CHAPTER 9

Mother's Day. I give Mum Cakes For Every Day of the Year. 'Three hundred and sixty-five of them,' I explain. 'You'll be able to celebrate whatever you want.'

'What's the worst?' asks Jenny.

The pain in my neck. No; the foot's sharper. The ringing in my ears; the dizziness. The shaking, the spilling drinks, slobbering food. The not being able to do anything . . . Hayden not kissing me . . . The way it all doesn't stop. Why doesn't it stop?

'Everything. I'm pissed off, Jen. I've had it.'

For English this week Martin's set me two chapters to study and a poem to write. 'Try writing a poem that expresses how you feel about yourself,' he says. 'Show us the real you.'

The real me? Fifteen weeks ago I might have known who she was—now I'm a mask and don't know whether I'm more scared of looking under it or letting other people know I'm afraid.

But he wants a poem and he wants it deep and meaningful.

Peeling like an onion,

I am shedding filmy layers

the firm white flesh revealing

what's hidden deep inside.

Opening like a babushka

I am sorting wooden dolls

the last hollow doll is holding

the baby deep inside.

Unwrapping like a present

I am crumpling pretty papers

under the crepe and ribbons

there's a perfect gift inside.

Which is a lie from one end to the other but might keep Martin happy.

'You know the stuff we're doing on motivation in psych,' Jenny begins—but I'm still on stress, and it's bull.

She ignores that. 'It's really got me in . . . you can apply it to people you know and things start to make sense.'

'Like your friend going crazy because she broke her neck?'

'Idiot! You're not crazy. I was thinking about Caroline—I had to try and get my head around how she could dump you like that . . . and why I hate her so badly now. I know she was mean to you and broke up our friendship—but I really hate her. Worse than you do.'

God, I'm a selfish bitch. It's never struck me before that Jenny lost a friend too. 'And?'

'I figure I feel a bit guilty.'

'How could you feel guilty? I couldn't have made it through all this if you hadn't stuck around!'

'You would have—but thanks. Anyway, I was reading this thing about survivor guilt and it was so cool! It just exactly described the way I feel.'

'If you were a real friend you'd have broken your neck too?'

'Something like that.'

'Bad idea. So you figure Caroline's so competitive she'd have to go one step better and actually kill herself to still be my friend?'

Jenny laughs. 'I hadn't thought of that one. But I still think it's something to do with being competitive—you know how good she was to you in hospital?'

'Now you're trying to make me feel guilty—all those little presents.'

'As if she had to be the best at being a best friend!'

And if I'm really honest, did it work? Did part of me think that she cared more about me because of the strawberries and talcum powder?

'But it would have been a terrible strain to keep it going; she's too much of a perfectionist to just slack off, so she had to drop you completely.'

'I thought maybe it was because I was messy—I broke the rule about getting better when I left hospital.'

'That too—and maybe it was safer to blame you for not being well, because if it wasn't your fault, then it could happen to anyone—even perfectionists.'

Mum and her new cookbook have come up with a mocha cake in a ring. 'It looks like your collar!' Bronny says.

'Cut it up!' Matt shrieks, getting into the spirit, and Mum smiles.

'You didn't think I'd miss celebrating the end of your collar, did you?'

Mr Osman is admiring my nude neck. Oops—forgot my pearls.

'Still having any pain?'

'Not when I'm lying down.'

'We might X-ray it again to check the healing's all gone as it should.'

Too bad—you got this far, and now your head's going to fall off.

'And your physio's not very happy with that ankle.'

I've noticed. As if forcing a stick onto me isn't enough, he's started muttering about balance and equilibrium and the fact that mine are stuffed. I'm just hanging out for when I can really get into the exercises. The left ankle's finally gone back into a normal shape and is starting to move, but the right one still looks like a puffer fish. If I can get them both going everything will be okay.

Mr Osman wants to see the right one perform. It goes through its version of up/down, round and round; the movements are so small it's hard to tell which one it's trying. Mr Osman grabs it and tries to show it what to do. The bones in my heel screech and grate, but they're stronger than he is. It doesn't move.

'Better X-ray that foot at the same time,' he decides.

'I've decided,' Jenny announces. 'I'm going to do Psychology next year.' She's waiting for me to say something rude, but it's her life.

Besides, her theories about Caroline almost make sense.

Going out after maths to meet Mum, my heart lurches with surprise. It's not Mum, it's Luke leaning against the car, waiting for me. For just a moment the background fades—administration wing, car park, trees and football oval all disappear, and I can't see anything except a man with a long dark ponytail and changeable blue eyes, watching for me as if there's nothing in the world that could be more important than this.

Funny how when you see somebody out of context everything looks different, as if they're a stranger you're meeting for the first time. How you suddenly notice that the body you always thought of as just average is actually lean and fit and downright hunky, that the grin when he sees you is incredibly sexy . . . or would be if you didn't know him so well, and you didn't already have a boyfriend.

But it still makes leaving school after first class seem like an adventure instead of a wimp-out.

'Your mum couldn't get away—you don't mind?'

'I'll cope.' And the breathlessness goes away; it's okay, it's only Luke, my friend. It's just the first time I've realised what a good friend he's become.

'You dying to get home or do you want to stop for a cappuccino?'

'In my school uniform?'

'You're right; it's too risky. Imagine the headline: Cappuccino Caper—Girl Swaps Calculus for Coffee.'

I laugh, but there's a niggle of truth in his teasing, and once we're at the table and I'm licking the chocolaty froth off my spoon he adds sternly, 'If you're too sick to be at school you'll stay in your bedroom and feel miserable!'

Flick a bit of froth at him. 'My dad doesn't sound like that!'

'No—that was mine, scaled down for cafe volume. So what's your excuse for being afraid to enjoy yourself?'

'I'm not!

'That's true. I should have said too angry.'

'It's just so frustrating! One class and I'm stuffed.'

The good thing about Luke is that he doesn't remind me that a month ago I couldn't have sat through even one class. I know that—but I still want to be better now. 'It's a bummer,' he says. 'Sometimes I wonder how I'd deal with it, if it were me.'

'You'd be fine! Sit and philosophise your way out of it.'

'Wouldn't be that easy if I were the one hurting. I'd like to think I'd be as strong as you, but I don't know.'

Take a long sip of my coffee. It's the steam that's making my eyes water.

'It's a little out of alignment,' Mr Osman says, studying my new neck X-rays, 'the damaged vertebra is sitting forward on the one below it—but I think it's stable. It shouldn't cause any real problems.'

This is my neck, my spinal cord—I want guarantees, not shoulds.

'What about the pain?' Mum asks sharply. 'That seems a very real problem to me—Anna's in terrible pain most of the time. Shouldn't that have improved by now?'

Early days, he mutters; these things take time, can't rush the body's healing processes.

He might be a brilliant surgeon but he's not too hot on counting. Three and a half months by my reckoning.

'What'd he say about your foot?' Jenny asks when she's run out of original names for arrogant bastards.

'Long names and bad news. Then gave me a lecture about doing my exercises and not just expecting the physio to work magic.'

Shrieks from the other end of the phone. 'Did you tell him you're the world's worst exercise fanatic?'

'I think he got the idea when Mum tried to strangle him.'

'I would have helped her.'

Now I know what the worst thing is. It's being angry. It's being so angry that I can't even see, and not being able to do anything about it. Can't jog, can't slam my punching bag, can't exercise till I drop. Nothing to do with my rage but choke it down inside, where it bubbles and swells till I'm afraid I'll drown in my own boiling lava.

Time is racing and I'm standing still. The term's slipping away—Year 12, the most important year of my life, nearly half gone and I've barely started it yet, sitting in class for an hour a day—the only thing I'm taking in is that every day I'm a litde further behind.

Which is why Mr Sandberg's 'dropped in' after school again—suddenly it's only four weeks till mid-year exams. Two fortnights. There's no way I'll be ready.

'We can defer if we have to,' he says. 'But realistically . . . have you thought any more about doing it over two years?'

'You'd have a better chance of getting the marks you want,' Mum adds, but what she means, what they both mean, is that it's better than failing, and that's what I'm doing now.

I can't shout at Mr Sandberg but I don't have to stick around and be insulted. 'I'll think about it.'

But he's a teacher—he gets the last word as I stomp off to my room. 'Think about it soon, Anna! We're running out of time.'

Hayden and I are perched on stools at the counter of the Pizza Palace. It takes all my concentration to balance but that's okay, I'm doing it, I'm not falling off. After Mark's party I thought he might never be game to take me out again, and I'm not going to blow it.

'What's the walking stick for?' asks the waitress.

My song and dance routine! 'I hurt my foot,' I mutter.

'That's a shame! Never mind—it's just will power, isn't it? Think positive and you'll get there!'

'You know what I want for my birthday?' I ask Hayden after she's gone, and the poor guy looks relieved—he must have been afraid I was going to hit her. He's probably right, except I would have fallen off the stool. 'An electric cattle prod.'

He's not looking relieved after all. I think embarrassed is the word—or apprehensive.

'Just a little zap for people who ask if I hurt myself at netball and tell me I'll be right,' I add.

'Calm down,' Hayden pleads, but I go on with my hate list.

'Three zaps for stories about one-armed swimmers, and ten for the next person who tells me about someone dying of cancer right after they broke their ankle!'

'They're just trying to help,' Hayden says, and asks if we can have a table with proper chairs. I want to say we'll stay on the stools, but balancing has just gobbled up my quota of positive thinking for the day.

'Always someone worse off than you,' I remember later. That's the worst of all. Am I supposed to be happy that orphans in Bosnia have had their legs blown off? To not mind my pain because other people can't buy painkillers? I don't want things like this to happen to anyone; the images of torn-apart children, raped women and murdered men pile on top of me in a suffocating mass of grey.

That's when I understand Jenny's survivor guilt—my brand is not-the-very-worst-victim guilt. As if I shouldn't complain about walking badly when some people can't walk at all.

A hundred zaps for that.

I'm glad I wasn't around when Dad phoned Osman; nothing more embarrassing than watching your parents make a scene. It's been bad enough watching him rant and rave around the house, working up to it.

So Mr Osman decided that perhaps it would be worth doing CT and bone scans of both neck and ankle—anything to shut my father up. And since they have to be done in Melbourne, his secretary even arranged for appointments the same day as I go down to see the neurologist. A day of non-stop fun: father and daughter quality time.

Half an hour in the car and I wish I still had my collar . . . an hour and I'd have worn the frame . . . two hours and we're there but my neck hurts so much I can hardly walk from the carpark to the hospital. I'm injected with radioactivity; relieved to find I don't glow; back to the coffee shop for milkshake and painkillers while I wait for the dye to spread through my bones.

Not much to do in a hospital waiting room. Dad and I wander around the gift shop; I buy a Cosmo; he plays with a whirling bouncy spring-thing and buys it for Matt—then has to look for something for Bronny. This is the perfect place to shop for a child hypochondriac; we finally choose a stethoscope that the package claims 'really works' and costs five times as much as the spring.

'You've got to be fair. I think she feels a bit left out.'

'What do I get?'

'A day out in the big city.'

'Next time you can take the kids and I'll have the spring-thing.'

Finally it's time to go back upstairs; the lift makes me stagger, and Dad takes my arm. I would really hate to throw up in a lift.

'Lie still,' the technician says, as I slide into the CT's coffin-womb; he doesn't know how good it feels to lie down—I'll be as still as he likes if he lets me stay on this bed. Ankles, then neck; then across the hall to another hard bed, a machine looming over me and a monitor with tiny pictures of white bones.

'Do you have much pain in your left ankle?' he asks.

'Not as much as the right.'

'You've had a fair bit of damage in it too!' he says sharply.

'Was it never X-rayed?'

Bonus! Two arthritic ankles instead of one! But I feel a dark swirl of pleasure—I wasn't being a wimp when I said that ankle hurt too.

A sandwich and another drink and on to the neurologist. If Dad gets any more stressed with Melbourne traffic and finding a parking place he'll be the one needing a doctor.

Unfortunately it's still me the secretary calls, and me that the doctor tells to strip down to bra and pants.

And it's no good telling myself that they're just the same as bathers—nobody else is going swimming.

He taps, finds reflexes, plays a guessing game of pricking me with pins or dabbing with cotton wool. Tells me I can get dressed and watches my hands shake as I do up my buttons. I'm starting to sway; he gives me a chair. Touch his finger, touch my nose. Well, nearly. Try again. Who wants to touch their nose anyway?

'Stand up; close your eyes.'

Stand up; get kicked in the head by invisible van Damme; fall down flat. Speedy reflexes are what make a good neurologist; he catches me before I hit the floor.

'Try again. I won't let you fall.'

It's so simple. Of course I can do it. Stand up and close my eyes—everyone can do that.

Everyone but me. Close my eyes; fall; doctor catches me. Sickest game I've ever played. Luckily he gets tired of it before I show him exactly how sick.

'How do you feel?'

Room spinning, legs wobbling . . . 'Not great.'

'Nasty sort of bloke, aren't I? We'll call your dad in to talk about it.'

He has a kind face and looks sorry for me. That's almost worse than Osman's callousness. He gets out a diagram and Dad looks studious; some problems . . . cerebellar signs . . . but it's still early in terms of recovery, and I'm young . . .

The words float over me. The brain he's discussing has left the room, is drifting somewhere in the grey sky outside the window.

On the way home pain fills the car like mist; I wonder how Dad can see through it to drive. Half way he says we'll stop for a drink. It's a long walk across the footpath and into the cafe. Dad's looking worried; he helps me to a chair and goes up to order.

The pain is creeping up from my neck, over my head, through my brain, blocking everything on its way. I hold my head between my hands, resting on the table. The cafe is dark; is black. I slump forward onto the table just as Dad slides a jelly slice in front of me.

I can see again. Dad's holding my shoulders, propping me up in the chair. The jelly slice is smashed. Raspberry; my favourite. The shop owner is rushing across with a glass of water; the cafe is very quiet, everyone staring at the girl who can't remember how to sit up.

'I'm all right.'

I drink the water to prove it, and start to feel a little better.

Dad and the shop owner help me out to the car, like a protester being escorted off the premises by police. Dad wants to take me to a doctor, but I've seen enough of them for one day. I talk him into taking me straight home to hide in my own bed.

Sadness is grey, despair matt black and anger blood red. Bitterness is almost beautiful, like an iridescent poisonous bug—shiny black shot through with a deep, reddy purple.

Jenny's planning again. "Why don't you and Hayden come to the production with Costa and me? It's Oliver—I've heard the rehearsals and it sounds great.'

Because I don't want to leave the house; because this deep feeling about knowing I'm supposed to be with Hayden doesn't translate into us ever having a good time together; because I just don't feel like watching a bunch of pretend orphans dance and sing while a drunk murders a prostitute.

Poor Jen. She hasn't had much luck talking me into anything lately. Shopping, clothes, hair; she wants me to experiment, play the game—but they just don't seem important any more.

'I know how much your foot hurts,' she says, trying to convince me to wear my mini skirt for out-of-uniform day, 'but at least your legs still look great. And you're so slim! Wish I had your willpower.'

I don't know if I still have willpower. The next doctor I see will probably find that's been damaged too.

Then she wants to braid my hair. 'You've had it just tied back for ages'—since Mum combed the glass out in hospital—'don't you want to try something fancier?'

Braiding was for karate. And it takes too long—I can't be bothered. Jenny tries a few different ways of pulling it back and tying it up, but the next day I can't remember which one she said looked good, and yank it into an elastic again.

She can't be having fun, being with me. She's lively and bubbly; she needs a friend who's alive. She's just being kind.

I'm running to answer the phone. Quickly, smoothly—perfect symmetrical steps springing off the balls of my feet. Running like an athlete.

'You idiot!' I tell myself. 'You could do it all along—you were just too scared to try.'

A ray of hope makes my whole day glow, though I can't remember why. Must be a sign I'm getting better.

The phone rings; I leap up instinctively and try to run—my ankle gives way and knocks me to the ground. I remember the dream as I stagger up and across the room in my usual hobble—right foot dragging, everything hurting.

I reach the phone as it goes dead.

If I thought life was going to go on being like this forever I couldn't take it. Wouldn't take it. No one could make me.