John Marsden - While I live

‘So where did you live before the war?’

‘Before the war. That’s our benchmark for everything now, isn’t it? Well, we lived everywhere. Typical Army kid. I’ve been to eight different schools. Mostly with other Army kids, depending on where we were stationed. Sometimes we went to normal schools. It was good in a way, because you’d turn up at a new school in, say, Darwin, and there’d be three kids you’d been in Grade 3 with in Holsworthy and two you’d been in Grade 4 with at Puckapunyal and one you’d remember from Grade 1 in Townsville, and so it went on.’

‘The paths kept recrossing?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Have you got any brothers or sisters?’

‘I had a brother but he was killed in the war.’

‘Killed?’

‘We were being evacuated to New Zealand by helicopter. He was in the one ahead of me. We got separated at the last minute. I tried to switch to his one but they wouldn’t let me so I just called out to him, ‘Don’t worry, you go on that one, I’ll meet you at the other end.’ I thought he’d be OK. He was with his friends and he’d been on a helicopter before. He just waved back. There was such chaos.’ She shrugged.

‘So what happened?’ I was gripping the cup as my latte got colder and colder. She seemed so calm.

‘It hit powerlines, just after take-off. Pilot error I guess. The weather was good enough. It fell on its side. And of course it was full of fuel so it exploded. We weren’t even allowed to get out of ours. We took off about two minutes later.’

I tried to imagine how that would be, going up in one helicopter as you saw your brother killed in another one. I tried and I failed.

‘How old was he?’

‘Twelve.’

‘Was he a nice brother?’

Her face broke into a huge smile. ‘Oh he was so cool! I know you’re meant to fight with your brother and say he’s a nuisance and all that stuff, but Michael and I were the closest friends you could ever be. He was so gentle and kind. He played guitar and he’d just started writing his own songs. I think he would have been famous one day. The songs were great. It was like someone a thousand years old had written them.’

Her eyes were moist now, but she shook her head and had a long sip of her coffee.

‘Anyway, what are you doing out of school?’ she asked.

‘It seems almost insignificant now,’ I said.

‘Is it insignificant to you?’

‘No.’

‘Well?’

‘This lawyer who’s in charge of my parents’ money, he wanted to make himself my guardian as well. I didn’t want him, I wanted Homer’s mum and dad. But this morning the court handed me over to him.’

‘They did? Even though you didn’t want him?’

‘Yeah. Seems like that’s the way it works around here.’

‘That sucks.’

‘You mind going down to the Courthouse right now and saying that to the magistrate?’

‘What about the little boy, Gavin, who’s his guardian?’

‘Well, you know, I’m not sure. I think it was my mum and dad. I think they got some sort of court order about it. No-one seems to care much about Gavin, I mean no government department. No-one’s asked about him since my parents died. His school just acts like I’m suddenly his mum and dad rolled into one.’

‘So it sounds like this lawyer guy might now be Gavin’s guardian as well as yours?’

‘Maybe. Sheez. God, that’s terrible. This gets worse every minute.’

‘But can’t you do something about it? Come on, Ellie. You’re a fighter. That’s the way to be. I did boxing before the war. When you get knocked into the ropes you bounce off them and come back twice as hard and twice as fast. You use the ropes to work for you instead of against you.’

‘You did boxing? Real boxing?’

‘Sure. I mean mainly with the bag, but some practice rounds too, with real people.’

This girl was full of surprises.

‘Can’t you appeal?’ she was asking. ‘Or go to the papers? Or get some dirt on this guy? Tell them he dragged you behind the filing cabinets and felt your boobs? Why don’t you fire-bomb his office?’

‘Bronte!’ I thought for a minute. ‘There is one thing. Mrs Yannos said she thinks he and Mr Rodd are brothers-in-law. Mr Rodd’s a farmer who lives near us. He’s a real bastard, and Mrs Yannos reckons he wants to buy my place. So if Sayle — that’s the lawyer — has complete control he could sell to Rodd at a cheap price and get me out of his hair.’

‘Well, that’s got to be illegal, surely?’

‘I don’t know. You’d think so.’

I kept thinking how generous she was to care about my problems after what she’d been through. We finished our coffees and walked back to school. By the time we reached the gates there wasn’t much school left for the day. I sighed. Another day for Ms Maxwell to mark off on her calendar as a backward step in Ellie’s education.

The conversation with Bronte gave me some heart but by that night I was really down about it again. The situation seemed hopeless. There were too many forces on too many fronts to battle against. It was all very well for Bronte to say ‘Fight’, but I’d never had enemies like these before.

I needed someone else to talk to so I rang Lee. He wasn’t always the first person I called when I was up to my neck in mud, but in my life there were Lee-times and Fi-times and sometimes even Homer-times, and this felt like a Lee-time.

His little sister, Pang, answered. I’d only met Lee’s sisters and brothers a couple of times but I’d talked to Pang a lot on the phone, and she was my favourite. She was nine, and as bubbly as Lee was still, as noisy as he was silent, as funny as he was grave.

‘Hi, Pang,’ I said, ‘how’s life? Is Lee being good to you?’

‘No, he’s being horrible. He’s always yelling at us and he picks on me and he’s the worst cook in the world.’

‘Why, what’d he give you for tea tonight?’

‘Tonight. We had burnt newspaper and bits of old carpet, and… um…’ Pang was obviously looking around the room for inspiration. ‘And then we had the budgie for dessert.’

‘You did? What’s that I can hear singing in the background?’

‘He was reincarnated.’

I could hear Lee saying, ‘C’mon, Pang, is that Ellie? Give me the phone,’ so I said a quick goodbye as she handed it over.

But when Lee came on I suddenly dried up. It had been an effort to be light and chatty with Pang. Now I couldn’t keep making the effort. I heard Lee gradually getting more concerned. ‘Ellie, are you OK?… Hello, Ellie… Ellie, what’s wrong?’

Finally I whispered, ‘I think I’m going to lose the farm.’

‘What do you mean? Why? Are you broke?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Was today the court case?’

‘Yep.’

‘Oh sorry. I would have rung. I thought it was next week.’

‘Well it wasn’t.’

‘And you lost?’

There was another long silence. I said, ‘Why is the world so awful?’

‘Is it?’

‘Everyone’s so greedy. Everyone only looks after themselves. They’re just out for all they can get.’

‘Are they?’

‘Well, take Mr Sayle for instance.’

‘Take Robyn Mathers.’

‘Take Mr Rodd.’

‘Take Mr and Mrs Yannos.’

‘Take the women in the prison ward, when I was shot. During the war.’

‘Take Mrs Xannides.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘The lady in the next apartment. She comes in and looks after the kids when I’m going to be late home.’

‘I still think I’m right though. What about Hitler?’

‘What about Nelson Mandela?’

‘Stalin.’

‘Martin Luther King.’

‘Pol Pot.’

‘I’ll see your Pol Pot with Mother Theresa and raise you a Pastor Neimoller.’