Mine (Book 2): Sister Mine, Zombie
Page 19
(Her hand-weaving was not bad, particularly given that there was really no-one to teach her, my own creations being nothing to write home about.)
With a deep sigh, I decided I could put it off no longer - it was time for a brother-to-sister ‘chat’.
I started: “You know that you’re not a zombie anymore, don’t you?”
She didn’t look at me – she just kept slicing the fruit.
“Uh-huh,” she said gently.
“And you’ve known for a while, haven’t you?”
“I guess so,” she said, non-commitally, but still slicing.
“And you’ve also stopped thinking like a little girl…”
She nodded, without looking away from the fruit.
“…Soon you’ll be a teenager all over again.”
She pulled a face - that prospect did not seem to please her.
“And there are other girls, just like you, who are not being given the chance to get better.”
She raised her eye-brows and looked squarely at me for the first time in this conversation – this statement she didn’t understand.
I explained, as gently as I could, what was happening to all the other women who were found to be affected by the infection. I didn’t do a very good job of explaining, I’m afraid. Deb burst into tears, flung a slice of paw-paw in my face and ran to the other end of the beach!
“That went well,” I thought, wiping paw-paw from my cheek.
But, for someone with the brain of a mere ten-year-old, Deb was pretty mature. After twenty minutes or so, she had composed herself and returned to sit beside me on the woven mat.
“Sorry about the paw-paw,” she muttered, downcast.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It was only a flesh wound.”
She laughed, still sniffing and wiping away her tears.
“You want us to leave,” she said, simply. “You want us to save the other girls back home.”
I shrugged: “We could try.”
There was a long pause between us.
“I’m not going,” she said at last and with absolute conviction. “This is my home now. I’m staying with Davie – and I want you to stay, too.”
Hmm.
Written at Melbourne, Australia.
Commenced: 24/03/2012
Concluded: 15/05/2012
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