Tall Story (10 page)

It was after midnight when they left. I was insanely curious about what was wrong with Bernardo but Mum wouldn’t let me come along. She said I had to go to bed because I had school the next day. She made Dad go to bed too because he had an early shift at the hospital.

When I was really little, Mum used to say, ‘If you go on being naughty like that, I’ll take you to A&E.’ And I used to stop whatever I was doing and sit down on the floor, my hands folded on my lap, demure as anything.

That ended when I turned seven and knew better. I mean, Mum is an A&E nurse. She went there every day. Which made
her
and all the A&E doctors and nurses the naughtiest people in the world.

Right now, they were probably giving Bernardo an enema or draining his blood or tapping him for spinal fluid or shaving his head or sucking out his brain.

That’s what they do at A&E.

The phone woke me at two in the morning. It rang and rang but Dad wasn’t picking up. I could hear him snoring across the hall. I went downstairs and answered it. It was Mum, of course.

‘I just wanted you to know that everything is fine: they’re giving Nardo an MRI right now.’

‘What’s that?’

‘MRI? Magnetic Resonance Imaging. They’re scanning his brain.’

I knew it! They always went for the brain. ‘For what?’

‘Can I speak to Dad?’

‘He’s asleep.’ After all that fuss about Dad needing his sleep – it was just like Mum to want to wake him up now because she felt like sharing. ‘Mum, why does Bernardo need a brain scan?’

She ignored me. ‘Get Dad.’

The other day I spotted a piece in a magazine about Neutralizing Flashpoints. I only read it because I thought it was a new film at the cinema.

But it turned out that Flashpoints referred to good old-fashioned family rows. And Neutralizing was just fancy jargon for telling everyone to stay cool. The secret? Information. Apparently parents could
Neutralize Flashpoints by simply keeping their teenagers
informed
about what was going on.

Mum would get an F in Neutralizing Flashpoints.

I ran up the stairs and shook Dad awake. He shambled down to the telephone without even opening his eyes. He didn’t have to say much. He just grunted while Mum talked and talked. Then he put the phone down and was on his way up before I managed to say, ‘Dad, what did Mum say?’

But he had already disappeared into the bedroom.

Neutralizing Flashpoints – haven’t you heard of it, Dad?

T
he earphones were meant to block out the MRI’s noise but I could still hear everything. The banging and crashing and the electronic whining.

And Gabriela.

Nardo
, she whispered. The voice was not Gabriela’s. It was Mad Nena’s.
You left
.

‘Leave me alone,’ I said through clenched teeth.

You left
, she laughed.
And now it’s going to be all your fault.

Then I remembered the button. Sunita said if I pressed the button, she would stop the machine and get me out. But what would I tell her? How could I tell her about Gabriela?

I closed my eyes and tried not to listen to the machine’s screaming.

When I first met Gabriela, I was only thirteen.

It was the same year Ma’s famous letter arrived, just a week after my thirteenth birthday:

They told me your visa should be ready in a few days so you must start getting ready. You will be on a plane to London in just two weeks!

After we read the letter, Uncle, Auntie and I were so happy we jumped up and down for a long time.

I remember thinking it was the best birthday present ever! At long last, I was going to London!

My head was full of plans. I would bring the catapult Uncle had made me out of mango wood. I would ask Jabby to lend me the woolly jumper that a relative had sent him from America. It was too hot to wear in San Andres anyway.

And presents. I couldn’t go to London without presents for Ma and Uncle Will and Amandolina.

I had been saving my centavos in a piggy bank shaped like a London bus that Ma had sent long ago. I emptied the coins on the floor and counted them. I would use half of the money to buy a box of sweet pili nut
turrones
for Mama and Uncle William. And the other half? I was going to buy puka shells from Sister Len-Len, to string into a necklace for dear little Amandolina.

Amandolina would have been ten. I liked to imagine that she would be like Jabby’s younger sister, Pet, who was about the same age.

Pet was always needing Jabby to walk her to school or braid her hair or tell her a story. Pet the Pain, he called her. When she rushed to hug him after school, he always wrinkled his nose and muttered, ‘Pet? She’s more like a pest.’ But I could tell he liked it.
I
would.

That morning on my way to school, I stopped at Sister Len-Len’s roadside stall, where she sold seashells to tourists on their way to the beach. The puka shells were more expensive than I had remembered but Sister Len-Len kindly measured out an extra portion, just because it was for my little sister.

Jabby had a new basketball with him but I cried off a game at recess because I wanted to work on Amandolina’s necklace. When the bell rang, I rushed out to the frangipani tree in the back playground where I knew I would not be disturbed.

But I had not reckoned on Gabriela and her gang. By some unlucky twist, they had decided to sit under the frangipani tree instead of on their usual bench.

I knew Gabriela by then. I no longer needed Jabby to warn me away from her. I could see what she and her gang of girl thugs did to the other children.

By the time I realized that they were there, it was too late.

They did not give me a chance to run away. Three
of the girl thugs grabbed me and manhandled me to the spot behind the tree where Gabriela was waiting. She looked pleased, like a cat that had just been dangled a juicy mouse.

‘You’re that little boy with the giant’s name!’ Gabriela reached out and stroked my hair. I struggled to get away but Gabriela’s girlfriends were stronger and bigger than me. Then I thought, Why not just co-operate, get it over with? What could Gabriela do to me? I had no money. I was worth nothing to her.

‘What giant’s name?’ one of her thugs asked.

‘Bernardo.’ Gabriela’s eyes glittered like the dew on the frangipani’s broad leaves. ‘His name is Bernardo. Like Bernardo Carpio.’

The girls laughed and shook me hard like they were shaking fruit from a tree.

‘So. Bernardo. What have you got?’ one said. But instead of waiting for me to reply, they swung me up and over like a floppy rag doll, dangling me upside down so that the few coins I had left fell out of my pockets. And then, to my dismay, the small brown paper package with shells for Amandolina’s necklace tumbled out.

‘Jackpot!’ Gabriela laughed as she snatched up the package.

A helpless fury suddenly filled me. ‘NO!’ I shouted. ‘That’s for my sister! Leave it alone!’

But shouting was pointless. I knew that nobody in the playground was going to come to my rescue. Not the children. Not the teachers. Gabriela’s thugs pushed me down on the ground, hard. I fell awkwardly, banging my head and shoulder on the hard earth.

‘Ah, puka shells!’ Gabriela smirked at me. ‘What a lovely brother. Were you making a necklace for your sister?’

I didn’t answer, watching with disbelief as she examined the shells.

‘I like necklaces. Remember this?’ She pulled the wishing stone from her collar. ‘My mama made this for me.’

I leaped up, throwing myself on her. She flinched as my fingernails grazed her arm. ‘Stupid boy!’ She slapped me hard on the face with her other hand.

Her thugs peeled me off and shoved me down on the ground, kicking and punching until I could only curl up in a ball, my arms over my head.

‘Don’t you know the rules of Sacred Heart Academy, Bernardo?’ Gabriela nudged me with the
toe of her foot. ‘Rule One: Gabriela is always right. And what is Rule Two, girls?’

Her thugs replied in chorus: ‘Rule Two: Refer to Rule One!’

They laughed as they walked away, my precious package clutched in Gabriela’s hand.

I uncurled and lay flat on my back staring up at the spreading branches of the frangipani tree, the tears streaming down my face. I had no money left to get Amandolina anything else. She was going to be so disappointed. I grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled as hard as I could but the pain could not distract me from my failure.

I wished I had not chosen to sit under the frangipani tree.

I wished I had waited until after school to buy the shells.

I wished that my immigration papers had not come through so that this would never have happened.

And then, of course, it turned out that the immigration papers weren’t coming after all.

Ma wrote to say sorry, the Home Office wanted more paperwork, whatever that meant.

T
ruth to tell, I had always regarded Bernardo as a partner waiting to happen. He’s a boy, isn’t he? He and I were going to go running, play basketball, do sport.

And I could tell Bernardo would have been willing.

He loved Michael Jordan. I loved Michael Jordan.

But no. That body. Even if he wanted to, he just couldn’t. And of course it was not his fault.
I am the blame.

No, no. He was not the blame, poor guy. Just unlucky.

He’s not the blame that I am so totally disappointed.

I was already dressed in my school uniform, pouring some Coco Pops into a bowl, when they finally returned from the hospital.

Dad had already left for his double shift.

Bernardo looked ghastly. He seemed to teeter even
more as he stood there, looking down at the breakfast table, so tall his head was in the shadows above the table’s pendant light. Mum’s hair stood on end like she’d just crawled through a bush. Neither of them smelled sweet and I moved upwind of the table to finish my Coco Pops.

She poured Bernardo a bowl of cereal even though his eyelids were sliding down over his eyes every few minutes. He sat down and the chair bowed visibly.

‘So what happened?’ I said. ‘What did they say?’

‘We won’t know until Doctor Grant has had a look at the scans. They sent us home.’

‘You were there all night and they didn’t tell you anything?’

Mum made a face at me.

There was a soft clunk and we realized that Bernardo had fallen asleep, his head cradled on one arm, his spoon in his hair.

Mum clicked her tongue the way she does and gently shook him awake. She escorted him up the stairs to my room. When she came down again fifteen minutes later, she was dressed in her nurse’s uniform, her hair swept back in a professional bun. But her eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion.

‘You’ve got nothing on after school, have you,
Andi?’ Mum said. ‘What time do you get home today?’

‘Why?’ I looked at her through veiled lids. She had a guilty expression on her face. This was not a motherly enquiry into my wellbeing.

Mum sighed. ‘Look, I booked the day off but one of the other nurses is sick.’

‘You’re going to work?’

‘I’ll be back after eight tonight. Dad is on that double shift. He won’t be in until after bedtime.’

‘Mum, how can you do that? You had so much time to plan for Bernardo’s first day!’

‘I know, but it can’t be helped.’

I could feel my chest tightening. This didn’t sound good.

‘Anyway, I want you to look out for Bernardo when you get home.’

‘What?’ How was I supposed to look after a sixteen-year-old?

‘Please, Andi. Just keep him company. He doesn’t know where anything is. He’s never been outside San Andres. Look, if you don’t want to look after him,
help
him. Just help him, Andi.’

‘But, Mum—’

‘He’ll still be jetlagged. He will probably sleep all
day. I’ve marinated some chicken in the fridge. Forty-five minutes in a medium oven …’

‘MUM!’ I was supposed to babysit him AND feed him? This was worse than getting a pet.

But Mum was already on her way out, adjusting the little nametag that she wore at the hospital.

‘Thank you, darling, I really appreciate it.’

I
t had been morning when my plane took off from Manila. And it was still the same day when I landed in London, even though I’d been travelling for sixteen hours and, back in Manila, the date had changed.

It was not an exaggeration to say that I had travelled backwards in time.

So?
I could imagine Jabby joking about it.
You arrived several hours YOUNGER. You have nothing to complain about.

No, but the time-travelling left me … unbalanced. And last night’s rush to hospital did not help.

When the doctors had finished pricking and prodding and weighing and measuring and testing, Mama took me home.

I was so tired I don’t remember much about bedtime except Mama hugging me as I sat on the mattress on the floor. A thought briefly crossed my mind that this was a momentous occasion, my first
bedtime in London. But I was so tired, too tired. She stroked my forehead like a baby, then tucked the quilt high under my chin. It pulled right off my feet. ‘Oh, Bernardo,’ Ma sighed. She left and returned with another quilt to cover my legs.

‘Amandolina will be here when you wake up,’ she whispered as she turned to go. ‘I’ll see you after work this evening, darling Nardo.’

And then Ma drew the curtains shut and I tumbled down, down, down into the utter darkness of a bottomless pit.

L
unch time. I avoided the playground and went into the new gym, ignoring the sign that said
No Entry Unless Authorized
.

Avoiding Rocky had become an integral part of my daily school routine:

Enter by the side gate in case Rocky and his friends were hanging out in front of Saint Simeon’s.

Stay in the library until the bell went.

Eat my packed lunch in a secluded corner, then head straight for the new gym to shoot hoops until the bell rang for afternoon lessons.