity at the library.

  Steph sat on a dotted beanbag and wore a peaked silver hat, which Mum made for the storytellers. Mum introduced Stephanie to the excited kids and then left the room to do some other work.

  Just before Steph started her story, guess who came into the story room? I could hardly believe it. Stacey came in with her little sister. They curled up together on a beanbag and when Stacey saw me she gave me a smile. What do you think of that, God? Stacey coming to listen to Stephanie? Amazing.

  Then Steph began to read. Her voice is soft, so you have to listen carefully, but she also uses her hands and her eyes grow big and fill her whole face. The story of the brown bear and the pussycat was just so beautiful. I was really concentrating, God, because I didn’t want to miss a word.

  The pussycat became lost as a kitten, when she jumped out of a big logging truck on a highway in Canada. A brown bear took her home and brought her up with her bear cubs. In the beginning the bear cubs teased her. They thought she was a very ugly-looking bear cub. In the summer she romped through the grassy hills with the mother bear and cubs. Every week, Steph tells the adventures the cat has with the cubs, and how she forms a special relationship with Sharmi, the smallest of the cubs. They share their food, and jump out from behind trees at one another and roll in the buttercups that fill the valley in summer.

  But Winter comes, and with it snow and ice.

  When Steph had finished, the children all cheered. Me too.

  Stacey came over to me. ‘Stephanie tells a great story.’

  ‘She sure, hic, does.’

  Does this mean Stacey and I are talking again? Maybe she and Danielle want me back in the in crowd? Hmmm.

  I told Steph how smart she was and asked her to tell me what happens next.

  ‘I can’t tell you. I haven’t decided yet,’ she said. ‘I’ll go to my quiet place and do some thinking later today.’

  So you see, God, life is full of surprises. I’ve been doing some thinking myself, about in crowds and out crowds, and it seems to me that there is no in crowd. It’s just being where you want to be.

  Hello God,

  Our class is going to a camp. Right by the river with canoes and walking tracks. We’re going to have a campfire at night, and study the bush by day. It’s supposed to be an environmental camp. Learning how to take care of the things you made, God, so you should be very happy that we’re thinking good thoughts.

  The baby is growing. It’s starting to fill Mum’s tum and she’s looking better and better. Her hair is shining, her cheeks are like pink apples. She wears big, loose clothes, but not too loose. Mum’s very proud of her baby bump and she pats it all the time.r />
  How do I feel about the baby now? Watching the spare room, usually full of knick-knacks, being transformed into a canary yellow room with a bassinette and a cot, mobiles of zoo animals, fluffy toys and a baby wardrobe makes me feel like hiccupping.

  I’m trying to remember that the baby is part of me too. It may even look like me. I can take it on walks, take it to the library to listen to Steph’s stories. But I won’t, no I won’t, God, hic, ever, ever, ever change its nappy.

  One last thing: it rained today and the ants are really harmless insects. Can’t you teach them to swim? At least twenty died in the puddle in our driveway.

  Hello God,

  We’re here at camp. I don’t know how this happened, God, but Stacey and Danielle are in the same tent as Steph and me. It seems to me that’s a bit of a coincidence. Did you set this up? While we were putting up the tent, Stacey told Stephanie her sister liked her story at the library. Danielle was awfully quiet. Then I started to hiccup, and somehow that broke the ice. Everyone started to laugh. Me too. Then, maybe because there’d been all this bad stuff going on between us, we laughed so much that we rolled around and the tent fell down and we had to stake it all over again. That made us laugh some more.

  God, I think laughter is the best idea you had when you made us.

  Tonight, we all sat around a roaring campfire and told stories. One person started the story with ‘It was a cold and windy night’ and the next person had to carry on. When we got to Steph, she added stuff that made the story so spooky everyone went, ‘Ooooooooh.’ She told us about ghosts running up corridors and clumsy ghosts bumping into ghost walls, and baby ghosts that needed ghostly nappy changes.

  Then Mrs Kettlesmith put golden syrup on newly baked damper and we gorged ourselves, letting the golden syrup squelch out the sides of the damper and drip through our fingers, and then we licked them clean.

  Sitting there, my cheeks hot from the fire, with the big eye of the moon blinking down at me and my friends, and a trillion stars twinkling, well, God, it felt special.

  Hello God,

  Today we looked at all the different plants, and Mr Daley, who is good at that kind of stuff, told us their names, which was soooooo boring. I guess you have your own names for them, God. We were also taught how carefully you have to put out campfires, because just a spark can start a bushfire.

  Then came the fun stuff. Canoeing and swimming. And dumping each other. Mrs Kettlesmith was wearing her swimmers, and she’s built like a tank, so when she jumped into the water the water jumped back. She landed on Adam. He wasn’t thrilled about that. Steph got tipped out of our canoe and came up to the surface laughing.

  Something strange happened then. Steph made her way to the shallow water, fell, tried to stand, then limped, hunched over, up the bank. Matt ran over to her, took her arm and helped her. She sat near a big tree and rubbed her legs.

  When I curled up beside her and put my towel around her shoulders, Steph told me that her legs still hurt.

  I pointed to some round purple spots on her legs and asked her if she’d knocked herself.

  Steph said that her mum was taking her for blood tests. I hiccupped and Steph said it was nothing really, just a few aches and pains left over from the flu.

  ‘Mum thinks I got the bruises when I fell at school. I didn’t. I don’t know where they came from. Anyway, they’ll go away soon.’

  Flu. That word hit me like it had been fired from a gun. I tried to tell myself that she could have caught it from anyone, another kid at school, anyone at all. God, we should both feel guilty. You especially. I’m just a kid. You’re the boss. You make the decisions.

  Hello God,

  It’s our last night. Adam and Matt spent a lot of time with us at camp. I think Matt likes Steph. I caught him looking at her in that way that boys look at girls they like. Matt doesn’t look at me that way. It’s disappointing, God. I thought you might put in a good word for me.

  Adam’s fun. He likes to jump out at me from behind trees and dump me in the river. He did a great Tarzan impersonation after lunch, except the ‘vine’ he tried to swing through the trees on was the rope for our washing line and it collapsed. So he decided to be Cheetah instead and made sad ape sounds. I think he must like me a lot because he walked me to the smelly toilets and told me to be brave.

  After dinner, Steph looked at Matt and he looked at her at exactly the same second, and even though it was night-time, and the only light came from the moon and the campfire, you could see them both turn bright red. Steph gave Matt a shy smile and when he smiled back his teeth gleamed, just like in a toothpaste ad. I wonder if the other girls in the class have noticed. I hope they have.

  Every girl in the class likes Matt. The weird thing is that he could be full of himself, because he’s got it all—good looks, not too clever, good at sport, liked by everyone. But he’s not like that. He’s kind. He helped Steph when she had trouble getting out of the water because her legs hurt. He offers everyone his chips, especially the stray cat that hangs around the camp site. I know you’ll be cheered up to know that Matt took the cat to Mrs Kettlesmith, and she fell in love with him (the cat, I mean) and is finding a box to take him home in.

  I’m only a teeny bit jealous, God, that he prefers Steph, hic.

  Adam’s more like me. He runs around, finds trees to climb, pulls things apart to see what makes them work. Talks quickly. Interrupts everyone. Wants to be an astronaut. He’s fun.

  Danielle and Stacey are okay. They didn’t have a bad attitude all camp, and it’s a relief really. They acted like we’d always been good, though not best, friends. Maybe they’re over the teasing. Maybe that’s what happens to most of us sooner or later. If you were to keep teasing forever, you’d grow up into a nasty kind of adult. You’d start wars and all kinds of things.

  Hello God,

  Something amazing has happened. Mrs Kettlesmith came to the library while Steph was telling her story about the bear and the pussycat and she’s asked her to enter it into the Best Young Australian Writers’ Competition. First prize is a chance to present the story to a publisher, and wow, that means Stephanie’s story might be in a book in a library some time.

  So Steph now spends a fair bit of time in her tree house writing and thinking. She doesn’t mind if I’m there. I feed the lorikeets and watch the tops of houses, and I take along the binoculars from home and spy on people. Then when Steph has a break from her writing, we talk and play board games and today we spoke about Matt.

  I told Steph that Matt really likes her. As in, really likes her. I could tell by the way he looks at her and then quickly turns away. It was a sure sign.

  Steph was puzzled. Why would the class hunk be interested in her?

  So I told her she had great eyes, lovely skin and a wonderful smile, plus she’s smart and thoughtful. She does have great eyes and she smiles more nowadays, a big open smile, and her skin is very clear though pale.

  Then, God, Steph told me that Adam likes me. That maybe half the boys in the class like me. That I have hair like brown popcorn, that my glasses make my eyes look bigger and that I have the cheekiest grin. While I felt like a peacock, preening myself, Steph said she was getting her blood tests done tomorrow.

  I felt a wave of panic, an emptiness in my stomach. I asked her if she was okay and then hiccupped.

  Sure she was, she told me, and then went back to writing her story.

  I wanted to know what adventures the bears and the pussycat would have next. Would the pussycat find its way home?

  Steph just grinned and told me to wait until she’d finished.

  Sharmi, the smallest bear cub, saw that the small cat couldn’t catch food easily and needed more attention from his mother than the other cubs. He didn’t care that the little cat was different. They were friends.

  Hello God,

  There was something wrong. You knew all along, didn’t you? So why let me down? Why let me hope everything was okay?

  Steph was taken to hospi
tal last night.

  Mum told me when I got home from school today. Her face was serious when she talked to me and she didn’t pat her baby bump once.

  We sat at the kitchen table, and Mum poured me some chocolate milk.

  She told me in a quiet voice that Stephanie was very sick. I was shocked, yet a part of me knew that Steph wasn’t getting better. I asked Mum what she meant. I’d seen Steph after school just yesterday. She’d been off school for a few days after her tests, so I visited her at home. She couldn’t climb up the rope ladder to her tree house, so she wrote her story lying back on her bed while I read, and in between we talked and laughed. She seemed okay then. A bit tired, but she’d had a bad dose of the flu, hadn’t she?

  Mum could see that I was upset. ‘How bad is she?’ I asked. ‘How bad?’

  Mum took my hand. She stroked it. She told me, God, that Steph has cancer. She’s in hospital having treatment, and they’re doing everything they can to make her better.

  I wanted to say something important, God, but nothing came out of my mouth except for a long hiccup.

  I thumped my hand on the table. Some of the chocolate milk spilt. Mum and I ignored it as it dribbled onto the floor.

  ‘Why did it happen?’ I asked Mum.

  How could it happen? I liked her. She was my best friend. It couldn’t happen. I was to blame, I told Mum, though you, God, played a big part in it. After all, I didn’t intend it to go this far. I thought she’d be sick for a day, that was all.

  Mum didn’t understand what I was talking about.

  I told her how I’d asked you to make Steph sick so she wouldn’t come to dinner that night a few months ago. That you and I had been very stupid, God.