The Painted Ponies of Partequineus and The Summer of the Kittens (24 page)

That really confused me, because I'd always heard that Heaven was a perfect place, so how could there be any suffering there? I asked Mom about it while we were riding home. She said that the word has a different meaning in the Bible, that it's more like Jesus was saying
allow
the children to go to him.

I thought about that for a while, and than I asked her, “Is Jimmy going to Heaven soon?”

I was hoping that Mom would tell me he was going to be fine, but she didn't. “I hope not,” she said very quietly.

“Why won't anybody tell me what's wrong with him?”

“I think you deserve to know,” she said, “but you mustn't let on to Jimmy that I told you. He doesn't want anyone to find out. Especially you.”

“Why not?”

“Because Jimmy is a very brave boy. He hates being sick, and he doesn't like anyone to think of him that way, or to feel sorry for him.”

“I know. He gets really mad if I try to do anything that he can do for himself. But if there's some way I can help, I want to.”

“Hanna, there isn't anything you can do. Jimmy has cancer.”

And all of a sudden the road was filled with tigers, racing alongside the car and leaping high up in the air, growling and snarling and gnashing their teeth until the air was filled with the sound of a thousand kittens crying, until I realized that the only one who was crying was me.

August 15
^th

 

Hey, Diary!

I bet you've been wondering why I haven't written in so long. It's because until today there hasn't been anything happy to write about. But now there is.

Jimmy came
here
today! To
my
house. And he stayed for the whole afternoon!

It's the first time he's been out of his house in a couple of weeks, except to go back and forth to the hospital. He's been really tired lately, sleeping most of the time and not doing much of anything, and I've only been able to stay for a few minutes when I go to visit him. But today his mom brought him over right after lunch, because he felt really good.

He looks so different. He wears a ball cap all the time now because his hair is so thin. That's on account of all the medicine he has to take. And he's really skinny. But I don't care, because it's so good to see him, no matter what he looks like.

And guess what? He can make Dad's rope-and-pulley elevator work all by himself. It took him a long time to get to the top 'cause he's not strong like he used to be, but he wouldn't give up, and when he reached the platform he was able to get into the special chair that Dad made for him without any help from me.

We took the Scrabble board up with us and played for almost an hour. All the words he used were right, not like that other time when we played. We were going to play Monopoly too, but the wind kept blowing the paper money away.

I'm so happy!

The best thing was, Dad came out about three-thirty and climbed up the tree with a long rectangular package under his arm. “This is a house-warming present,” he told us, “for your tree house.” He gave it to Jimmy to open instead of me, but I didn't mind. In fact, that's what I would have done, too. And guess what. There was a
telescope
inside!

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

“From the attic,” Dad said. “It was mine when I was your age. I just remembered that we still had it.”

Jimmy was already looking out across the dykes, turning the lens to get it in focus. “Wow! Wait'll you see
this
!”

Dad climbed down while we were handing the telescope back and forth, and he was almost to the house before we noticed he was gone. “Thanks, Dad!” I hollered, and Jimmy did too, and Dad waved back at us.

Dad is back living with us again, all the time. I wonder if Mom is as happy about that as I am.

“Where shall we go?” Jimmy said to me when Dad disappeared inside.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He waved the telescope over his shoulder toward the university, then in the other direction toward the farm markets. “We can go anywhere in Wolfville. See?” He aimed it at the traffic on Main Street. “It almost looks as if we're right down there in the middle of town. Or we can go to Grand Pre or Hortonville or…” He squirmed around to look in the other direction. “Hey! I can see all the way to Halifax!”

“You can
not
,” I said. “The South Mountain is in the way.”

“I can
so
! There's the Citadel, and the harbour, and all the tall buildings down on Barrington Street, and there's the ferry going to Dartmouth.”

“You're nuts,” I said, and he put the telescope down and grinned at me.

“You haven't forgotten how to fly, have you?” he said.

Jimmy always makes me laugh. “Gimme that thing,” I told him, and he handed me the telescope. I turned toward the bay and lifted it to my eye. I could see the dykes, almost close enough to touch them, and the Port Williams wharf, and even the road that goes out around Starr's Point.

“Wow!” I said. “There's the CN Tower in downtown Toronto. And all the grain elevators in Saskatchewan. Hudson's Bay and Baffin Island!”

“I told you so,” Jimmy said.

I put the telescope down. “You're really going to do it,” I said. “You're going to fly someday.”

“Of course I am. All over Canada and the United States and Mexico and South America and Europe and Asia and the
moon
!”

And right then, I believed him. I really did.

August 16
^th

 

Hey, Diary!

Guess what? Thomas went to Jimmy's house today. To stay. Mom called up the lady at the vet's, and she said it was okay, because he's about seven weeks old right now, which is really a little bit too young for a kitten to leave its mother, but since Maggie had to leave Thomas way back when, and since he doesn't need a bottle any more and eats solid food and everything, it was safe to let him go.

Jimmy loves him.

I love Jimmy.

August 19
^th

 

Dear Diary,

Yesterday was one of the days that Jimmy has to go to the hospital, and he's always kind of beat after that, so I didn't go to visit him today. Instead I stayed up in my tree house with the telescope for a couple of hours, but I didn't see much that was new. I can't fly very well when Jimmy's not with me.

I'm sad today. This morning a big moving van came down our street and stopped in front of Mr. Harding's house, and some men carried out all of his furniture and stuff. I asked Mom about it, and she called up the hospital and found out that he died last week.

“Try not to be too upset,” Mom said. “You should remember that he had a very long life, and a useful one, too. He was a veterinarian for years and years, and he helped many animals to get well. He helped you save your kittens. And I'm very proud of you for being his friend, and for helping him when he was sick.”

I know Mom is right, but I can't help feeling sad. Everything around me seems to be dying. Maggie and my elm tree and Smudgie, and now Mr. Harding. And…

No! I'm not going to write
that
! Because Jimmy isn't going to die! He's going to get better, and he's going to fly all over Canada and the United States and Mexico and South America and Europe and Asia and the
moon
!

That's what he told me, and I believe it.

After supper I asked Mom if I could stay up late and go outside after dark. I wanted to look at the moon through the telescope so I could see where Jimmy is going to land someday. But the most amazing thing I saw wasn't the moon, but all the stars in the sky, hundreds and thousands and millions and
billions
of them. I learned in school that they're too far away for us ever to visit them, 'cause it would take lots of lifetimes to get there.

Then I remembered that Reverend Davis said the stars are where Heaven is, and I tried to imagine that Mr. Harding was up there somewhere. And Maggie and Smudgie, too, even though Reverend Davis says that Heaven is only for people, except that he has to be wrong because Heaven is supposed to be a perfect place where everybody is happy all the time, and how could I be happy anywhere if I didn't have Maggie and Smudgie there with me? And an elm tree to climb so I could see all over everything.

I thought about Mr. Harding for a while, and about Jimmy being sick, and then I climbed down and went in the house and found Dad in his office, where he was working on his courses for the fall term at the university.

Dad leaned back from the computer and swivelled around. “Isn't it time you were in bed?”

“Can I ask you a question?” I said.

“What's on your mind?”

“I've been thinking about why Jimmy is sick. Reverend Davis says God made the whole world and everything in it, especially us, and that everything that happens is God's will. So does that mean he made Jimmy get born with his spina bifida? And if Jimmy dies, is it because God wants him to?”

“Hanna, I'm not the person you should be asking about this,” Dad said.

“Is that because you don't believe in God or Heaven?”

“I don't believe, and I don't
not
believe. I think I told you before, no one really knows for sure whether there's a God, or if Heaven exists.”

“But what do you
think
?”

Dad had a really strange look on his face right about then. It looked like he was trying to make up his mind whether to tell me something. “Sit down for a minute,” he said, and I reached for the chair from Mom's desk and pulled it over close to him. “I'm sure Reverend Davis believes all the things he says about God,” Dad said, “and you should respect him and listen to him, because he's a good man who tries very hard to help people. But you don't have to believe everything he says. You should make up your own mind about some things.”

“Well, I think he's wrong,” I said, “just like he's wrong about animals not going to Heaven, because why would God make some people healthy and other people sick? That would mean that God is cruel, but the Bible says he cares about us. And Reverend Davis says that if we pray to God, he'll look after us and give us what we want. If that's true, then if I pray really hard, he'll make Jimmy get well, right?”

August 26
^th

 

Dear Diary,

Jimmy is home from the hospital. I spent all afternoon at his house today, Mrs. Morris said I could, and we played board games and he showed me some really neat math tricks to help me do fractions in my head, and we talked about a whole bunch of things. Jimmy is really smart.

He's very thin, and he wears a hat all the time because he's lost most of his hair, and he has something taped to his arm that attaches to a long tube so medicine can go into him from a bottle that hangs on a tall pole. I asked him if it hurts, and he said no.

He has a special bed now, one with wheels and cranks and handles that make the mattress bend in the middle so he can sit up in it. Mr. Morris set it up in the hobby room. I think that's so nobody has to go up and down stairs every time Jimmy needs something. Plus I think he likes being able to see all of his airplanes hanging from the ceiling whenever he wants to.

Mrs. Morris feeds Thomas in the hobby room, too, and the litter box is there in a corner. Thomas likes to climb on the bed, and Jimmy says they sleep together every night. I'm really glad.

I just have Veronica now. Jesse went to live with Emily yesterday.

Mrs. Morris says I can come back again tomorrow.

September 10
^th

 

Dear Diary,

Now that I'm back in school again, I have a new responsibility. I have to take Jimmy his assignments every day, and tell him all about what we're doing in class so he won't be so far behind when he gets better and can go again. I just noticed that I wrote that I have to, but that isn't exactly right. I
want
to.