Mira in the Present Tense (29 page)

“All right, all right…I'd better go.” Dad sighs. “You just keep looking, Mira. It's bound to be around here somewhere.”

By the time Krish and Dad come back we've given up hope. Dad keeps saying, “It'll turn up,” but by the end of the day, it seems like it's not going to.

“Maybe Laila's eaten it,” suggests Krish, which is not as funny as you would think, because in the past she's had to be taken to the emergency room for eating money, beads, and buttons and sticking sweet corn in her ears and peas up her nose—not all at the same time of course. Anyway, the thought of anything else happening to Laila is too horrible. When she hears her name, Laila crawls over to Krish and clambers up his leg.

“Have you swallowed the charm, Lai Lai?” Krish sings in his squeaky baby play voice.

“Kish Kish,” Laila chants as Krish picks her up and cuddles her.

“That's all we need! I'll check her nappies,” offers Mum.

“Gross!” groans Krish.

Before I get into bed, I hunt through the whole of my bedroom for Nana's charm, opening every box, bag, and drawer. I think it's lost.

Nana says, if you think about it, dying is just like a battery running out. Your heart stops beating and then you die. For some reason I can't stop thinking about my furry dog I gave to Laila that used to yap and walk and do a somersault, but we never replaced the batteries because it was actually quite annoying, so now it just sits there on the shelf. I tell Nana about the dog and she laughs and says, “Yes, something like that,” but then, when I think about it, it's not at all like that, because we could put batteries in it if we wanted to, and make it bark and do somersaults, and you can't do that with a person; you can't just make them come back to life. I tell Nana that I think she's wrong. Dying is nothing like a battery running out. She laughs and hugs me to her.

“So young and so opinionated, Mira.”

Nana holds my wrist, feeling for the charm.

“Still no charm, Mira. Don't you like it?”

“I love it, Nana. Dad just hasn't had the time to fix it on,” I lie, praying to Notsurewho Notsurewhat that she doesn't ask him.

“You know, I was thinking about those protective layers I was telling you about. I don't need them anymore. I've shed them, all of them…All these people I love have come to see me and I've made my peace. Maybe that's the journey…getting back to that state of love.”

I flick through a catalog from the William Blake exhibition we went to together. It's full of paintings and drawings of angels and people dying.

“Can I borrow this for religious ed?”

She just waves her hand as if to say, “Take it. It's no use to me anymore.”

Then she closes her eyes and drifts. That's what Nana calls it now, not sleeping, “drifting.” Sometimes, I get the feeling that it's all the same to Nana now…the drifting and the talking to whoever's visiting. It's as if she's in a dream, moving farther and farther away from us. I get up to go, but Nana shocks me by grabbing hold of my wrist with a strength I didn't know she still had.

“Wear the charm, Mira,” she whispers.

When I get home I hunt all over the house for the charm. I even get a flashlight to shine under the furniture, but it's no good. I slump down on my bed and pick up my mobile to call Jidé but then change my mind, flipping the lid closed again. What would I tell him—that I'm so upset because I've lost Nana's charm?

Question Mark is leaning over Nana's bed, holding her hand. He takes off his white coat and underneath there is one huge, white, feathery wing. He holds it tight and rips it off his back, hard and quick, like you pull off a bandage, because otherwise it hurts more. There is a loud cracking noise, like a bone breaking. His whole face is full of pain. Then he hands his wing to Nana and she smiles at him.

School is getting in the way of me and Jidé. We can't find any time just to be alone together, without all the rest of them gawping at us. At the end of school he runs after me, slipping his hand into mine, and we stroll along the walkway together.

“Do you want to come back to mine?”

“I'd love to, but I've got to see Nana.” I smile at him.

“Sorry I haven't called you…I just can't seem to think of what to say to you now, on the phone.”

“Nor me!”

“If we could find somewhere on our own, I could
show
you how I feel,” he says, winking at me.

I giggle and elbow him in the side.

“That hurt!” He doubles over in mock pain, looking up at me pleadingly.

“Get up, Jidé!” I laugh.

“All right! I'll walk you back home,” he says as if accepting defeat, taking my hand in his as a consolation prize.

When we get level with my door, he makes his move to kiss me, but just as our lips are about to touch I catch sight of Mum in our front window. She smiles and moves away.

I am crimson red when I get in, so I run straight up to my room.

“Get ready to go and see Nana,” Mum calls up the stairs.

As soon as I see Nana, I show her the sketch I've drawn of my dream of Question Mark Angel.

“Do you believe in angels, Nana?”

“Guardian angels maybe…people who look out for us, but if you really believe in angels, then you have to believe in devils. I've never really gone in for all that…but I think maybe there is something otherworldly about Mark.”

Her voice is so weak and cracked now you can only just make out the words.

She points for me to pin my drawing on the wall right above her bed.

Later, when Question Mark comes to sit with Nana, she points to my sketch of him. He looks up and studies it. When he peers back down at me, I have the strangest feeling that he's looking down from a very high mountain.

“Do you think there are angels?” he asks.

I shrug.

“What do you think?” I ask him.

“I don't have any answers, I'm afraid,” he sighs.

Krish is driving me crazy. He has snuck into my bed, and now he's insisting on keeping the light on because he says he's got to finish his Aboriginal drawing tonight.