One

Simon scored this amazing goal in soccer today.

Mr Johnston said we could have a game, even though it was still really the summer sports season. He got us all to line up in alphabetical order, boys and girls mixed. It was incredible, the arguments over whether Todd Martin came before or after Melissa McDonald, and of course Alex Wilson went and put himself under A instead of W. So then Mr Johnston came along, going ‘Eeny-meeny, miney-mo, eeny-meeny, miney-mo,’ till he’d divided the class into two teams: the Eeny-meenys and the Miney-mos.

Nelita Travers told him he’d forgotten the referee and the linesmen, but Mr Johnston said it was OK, he’d be all three. ‘You haven’t got six arms and six legs,’ said Nelita, who works through jokes like our dog works through a plate of jellimeat.

Mr Johnston was ready for her. ‘Maybe not,’ he said. ‘But since I’m a teacher, I’ve got eyes in the back of my head. That’ll do instead.’ Nelita went off to join the Miney-mos, calling, ‘Friends, Romans, phys-ed teachers, lend me your eyes!’ I went off to mark Brady West. So did three other guys.

Simon was goalie for our team – the Eeny-meenys. For the first part of the game, the ball was down in the other half and he didn’t have anything to do. He just kept zooming backwards and forwards between the goalposts, yelling out, ‘Too chicken to come near me, eh?’ and ‘Here we go! Here we go!’ like the yobs at English soccer games do.

Then someone gave the ball an almighty boot, and it went flying away upfield where Simon was waiting, all by himself. ‘Look out, Simon! Hey, Super-stopper! Catch it, Simon!’ we Eeny-Meenys were yelling.

Simon didn’t have to catch it. The ball bounced, and bounced again, and bounced a third time, and landed smack in his lap. ‘Who’s a well-trained little soccer ball, then?’ he said.

Everyone was yelling for Simon to chuck them the ball. But he didn’t. Instead, he put the ball down between his feet, pulled his wheelchair throttle open, and started motoring straight downfield towards the other goal.

Nelita was the nearest player from the Miney-mo team. She stood with her mouth hanging open while Simon and his wheelchair kept coming straight at her. At the last moment, she jumped out of the road. One of the arms on the chair jabbed her in the backside as Simon trundled past. Nelita stood there rubbing her bum and shouting, ‘Hit-and-run driver! Road hog!’

By this time, half our Eeny-meeny team were trotting along beside Simon, calling for the ball. ‘Simon! Simon! Chuck it here, Simon!’ We must have looked like a lunch queue chasing after Meals on Wheels.

Simon didn’t take any notice. ‘Get stuffed!’ he replied. There was a huge grin right across his face.

Haare Haunui was goalie for the Miney-mos. As Simon got nearer and nearer, Haare dropped on his knees and pretended to pray. Then he scrambled across and tried to hide behind one of his own goal-posts.

Simon drove his wheelchair straight between the posts and into the back of the net. ‘Goal!’ all us Eeny-meenys yelled.

The Miney-mos started arguing. ‘It can’t be a goal!’ Todd Martin shouted.

‘Why not?’ Simon wanted to know. ‘The ball went over the line, didn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but …’ Todd tried to say.

‘I had it between my feet, didn’t I?’ Simon interrupted him.

‘Yeah, but …’

‘Then it was a goal, wasn’t it?’

Todd tried to say something else, but everyone was clapping and cheering too loud to hear him. Mr Johnston’s face had turned traffic-light red from laughing, and he’d started hiccuping. He managed to get enough breath to give a feeble toot on his whistle.

‘One nil,’ he gurgled. ‘Back to halfway, everyone. Simon, you can reverse-thrust back to your own goal now.’

‘Sorry, Mr Johnston,’ said Simon, who didn’t look at all sorry. ‘Someone’ll have to give me a hand. I’ve got the soccer net caught in one wheel, and I think my battery’s gone flat.’

Oh hell, I groaned to myself. Now I’ll have to push Simon home after school. And that new wheelchair of his is heavy.

Simon got his new chair at the start of the year. In the third form he’d had a lighter one that he pushed with his hands, but over the summer holidays his muscles had got a lot weaker. By the time we came back for the fourth form, he didn’t have much strength left in his shoulders and his upper arms. Now he’s got this flash chair with a battery-driven, two-horsepower motor. ‘News flash, Nathan!’ he said when he rang me up in the holidays to tell me about it. ‘They’re sending me to the electric chair!’

The new chair can usually go for two or three days at a slowish speed before its battery needs recharging, but when Simon hoons around in it the way he did at soccer today, it runs out much faster.

The first week after he got it, he’d been burning up and down to the shops about a thousand times a day, trying it out on the footpaths and the ramp up to the town Library. So of course on the first day back at school, the battery packed up in the middle of the main road.

The only place Simon can cross the main road is at the pedestrian crossing, where they’ve got concrete culverts sloping down from the footpath. Simon reckons it’s time they designed a bungy-jumping wheelchair that people can drive off the edge of the footpath anywhere they want to, and go crashing down into the gutter.

Anyway, the first day of Form Four I’d met him at the dairy as usual. He’d been in and bought a take-away milkshake – he couldn’t drink anything like that in his old chair, because he needed both hands to push the wheels. ‘Hey, Nathan! Beware of drinking drivers!’ he called when he saw me coming.

We started off across the culvert and on to the crossing. Traffic always stops for Simon – he never has to wait while cars keep tearing past. Sometimes he’ll give the drivers a wave and a bow, and say, ‘Thank you, my loyal subjects.’ He’s an expert in being embarrassing.

This day, his big flash new chair whirred up the slope from the gutter and out nearly into the middle of the crossing. Then it stopped. Just like that. It was the first time the battery had run out, and neither Simon nor I knew what was happening. He kept pulling at the throttle, but the motor just made whining noises, like our dog when it’s bolted down its breakfast too fast and it’s feeling sick.

By this time there were about six trucks and ten cars lined up waiting at the crossing. Since it was a kid in a wheelchair, they didn’t like to toot. ‘Chicken!’ Simon finally yelled at them. Then, ‘Push, slave!’ he said to me. He got to school that day by one manpower, not two horsepower.

Even when he had to get the new chair, I didn’t realise how much worse Simon had got. But then about a month after term started, they took our class photos.

I looked like a total idiot, of course. I always do. I hate smiling for the camera, and I’m always glaring as if someone’s just taken away all my Rusty Guts tapes. Alex Wilson looked like a half-trained orang-utan, which is about right. Brady West looked … how many words are there that rhyme with fantastic?

Mum was with Mrs Kuklinski from next door when I got home, so I showed them both the prison portrait. It was a real shock when Mrs Kuklinski said, ‘Poor Simon Shaw. He’s gone downhill a lot, hasn’t he?’

Later on, when I put the photo next to last year’s Form Three one, I could see what Mrs Kuklinski meant. You don’t notice the changes when you see someone nearly every day, but in last year’s photo Simon was sitting quite straight in his chair, his face was rounder, and his arms looked thicker and stronger. In this year’s photo he’s bent forward, and his face and body are both skinnier. He looks sort of fragile. He’s not growing up like the rest of us. He’s growing down.

Then, only about two days after the photo, something happened in English that brought it home even more.

Ms Kidman had been reading us this poem about old age. Grow old along with me; The best is yet to be. Actually, there’s a fair number in our class I don’t particularly want to grow old along with. Being young along with them is bad enough.

Then we got on to talking about getting old. ‘Remember, being old does not mean being over thirty-five!’ Ms Kidman warned us. ‘So mind your language.’

‘How do you know when you are old, anyway?’ someone asked.

‘When your birthday candles cost more than your cake,’ said Nelita. At least it was better than most of her jokes.

Just about everyone in the class agreed they were a bit scared of getting old. They didn’t like to think of not being able to do things any longer, or not being able to look after yourself, and losing your dignity. Things like that. Ms Kidman kept saying that old age didn’t have to be that way, but everyone was getting pretty depressed about the whole idea.

‘Well,’ said Ms Kidman at last, ‘is there anyone in the class who’s not worried about getting old?’

Simon’s hand went up. ‘I’m not,’ he said.

‘Good, Simon,’ exclaimed Ms Kidman in relief. ‘Why’s that?’ And suddenly I saw her try to stop herself, as she realised what was coming.

‘Well, I’m not going to get to old age, am I?’ replied Simon. ‘I’m going to be dead first.’

There was absolute silence in the classroom. Nobody knew what to say. Nobody knew where to look. I felt really angry at Simon. He doesn’t need to say these things. We hadn’t been trying to leave him out or anything while we were talking.

He must have realised he’d upset people, because he gave an embarrassed sort of grin. ‘Tell you what. When you lot do get old, you can send me a postcard and tell me what it’s like. Send it airmail.’

Ms Kidman is really quick, and she picked this one up like a flash. ‘Good idea, Simon, but they’ll have to learn a bit of punctuation first. Which reminds me – take out your folders please, people.’

There was the usual moaning and groaning, but you could tell that everyone was pleased to escape. Soon they were working away busily, Simon with them.

I couldn’t get out of my mind what he’d just said, though. After all, it’s true. Simon’s my best friend, and sometime in the next year or two years, he’s going to die.