No Stars to Wish on

by Zana Fraillon

  She was looking towards the laundry, trying to find me, and the man had his hand on her arm, tightly. But she couldn’t see me through the laundry window. I wanted to run to her, pull the man’s hand off her arm.

  And in my head I did. In my head I tore the man’s hand away and pushed him onto the gravel. In my head I grabbed Janey and we ran together, all the way home. In my head we stayed together for ever, and no one could take us apart again. I could almost bear being away from home if I was with Janey.

  In my head I did all that.

  But in my body I did nothing. I just kept ironing. Back and forth and back and forth, as Janey was pulled further and further away, with her head turned towards the laundry. Looking for me.

  I can’t find out about the sums. Samson came home from school today, but he didn’t look right. He couldn’t even get the spoon to his mouth. I didn’t want him to get in trouble, so I swapped our plates and ate his food too, even though I wasn’t hungry.

  The Nuns still made him do his jobs after school, though. They said he was just trying to get out of doing work. I helped as much as I could, but the Nuns were onto me. They got in the way and wouldn’t let me near.

  I told him about Janey, but he didn’t answer. He was in bed then, and his hand was cold and damp.

  I didn’t ask about the sums. I’d worked them out, and made myself remember the answers by saying them over and over while I ironed. Just the way Samson got me to remember the questions.

  Samson looks like Baby Sal in the truck on the way to the Home. His eyes aren’t really seeing anything and his lips look as though they’ve been sucking on an icypole – cold like ice, but also shrivelled up a bit. Kind of like the Greats’ lips. And his cheeks are red and burning hot.

  He won’t answer me when I talk to him. At first I thought he might have died. I couldn’t hear him breathing at all. Then he started again. But he isn’t taking good, strong, deep breaths. I wish Great-great-aunt Annie was here. She’d know what to do.

  I sent a thought out into the night on a cloud. I called for Annie to come and help Samson. I know she can’t really come, but I did it anyway. It made me feel better, as if I was helping and not really alone.

  I imagined the clouds out the window. I couldn’t see any, but I watched the window just in case, and Samson watched nothing. He’s getting worse, not better. So now I know what I have to do. I don’t know if this new Brave Idea was sent to me by Annie, or if I just thought it on my own. But I do know Samson is sick.

  I had a little brother once, Petey. Petey was two and I was four. We played together all the time. Petey was the funniest. Even when Mum did her cross eyes at us, he always made her laugh, and then Mum wouldn’t be grumpy any more.

  One night he started coughing. He got hot and his feet got cold. His cough sounded like a donkey’s. I haven’t heard a donkey cough, but I bet it would sound just like Petey. He got hotter and hotter, and even Great-great-aunt Annie couldn’t do anything to make him better, so Mum took him to hospital. I wanted to go, too, but Mum wouldn’t let me.

  ‘He’ll be back soon enough,’ she said.

  But he didn’t come back. Not soon enough, or ever. I stayed awake all night, waiting. I’d forgotten to give Petey a car. It was a red one and matched his favourite blue one. I was keeping it for his birthday, but I knew he needed it now to make him feel better.

  I wish I’d given it to him before he left, then he might have come home again. But I didn’t, and he didn’t.

  Amrei held me tight when she told me what had happened. The donkey cough had stopped Petey breathing, and they couldn’t get him started again.

  I was allowed to keep his favourite blue car. I didn’t play with it, though. I just kept it in my pocket. It’s still in my pants pocket in my bedroom. It was in there when we got taken.

  They put him in a white coffin. He looked as though he was sleeping, except there was no drool. I remember I wanted to pick him up, to shake him and tell him not to be stupid, and to stop fooling around, and that it wasn’t funny, and if he would just get up we could go back to being together again.

  I gave him the red car, even though it was too late to do any good.

  And after all that, Mum stopped laughing.

  So that was when I started learning jokes. I stole a joke book from the bookshop. I knew it was wrong to steal, and I could get in serious trouble, but I had to. Some things you just have to do, even if you know they’re wrong.

  I could make Mum smile, then, when I told her my jokes. It wasn’t the same smile, but a smile is a smile is a smile.

  I would hate it if Petey was here in the Home, though, and we couldn’t be together. I’d hate knowing how scared and frightened he’d be. Although if anyone could make the Nuns laugh and forget not to smile it would be Petey. He could make them laugh even without pretending to be a cat. And that only worked the once. I tried again. There was no laughing the second time.

  Petey’s cheeks were red, and his feet were cold. Samson’s cheeks are red, and his feet are cold.

  I know what I have to do. Even though getting out of bed after Lights Out is forbidden, and anyone who does it gets more whacks with a cane than is really fair, I know I have to go get help. Samson isn’t strong, and he needs to be.

  The worst is when you have to get out of bed for a drink. We aren’t allowed to drink for ages before bed, so sometimes you’re really, really thirsty, especially in summer when the nights stay hot. Other boys say it’s worth being whacked, if you can just get to the tap first. I never do, though. I stay thirsty. I’m not as brave as some of the others.

  But I have to be now.

  My feet touch the ground. My legs feel like jelly, wibbly-wobbling all over the place. I have to force my legs to move, to take steps. Janey wouldn’t have jelly legs and shaky feet. Janey would be strong. I will be strong too.

  Because Samson’s cheeks are red, and his feet are cold.

  THE Calling had sucked all Amrei’s strength. Her three days at the campsite turned into a week, and it was only on Dog’s insistence that Amrei reluctantly packed her bag and started walking again.

  As she walked, images of spiders flitted through her head. She wondered if they were brought on by her lack of water and regular meals. But she felt no fear of the creatures now. She even looked down at her mark with a sense of awe she hadn’t experienced before.

  And when she woke one morning to find a spider sitting peacefully on her hand, she didn’t flick it off. She felt a great happiness, as though she had been visited on her journey by a long-lost companion. Even Dog seemed pleased by the spider’s presence.

  The days suddenly seemed to fly by. No longer worried about travelling only at night, Amrei found her journey more joyful. And, for the first time since she had set off, she began to feel a sense of hope. She knew she was on the right path, and she was confident she could do what needed to be done.

  But one night, Amrei woke with a Vision still fresh in her mind. Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling the scream that perched on her lips. The Vision showed she was going to be too late.

  In the past, Amrei had waited for her Visions to come true. This time, she wasn’t going to wait. Surely she still had a chance to change the future.

  Amrei started to run.

  I was lucky. The Night Nun was Sister Augusta. Sister Alberta must have been sick, or just having a night off, or something. I tore around the corner and crashed straight into her. I hadn’t heard her coming. Ha!

  I wonder what would have happened if it had been Sister Alberta, or one of the others.

  Sister Augusta listened to me. She hurried back along the hall, all the way to Samson’s bed. She crossed herself when she saw him, then bundled him up in her arms and carried him away. I didn’t know she was so strong. She came back later to tell me that she’d taken him to the hospital. ‘Samson is very sick. He might not come back here. Not now. He might have to go home, to live with his mother for a while. That would be nice for him, wouldn’t it?�
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  I knew she was lying when she said that. Samson’s mother sent him here to be looked after. They wouldn’t send him back for her to look after him. It didn’t make sense. Nuns aren’t supposed to lie, but they all do. At least Sister Augusta’s lie was meant to make me feel better.

  I asked Sister Augusta to find out about Janey and Baby Sal for me, to find out where they are and if they’re all right. Sister Augusta said she would. And she did. That afternoon she came back. She held my hand. That felt strange. The strange matched the look in Sister Augusta’s eye. She told me that Janey and Baby Sal weren’t here any more, that they were being cared for. But I already knew that. She said it was best not to think about them, and that we’d meet up again, if it was God’s will.

  I pulled my hand away then. I don’t care about God’s will. Who cares what God wants if we all want to be together? Who told God he could just decide everything for everyone? And if it is all God’s will, then why bother with people at all? Why have people who can think and do and BE, if nothing we think or do matters anyway?

  I think I made Sister Augusta sad. She knew I was cross with her, but I didn’t care. See, I am turning Nunish, ever so slowly. Not caring.

  I do care about Samson, though. And I did worry about him. I worried for him, but for me as well. I don’t know if I can live without Janey and Baby Sal and all my family and Samson as well.

  I only had to worry for a few days. Samson is already back in the bed next to mine. He’s still too weak and sick to do his jobs or go to school, but he isn’t in hospital any more. His feet are only cold sometimes, and then the Nuns give him medicine to make his cheeks not so red. They always grumble when they do it, and get cross with Samson for causing them so much bother, but he doesn’t care because he’s so sick.

  Mostly I leave him to sleep. He needs to get strong again. When he is, we can share the chocolate from Cook.

  The night Samson went to hospital, I drew a picture of a shoe under the bed.

  Today, I was working in the laundry with Charlie. Charlie is a lot older than me. I think she’s about thirteen, a bit younger than Amrei. Charlie doesn’t go to school. She’s worked in the laundry for a long time. Her arms and legs have scars on them from burns. It’s really easy to get burned working in the laundry. She said a girl even died when she got too close to the copper. Charlie says you can catch fire standing too close to the copper, and she must be right because Sister Maxine said the same thing. Sister Maxine didn’t say anything about a girl dying, but I don’t suppose she would.

  It’s nice working with Charlie. Charlie is the closest person I have met to Janey. She’s forever getting into trouble with the Nuns for telling them what she thinks. Janey is like that too. Sometimes, if I pretend really hard, I can pretend I’m working in the laundry with Janey. I couldn’t pretend today, though, because of what Charlie told me.

  ‘Have you heard?’ Charlie asked. I laughed then. ‘I’m deaf, dummy. I never hear anything.’ That made Charlie laugh too, even though what she had to tell me wasn’t funny.

  ‘Janey, she got sent away from the foster house. She didn’t work out.’

  I stopped ironing then. I had to concentrate hard on Charlie’s lips, to make sure I had understood properly. ‘Why? Was it because they made her call the man “Dad”? Or the woman “Mum”? Because I could have told them she never would. She’s very proper like that, Janey is. If something isn’t Actual and True, then nothing can make her say it is.’

  But Charlie shook her head. ‘Nah. She ran off.’

  I nodded. ‘That would be right. She’ll be heading home, to get help for the rest of us.’

  Charlie didn’t say much for a bit. I knew she wanted to, though, because she kept chewing on her lip. When she did speak, she didn’t look at me. ‘She didn’t get far, Jack. The coppers, they caught up with her. They didn’t bring her back here, neither. They took her to that – that Girls’ Home. It’s only a few towns away, but…’

  Charlie didn’t say any more then. She didn’t need to. Everyone knows the Girls’ Home a few towns away. It’s like the Boys’ Home Phin was sent to for fighting and forgetting to smile. Everyone knows those places are really just jails. They only call it a Girls’ Home or a Boys’ Home because the kids who get sent there are too young for a real jail. It makes the grown-ups feel better to call it a Home. As if they’re sending the kids somewhere nice. As if they’re doing the right thing. As if they’re responsible adults who really look after kids.

  Charlie has been to the Girls’ Home before. She’s been in foster families before as well. She has been here for a long time. Charlie said the man who picked Janey called Janey a thief and a liar, and said she stole money from him. But Janey wouldn’t do that. Janey wouldn’t be sent to jail. Jails are for bad people. Charlie must’ve got Janey mixed up with someone else. And the things she said Janey did when the police took her to the Girls’ Home, the way Charlie said Janey behaved, it sounded like a kind of wild animal, a crazy person, not someone staying strong, the way Janey would.

  I bet Janey did make it. I bet she made it out of the house and down the street and all the way back home. When I get home, she’ll be there waiting for me.

  I bet.

  CHARLIE knows a lot of stuff. She knew the real Number 49 because he used to live near her house, before they got taken. She says that he wasn’t like me. He didn’t keep to himself, or do what the Nuns said. He was angry and determined. Determined is a kind of strong.

  Charlie says the real Number 49 was sent to the Hole a lot. I knew that already from his clue. She said he was a brilliant artist and used to draw all the time, but I knew that too. Charlie also told me the real Number 49 had two brothers who were twins, just like Max and Gus, and they all used to go swimming together down at the river. The real Number 49 built a cubby in a tree near the river, and they even tied a rope to the tree so that they could all swing out and jump in when it was summer.

  And in the winter, when it was too cold to go swimming, the real Number 49 got an idea to tie a rope on a big gum tree at the very top of the hill near their house. Charlie said when you swung out on the rope, the ground seemed to drop away and you felt you were flying over the very top of the world. She said it was what being a bird must be like.

  Charlie said the real Number 49 was as close as she had to a brother, because she lived in a family without any other kids. Charlie also told me the real Number 49’s name, too, but it made me feel so weird and icky that I think I’ll just keep calling him the real Number 49.

  Nuns told everyone that the real Number 49 ran away, but Charlie knows he didn’t. The day before he was supposed to have run away, he was sick. So sick he should have been taken to hospital, like Samson.

  The real Number 49 was like Anthony. He was one of the kids the doctors picked. Every time they came, in their big white coats, they would call out his number. Number 49. And even though he was strong and determined, he had to go with those doctors when they called his number. If he didn’t, they would have taken him anyway, and used those straps they use for kids who have a sickness that makes them thrash about like crazy, or kids who won’t do what the doctors say. Those straps can hold anyone in the bed, no matter how strong and determined they are.

  Charlie said the last time the doctors gave him their medicine he got really sick. A bit like Anthony, only the real Number 49 didn’t get better. He was burning hot and moaning. His eyes looked all the way back into his head, and he kept having fits.

  I don’t know how Charlie knew all this, because girls and boys don’t sleep in the same room here, but I knew she was telling the truth because her eyes had tears inside them when she told me. She’s good at talking to me. She lets me read her lips, and doesn’t mind saying things again if I don’t understand the first time.

  Charlie said the Nuns pretended he ran away. But she saw what happened.

  Charlie said she found his shoe.

  AMREI hardly slept. She pushed herself harder and further
than she would have thought possible. The image from her dream was a constant spur, compelling her forward.

  Dog, with his pads worn through, couldn’t keep pace. Amrei took him to a caravan park in the hope that cheerful holiday-makers would pity him and take him in. Dogs were easier to find homes for than children.

  Dog stared up at Amrei. She recognised the questioning look in his eye. She sat with him, stroking his head one last time, wishing she could carry him further. If Dog hadn’t adopted her, she would never have made it this far. Then she left him.

  As she shut her ears to the howling of her friend, she felt a heaviness as exhausting as the fear she had felt the day she set off. By the time Amrei reached the trees, Dog’s howling had stopped. She imagined a young boy, about Jack’s age, patting Dog’s head. She imagined an older man joining his son, both of them smiling as they looked down on their new pet.

  Three days later, Amrei collapsed on the side of the road. She had been without food or water for close to two days, and although her will powered her on, her body couldn’t keep up.

  A truck driver rushed her to hospital. Amrei woke to find herself a whole week’s walk behind on her journey.

  Perhaps the future could not be changed after all.

  MOST kids I work with in the laundry are here because they’re too much trouble in school. School doesn’t like troublemakers from the Home in their classes. Next to every bench in the laundry is a hook. On each hook is a big, thick leather strap. Sister Maxine showed it to me when I first came to work in the laundry. Sister Maxine is the tallest nun here. Taller even than Mother Superior usually is, although when Mother Superior is really angry she makes herself grow bigger and taller than anyone. That must be because she’s part monster.