by Tina Shaw
One day you’re playing soccer with your mates. Next, you’re pretty much an invalid. One day there’s a school tramp in the Port Hills, next it takes all your energy just to get to school.
James Griffen is not the bravest guy around. That’s not surprising – he’s on the waiting list for open heart surgery, and scared witless. Mostly he putters about on his Vespa and hangs out at the local video store.
His rebel brother Ryan, whose motto is never going to be ‘safety first’, needs some sorting out, but James can’t get that right either.
Then James meets the gorgeous Roxy and all caution goes to the wind – in spite of the thrashing to his heart.
A smart, nifty story with both tender and tough moments, and real heart-appeal.
Contents
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
About the Author
Also by Tina Shaw
Copyright
Prologue
One day you’re playing soccer with your mates. Next, you’re pretty much an invalid. One day you’re on a school tramp in the Port Hills, next it takes all your energy just to get to school.
It started with a simple old sore throat. Then one morning a few days later I woke up and thought I was in the land of the triangles. My legs felt like they were on fire. Mysterious parts of me were hurting. I threw back the sheets and tried to get out of bed. The floor rushed up to meet me. I fell flat on my face.
When Mum found me, I was babbling about getting on the motorway and heading for Timbuktu. And we don’t even have a motorway in our town. She must’ve got me back into bed. I say ‘must have’ because the next few hours were blank. Like somebody had got a pair of scissors and cut several hours out of my brain. Snip.
Eventually, I found myself in hospital and was told I had rheumatic fever.
Rheumatic fever can damage the valves of the heart – openings like petals that let the blood in and out. They’re something you don’t ever think about; not until something bad happens to one of them. The technical term for what I’ve got sounds like a heavy metal band: aortic valve stenosis.
Around that time I ended up in the care of Doctor Brad. My very own heart specialist. Now I was on the waiting list for open heart surgery. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wait too long.
1
‘… James?’
I was drifting above the icy reaches of Antarctica in a black, streamlined glider. White peaks stood out in the distance and I could see for miles. It was so clear and beautiful up here. A place where everything felt good. The glider dipped for a moment, and I thought I was going to puke. But then we were okay again. Down below, huge milky-green icebergs floated in an icy sea. Very cool. Excuse the pun. I was just looking for a nice flat place to land, when the voice of God spoke.
‘James Griffen?’
Crap, I was back in English. Chaucer – or Mr Digby, as he was technically known – was looming over my desk like something out of Alien. not that Chaucer had tentacles or anything, but he was still a scary kind of guy. It might’ve been something to do with his total lack of humour. I missed my Year Eleven teacher: she of the corrugated iron hair and razor wit.
‘Are you feeling all right, Griffen?’ said Chaucer, casting a long shadow across my desk, ‘I think you’d better get yourself off to sick bay.’
‘Um, okay,’ I murmured.
That was the trouble with having a serious medical condition like a wonky heart: the teachers didn’t know how to handle it. A couple of them were okay, but others, like Chaucer, were pretty nervous when I was around. Probably scared I’d cark it in class. Ever since Mum had told the school the score, Chaucer hadn’t been able to look me in the eye. And I thought I was gutless.
I grabbed my copy of Twelfth Night, as the class gawked at me like I was a sideshow freak, and headed carefully for the door. I felt sick. I’d been hoping to thrash Daniel at chess at lunchtime, but Chaucer was right: I did need to lie down.
The corridor running through the English block was eerily empty. It could’ve been the inside of a space ship, even with the distant voices of teachers trying to knock essay-writing and poetry into lumpish heads. I was trying to figure out the most direct route to the sick bay – round the Science block, or through the library? Either way seemed like a humungous expedition, and I wasn’t sure I was up to it.
Up ahead, a door cracked open, and a girl carrying a black ring-binder stepped into the corridor. Her skirt was way short. She had shoulder-length hair the colour of bleached sand.
Roxy Martin.
Everybody knew who she was. She was a year behind me, and seemed to have a reputation. The guys in my class called her the perfect chick. Because she was hot. Hotter than wasabi. Actually, I was paraphrasing. The jocks in my class probably thought wasabi was an exotic kind of deer.
Roxy Martin was that unattainable kind of girl I thought of as Ms Popular. But not in a cheesy, sweet way. She was very cool, very aloof. I wondered sometimes what made her tick. How could you be so beautiful and still human at the same time?
Somebody once passed around a magazine which had her posed in a forest, with ruins and a full moon in the background, modelling a pair of shoes. She looked twenty-three in that photo. Shameful, but I bought a copy of the mag, so I could study that fierce glare and those long legs.
Meanwhile, up ahead the light made Roxy’s hair gleam like white gold. Despite feeling crook, I sucked in a breath. Then she glanced back over her shoulder, eyes flashing. God, she’d looked at me! I nearly turned round, pretending to go the other way. But too late. And for some reason, she was waiting for me to catch up. She was standing there, tapping the ring-binder gently against her leg. Her pink nail polish shone against the black.
I sucked in another breath, more slowly this time, and readied myself to say something vaguely intelligent to the most beautiful girl in school. I also noticed she had perfect knees. Lights were sparking in front of my eyes. Bummer. Why did my heart have to play up at an interesting moment like this?
‘Hey …’ I said, trying to control the wheeze, ‘Roxy.’
Good man – good start. I’d used her name, confidently and out loud.
Her eyes were steely grey as she looked at me with this funny expression. ‘What’re you doing out here?’
‘Sent to the sick bay.’
That didn’t sound too good. I should’ve lied. Should’ve told her I’d been sent out to take over a Year Nine class while the teacher had a nervous breakdown. Or I was going to blow up some rugby balls for an important lunchtime match.
‘Are you sick?’ she asked, her head on one side like a bird listening for a worm. She had that curious, detached look girls get when they’re deciding whether they like another girl’s new haircut: Is that cool, or does it suck?
My ears went hot. What to say? It was way too complicated. I gave a shrug, trying to look relaxed, but my mouth was dry and my brain had forgotten basic English. This conversation wasn’t going how I would’ve liked. We started walking. I’d never been so close to Roxy before. I could smell her perfume. Some kind of flowery scent a bit like raspberry frappuccino. My arm closest to Roxy was tingling slightly. I hoped that was because of her, and not something else. To take my mind off it I tried to think of something to say that would be deep and meaningful, yet witty.
She beat me to it.
‘You’re the kid with the bad heart,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice.
Great. I thought only my class knew, and the teachers, of course. It wasn’t supposed to be general knowledge.
As if she’d read my mind, Roxy added, ‘Some girls were talking about it.’
Oh, that was even better. Now the whole school would know. It was like with Chaucer. People were scared I was going to keel over at any moment. It was worse with girls. They pitied me: you could see it in their eyes. I was disabled. I was the kid with no future.
Roxy’s steady gaze surveyed the empty corridor ahead of us. ‘Well, nice talking to you,’ she said, in what I suspected was an ironic tone. After all, I had barely said a word. So much for impressing her with my superior intelligence. We’d reached the sick bay, anyway. ‘See you round,’ said Roxy, setting off down the corridor.
Despite my racketing heartbeat, I had to stand there and watch her legs and the flip-flip of her too-short skirt against the backs of her thighs. Then she glanced back over her shoulder. I felt a blush race up my neck. What happened next made my heart give a skip: the shadow of a smile crossed her lips. Like she knew I was admiring her legs, and she was secretly pleased. Then she turned a corner and was gone.
Now I really needed to lie down.
Lying in the sick bay, with the distant sounds of school going on, I felt remote, like I was back in that glider. I listened to the rasp of my breathing. In, out – in, out. My heart might be crap, but it was still working. I was still breathing away like a little machine. It helped to relax into this kind of feeling – let everything go. I felt the cottony blanket under my fingertips, and was aware of that antiseptic sick bay smell. My pulse slowed to a cruisey bippety-bip.
Roxy drifted into my head. She was walking down the empty corridor, then stopped and smiled, waiting for me to catch up. Hi Roxy, I mouthed, though no sound came out. She heard me anyway, and lifted her hand to wave – a graceful gesture – and I waved back. But now she was drifting away, fading into mist. Wait for meeeeeee.
‘James? … James? … James, for God’s sake!’
I opened my eyes, feeling woozy. Mum was leaning over me, looking worried.
‘What?’ I muttered, thinking I was at home.
‘I’ve got your spray here.’
I propped myself up on an elbow, reality rushing back to me. ‘What’re you doing here?’ I mumbled, squeezing off a shot of the spray into my mouth, then flopping back onto the pillow.
‘The school called me,’ she said, blinking like she was going to cry. ‘Come on, we’re getting you home.’
I next saw Roxy two days later, a Saturday. I was tethering my pony, I mean Vespa, outside the DVD shop. I wasn’t really supposed to be blatting round on my Vespa, but hell, how else was I supposed to get DVDs when I felt like it? Anyway, town was pretty close.
If you knew you had six months left to live, I was thinking, what would you do? This was a conversation I had with Ajax and my other mates from time to time. The answer was always changing. Today I was thinking I would definitely ask Roxy out on a date. There was no point in being a wuss with only months to live.
I walked into the shop, my spurs clinking on the lino, and crossed the floor. Just like my hero, Clint Eastwood, I knew exactly what I was looking for and I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Stand aside, buddy, that there DVD belongs to me (said with the Clint squint, of course).
Ah good, they had it. Shaun of the Dead.
Marlene the Tank was sitting hugely behind the counter, her chubby face framed by displays of nuts, chocolate and other munchies. Marlene had put a dent in the bonnet of her ex-boyfriend’s car – by sitting on it and using it as a trampoline.
‘Hi Bubba,’ she said, checking out my DVD, ‘how’s it hanging?’
‘Marlene,’ I sighed, ‘please don’t call me Bubba.’
Marlene liked to nickname the customers. At least I’d got an okay nickname. Unlike the dude with the big biceps and barrel chest who she called Rhino. Rhinos, she pointed out, were not the smartest animals on the block.
‘So what we have got here then?’ She surveyed my DVD choice with a critical eye. ‘You want me to tell you how this ends?’
‘Tell me again how exactly you got this job, Marlene?’
She gave a crooked grin. ‘I got it for my bubbly personality, Bubba, what did you think?’
‘Certainly not for your tact and sensitivity,’ I said, handing over a fiver.
Marlene hooted. ‘Hey, some people like to know how their DVD ends. Then they don’t get any nasty surprises.’
‘Yeah, but it’s not like they get much choice in the matter.’
Marlene had watched so many DVDs, she just about knew all of them. I was standing in line one time when she told the guy holding a copy of Sixth Sense that the doctor was dead too. You should’ve seen the guy’s shoulders slump. Sometimes she came over and hung out at my place and we’d watch an old TV series like Scrubs.
Anyway, when I came back out, I saw Roxy, standing at the bus shelter across the street. I glanced along towards the Square. It was quiet, only a couple of Goths on the steps of the cathedral. Roxy was all by herself. Amazing. Twice in one week. It had to be a sign from above that the J-Man should leap into action.
Well, not leap exactly. More like shuffle. Still, here was my chance to be alone with the beautiful Roxy again. Now if I could just not stuff it up …
I slipped the DVD into my pack and went to cross the busy street. A big white tour bus full of gawking tourists pulled up, probably on their way to join the Goths in admiring our local architecture. By the time I’d got around the bus, there was a guy standing next to Roxy.
He might’ve just been waiting for a bus, too, but something about him told me he wasn’t. I paused by a tree, so I could have a good look, and bent down over my shoe. I undid my shoelace then slowly did it up again. In the time it took me to do that I could see there was definitely something wrong.
An older guy, with a shaved head and blue tats etched down both his arms, he was talking to Roxy. She was looking straight ahead, trying to freeze him out probably. Then he was jabbing his finger at her arm, in a playful kind of way, and smirking. She took a step away, and looked up the street. Then he was offering her a cigarette. I knew she smoked, because I’d seen her and her friends smoking in the Square before. But she shook her head, and kept looking away. She was holding her backpack pressed against her front.
I sidled across the street.
Even from a distance I could tell she wasn’t happy. Her face looked tight, pale, and she was staring hard up the street, as if willing the bus to come. Normally she had this disdainful look, like nothing around her was good enough, like everything was so boring it could make you puke.
But now she looked scared.
I should do something. But what?
I inched closer to the bus shelter, thinking hard, and pretended to dig around in my pack for something. I could hear his voice, low and gravelly, but not what he said. I could pretend to know her, and the guy would go away … but what if I got it wrong? Maybe she really did know him. Maybe it was even her boyfriend: they’d had a row and she was giving him the cold shoulder.
My heart had started beating erratically. Not a good sign. I wasn’t supposed to do anything that’d make my heart work harder. But just thinking about what to do – wanting to help, but not knowing how – was making me break into a cold sweat. If I was a real man I’d … I’d what, bop the guy like the bad-ass dude I am? Yeah, right. Firstly, I’ve got no strength in my arms, so it’d more like a tap. And then he’d hit me back – much, much harder.
And I would die …
There was a lull in the traffic and Roxy’s voice drifted across the street to me: ‘Piss off now or I’ll–’ The rest evaporated as another bus trundled past.
It was now or never. I’d go over, pretend to know her – I did know her! – and say something, anything. Roxy was in trouble, and I was
the only one who knew. Even though it was afternoon, the street was pretty quiet. Even the Goths had buggered off. Anything could happen. What if the guy …?
A bead of sweat ran down my face and my breathing was coming harder. Just go over, I told myself. It wasn’t that hard. That was what my brother Ryan would do: saunter over and say something, diffuse the situation.
A big breath. I shouldered my pack. Took a stride in that direction. And then the bus came. I watched as Roxy showed the driver her card. I watched as the older guy shrugged and started walking away. I watched as the bus pulled away from the curb, with Roxy safely on board, her pale face staring blindly out at the street, not even seeing me. And I watched as she wiped a tear from her eye. Or at least, it looked like it. Maybe it was just a speck of dust.
It wasn’t as if she had given me any kind of encouragement – far from it. And it wasn’t as if I had a chance of even going out with her. But in that moment I fell in love with Roxy.
2
All that week I watched her. There she was in the distance: Roxy Martin. Walking out of the school grounds in a stream of kids. Walking the shiny school corridors. Sitting in assembly. She’d always be with her gang – three other hot-looking girls.
I was mesmerised. One lunchtime, me and Ajax were playing chess outside on his magnetic board, with Daniel watching. Roxy and her group were sitting across the way, all of them laughing and shaking back their hair. They all had nice hair and wore shiny lip gloss. Though Roxy seemed different. More remote somehow. The other girls would crack jokes but she wouldn’t always laugh. Only sometimes. Then they all joined in even more loudly, as if they had permission now to laugh. If she looked at her nails, the others would start comparing their nails. One day she came to school with a streak of red in her hair. She got a detention, but two days later the others had red streaks as well. I could only try to imagine what they talked about. Maybe the usual girl stuff: make-up, hair, clothes. But somehow I had the feeling there was more to Roxy than that. The way the guys talked about her, though, you wouldn’t think so. She’s hot, they said, as if that was all that mattered. They competed for her attention. But she didn’t see any of them. Maybe that really had been her boyfriend at the bus stop. I could imagine her with an older guy, a guy in his twenties.
