John Marsden - While I live

It seemed so unfair and lonely and cold as I lay there on the floor and realised after a while that no-one was going to come and get me, no-one was available to help me, no-one would put me to bed. The house was cooling fast — we couldn’t afford to have a heater on all night — and it always lost its temperature quickly.

So I put myself to bed, after a while, a long while, and I lay there feeling Gavin’s warmth and listening to his breathing. At the end of each breath I waited for the next one, scared that it might not come. ‘Please keep breathing, Gavin,’ I begged him, ‘please don’t stop. Keep reaching for that next breath, little one.’

I was thinking about my parents’ love. Where was it now? What happened to it? It had to be somewhere. A force as powerful as that doesn’t just disappear. Didn’t they teach us in science that matter can’t be destroyed? It only changes form. If that were true for an orange or a rock or a Falcon ute, surely it had to be true for the bond that my father and mother had. Maybe that’s what bound this house together, kept the farm going, caused Gavin and me to be lying here together tonight. As I drifted into sleep I imagined I could feel it whispering down the corridor, slipping in and out of the rooms, circling the bed and finally holding us both safe in its arms.

The next day brought more of the questions and answers and paperwork. It seemed that the Youngs had probably just been unlucky. A group of renegade soldiers from across the border, out to see what they could get, in the same way that people like Jake Douglass might go out on a Saturday night in Wirrawee — not that I’m saying for a moment Jake Douglass would do anything like these scumballs — had probably picked out the Youngs’ house at random.

Maybe that’s what had happened at my place.

These guys had stacked up everything valuable they could find and even divided it into five piles, one for each of them I suppose. It’s good to share.

And then they’d shared Shannon.

Alastair heard them coming and hid in his room. They’d locked Mr and Mrs Young and Sam in the basement and after a while Alastair started turning the light on and off. Then he decided he wasn’t achieving anything so he tiptoed downstairs to try to get to the phone. Pretty brave I reckon. But they’d grabbed him.

I don’t think the Youngs’ life expectancy was looking too good when we turned up.

It seemed ages before I had time to think about my own situation again. But in fact it was only two days later that I found myself back in the office of Mr Sayle, or, to be more accurate, in the waiting area. That mightn’t sound like an important difference, but it turned out to be all-important.

Mrs Samuels was there again of course. I glanced at her as I came in. This time she had a newspaper open and she seemed to be grappling with the crossword. She hadn’t done much though: I think she’d only got one word.

Once again I wasn’t in the mood for Mrs Samuels. She could be so over the top. I mumbled, ‘Hello, Mrs Samuels,’ as I headed for the scruffy out-of-date magazines on the coffee table in the corner.

But there was something about her voice when she answered, ‘Hello, Ellie.’ I don’t know quite what it was. She sounded off-key, awfully off-balance, for someone just doing a crossword.

I looked at her properly then, not sure what I’d see. She had dropped her pen and was staring at me like someone with a fever of forty-two. She even had the little red spots on her cheeks.

I couldn’t help staring back. Her hair was a mess, like she hadn’t washed it in a week; either that or she’d been doing a lot of sweating. Instead of not wanting to look at her, now I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It was, well, to use another word I don’t mind, perplexing. I was perplexed. This went on for forty seconds maybe. Then, sounding even more unusual, she said, ‘Ellie, I just want to say again how sorry I am for causing you so much trouble back in Camp 23.’

‘That’s OK, Mrs Samuels. It worked out fine in the end.’

Mind you, I didn’t mention the young doctor, Dr Muir. As far as I could find out, no-one had seen him again after he’d helped me escape.

She nodded. She lifted up a folder and put it on the edge of her desk, where I could see it easily. Then she said, ‘Mr Sayle’s running a bit late. He rang to say he’s down at the Council office and won’t be here for another ten minutes or so.’

‘That’s OK, I can wait.’

‘And I have to go across to the chemist. I’ll be ten minutes too.’

‘Oh. OK.’

Without looking at me again she went out the door, shutting it firmly behind her.

I sat there, puzzled. Perplexed. Why had she been so keen to let me know where she was going and how long she’d be? Then I noticed the folder again. Why had she put it there like that, so conspicuously, drawing my attention to it? Surely she didn’t mean me to…?

I got up and went over to her desk, nervously. I saw my name on the folder. I hesitated a moment. Then I opened it.

It took me a while to work out what the first sheet of paper was all about. It was some sort of document for the Council, a planning application, but it was so complicated, and the longer I kept looking at it the more nervous I got, so that made it harder and harder to concentrate. I recognised the name of our property, and the map on the third page was definitely our place, but it seemed to be called something else: Kelsey Resort, the Gateway to the Mountains.

I couldn’t make any more sense of it, and I skipped anxiously to the next lot of papers. I tried to concentrate. Riffling through them I saw one that caught my eye, because it was handwritten. It was signed Murray, and addressed to someone called Kelvin. Mr Rodd’s first name was Kelvin. The first sentence was ‘Don’t worry about it mate, I’ve got her wrapped up tighter than a Sumo jockstrap’.

I’d lost any sense of how much time had passed. Over against the wall was a photocopier. I grabbed the letter and the next few pages and rushed to it. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. I’ve never understood that expression. Why is a sheep more guilty than a lamb? I thought it should be ‘Might as well be hung for a wolf as a lamb’.

I slapped the first page onto the copier and stabbed at the green button. The machine took forever. The light slowly slid across, blinding me for a moment. I did four more but although I still had a few pages in my hand the tension was too much. This was worse than being upstairs in a house watching gunmen coming along the corridor to kill you. I raced back to the folder and shoved the papers in, trying to get them into some vaguely neat shape.

I heard a voice from outside, and a footstep. I sprang away from the desk, trying to get as close to the opposite wall as I could. The door swung open. Mrs Samuels came in, followed immediately by Mr Sayle. He looked cross, she was red-faced and apologising. She didn’t look at me; her eyes went straight to the folder. Mr Sayle, however, came across to me with both arms out. ‘Ellie! Very nice to see you. I’ve been hearing about your heroics. Well done. Come in.’

He ushered me into the office. As we went in I suddenly realised that in rushing to put the originals back in the folder I’d left the copies on the tray of the machine.

I know I went white, and my mind went blank. I sat numbly in the chair and I hardly heard the first two or three minutes of what he said. How could I get the papers back? What if Mrs Samuels found them? Had she meant me to see that folder? But even if she had, it didn’t mean I was allowed to photocopy them. Geez, I was in a tough spot. And I couldn’t think of a single way out of it.