by Fleur Beale
When you have a birthday in the middle of a disaster zone there’s nowhere for people to go to buy you stuff, so I wasn’t expecting presents. I’d forgotten snail mail was getting through again by now but my parents hadn’t and when had a disaster ever stopped them? On Thursday morning there was a pile of parcels on the table.
‘Happy birthday Lyla open your presents hurry up here’s the scissors.’ Henry took a breath at last.
But I didn’t want to hurry. I grinned at him. ‘Here, you can open this one.’ It was small and it rattled. Lollies? Chocolates?
Mum slid into a chair beside me. ‘We told the grands what to buy. Cross your fingers and hope their taste isn’t too wild.’
The first parcel was the very trainers I’d told Nana Kiri to buy Mum. ‘Okay?’ Mum asked.
‘Very okay!’
They’d done well with the three T-shirts, too. The bulkiest parcel was a new school backpack. I read the tag. ‘It’s from Ian and Beth. I don’t know people called Ian and Beth.’ Good taste, though – awesome in fact.
‘You’ve met Ian,’ Dad said. ‘He says he’s sorry he bled all over your other backpack.’
Earthquake Ian. I wanted to cry – he was all right. He really was alive and well.
‘Can I have a lolly, Lyla? Please, please!’
Thank goodness for naggy kids. I swallowed the tears. ‘One each, and only because it’s my birthday.’
Leo said, ‘You need birthday cards too, Lyla.’ He slid a couple of folded pieces of paper across the table.
Henry leapt up and down, the lolly tin clutched in both hands. ‘We made them ourselves.’
‘Wow! They’re brilliant. You sure you didn’t buy them?’ I hugged them – maybe they did still like me, just a bit.
Matt and his dad gave me a mirror for my bedroom. ‘This is gorgeous! But how…where did you buy it?’ Nothing was open – especially not the sort of place where you’d buy a mirror as stunning as this one.
‘Let’s just say it fell off a wall,’ Matt said.
By which I figured it used to hang on a wall in his house, and had perhaps belonged to his mother. Too bad. I loved it. I was keeping it.
Myra and Dave arrived carrying the most delicious cake ever – chocolate, raspberry, icing and four candles. ‘It’s all we could find,’ Dave said.
Birthday texts zapped in from Katie, Shona, Greer, Millie and Jess. Joanne turned up with a card she said her mum had stashed away. It said Happy 40th birthday – life begins from here! Joanne had crossed out the 0 and drawn a 1 in front of the 4.
I grinned at her. ‘Thanks. I think!’
The day after my birthday, we got news of a huge earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Dinner that evening was a very sober meal. Nobody said much with Leo and Henry there, all wide-eyed and anxious and knowing something was wrong but not what it was. In the end, Don said, ‘You know where Japan is?’
Nods from both kids, although Henry would probably point to Italy on a map of the world. ‘Well,’ said their dad, ‘they’ve had an earthquake too. We’re all feeling sad because we know how horrible that is.’
There was silence from both kids until Leo said, ‘Can we still sleep here tonight, Dad? All of us in the lounge?’
Poor old Don – he so wanted to go back to his own house, but he put his arms around his sons and said, ‘Sure can, buddy.’
What was happening to the world? What catastrophe would hit next? Earthquakes sucked.
In the morning, once everyone including the little boys had disappeared for the day, Matt turned the TV on. The devastation in Japan was catastrophic. ‘I’ll never moan again about broken drains, dodgy water, no school,’ I said.
Matt kept his eyes glued to the screen. ‘Yeah, you will. But I know what you mean. Wish we could help.’
There it was again – that same old feeling of helplessness. I stood up. ‘I’m going out. Want to come?’
He switched the images off. ‘Might as well. Destination?’
‘One plain, undecorated portaloo. We are going to transform it into a thing of beauty.’ Or at least something more interesting than it was right now.
‘Good call.’ Matt took out his phone. ‘I’ll marshal the troops. Tell them to bring decorating materials.’
Millie and Jess helped me design and paint bright flowers winding their way over two sides of the loo then we found some real flowers still in their pots. Matt and a couple of his liquefaction gang boys painted something that looked vaguely like a shop window full of rugby and soccer balls. Feral Clancy bagsed the door. He was never going to make it as a graphic artist – the words of the you know you’re in Christchurch when…jokes wobbled up and down across the door.
You know you’re in Christchurch when a pile of students in your street is a Good Thing.
You know you’re in Christchurch if you don’t freak out when you see army tanks driving round town.
You know you’re in Christchurch when you think a shower is da bomb!
And thus it was that when the parents and everyone else rocked on home that evening they all stopped to admire our artistic efforts.
Dad came in the door laughing. ‘Love the joke about a game of Jenga only lasting three minutes in Christchurch.’
‘Where did you get the plants?’ Mum said. ‘And the butterfly and gnome?’
Matt gave her his evil grin. ‘We recycled the flowers from Mum’s garden.’
His father winced and said, ‘You’re a braver man than I am.’
Millie and Jess had turned up with the gnome and butterfly. We didn’t ask where they’d got them.
Our decorating efforts gave us all something cheerful to talk about at dinner even though Japan was heavy in our hearts. We didn’t turn the telly on until the little boys were well asleep.
It was horrible. Our city and Japan – it was too much to take in. I went off to my bedroom to message Katie and Shona, but only Katie answered.
Me: How’s school?
Katie: It’s ok. Everyone’s kind. Want to be back at AGHS.
Me: Me too.
Katie: No idea when?
Me: Not this term and not at AGHS. Don’t know where we’ll be.
Katie: Sucks. You going to memorial service?
Me: ????
Katie: You don’t know?? Prince William’s coming and all. Friday. It’s a holiday.
Me: Been avoiding the news. Don’t want to know latest death toll.
We all went to the service on Friday the eighteenth of March, along with about a hundred thousand other people, most of us walking to the park so as not to clog up the roads in the city.
‘It’s a perfect day,’ Myra said. ‘A real scorcher.’
‘The St John’s people are going to be busy,’ Dad said. He’d made us all – even Matt – bring hats, sunscreen and a water bottle each.
I caught comments from people we walked past. Well, I think it’s too soon. A memorial service when there are still bodies in the rubble.
All these people. It’s good. You don’t feel so alone.
I wanna see Prince William!
Henry tugged on my hand. ‘Will he have a crown on?’
‘Don’t think so, buddy. But they might give him a feather cloak to wear,’ I said.
He gave me his serious look. ‘It’s called a korowai, Lyla. It’s for important people. Ms Trenberth told us.’
‘Hey, you! Good remembering.’
Leo leapt up and down, trying to see through the crowd. ‘Everybody in the world is here! There won’t be anywhere for us to sit. We need to hurry up, Dad.’
We weaved our way around groups already set up on the grass. Maybe this was a good idea – I felt the tight knot of tension unravelling its hold on me. We were safe out here in the open. It was easy to relax in the sunshine, listen to the music and chat to those around us. A guy with his arm in a heavy-duty sling grinned at Leo and Henry. ‘This? I got clobbered by a stupid piece of verandah. I’m going to live in a shipping container from now on. No verandahs in t
hose.’
The service started. The mayor welcomed everyone. ‘Tihei mauri ora.’ Let there be life – that was one meaning anyway. I was still thinking about that when the video of the central city started. It was in ruins, the streets full of rubble. I was glad when the speeches and the singing replaced it. At 12:51 we had the two minutes of silence and I was jolted straight back to when the quake had struck. Katie, Shona and me – cowering on ground that tried to throw us up back into the air. Buildings groaning and falling. Ian and blood. Eli and Selina – her baby could be born by now.
More speeches and more singing, and then it was over. ‘I think I’m glad I came,’ I muttered.
Mum gave my arm a squeeze. ‘Me too.’
‘I like that prince,’ Myra said. ‘A very impressive young man.’
‘The korowai was nice but he should have a crown,’ Henry said.
We were almost out of the park grounds when a small dog came racing up, barking its woolly head off. It leapt up at me and without thinking, I caught it – and got my face slobbered over. Then it clicked. ‘Roger! Hi there, my old buddy.’
Mumma came panting up. ‘I’m so sorry! He never does that. I don’t know what’s come over him – but he certainly likes you.’
I gave her a grin, but I was more interested in getting my face out of the way of his tongue. ‘Hey, Roger, I get it. You’re pleased to see me. And you’re gorgeous, but a bit less of the slobber if you don’t mind!’
She was gaping at me. ‘How do you know his name? Oh! You’re the girl who rescued him! Oh, how wonderful – and look, he remembers you. Clever Roger! Mumma’s so proud of you!’
I set him back on the ground and he danced all round me, leaping up and – I swear – grinning at me. Leo and Henry got down on their haunches and tried to pat him. About one pat in every ten hit the mark.
‘Mayhem,’ Dave said. ‘What’s the story?’
Mumma told them her version, which didn’t include her refusal to bash up her deck or how she didn’t want to get me a towel. I filled in the gaps once they’d gone on their way.
‘It’s what you’d expect from a woman who refers to herself as Mumma,’ Dad said.
Mum said, ‘Well done, darling,’ but she was eyeing me with that look that said and what other deeds haven’t you told me about?
The days rolled on past, the aftershocks keeping us all tensed for the next one. Other kids returned to school, but we still didn’t know when – and where – we’d get to go back.
I chucked my bike helmet down one afternoon when Matt and I got back from an excursion to look through the wire at the red zone of the central city. ‘I hate seeing kids in uniform. Makes me so jealous I could scream.’
Matt looked up from his phone. ‘Don’t mind me. Scream away.’
I stomped off to my room. He wanted to be back in school too, even though he pretended he wasn’t bothered.
It was well into March, a few days after the memorial service and with just two weeks left of the first term when we found out. The when was at the start of the new term. The where – Matt to Papanui High and me to Burnside High.
Katie: You’re going to Burnside? Seriously?? On the other side of town?
Me: Take me where the ground don’t dance, sister. It’ll be ok. Special buses. Start at lunchtime. Finish 5ish. Just good to be back at school. Any school.
Katie: Burnside’s huge. But hey, you’ll meet boys!!
Me: I wish. They leave. We arrive.
There was a meeting for parents and girls at Burnside High on the Friday before we started the new arrangement on Monday. We’d be able to ask about how it was all going to work.
Joanne, Millie, Jess and I met up in the morning at Joanne’s house to talk about it.
‘Those kids are going to hate us,’ Millie said, her eyes wide and worried. ‘I’d hate it. I mean, they’re going to have to get up so early because of us. I’m not even conscious at eight in the morning.’
‘I’m terrified of getting lost. There’s about three thousand kids at that school,’ Jess said.
Joanne and I made the soothing comments – it wouldn’t help to admit we were slightly nervous ourselves. It was harder for the Year Nines like Millie and Jess – they’d only had two weeks of high school when our world shook itself to pieces. Not enough time to get used to anything.
They and their parents were waiting for us outside the hall. We all went in together, bracing ourselves for news of who was missing, who wouldn’t be coming back.
‘There’s Amy!’ Jess shrieked.
‘Ananta! Over here!’ Millie ran and threw her arms around a girl standing close to her dad and looking lost.
It was going to be okay. It was so unbelievably good to see familiar faces again. All my teachers were there, every single one of them.
Lots of tears, lots of hugging. It felt like we were a school again. It almost didn’t matter that we were far away from our own buildings, our own grounds – we were here in this borrowed space with our own teachers, our own classmates. We were still Avonside Girls’ High School.
Although I’d told Millie the Burnside kids would be fine with us being there, I’d worried that we’d feel like interlopers, that they’d be annoyed at having their lives thrown into chaos. I should have known better. They welcomed us and made us feel at home.
I said goodbye to Joanne at the end of the evening. ‘It’s not going to be so bad.’
‘Yep. Just good to be going back. Weird to miss it so much.’
‘Tell me about it!’
There was a message from Shona when I got home. Moving to Whangarei. Mum totally freaked by quakes. Sad. Don’t want to go.
Not coming back? Never? I put my head down on my desk and howled. I needed my friends. Friends were solid – the earth could go mad, but you could depend on your friends.
And now I couldn’t.
Another tremor shook the house. I stayed where I was – no point in moving for anything less than a four. But my heart wasn’t so good at working out what was a four and what wasn’t. It sped up to full revs at the slightest excuse.
Hateful, vile, foul, disgusting bloody earthquakes.
We settled into our new school routine. The periods were shorter to fit the shorter day. My part-time job looking after Leo and Henry in the afternoon didn’t fit with when I got home from school. Goodbye, pocket money.
Being able to go to school again helped. It felt like normal wasn’t so far away. I was glad to have assignments to think about and other things besides disaster to fill my head with.
The city kept changing. In the morning the bus would go past a row of shops with gaping holes where the entire front walls had fallen off. In the afternoon, there’d be no shops, just a patch of bare earth. Bulldozers, cranes, machinery – the city was alive with them.
The days shortened as we got into winter. When school finished for the day we boarded our buses in the dark and travelled home in the dark.
In school, nobody took much notice of an aftershock below four. All the teachers were pretty Zen about them. But we had a relief teacher one day for Social Studies when there was a three point five. Mr Jenks leapt to his feet, yelling his head off. ‘Forswear that, you foul fiend! Fie upon you! Flee and never trouble us again.’ Then he sat down again as if nothing had happened. ‘Do continue with your work, young ladies.’
A stunned silence before our entire class shrieked with laughter.
He lifted his head from his book and grinned. ‘Yes. Well.’
You know you’re in Christchurch when your teacher goes nuts.
Things at home were just about back to normal, with only my family plus Matt in the house. Leo and Henry had calmed down enough to sleep in their own place.
The Chan family were going to rent Mrs Malone’s house, even though the front wall was propped up with lengths of timber. ‘Why isn’t Mrs M coming back?’ I asked. She wouldn’t want to abandon her garden – she was always out in it.
‘The quakes have shaken he
r confidence,’ Mum said. ‘She doesn’t want to live by herself anymore. She’s settled in with her son’s family and taken over their garden.’
I’d miss her, but it’d be good to have the Chans back in the street. ‘What about Prof? Have you heard from him?’
‘Didn’t you notice?’ Mum asked. ‘His house has been red-stickered. He’s staying in Wanaka until things settle down a bit.’
We’d stopped sleeping on the lounge floor when Natalie and Co moved back home. Our mattresses went back on the beds and everyone returned to their own rooms.
The window in Blake’s room got mended and Matt moved in with him, which Blake didn’t seem to mind.
I shut my door, as far as it would go. I had my very own space again with no kids in the house to come bashing on the door. I didn’t put my new mirror on the wall. Along with anything heavy, like my hair dryer and the lava lamp Shona had found in an op shop, the mirror stayed on the floor.
I liked being by myself, I really did – and if I told myself that enough I’d believe it in the end. It took me a week to get used to being alone in the darkness. Stupid foul fiend earthquakes – I was handling them.
But it doesn’t pay to get too pleased with yourself when you live in a shaky city. Every time an aftershock jerked me awake, what did I do? I trotted off to sleep on the floor in the parents’ room, that’s what I did.
The days rolled on by, punctuated by aftershocks but some good happenings as well. A totally awesome happening was our whole class getting goody bags from a school in the North Island. The kids from Hastings Girls’ High had fundraised and sent us a whole bunch of stuff.
We fell on those bags. Pencils, pens, felt pens, stationery, girly stuff. Just knowing other people were still thinking of us, still wanting to help – that was huge. I carefully packed it all up, took it home and arranged it on my bedroom floor where a) it couldn’t fall b) I could see it and c) nobody would walk on it. Whenever I used a pen or a sheet of pretty writing paper I made sure to put everything back in its place.
