Charlie Franks is A-OK

by Cecily Anne Paterson

  Ness made a question face, and was quiet for a minute. ‘Who has she been paddocked with?’ she said. ‘There was Gingerbread, I know. And for a while, in the next paddock there was Molly and her foal, George Michael. But I made sure they were kept away from the mares.’

  I made a frowny face, not understanding. Why did it matter who she was paddocked with? ‘Should I feed her less? Is she too fat?’

  Ness put her head to one side. ‘No. I’ll just change the feed for a bit and see if that makes a difference. I’ll bring it up for you tomorrow.’ She went to leave the round yard, but turned back to me. ‘Oh, and well done. You’re doing great. I can’t wait to see you in competition. You and Fozzles make a great team.’

  I felt happy riding home. Fozzles splashed across the stream as usual, not putting a foot wrong. ‘Good girl,’ I told her and leaned down to give her a pat. ‘You’re awesome.’

  I untacked her in the shed, gave her a brush and a carrot and turned her out into the paddock with Cupcake. ‘Night, beautiful,’ I said, and she flared her nostrils at me.

  ‘Guess what I jumped?’ I sang out as I ran up the steps and in through the door. ‘You’re never going to believe it.’ I stopped and waited for someone, anyone, to answer me, but everything was quiet.

  ‘Hello?’ I called out and stepped into the hall. There was definitely noise in the kitchen, but nothing anywhere else. I put my head around Mum and Dad’s bedroom door. ‘Anyone here?’

  ‘Is that you, Charlie?’ Mum’s voice wafted weakly from the bed. ‘I don’t feel so well. Dad said he’d cook.’

  I found Coco in her room, sitting at her desk with her head down at her books, and then moved on to the kitchen, where Dad was stumbling around, clacking pans and doing something with eggs, bacon and zucchini, although I’m not sure he or anyone else, could have told you what it was. Josh was nowhere to be seen and I was pretty sure Coco was only doing her homework on the pretence of staying out of the mess.

  ‘Do you need some help?’ I looked around at the kitchen disaster he’d managed to create. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Maybe you can take something to your mother.’ He seemed stressed. There was definitely something on his mind. ‘Some toast. And a drink.’

  ‘Can she eat? What’s she got? Is it like a vomiting bug?’

  He mumbled something unclear and kept on with his chopping. I wasn’t going to get an answer out of him, so I put bread in the toaster and pulled out the butter.

  ‘Oh, no. She can’t have butter. Just plain toast,’ said Dad.

  I shrugged and put the butter back. Plain toast was boring, but if that’s what Mum wanted, that’s what she’d get. I boiled the kettle, put some coffee in a cup and added milk and sugar just the way she liked it. If I couldn’t help Dad, at least I knew how Mum enjoyed her coffee.

  ‘I’ve brought you this,’ I said, a few minutes later, pushing her door open and backing in with the tray in my hands. ‘It’s toast and …’ I turned around with a smile on my face that turned into horror when I saw Mum’s face. She’d gone from white to green in about a quarter of a second, and was now leaning over the side of the bed, vomiting onto the floor.

  ‘Eeewww,’ I said. I brought the tray down onto the bed so I could help Mum but she scooched up right away from me.

  ‘Is that coffee?’ she said, with what looked like actual fear in her eyes.

  ‘Um, yeah?’ I was confused. I’d been taking Mum coffee since I was four and a half years old and I’d never seen this reaction before.

  ‘Get it out of here!’ She was almost screaming, she was so fierce.

  ‘What?’ My head was spinning. This was not my mother.

  ‘The coffee. It has to go!’ She was yelling now, although it was in a really weak, pathetic way. ‘Get it out.’

  I made a weird face, picked up the tray and backed myself out of the door, totally confused.

  ‘What is with Mum?’ I said to Dad, plonking down the tray in the middle of his mess, not caring. ‘I made her a coffee and she just went off. Like, nutso crackers.’

  ‘You made her a coffee?’ he said. His voice went up on the end and got louder, like I’d done something wrong.

  ‘Yeah.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘You said take her a drink, so I made her a coffee. I did it the usual way, nothing different. So I don’t know what’s so weird about it.’

  ‘She can’t drink coffee.’ He looked at me like I was stupid. ‘She’ll get sick if she drinks coffee.’

  ‘Do you mean “get sick” like vomit?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, again like I was the dumbest person in the world. ‘I mean, “get sick” like vomit.’

  ‘Well, she’s already done that. She threw up on the floor just now.’

  Dad rolled his eyes and made a face at me like ‘you should have known better’, and stomped out down to his and Mum’s room.

  Coco crept into the kitchen, throwing worried glances down the hallway. ‘What is going on?’ she whispered. ‘Dad’s gone crazy again. I asked what was wrong with Mum and he almost yelled at me so I said I had heaps of homework, but I’ve actually just been hiding in my room.’

  ‘I know, right? Like, how many times have I made Mum a coffee and now it’s like some kind of evil deed I’ve done. Where’s Josh?’

  ‘Yelled at. Went down the paddock.’

  ‘We should get him back in. Figure out what’s going on. And make some dinner ourselves. Look what kind of debacle Dad’s getting into here.’ I swept my hand around the kitchen in despair. Dad had never been a good cook but this was getting into dark territory.

  ‘I’ll go. You cook,’ said Coco, and she disappeared out the door. I took in a deep breath, let it out again, and then set to work, clearing up egg shells and zucchini ends and trying to get the mush Dad had created to form a batter that might actually cook up into a weird type of pancake, but I hardly had any time to get a result, because Dad came stomping down the hall again.

  ‘Where are the others?’ he asked, looking around.

  ‘Outside. Coming in.’ I didn’t want to look up in case I got into trouble again.

  ‘Well, as soon as they do, come into our bedroom. We all need to talk.’

  He stomped out and I waited until Coco and Josh peeked around the door. ‘All clear?’ said Coco.

  ‘Not even. The Family is Talking.’ I made quote marks with my fingers.

  ‘Serious?’ said Josh. ‘Again?’ He made a face.

  ‘Yes, in their room.’ I led the way down the hall, through the door, and into their room, where we stood around the bed. Mum lay there, white again, and tired looking, and with some weird kind of smile on her face. Dad also looked like he was trying to be happy, although it seemed manic underneath.

  ‘Kids,’ Dad said. ‘We have some news.’

  ‘Big news,’ whispered Mum from the bed.

  Dad swallowed. ‘We’re having another baby.’

  Mum said, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  6

  Chapter 6

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ Mum said, and my entire world tripped over its shoelaces.

  There was a pause. No one really knew what to say. I looked at Coco and saw her kind of dry retch into her mouth. Josh’s eyebrows were up, but not too far, like he wasn’t that surprised, or maybe he was too cool and laid back to get surprised about anything.

  Dad’s smile was stretched out into a forced grin, Cheshire cat style, still with the manic undertones, and Mum looked white and worried, but was obviously trying to put on a happy face.

  Coco found her words first. ‘You’re having, like, an actual baby?’ Her shoulders heaved once more. ‘But you’re …’ She looked around in despair, like she was trying to find a nice way to say it. ‘You’re old.’

  Mum shrugged like, I know, right? ‘Apparently you can still get pregnant at forty-seven,’ she said, panting as though the effort of talking was just too much for her.

  ‘I can’t even …’ said Coco. She shook her head and turned away with the face she
reserves for moments of supreme embarrassment.

  ‘Boy or girl?’ asked Josh. ‘Seriously, if you can sort out a boy, that would be cool.’

  Dad shook his head. ‘It’s too early to tell, Josh. That’s weeks away.’

  Coco must have recovered from her mortification because she came back to sit next to Mum. ‘Are you actually going to have a baby? Like, a cute little actual baby?’

  Mum nodded, and a tear rolled down her face.

  ‘Awww,’ said Coco, and she hugged her. ‘It’s embarrassing, yeah, especially for us, but for you, I guess it’s cool. Why are you sad? It’ll be my little sister and I’ll dress her, and show her how to do her hair, and everything.’

  ‘I’m not sad,’ said Mum, weakly. ‘I’m …’ She shook her head and started crying again. ‘I don’t know what I am.’

  Josh raised his eyebrows again and made a face at Dad, who kind of shrugged and nodded back to him. Sometimes they did this when Coco or Mum started crying in a movie, or if I got all ‘coochie-coo’ about small, furry animals. I think they were saying, ‘Huh! Girls!’ to each other, but I couldn’t be sure.

  ‘I always wanted to have another baby,’ said Mum. The tears were really starting to roll down now. She wiped them away. ‘Obviously, not at forty-seven, though.’ Then her face turned green. ‘David!’

  Dad grabbed a bowl that was sitting by the side of the bed and handed it to her, and I saw my mum vomit brown and green bile.

  Coco jumped away. She bit her lip. ‘I’ll go and get you a towel.’ She rushed out to the linen cupboard.

  ‘Your mother’s sick,’ said Dad. ‘We can talk more about everything out in the lounge room. Come on, she needs to rest.’ He took the bowl from Mum and wiped her forehead with a washcloth, which was by the side of the bed. They must have already needed it. ‘Just lay down,’ he said to her. ‘I’ll bring you a drink.’

  He hustled me and Josh out of the bedroom, and my feet turned obediently and took steps into the hallway, but it felt like every other part of my body was on autopilot. I had no thoughts and no emotions. The only thing I was aware of was the fact that my eyes and my mouth were still open wide with shock. I moved my jaw around to see if it was going to be locked open for a while, but it seemed to work, so I jiggled it and then closed it. My nose was itchy, so I scratched it, then I moved into the kitchen where I just stared wildly at Dad’s mess of dinner half-preparation, not knowing what to do.

  ‘We’d better eat,’ said Dad. He looked around at his chaos and made a face at me. ‘What do you think?’

  What do I think?

  What do I think?

  When my mum is sick in bed like I’ve never seen her, crying because she’s shocked and worried and who knows what else, all because of another baby, a kid that no one wants and no one needs, and no one even knows yet?

  What do I think? When she’s promised to come to all my show jumping events, but she can’t even have a conversation without throwing up?

  When Coco’s going all gaga about dressing up a baby sister and Josh is happy (for him, anyway) and Dad is manic and crazy, maybe even happy, from the look on his face, and I feel like something must be wrong with me because I think it’s the worst, most stupid news in the world, not to mention the most ridiculous thing my parents have ever done?

  I answered, ‘We should do pancakes.’

  We made (actually, I made) pancakes. Dad watched on and flapped around, trying to clean things up but not doing very well. I made the batter, put on the pan, poured in the circles and flipped them, then I got all the pancake toppings out of the cupboard and put them on the table, and put the plates and the knives and forks out, and got everyone (except Mum) to come and eat it.

  ‘Yum,’ said Coco. ‘Delish.’ She squeezed a lemon, sprinkled her pancake delicately with sugar and took a bite. ‘Dad, you have to tell us everything.’ She stopped for a second and thought. I saw a slight shudder of shame go through her. ‘Well, maybe not everything. But all the things about the baby. Like, when will it be born? Will we know if it’s a girl or boy before?’

  ‘We think late October,’ said Dad. ‘But we’re not really sure, because Mum’s dates have been all over the place.’

  I watched Coco digest that little bit of too-much-information and whisk past it, moving on brightly. ‘Where will it sleep? Will we have to share rooms? Can I babysit it? Will you name it after me? Can I take it to school sometimes? And we definitely have to make it a girl, okay?’

  Josh slurped his maple syrup. ‘Mum’s too old. And why’s she sick?’

  ‘Most people are too old at forty-seven,’ said Dad, ‘but the doctor said that sometimes these late pregnancies can happen out of the blue. And she’s sick because she’s pregnant. It’s normal.’

  ‘Normal?’ I put down my fork. ‘None of this is normal. How long will she be sick for? A week?’

  Dad laughed at me. ‘A lot longer than a week. About two months at the least, if she’s lucky.’

  ‘If she’s not?’ asked Coco, her eyes big and round.

  Dad shrugged. ‘When she was pregnant with you two, she was sick for eight months.’

  Eight months! My head spun and my stomach dropped like it did that time we went on the roller coaster at Dreamworld, except then I liked the feeling. Now it just felt empty and wrong.

  I breathed in and out, hard, through my nose. I had to ask another question. ‘Did she, I mean, did you both, really always want another baby?’

  Dad speared his pancake, spread it with jam, and poked it into his mouth. ‘Well, I suppose so. I didn’t really. I was happy with you three, but Mum would have had another two kids probably, if she’d been able to. She had to have a doctor’s help to get pregnant with you, so we didn’t keep going. It was too much hassle.’ He shook his head. ‘Yeah, I guess she did want another one. She cried about it sometimes, when you guys were little.’

  My stomach got the roller coaster feeling again and my face went cold. Mum had taken me to all my competitions and had sung silly songs and read me stories and hung out with me, but secretly, she’d always wished she could do that with some other child? Maybe doing stuff with me was her ‘second best’ option.

  I felt dirty. Like everything had been a lie.

  ‘I’ll do the dishes,’ I said, gathering up Dad’s plate from under him just as he put his last bite in his mouth. ‘I’ll clean up. Don’t you worry about it.’ I grabbed things off the table and cleared it, my face turned away so no one else could see it. Tidying and wiping and washing and drying gave me something to do. And I need something to do when I feel weird and cold and alone.

  Mum was still sick the next day when we were getting ready for school.

  ‘Are you going to say goodbye?’ said Dad, as he bustled around, getting us into the car.

  ‘Yeah.’ I made movements to go down the hall to Mum’s room, but diverted at the last minute and didn’t do it. Dad didn’t notice, so I got in the car and stared out the window and down the edge of the cliff, all the way up the crazy driveway.

  School was even more nuts than usual with Coco going on and on to her friends about how she was getting a new sister and how cute and adorable and totally gorgeous it was going to be, blah blah blah, so I took a walk by myself around the oval to get away from it all.

  ‘Four more hours until I get home and ride Fozzles,’ I said to myself. ‘Three more hours until I get home and ride Fozzles.’ I counted down the hours and minutes until I could throw myself on the bus, then off, then catch a ride with Dad down the driveway again, and back into the house and then, finally, out to my horse … and relative peace.

  Time seemed to be wearing concrete boots, but finally we were home. I dumped my bag, grabbed an apple and was just heading out the door, down to the paddock when Dad called out to me.

  ‘Oh, Charlie.’ His voice sang out from the lounge room.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Are you going to ride Fozzles?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He stuck his hea
d around the door frame so I could see his face. ‘There’s a little problem with that.’

  I turned around and came back through to the hallway. ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘Yeah. Funny story. In fact, you’re not going to believe this. I just laughed and laughed when I heard.’

  I said nothing, but made an impatient face, as if to say, ‘Enough faffing around. Tell me already.’

  ‘I got a phone call from Ness today,’ he said, still chuckling to himself. ‘She said you can’t ride Fozzles anymore.’

  ‘What? Why? Is she taking her back? Didn’t you buy her for my birthday? What’s happening?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing like that. We still own her. In fact, I guess you could say we still own “them”.’

  Now I was confused. ‘What? Fozzles and Cupcake, you mean?’

  Dad smiled. ‘No. Fozzles and … well, let me tell you.’ He stepped out into the hallway with the biggest ‘I’ve got a surprise for you that you’re going to LOVE’ expression on his face.

  ‘Fozzles is pregnant. She’s having a baby.’

  7

  Chapter 7

  Ness understood. She put her arms around me and just let me cry. I was dirty, hot and sweaty from running through the paddocks and over the creek and down through the bush to her place, as hard and as fast as I could. Fozzles was already down there; Dad told me that Ness had come up to get her during the day for the vet to do the test, so I belted down through the scrub to find her and ended up sobbing on Ness’s shoulder.

  ‘I don’t want her to have a baby,’ I gurgled into her shirt sleeve. ‘It’s not going to work out.’

  Ness pulled my shoulders away from her and looked into my face. ‘What’s not going to work out? Nothing’s going to go wrong. You’ve got a beautiful horse who’s going to have a beautiful foal. And it’s going to happen in six months’ time. She’s going to be a wonderful mother and there aren’t going to be any hassles with the birth.’