Two Weeks with the Queen

  Dad sighed.

  ‘Wish we could all wear boots,’ he said, ‘but if you want people to take notice of you in this world, you’ve got to dress proper and wear decent shoes. Look at me with the Wheat Board. Luke was born on the Sunday, I got the shoes on the Monday, landed the job on the Tuesday arvo.’

  Dad grinned and gave Colin a pretend punch in the guts. Colin tried to smile but his face felt like uncooked Chrissie pud.

  Mum looked at him closely, concerned.

  ‘Love, is there anything else?’

  Colin was still trying to work out how to explain without sounding like the one thing Dad hated (a whinger) when they heard the thump from the lounge.

  They hurried in.

  Luke lay on the floor, eyes closed, very pale, very still.

  Chapter Two

  The ambulance men grunted as they lifted the stretcher into the ambulance.

  ‘Weighs a bit for a young ’un,’ one of them muttered.

  Mum and Dad, watching anxiously, didn’t say anything so Colin decided he’d better explain.

  ‘It’s all the food in his digestive tract. Nine turkey nuggets and four lots of Christmas pudding. His large intestine’s probably blocking the flow of blood to his brain.’

  The ambulance men, who’d been half-way through a fourth helping of Christmas pudding themselves at the station and were keen to get back to it, ignored him.

  ‘You can faint from overeating,’ said Colin. ‘It’s a medical fact. I’ve done it with jelly snakes.’

  One of the ambulance men helped Colin’s mother into the ambulance while the other helped a nurse tuck a blanket round Luke’s legs.

  ‘Don’t worry yourself, Mrs Mudford,’ said the nurse. She checked Luke’s pulse. ‘He’ll be right. Probably just the excitement of the season.’

  ‘We’ve warned him about going on bombing raids straight after meals,’ said Colin, climbing into the ambulance.

  The nurse blocked his way.

  ‘Sorry, young man, full up.’

  Colin glared at her. What a nerve. Specially as she worked part-time in the cake shop on Saturday mornings and probably sold Mum the Chrissie pud in the first place.

  ‘You go with your Dad,’ said one of the ambulance men, lifting Colin down like a sack of old bandages. He shut the rear doors and trotted round to the cab.

  ‘Come on, fair go,’ Colin called after him. ‘I’ve never been in an ambulance. Where’s your Christmas spirit?’

  It was obviously back at the station with the Christmas pudding because the ambulance sped away down the street leaving Colin with a mouthful of dust.

  Behind him, Dad blew the horn and signalled tensely for him to get into the car.

  Colin sighed.

  Next Christmas he was going to stuff himself stupid.

  Colin peered down the rubber tube. At the other end the whole world was a tiny circle. In the centre of that circle was Luke, surrounded by most of the nurses and doctors in western New South Wales.

  Well, one doctor and three nurses. And a couple of pieces of important-looking medical equipment that Luke, twisting round in bed, was gazing at with fascination.

  Colin watched as the nurses and the important-looking medical equipment all hummed and winked and made a fuss of Luke.

  Then everything went black.

  At last, thought Colin, my tum.

  He waited for more symptoms to appear and for the nurses to rush over and start making a fuss of him.

  But it wasn’t Peruvian measles or Upper Congo Swine Fever, it was only the doctor stepping in front of the rubber tube.

  ‘Hey, come on, that’s not a toy.’

  The doctor grabbed the rubber tube and steered Colin out of the ward.

  ‘Any idea what it is yet?’ asked Colin. ‘I reckon it’s gastric. If it’ll help you put your finger on it I can tell you what he’s eaten today. One bowl of Coco-Pops, three jelly snakes, some licorice allsorts, packet of Minties, six gherkins, half a bowl of Twisties and a chocolate Santa. That was before lunch. Would you like me to write this all down?’

  The doctor didn’t answer. Colin wondered if many doctors went deaf from sticking their stethoscopes too far into their ears.

  Mum and Dad were sitting in the waiting area anxiously chewing their bottom lips.

  ‘How is he, doctor?’ asked Mum.

  The doctor seemed to hear that OK.

  ‘The young lad’s looking much brighter now, Mr and Mrs Mudford,’ he said. ‘We’ve sent a blood sample down to pathology in Sydney so we’ll know the full story in a couple of days. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Happy Christmas.’

  With a jingle of car keys and a glance at his watch he was gone.

  Dad squeezed Mum’s hand.

  ‘See, nothing to worry about: he said.

  ‘I know,’ she replied.

  ‘That’s a relief,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Neither of them looked relieved to Colin. He watched them still chewing their bottom lips. It’s not fair, he thought, making people wait for tests to come all the way back from Sydney. Specially just for gastric. I mean I know this is only a small country hospital, but Mum and Dad are parents and parents can’t help worrying. It’s a fact of nature, like monkeys eating their own poos.

  Colin had a sudden vision of how grateful Mum and Dad would be if someone could check out Luke’s blood now, this afternoon.

  The matron called Mum and Dad into her office to take care of the paperwork.

  Colin decided that while they were doing that he’d take care of other things.

  ‘No,’ said Luke, pulling the covers over his head.

  ‘I don’t need a bottleful or anything, just a tiny bit,’ whispered Colin.

  He looked around to make sure none of the nurses were watching.

  ‘Come on, it won’t hurt.’

  ‘It will,’ said Luke’s muffled voice.

  Colin took a deep breath. How could a kid who was always falling out of trees and dripping blood all over the house be so sooky about handing over a bit now?

  He put his mouth to where he thought Luke’s ear was.

  ‘It’s for Mum and Dad.’

  Luke’s voice sounded faint under the covers. ‘I gave them place mats.’

  There was a pause, then an arm slowly slid out from under the sheet.

  Colin grabbed it, pushed up the pyjama sleeve and hunted for a not-too-old scab.

  It was a top microscope, but Colin didn’t have time to admire it. The little room it was sitting in was on the main corridor of the hospital and someone could walk in at any time.

  He pulled out his hanky, found Luke’s blood spot, and slid it under the lens. He peered into the microscope and focused it.

  Wriggly things, that’s what he was looking for. Like when they’d looked at the frog under the microscope in science and there’d been a million little wriggly things which Mr Blair reckoned were germs on account of the frog having been dead for two weeks because Arnie Strachan had put it in his lunchbox and lost the lunchbox.

  Colin couldn’t. see any wriggly things in Luke’s blood.

  Just blobs.

  He figured gastric germs would probably be wriggly rather than blobby.

  He peered at Luke’s blood again. Not a wriggle.

  What I need, he thought, is some healthy blood to compare it to.

  Without hesitating (if he was sprung, that matron looked like she could remove an appendix with her teeth) Colin grabbed a pin and jabbed it into his finger. He put a spot of his own blood onto his hanky, slid it under the lens and peered at it.

  Wriggle.

  Wriggle wriggle.

  His blood was full of wriggly things.

  Colin felt the rest of his blood pounding in his head. He had a vision of Mum and Dad kneeling by his bed holding his hands and weeping while several hundred doctors and nurses wheeled huge and very important-looking pieces of medical equipment into position.

  Then he had a
very different vision. Of him telling Mum and Dad and them not believing him.

  What I need, he decided, is a second opinion.

  By the time he got to the doctor’s house he was in a fair bit of pain.

  It was his new shoes, rubbing the backs of his ankles. He’d had to wear them because that was his excuse for going for a walk, to try them out.

  Another bit of him was hurting as well, the bit inside that always ached when Mum and Dad did something that made him think they preferred Luke. It had started this time as soon as Mum had said, ‘Good idea, love, you take yourself off for an hour, give me and Dad a chance to get some of Luke’s things together and take them to the hospital.’

  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 b
etween 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.’