by Moya Simons
Mum came over to me and ran her hands through my hair and kissed my cheek and told me I didn’t make Steph sick. She’d been sick for a long time. No one can make people sick by wishing them so. And that you, God, didn’t have anything to do with this. It was my thought. Not especially a nice one, but we all have bad thoughts from time to time. Sometimes these things just happen and no one knows why.
She said I could visit Steph in hospital. A big rope knotted my stomach.
Is Steph really so sick? Does that mean she could die? No, that isn’t possible. Kids don’t die. They live to ripe old ages, get married and have children and one day they babysit their grandchildren. Most of them do, anyway. Steph will do that. Won’t she?
The treatment has to work. So, God, it’s over to you. I want you to make her better. The doctors are going to try, but they need help.
And please, give me a sign, any sign, that you’ve received this message. I need to know you’ve heard me.
Hello God,
The hospital is a stone building with large windows and a bitumen driveway. Beside the driveway are garden beds filled with purple and red flowers. There’s a cheery sign out the front that says Children’s Hospital. Each letter is a little lopsided and brightly coloured and beside the sign is a clown’s smiling face.
When you enter the hospital the first thing you notice is that the lady at the desk is wearing an alien mask. ‘I’m Molly. Who do you want to see?’ she asked.
She didn’t look at all embarrassed that she had a green rubbery face. She looked up Stephanie’s name and ward, lowered her head and pointed her green antennae, stuck to the top of her mask, down the corridor. I’d brought Steph copies of Dad’s pictures of Mars.
When I walked into Steph’s ward, my stomach was jumping. I saw balloons tied to the end of every bed. There were four children in Steph’s ward. One boy sat in a wheelchair talking; to his dad, I guess. Another boy sat up in bed reading a book. He had a yellow beanie on his head. A girl lay in bed with something attached to her arm. Her mother was sitting next to her in an armchair, leaning back, her mouth slightly open, fast asleep. I figured she’d been there an awfully long time.
Steph was in the bed near the window. She was propped up with pillows and was scribbling in her notebook.
Out of the long window, I could see cars queued up at traffic lights. People walking down streets. Mums wheeling babies in prams.
I said ‘Hi’ and sat beside Steph on her bed. She looked a bit pale, but she’s always been pale. I wondered if the doctors had made a mistake. She didn’t belong in hospital with the other sick kids.
Then I saw a tube coming from her arm. I began to hiccup.
Steph told me in a small but firm voice to stop hiccupping and reminded me what I had to do. I poured myself some water from the jug next to Steph’s bed and, feeling very sooky, held my breath, counted to ten then swallowed.
I asked Steph when she was coming home. She shrugged and said that she had to have some treatment and then she should be okay. She told me to stop looking scared. That now she would get to do all her writing in hospital. That school was sending her homework, and she could take her time doing it. And that she gets to eat ice-cream, to see me and talk to other kids.
She made it sound like a birthday party, God.
Her eyes lit up as she told me she was going to read her story to all the kids in the ward, one chapter at a time.
I looked at the kids in the other beds. They were about our age or a bit younger. Steph introduced me as her best friend, Kate. Everyone said hello except for the girl who was lying very still on her bed.
We talked. Stephanie’s mum and dad arrived with books for her. They leaned over Stephanie and kissed her on each cheek. Stephanie’s mum looked tired and a little worried, but she had a big smile for Steph.
Then I told Steph I’d better go and that I’d be back after school tomorrow. As soon as she was better, I said, we’d go to the tree house again.
Steph seemed cheery. ‘We sure will,’ she said. I’d feed the parrots and she’d write. We’d play games and spy on the school and the people at the beach. She’d be home in no time.
You know something, God. You haven’t sent me any signs. I keep looking at the sky, waiting for a double rainbow, but it doesn’t come. If you are busy on some other planet, I hope you get this thought and come back soon.
You’re needed.
As the weather grew colder, the bears slept a lot in their cave. Sharmi snuggled up to the small cat who was cold and shivering.
Hello God,
Today Nan moved in with us. We are building her a granny flat, her very own, in our back garden.
She’s sleeping in the baby’s bedroom, so I hope the baby doesn’t arrive early because if he does (I just know it’s a boy) Nan will have to sleep in my room.
I have a lot on my mind and it’s annoying having Nan wandering around the house asking me where she put her left shoe and things like that.
Yes, God, I know, we have to be kind to old people with bad memories, but I’m busy right now.
Mum’s tum is really big. I decided it was time to introduce myself to the baby. So I patted Mum’s baby bump and said, ‘Hey, I’m your big sister, and don’t forget it. Don’t mess up my bedroom when you learn to walk, and don’t do poos when I’m looking after you.’
Dad made a pretend microphone out of rolled paper and said to Mum’s tum, ‘Father calling baby. Father calling baby. Come in, baby.’
Then he waited a while and said, ‘What’s that you say? You’re running out of space in there. Hold on, baby. Soon it will be time for you to turn your ship around and make your way to the home base. Landing crew are prepared and waiting. Over and out.’
All this talk about the baby, God, you might wonder whether I sometimes forget about Steph. I don’t.
I visit every day after school and on the weekend. Today Matt and Adam came with me. Matt’s never been to a kids’ hospital before. He’s always been healthy and everyone he knows has been healthy. He was nervous and asked me what he should say to Steph.
I told him to just be himself and say what he’d say to her if she was well.
He bought her a bunch of heart-shaped pink balloons. How cool. How romantic. I wondered if some day someone would send me a bunch of heart-shaped balloons. I carried a container full of Anzac biscuits, which Mum and I had made for Steph and all the children in the ward.
When we got to the ward, Steph was reading her story to a group of children. A few other kids had come into the ward and were sitting on the ends of beds in their pyjamas, listening. Her voice was soft but clear.
It was a magical moment. The small cat looked out of the cave at Sharmi sliding on the ice. She forgot that she was just a little cat and that she was so cold. She joined Sharmi, skating and dancing on the ice, while snowflakes covered their fur.
The little cat wasn’t meant to live in the wilds of Canada. She was meant to sit by a warm fire on someone’s lap, or curl up in a ball on a sundeck.
‘When the Spring comes, the ice will melt. There’ll be buttercups and daisies in fields that are now covered with snow. You’ll get strong, and we’ll play hide-and-seek again,’ her bear cub friend, Sharmi, told her.
The children sighed and made their way back to their wards or curled up in bed.
Steph looked at Matt and the balloons he was holding. She smiled shyly. She was really happy he cared. Matt tied the balloons to the bedrail and for an instant they fluttered like they wanted to break free and fly high into the sky.
Adam talked to Steph then walked around, inspecting the kids’ drawings on the walls. He talked to the other kids in the ward. He was very comfortable. I remembered that he’d been in and out of hospital. They’d helped him no end since he first came in for treatment on his birthmark.
Stephanie will be helped too, won’t she, God?
Steph told me she couldn’t eat the Anzac biscuits. Her treatment gives her an upset stomach and everything t
astes like sand. She said some of the other kids would eat them.
Matt shifted from foot to foot and told Steph that she’d get better soon. We were all quiet for a minute then Steph told us that her hair was going to fall out soon. That she was going to be a baldie. It would grow back, and maybe look even nicer than it was now and she’d grow it all the way down to her waist.
She laughed a really strange, false laugh. I blinked.
I noticed two of the children in her ward wearing beanies and this may sound silly, God, but up until that moment I thought they had cold heads.
Why does this have to happen to someone like Steph? Why do good people get sick when a lot of bad people don’t?
Steph tried to cheer us up by telling us, seriously, she’d look like a boiled egg.
‘Soft or hard boiled?’ Adam asked her, and we fell around laughing. I told her I’d buy her the best-looking beanie in town.
Adam offered to draw a face on her scalp. I wasn’t sure about that. There’s nothing funny about Steph losing her hair.
I began to hiccup. Steph sighed and pointed to the water jug.
We filled in Steph about everything that’s been happening at school, talked about the sports carnival that’s coming up and the big ‘get well’ card the class was making for her.
When Stephanie’s parents arrived, Matt and Adam introduced themselves and chatted for a while.
Steph gestured to me to come closer and whispered in my ear how much she liked Matt. I whispered back how much he liked her.
You may not understand these things, you being a spirit, but it was a very special moment, God.
Kate calling God. Kate calling God. Come in, God. Where are you?
You’re needed. All this stuff about giving us the right to make up our own minds to do good stuff or bad stuff has nothing to do with Steph’s health.
She’s really sick. Really, really sick.
My mum’s tum is very big and she’s finished work at the library for now. She and Steph’s mum get into a huddle and drink tea at our house, and sometimes when I come home from school they don’t even hear me drop my bag and walk into the kitchen.
Mum and Dad look serious when I mention Stephanie.
When I visit Steph, my heart feels like it has dropped all the way down to the pit of my stomach.
She gets sick a lot now, vomits, doesn’t eat much, and her hair is coming out in big clumps. She’s as thin as a beanstalk. She has seven beanies and wears a different one every day. A different colour for each day of the week. Today’s was red.
There is no need for this to happen.
Hey, God, do something. I know there are starving children in Africa, and bad people doing wrong things in the world, but save a bit of your time for Stephanie.
Please.
Send a sign that you’ve heard me.
Still no word from you, God.
Steph’s hair has dropped out completely, and everyone who visits has to be careful that they’re absolutely healthy. We wash our hands with special soap and water before we go into the ward, and if we even cough by mistake, a nurse will appear and tell us to get lost.
Steph’s resistance is low. While she’s on this medication she can catch almost anything, so we have to think of her, and only visit if we’re one hundred per cent healthy.
Most days Matt and Adam come with me. Adam brought his magician’s hat yesterday. First he juggled a few balls, then he managed to pull the most extraordinary things out of his magician’s hat—scarves knotted together, paper kites, even a toy rabbit. I guess it had a secret lining inside, but it didn’t matter. All the kids’ eyes lit up, and everyone, including the nurse on duty, said, ‘Ooooooh.’
Steph let him paint a picture of Spider Man on her scalp. Now that was really cool. The nurse came and watched him. The nursing staff are great, like big kids. They never get angry, and join in and play with the kids if they have time. There’s even a school and a playroom for kids as they get better.
Hello nobody,
If you’re there and not having a tea break, you might want to know that Steph’s illness is having a huge effect on me.
I feel so helpless. I just had to do something.
I locked myself in the bathroom and hacked as much hair as I could with the scissors. Then I used Dad’s electric shaver. It was hard to see my brown popcorn hair shaved off, lying in little curly piles on the floor, and I couldn’t do the back of my head really well. I didn’t look pretty or have a well-shaped head that made the baldness look better, but I gritted my teeth, and thought, I can do this. I can really do this. Mum was with Nan, so I wasn’t missed, even though I was in the bathroom for ages.
Still, I had to face my parents, so I thought I’d break it to them slowly. I put on my purple and red striped winter beanie, then walked into the laundry where Mum was loading the washing machine. Nan was beside her.
‘I can’t find my lipstick,’ Nan was saying.
Mum told Nan not to worry as she threw in my pyjamas and tops, she’d find the lipstick.
When Mum noticed me standing there, she straightened up and frowned at me. She wanted to know what I was doing with a beanie on my head in summer. She looked again and dropped a handful of washing onto the floor.
Nan stared at me vaguely and said what a pretty hat I was wearing.
I took off the beanie. Nan immediately asked me what had happened to my hair. Mum wrung her hands together, God, like I’d committed a major crime, and asked me what on earth had I done.
I explained that my hair was on the bathroom floor, that I’d used Dad’s razor. I told Mum not to go nuts about this, and that I’d sweep up the mess in the bathroom.
While Mum blinked in disbelief, Nan told me that I looked better with hair. Then she began to search in the washing for her lipstick.
Mum stumbled past the washing and Nan and the peg bag to where I was standing. She didn’t say a word. She just held me to her and stroked my bald scalp. It tickled.
‘I understand,’ she said.
A boy came into the wilderness. He had fair hair and eyes as dark as midnight. He didn’t look lost. He seemed to know just where he was, even though it was strange for a boy to be there in the snow and ice. He wore a sailor’s cap, which was even stranger, for where was the ocean?
He quickly found the cave where the bears lived, and the small cat curled up in the warmth of Sharmi’s fur. He held out his hand to the cat. The cat looked up at the boy. She didn’t want to leave the bears. They were her family. But there was something about the boy; something that pulled her to him.
She struggled to stand upright, and though Sharmi and his mother and all the other cubs pleaded with her, she decided to follow the boy.
Dear nobody in particular,
Your silence is deafening. Yes, I know all about the starving kids in different parts of the world, and I feel bad about them too. But you could fix everything, if you wanted to. What is it you do anyway? Create us then leave us to make sense of our crazy world.
I decided not to wear a beanie to school today. It felt like the only way I could relate to what was happening to Steph.
When I entered the playground, Adam and Matt came over to me. They took one look at me and understood immediately.
Adam told me that I had real guts and a beautiful scalp. He said I’d never have to worry about dandruff, but I wasn’t sure that was funny.
Matt said, ‘Good for you.’
Having their support was a great encouragement, so I held my bald head high.
Danielle and Stacey stared at me as if I’d just landed from another planet. I told them it was for Stephanie. Stacey didn’t say a word, she smiled knowingly and nodded at me. Danielle told me I was brave, that she couldn’t do what I had done, not for anyone, but when she next had a haircut she’d tell herself it was for Stephanie. That was a huge thing, coming from Danielle.
We finished our big, beautiful card for Stephanie at school. We each wrote our own message of love and support
. I took it to her this afternoon.
Molly was dressed as a green dragon when I arrived with the boys.
She knows us well now and stopped us before we went to the ward.
Steph wasn’t allowed visitors today. She was tired and sleeping. Molly said we now have to phone before we visit.
I asked Molly to give the card to Stephanie, and then I hiccupped in her face.
Molly held out her green hand and took the large card. She told me to jump up and down for five minutes and the hiccups would go. Then she told me I was doing a fine thing. I didn’t know what she meant, God. It was my beanie, I suppose. Wearing it in summer was a giveaway. I was embarrassed because I felt small and powerless. You wouldn’t know what that feels like.
When I came home the builders were packing their tools away after working on Nan’s granny flat. It’s going to take a while, and the baby is coming very soon. Mum’s tum is round like a melon. The baby has turned, Mum told me. That means he’s facing downwards now, ready for his journey into the world.
I’m starting to worry about him. Does that mean I love him already? Do you worry about the people you love? I guess that means I love Steph. I worry such a lot about her.
Hello nothing,
It’s three days since I last saw Steph. The treatment is making her extra tired. When I first heard that it seemed okay. At least once she had more energy she could leave the hospital, then Steph, Matt, Adam and I would climb the rope ladder to Steph’s tree house and watch the world go by.
Now it turns out that I’ve been told lies. I know that because we met Stephanie’s mother at the shops, and she told my mum that Steph isn’t getting better. Later I asked Mum what was happening with Steph. Mum said Stephanie needed more time for the medication to work. Then she turned away and peeled carrots and wouldn’t look at me.
