Louis is sitting on my hospital bed with me, holding my hand. He is very quiet today, so I have to ask him what’s wrong.
He looks out the window. ‘We are putting on a play at the vocational centre. It’s Romeo and Juliet, and they wanted me to be Romeo and you to be Juliet because we are in love.’
It is as if stars are exploding around me. I am so happy I squeeze Louis’s hand and laugh.
‘Happy, happy news! These are roles of a lifetime!’
Louis and me are the best at drama in our centre, and we have always wanted to play Romeo and Juliet. But Louis doesn’t look happy. I notice that he is sniffing in a sad way. I turn his face so that our eyes can meet and I see they are wet.
‘Why are you sad? We’ve been waiting for this for so long. Remember when we wrote a letter last term asking Mrs Green to let us do this play?’ I was talking so quickly it made me breathless.
‘But the play is on at the end of the term. That is three months and two days away.’
‘So?’ I have a strange feeling swirling around my belly and my brain. I don’t like it.
‘Do you remember what Stepmonster said?’ Louis asks.
The feeling is getting hot and it makes me frown. ‘Why are you talking about that?’ My voice is loud.
‘Well, I asked my mom and my dad about it and they said that maybe you will be too sick to do the play, and then they explained to me about that word.’
I do not need to ask him what word. I know what he is talking about. It makes me go tight all over my body and I want to shout at him but I can’t because I love him.
‘Dad says a nicer way to say that word is to say that someone passes away.’ He starts to cry and snot is coming out of his nose.
His sound is very loud and it is making me hotter and hotter and hotter until I have to put my hands over my ears and shout, ‘I am not passing away! No way. Not me!’
Louis puts his hands over his ears and shouts back. ‘But my mom and dad said you are. Also, I couldn’t save you with the cow’s heart.’
The beeping all around me is getting louder and the air around me is shrinking and hard to swallow.
‘I am not passing away and I WILL BE JULIET in the play.’
My fire is burning in my eyes and I can’t understand why because I have never felt this way at Louis before.
‘I will not die! I will not die! I will not die!’
Anger, anger, like hot and spicy Sì chuān chicken exploding in my mouth, like summer sun blazing on my head, like stamping feet and jumping music, like a sore throat, like the sound of thunder stuck in the sea, like everything lost.
Like Mum in her box in the ground.
The beeping around me becomes so fast it is ringing in my ears beep beep beep.
The door opens and two nurses rush in. One takes Louis outside. Another speaks softly to me but I cannot hear what she is saying because my heart is like the sound of drums in my ears, and everything is fast around me. She takes my hand and puts an injection into the tube there. After a few seconds, the beeping slows down and becomes like a soft tiptoe. My room is lazy and blurry and I feel like I am swimming in the air.