Ways to Live Forever

  I heard someone come into the room and felt the bed move as they sat down beside me. I kept my head in the pillow.

  “Sam?” Mum said. “Sam? Are you all right, love?”

  “I’m fine!” I said, into my pillow.

  Mum smoothed my hair off my forehead. I jerked my head away.

  “Did that hurt?”

  “No!” I said.

  She touched my shoulder. I cried out.

  Mum sighed. “Maybe we should call Annie—”

  “Leave me alone!” I shouted. And then, because I knew she was going to argue, “I want to go and see Felix.”

  Mum drew in her breath. For a moment, she didn’t say anything. Then she said, “I don’t know that that’s a very good idea.”

  “I want to,” I said.

  “I know you do. But . . . it can be quite upsetting, seeing someone who’s dead. And you’re really not very well. Wouldn’t it be better just to remember him like he was?”

  “No,” I said. “No!” I turned my head away. All the time I was thinking, ‘Why can’t I see him? What does he look like? What’s wrong with him?’

  “You’ve got to let me see him,” I said. “It’ll make me worse, if you don’t let me.”

  Mum drew a deep breath.

  “Sam,” she said. She was almost pleading. “Let’s not fight. Please. Not now.”

  “I’m not fighting,” I said. “You’re the one fighting. If you’d let me go, we wouldn’t have to fight.”

  Mum’s face was very pale. Her lips were pressed in a pink line.

  “Well,” she said. “If that’s what you want to think, then you go on thinking that. I’m not going to argue with you.”

  I hated her then. Hated her. Hated her for the tight, unhappy look that I knew was my fault. Hated her for not letting me win. Hated her because I was terrified of what might have happened to Felix, of what no one ever told me.

  “You have to do what I say,” I said, furious. “Everyone has to. Because I’m going to die and then you’ll be sorry.”

  Mum sat perfectly still, pressing her lips together. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then she turned and ran out of the room.

  I clenched my teeth and buried my head in my pillow. Good, I thought. Good. Serves her right. But I didn’t feel any happier.

  I just felt miserable. And angry. And lonely.

  I lay in bed for a long time, listening. I heard Ella’s urgent voice.

  “What’s the matter? Mum? Mum? What’s the matter?”

  I heard Mum and Dad talking, and Mum crying, on and on. I think I must have fallen asleep, because then I heard Granny’s voice and I don’t remember the doorbell ringing.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” That’s what she said, very loud. And then, “Well, why shouldn’t he, if he wants to?” And then there was Dad, murmuring something.

  After a while, Granny came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed.

  “Your mother’s talked to Gillian,” she said. “She says you can go and see Felix this afternoon, if you’re well enough.”

  “I’m well enough,” I said.

  She made a sort of tutting noise. “You’ll have to do better than that, my lad,” she said. “You look like the baby who was washed down the plughole with the bath water. Why don’t you have something to eat, and then we’ll see?”

  I’d pushed myself up on my elbows, but when she said that, I flopped back down again on the bed.

  “I’m not hungry,” I said. I wasn’t. I didn’t feel sick any more, but sort of empty, as though my stomach had shrivelled up inside me. Granny looked at me.

  “We don’t want any of that,” she said. “Your poor mother’s worried sick about you. She’s got enough on her plate, without you playing her up.”

  This was so unfair that I sat right up.

  “I’m not!” I said.

  Granny gave a brisk nod. “That’s more like it,” she said. “I’ll go and find you some food.”

  BULLET HOLES

  9th February

  Granny took me to the funeral place herself, in her gardening van. There’s only room for one person besides Granny and they always get to sit in the front. The rest of the van is full of spades and netting and big sacks of sand. It has the bullet holes that I got Granny for Christmas stuck on the windscreen. It rattles when you drive too fast.

  Granny always drives too fast.

  It took us ages to get there, even so. All the way, I got nervouser and nervouser. My nervousness grew like a balloon under my ribs. It tingled down my arms and made my heart beat and beat, until I felt like I was going to burst.

  When we finally got there, the funeral place didn’t look at all like I thought it would. It was very posh. It looked a bit like the reception at Dad’s work. There was a pink carpet and a desk with a lady in a dark blue suit and pictures of flowers in pink frames on the wall. When Granny told the lady Felix’s name, she led us down this big long corridor with lots of shiny doors off it. I edged closer to Granny. She gave me a smile.

  I wondered if it was too late to change my mind.

  At last, the lady stopped outside one of the doors and unlocked it.

  “Here you are,” she said to Granny. “Let me know when you’re ready to leave.”

  Granny nodded. “Right,” she said. The lady smiled and set off back down the corridor. “Thank you!” Granny called after her. She turned and waved her hand.

  Me and Granny looked at each other.

  “Still time for an honourable retreat,” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “Sure?”

  I nodded. She squeezed my shoulder.

  “Good man,” she said and opened the door.

  The room was small and very plain. There were white walls, another picture of pink flowers and a sort of bed with Felix on it. Granny went over to the bed, quietly. I hung back. She didn’t say anything, to me or him. She just stood there, looking. I edged closer, slowly, until I stood right beside her. Then I looked too.

  Felix was lying on his back. He was dressed in his old Green Day T-shirt, all streaky from too much washing, and his black French resistance beret. He looked exactly like Felix, just exactly as if he were sleeping, except he was too stiff and still to be asleep. He looked cleaner and neater than he ever did in real life. His eyes were closed.

  I reached out and touched his shoulder, on the T-shirt. Then I touched him properly, on the jaw, on the skin.

  He was very cold. Not cold like fingers in the snow are cold, still warm under the skin. Stone cold, like statues of old knights in cathedrals. With no warmth left in them at all.

  I realized I’d been hoping, somehow, that they’d made some sort of mistake. They might have done. But now as I stood there, I knew there hadn’t been any mistake. He was so still and quiet. He looked exactly like Felix, but there wasn’t any person left in him at all. Wherever he was now, it wasn’t here.

  I’d thought he’d be frightening. He wasn’t. He was just quiet and empty.

  I fell asleep again on the way back, curled up on Granny’s front seat with my feet on a bag of tulip bulbs. I was so, so tired. I slept all the way home. When I woke, it was evening. I was in my own bed, Granny had gone and it was raining.

  THE STORY OF THE MAN WHO

  WEIGHED THE HUMAN SOUL

  This is a story I read in a book. It’s true. In 1907, a surgeon called Dr Duncan MacDougall decided to find out how much a human soul weighed. So he made a special bed on a set of scales. He put one of his patients on the bed and weighed him while he was dying. He said that the man got lighter very, very slowly, because of the sweat that was evaporating. But at last he died and CLUNK! the scales dropped. Dr MacDougall said that the moment the man died, he lost three-fourths of an ounce, or twenty-one grams.

  When I heard this story I got out our kitchen scales to try and find out how much twenty-one grams really is. I was a bit disappointed. According to Dr MacDougall, the human soul weighs as much as four and a half pencils. Or three
greetings cards.8 Or a wooden letter opener, a sheet of stickers and a used-up glitter pen.

  Which isn’t very much.

  Anyway. Dr MacDougall tried his experiment on three other patients. Once, the patient lost less weight than the first patient, and twice they lost some weight first and more weight later. Then Dr MacDougall tried the same thing with fifteen dogs and none of them got lighter at all. He said that this proved he was measuring the soul, because he didn’t think dogs have souls. But there were lots of problems with his experiment. Often it’s hard to tell exactly when someone has died. And six patients weren’t enough to test it properly. And his scales weren’t very accurate. And there could’ve been loads of reasons for what happened that he didn’t know about.

  But nobody since has been able to explain why they got lighter. It wasn’t from water evaporating. And it wasn’t because air had left their lungs, because Dr MacDougall tried breathing air in and out of the first man’s mouth and it didn’t change his weight. Sometimes they wet themselves, but that didn’t matter because the wee stayed on the bed and was still being weighed.

  Nobody has ever repeated his experiment (or if they have, I couldn’t find them on Google). I suppose most people don’t want scientists weighing them while they’re dying and nowadays you have to ask people before you do stuff to them.

  So nobody knows. He was probably wrong.

  But what if he was right?

  What if he proved we have a soul?

  ANNIE

  10th February

  When Annie came to give me platelets, she stood and talked to Mum for ages. Then she came and talked to me.

  I was curled up on the sofa with Columbus, watching Pirates of the Caribbean and squeezing my platelets. Annie came and sat by me.

  “Hey there,” she said.

  “Hey,” I said. I didn’t take my eyes off the television.

  “Your mum says you’ve been a bit poorly.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  Annie didn’t push it. “She says you went to see Felix.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I stared at the television. Annie sat back on the sofa. We watched the film for a bit like it was all we cared about. I wasn’t fooled. But there was something I wanted to ask her.

  “Annie. . .”

  “Mmm?”

  “When they bury people . . . do they ever make mistakes? Like, bury people alive?”

  Annie turned and looked at me. She said, “Oh no, Sam. Doctors are very careful. They always check pulse and blood pressure before they pronounce someone dead.”

  I squirmed. The cat mewed softly. “I know, but . . . what if they make a mistake?”

  Annie reached out and stroked the cat. He was warm and heavy in my lap. “It’s very hard to make a mistake, especially after someone has been dead for a couple of hours. Bodies behave very differently after death. They get very pale and cold. And the muscles stiffen – like zombies in cartoons.”

  I knew that really, from Felix. “But people wake up sometimes, don’t they?” I said.

  “Not after about fifteen minutes,” said Annie. “Really, Sam. The brain can’t survive that long without oxygen.”

  I nodded. “I did know really,” I said. I yawned. “I just wanted to be sure.”

  On the television, the pirate skeletons were busy trashing the town. I leaned my head against Annie’s shoulder and we watched it together.

  THE FUNERAL

  12th February

  Felix’s funeral was today. Mum, Ella and I went.

  I’d never been to a funeral before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I imagined people crying and everyone dressed in black. Felix would have liked that. He liked black. He’d have liked everyone gothed up with black eyeliner and black nail varnish. I wished we’d thought of it – just to see all his old relations do it.

  We didn’t wear black. Ella wore the floaty green skirt that she got for my cousin’s wedding and sandals with bright orange flowers on them. Mum didn’t want her to, but she wouldn’t change.

  “But Ella, you’ll freeze in that big church.”

  “I don’t care.” Ella sat on Dad’s chair and crossed her arms to show she wasn’t going to be moved. “I want to wear something pretty.” So she did.

  And a duffle coat.

  Dad didn’t come. He just went off to work as usual. He didn’t even sign the card we bought.

  There were loads of people in the church. Most of them I didn’t know, but some of them I did. There was Mickey and Felix’s dad, who lives on a farm and has lots of hair and plays the didgeridoo, but not in church. There was Kayleigh, standing very close to her dad. And Dr Bill, all dressed up. Even Mrs Willis was there. She was over on the other side of the church, but she smiled specially at me when we came in. She wasn’t wearing black either.

  The funeral was very strange. Everyone sang hymns. Ella got very upset when they started. She said in this big loud voice, “But Felix didn’t believe in God!”

  “Ella!” hissed Mum.

  “But he didn’t!” Ella said.

  “Shhh!” said Mum. She went pink. She glanced at the old lady sitting next to us, probably wondering if she was Felix’s gran or something. “If you can’t behave yourself, I’m taking you out.”

  “But—” said Ella.

  The old lady leaned across Mum. “It’s a silly nonsense, dear,” she said to Ella. “But you can’t say anything. You don’t want the vicar to burst into tears, do you?”

  Ella was so surprised to be spoken to by a stranger that she shut right up. But she didn’t sing any of the hymns. Neither did I. Not because I thought it was a nonsense, but because Ella was right. Felix wouldn’t have wanted hymns. He’d have wanted . . . Green Day or something. All his old relations singing Green Day. And then his dad playing the didgeridoo.

  After the hymns, Felix’s dad stood up and said some stuff. All about how brave and cheerful Felix was and how he never complained about things. Which wasn’t true. Felix was brave, but he used to moan all the time when we were in hospital. We used to make plans about how we were going to drop grenades on all the nurses. And then Felix’s dad started telling these stories about Felix as a little kid, which I suppose is when he knew him best, because he and Felix’s mum still lived together then. It was all a bit stupid, though. Felix wasn’t some cute kid. And he wasn’t a child hero either. He got narky just like everybody else.

  Ella didn’t like Felix’s dad’s speech any better than she liked the hymns. She started drooping. She slid further and further down our bench, getting lower and lower until she slid right off the seat and on to the floor, where she didn’t have to look at Felix’s dad. Mum didn’t know what to do. You could see half of her wanting to tell Ella off and the other half thinking that if she was hiding on the floor at least she wasn’t saying any more rude things about the funeral.

  Ella wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her head on her knees. She looked so sad and tired that I slid down off my bench too and sat on the floor beside her.

  It was nice on the floor. We didn’t have to look at the flowers or the coffin or all the horrible people in black suits. Ella turned her head round to look at me. Her face was white and her forehead had a red mark where she’d pressed it against her knee. Her little bare toes were white with cold.

  “Felix would have thought this was stupid,” I whispered to her. She gave me a tiny smile.

  “We should’ve done the speech instead,” I whispered. “‘Felix was good at making jokes and messing about. He liked bossing people around and making everyone listen to him and having the last word.’”

  Ella smiled. “‘He liked jelly babies,’” she whispered. “‘And arguing.’”

  “‘And winning arguments,’” I said. “‘And doing things he wasn’t supposed to. Like smoking cigarettes.’”

  “‘He was good at tickling,’” Ella said. I had a sudden picture of Felix in hospital, where we first me
t, with Ella crawling all over him and him tickling her until she screamed. I suddenly felt very tired.

  “‘He had lots of ideas,’” I said. “‘And he made up lots of games. He never thought anything was impossible.’”

  “‘He could do anything,’” whispered Ella. She gave a little sigh. She leaned her head against my shoulder and closed her eyes.

  THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED

  I haven’t written anything in this book for a while, but nothing has happened for ages. We went to see Auntie Nicola for a weekend. Mum’s friends Sue and David came to stay and we went to Butterfly World.

  Granny took me and Ella to see Stig of the Dump. Everything just kind of was.

  Everything is still harder than it ought to be. Mum got very fussy about things like eating meals and wearing hats and scarves. Dad shouted at Ella for being mopey in Butterfly World and made her cry. It has been very wet and grey.

  Today, though, something happened.

  A SNOW FALL

  2nd March

  When I woke up this morning, the whole world had changed. Even the sun was brighter. There were all these little coins of white light, dancing on my bedroom wall. And when I opened my curtains, I couldn’t stop staring. Our street, the other houses, the garden; it was as if everything had been put through the wash and come out white and sparkling.

  Mum and Dad and Ella were eating breakfast when I went through.

  “It’s snowed!” I said.

  “We know,” said Ella. She put her spoon in her mouth and sucked on it, peering at me over the top of it. “Stupid.”

  I ignored her. Ella has been really weird recently. Acting like a little kid or bursting into tears or fighting for no reason.

  “Can we go sledging?” I said.