Two Weeks with the Queen (3 page)

They'd be sorry when they found out it was him who was really sick.

He checked a brass number on a smart polished-wood mailbox and turned into the doctor's driveway.

The doctor lived on the side of town where people had brick houses with front lawns and sprinklers and two toilets. Dad reckoned this was a criminal waste of water. Colin reckoned that if people were clever and successful and important it was OK. As long as they didn't show off about it, like inviting two people in to go to the toilet at once.

He knocked on the doctor's big, stained-glass front door. The doctor opened it. He was wearing a party hat and a red plastic nose and holding a turkey leg.

From inside Colin could hear Christmas music and lots of adults and children talking and laughing.

He held out his hanky with the blood spots on it.

‘Sorry to bother you,' he said, ‘but I think I've got gastric.'

The doctor stared. Then he took off his red plastic nose.

Later, when the doctor drove Colin home in his silver Jag, Colin had got over not having gastric.

At first it had been a bitter blow, but interesting as well, the doctor getting out his microscope and showing Colin the wriggly things that covered not only the blood spot but that entire corner of the hanky.

The doctor had asked Colin if his hanky had come into contact with a dead animal and Colin had said, yes, sort of, Arnie Strachan had used it to wipe out his lunchbox.

Then the doctor had explained that the wriggly things had only got onto Colin's blood spot because they were on the hanky in the first place.

Colin had asked why the wriggly things hadn't got onto Luke's blood spot and the doctor had said because by some miracle Luke's corner of the hanky had stayed clean.

Well, cleanish.

As they turned into Colin's street, Colin glanced across at the doctor. They knew their stuff', these medical blokes. The doctor saw him looking. He gave Colin a grin.

‘Bit of a pain, eh, having your kid brother in hospital. Bloke gets a bit ignored when his kid brother's in hospital.'

Colin didn't say anything. He wondered if the doctor would agree to swap brains with Dad. The first double brain transplant in Australia. Probably not.

‘Don't worry about your brother,' said the doctor. ‘He'll be out of hospital in a couple of days.'

Colin hoped the doctor was right.

He looked around the car as they purred along. The leather seats, the real wood dashboard, the aerial that went up without you having to stop the car and get out and pull at it and swear like with Dad's.

Of course he's right, thought Colin. You don't get a car like this by being wrong.

Chapter Three

Most mornings Colin woke up because Luke climbed onto the chest of drawers and jumped on him. On Boxing Day morning he woke up for different reasons.

(1) He felt strange and unusual. It took him a while to realise this was because Luke wasn't jumping on him.

(2) The Band-aids on his heels had come loose and were tickling his feet.

(3) Mum was yelling on the phone right outside his door.

‘He's OK,' she was shouting, ‘they've taken a blood sample and we're waiting for the results.'

Colin could tell from the shouting that it was the Christmas phone call from Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob in England.

‘No, no, completely out of the blue,' Mum yelled. ‘One minute he was fine, the next he was on the floor.'

Colin lay in bed and listened. It wasn't sticky-beaking because even if he put bubble-gum in his ears and stuck his head under the pillow he'd hear every word.

‘No, didn't throw up but he was real white and everything,' shouted Mum.

Colin wondered if Mrs Baker next door could hear. Probably, and she was staying with her son in Perth.

‘Ambulance,' yelled Mum. ‘Yes, that's right.'

Must be a bad line. Though now he thought about it Mum always shouted during Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob's Christmas phone call. Perhaps Aunty Iris and Uncle Bob were a bit deaf. Or ringing from a disco.

‘Didn't want to be left at first,' yelled Mum, ‘but then we took him in his MiG.'

He'd never met them, but they seemed like nice people.

‘MiG.'

They always rang at Christmas and asked how everyone was, including him.

‘M, small i, big G,' shouted Mum. ‘We gave it to him. That's right. OK. I'll let you know. Bye. Love to you all. Bye.'

Except this year Mum hadn't mentioned him once.

‘Mmmm, I'm starving.'

Colin stared.

Dad poured out his Nutri-Grain and said it again.

‘Starving.'

Why's he saying that, thought Colin. He's never said ‘Mmmm I'm starving' before, not in all the breakfasts I've known him. ‘I'm empty as a creek at Christmas', yes, and even ‘I could eat a horse with the jockey still on it' if he's in a good mood, but never ‘Mmmm I'm starving'.

‘Me too,' said Mum.

Colin couldn't believe his ears.

Me too?

Me too?

Never in his entire life had he heard Mum say ‘Me too'.

It was always ‘Me included'.

‘I like Kentucky Fried better than McDonald's,' you'd say.

‘Me included,' she'd say.

‘But it's still given me a pain in the gut,' you'd add.

‘Me included,' she'd say.

Rumour had it that at their wedding Dad had said, ‘I do,' and Mum had said, ‘Me included.'

So what was all this ‘Me too'?

Then Colin realised what was going on. They were putting on a Brave Face. It was what adults did when they were frightened.

Kids could cry, or throw up, or stay in bed and not talk to anyone, or even panic and scream ‘Help' at the top of their lungs like he and Luke had done the time Dad left them in the car at the back of the hardware shop and didn't say how long he'd be.

Adults had to put on a Brave Face.

You saw them all the time in cars, waiting for people who hadn't said how long they'd be. They'd never be crying or screaming, just sitting there with a Brave Face. If there were two of them they might be talking, lips moving behind the glass.

Colin now realised that what they were probably saying was, ‘Mmmm, I'm starving' and ‘Me too',

He watched Mum and Dad eat their Nutri-Grain. They were pretty good at putting on Brave Faces, even managing tight little smiles to each other.

‘Don't worry,' said Colin, ‘the doctor said Luke'll be out of hospital in a couple of days.'

Dad put his hand on Colin's arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘Thanks, old mate.'

Colin felt like he'd just won ten dollars in a lottery.

‘You're a good kid,' said Mum. ‘Sorry we yelled a bit yesterday when the doc brought you home. We were talking about it after and, well, that was a pretty top act, going round there cause you were worried about Lukie. Good on you.' She ruffled his hair.

It felt so good Colin decided not to complicate it by mentioning the wriggly things and Arnie Strachan's lunchbox.

Mum went back to her breakfast. A sigh escaped between mouthfuls. Dad gave her a squeeze.

‘The doc knows what he's talking about, love. Couple of days and Luke'll be falling out of trees with the best of' em.'

Mum stared at Dad in mock horror. ‘Ray,' she said, and flicked a Nutri-Grain at him.

‘All right,' said Dad, grinning, ‘um . . . catching snakes with the best of 'em.'

Mum rolled her eyes and pretended to strangle Dad.

‘Playing cricket,' said Colin.

‘That's it,' said Mum. ‘Good on you, Col.'

Colin glanced around to see that all his fieldsmen were in position, then ran up and bowled a medium-paced offspinner.

It was a bit short and Luke stepped forward, swung the bat and clouted the ball over Colin's head.

‘Catch,' shouted Colin to the fieldsman on the boundary.

The fieldsman lunged upwards, but it was too high and he would have fallen out of bed if his leg hadn't been encased in plaster and wired to a pulley.

‘Six,' shouted Luke as the ball bounced off the end wall of the ward and landed in a bowl of grapes.

Everyone in the ward clapped and Colin had to admit it was a pretty good hit, even though he wasn't bowling his best. It wasn't easy, turning in a test match-winning bowling performance when half your team were attached to drips.

He sent the two nurses down to the boundary, one to catch and one to wake up silly mid-off who had fallen asleep and was dribbling onto his pillow.

He ran in to bowl.

And stopped.

There was something moving behind the batsman. On TV the bowlers always stopped when something was moving behind the batsman.

On TV it was rarely a matron.

The nurses leapt into action when they saw matron. They shooed Luke back into bed, snatched the cricket cap off Mrs Burridge's bandaged head, and gathered up the pile of bedpans that had been the wicket.

‘It's OK, it's a soft ball,' said Colin, going over to matron and showing her. ‘We're allowed to play with it indoors at home.'

Matron, hands on hips, ignored him and continued to glare at the nurses.

‘Did you see Luke's six?' Colin said to Mum and Dad, who were standing behind her. ‘I wasn't bowling my best but it was still a good hit. Reckon he must be almost better, eh?'

He waited for them to look happy about this, and say how pleased they were that he'd brought the bat and ball in so Luke could get back to playing cricket instead of weaving baskets and making ashtrays out of bottle tops and all that boring stuff you have to do in hospital.

They didn't. They stood staring across the ward at Luke and their faces were so pale and unhappy that for a moment Colin thought they'd got gastric too.

Colin sat on the hard vinyl chair in the matron's office and watched Mum and Dad standing by the bed talking to Luke.

It was too far away to hear what they were saying but they were smiling, sort of, and touching him a lot. It didn't look as though there was much telling off going on.

In the nurses' room there was a lot of telling off going on. Matron's voice had been raised ever since she'd led the two nurses in there and slammed the door.

Even above the noisy air-conditioner rattling in matron's wall, Colin could hear the odd word. ‘Irresponsible' had been used several times and ‘very sick'.

She must be telling them she's very sick and tired of them being irresponsible, thought Colin.

He started writing a letter to matron in his head in case she gave the nurses the sack and he had to get their jobs back.

‘Dear Matron, Overseas, where they have the best hospitals in the world, cricket is often used to help patients get better. Spin bowling is good exercise for people who've done their wrists in and batting is specially good for gastric because it strengthens the bowel muscles . . .'

Dad came into the matron's office and closed the door behind him. He still looked pale and unhappy. Colin waited for a telling off.

Instead Dad put his hands on Colin's shoulders.

‘The hospital in Sydney that did the tests on Luke's blood want to do some more,' he said in a strange, low voice. ‘Luke has to go down there, today.'

Probably so they can check out his poos, thought Colin. Boy, those Sydney hospitals are thorough all right.

‘Are we all going in the car?' he asked.

‘That'd take too long,' said Dad. ‘They're flying him down in the air-ambulance this afternoon.'

Colin felt the blood drain from his face.

‘There's only room for one passenger in the plane so I'm going with him,' said Dad. ‘You and Mum'll come down on the train tomorrow.'

He crouched down in front of Colin and looked into his face. ‘I know it's a shock, old mate, but we've got to be tough, eh?'

Colin barely heard him. His blood was pounding in his ears and he felt sick in the stomach.

It was a shock all right. A plane. He'd never even been in an ambulance and Luke was flying to Sydney in a plane.

‘You ever had a crash?' Colin asked the air-ambulance pilot.

‘Nope,' said the air-ambulance pilot, biting into his baked bean and salad sandwich.

Colin squinted out over the dusty airstrip. Gusts of hot wind were whipping up spirals of dirt and flinging them against the side of the little white plane.

‘Probably be a bumpy flight,' said Colin.

‘Yep,' said the pilot, taking a mouthful of chocolate-flavoured milk.

‘Probably be a bit harder to navigate than usual,' said Colin.

The pilot shrugged.

‘I'm pretty good at reading maps,' said Colin.

The pilot took another bite of his sandwich and another swig of his drink and chewed it all up together.

‘And I've got a compass so we wouldn't wander round in circles gradually getting weaker and weaker until we perished from thirst if we did crash,' said Colin.

The pilot swallowed the last of his chocolate milk, burped, and stood up.

‘Sorry,' he said, ‘we're full up.'

He walked out of the tiny terminal and over towards the plane. Colin watched him go, then went over to where Dad was sitting, elbows on his knees, squeezing his hands together.

‘Pilot reckons it'll probably be a bumpy flight.'

‘Probably will,' said Dad, not looking up from his white knuckles.

‘If you're feeling a bit nervous about it, I'll go,' said Colin.

Before Dad could answer, the ambulance from the hospital arrived and Dad jumped up and went out to meet it. Colin followed him, wishing that Luke would full out of the ambulance and need microsurgery on his neck so at least there'd be a reason for flying him around in planes at the taxpayer's expense.

Mum got out of the ambulance first, looking even tenser than Dad. Not surprising, thought Colin. Being stuck in there with Luke rabbiting on about how excited he was and whether they'd be attacked by MiGs on the way to Sydney would make anyone tense.