10. Forget-me-nots and the Fairy Queen

In small towns like Cameron’s Creek, news travels fast. Especially when the news is about such a well-known and dearly loved lady as Nell Silk.

By Monday morning, Elsie-from-the-post-office had placed a book on the counter, near the parcel string and the scales. It had a kingfisher on its cover and shimmering silver-edged pages. There was a pen attached to the counter with a length of string so people could write get-well messages to Nell. Elsie promised she would post it to the hospital when it was full.

Mr Kadri organised a roster of volunteers to visit Nell. There was no shortage of people who wanted their names on the roster. But Nell was hurting all over and the doctors gave her medicine to make her sleep. Ben could stay, they said, but no-one else until Nell was feeling better.

‘Until then,’ Annie told her children, ‘we should take Mr Jenkins’ advice and keep working on the festival.’

But it is difficult to be excited about a festival when someone you love has a broken hip and a map of Africa on her head.

During the day, Annie, the Rainbow Girls, Griffin and Perry tried hard to find winter glories to cheer their worried hearts. But each evening seemed to come sooner and darker and colder, and the Silk family waited in the kitchen for their telephone to ring. They did their homework there, ate their meals there and waited for 7:30, when the phone would finally sound.

They longed for the day when Ben would tell them Nell was well enough to see them all. Mostly Ben seemed cheerful, but sometimes when it was Perry’s turn to speak on the telephone, he imagined Ben’s chin wobbling and his eyes like rock pools, all glimmery and green, the way they were when Nell was lying on the hard red stones, twisted and broken and bleeding.

The telephone rang on Thursday afternoon, when Perry was making peanut butter sandwiches. It wasn’t often Perry answered the telephone. Usually Nell or someone else was there to do it. But on this day Annie was feeding the goats and the Rainbow Girls were still on the school bus. Layla had come to play, but she and Griffin were in the tree house waiting to haul Perry’s peanut butter sandwiches up in a bucket.

Perry looked at the clock on the wall and then at the telephone. It kept ringing and the sound of it was very loud in a kitchen so empty. Perry licked the peanut butter off his fingers, then cautiously picked up the receiver and put it to his ear.

‘Hello, this is Perry Angel Lee Silk speaking,’ he said.

There was a small pause at the other end of the telephone.

‘Hello, Perry. It’s Sunday.’

‘Sunday,’ he said slowly and he wondered why his other mother was making their telephone ring.

‘Sunday Lee,’ said the voice in the telephone.

‘Yes, I know. I thought you might be Daddy,’ said Perry, ‘except it isn’t the proper time.’

‘I rang about the invitation,’ said Sunday. ‘You know, the invitation to the festival,’ she reminded Perry. ‘Is Nell there? Can you talk about the dance?’

‘Nell’s in hospital. Daddy’s there too,’ Perry felt tears slide down his cheeks. He didn’t know why they were coming now, why his insides were suddenly so sad, but he couldn’t stop the feeling.

‘Oh Perry, I’m so sorry. What’s happened? What’s wrong? Is Annie there?’

The back door slapped shut and Annie came into the kitchen. She looked at Perry’s face and quickly scooped him into her arms and took the telephone from him.

‘Hello? … Yes, this is Annie speaking … Sunday, oh Sunday, it’s you! … Yes, no, it’s Nell who’s the patient.’

After Annie explained everything to Sunday, she put the telephone back in its cradle and helped Perry finish the peanut butter sandwiches.

‘Sunday said we can stay with her in her apartment when we visit Nell,’ she said. ‘It’s not far from the hospital. She shares it with her friend, Sam. I told you about Sam — do you remember?’

Perry nodded his head. ‘Sam Sparrow is Sunday’s special friend. Can we go tomorrow?’

‘I know you’re missing Nell very much,’ said Annie. ‘We all are, but we have to wait until the doctor says she’s well enough for us to visit. Nell’s had a nasty knock to her head as well as breaking her hip and the doctors want her to sleep so she’ll get stronger. We’ll just have to be patient a little longer.’

‘How much longer?’

‘Maybe Daddy will know more when he rings tonight,’ said Annie.

But Ben did not know.

On Friday afternoon, the telephone rang again. It was just like the day before. Perry was alone in the kitchen. He looked at the telephone and wondered who was making it ring. He wished Annie was there in case it was Sunday again. He loved Sunday and he didn’t want her to worry if he accidentally cried again. Slowly he picked up the receiver.

‘Hello, this is Perry Angel Lee Silk speaking,’ he said.

‘Hello Perry, it’s Daddy. You answered the telephone very nicely.’

‘Nell taught me what to say.’ Perry looked up at the clock. ‘I didn’t think it would be you. I don’t think it’s seven thirty yet,’ he said.

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Ben, ‘but I couldn’t wait. I’ve got good news.’

‘Is Nell coming home?’

‘Not yet. She wants to. Every day she asks me when it will be. No-one knows yet, but the good news is that the doctors say Nell can have visitors!’

Nell’s bed at the hospital was high and hard, with levers, buttons, buzzers and wheels — not at all like her own bed at the Kingdom of Silk. There were no hills or hollows, no plump feathered quilt, floppy pillows or frilly pillowslips. No hot-water bottle, no goose-necked lamp for midnight reading, no peppermints in the drawer, no curling-up space for small boys and bigger girls. No midnight owl hooting outside her window.

Nell was sleeping when they arrived. It wasn’t often her family saw her that way. The nurses had brushed her hair until it shone as silver as a unicorn’s mane and fastened it high up on her head with a clasp like a butterfly. She was wearing a powder-blue bed jacket with ribbon ties and embroidered flowers on its collar and cuffs. The flowers were forget-me-nots.

Perry wondered if Nell had worn the jacket on purpose as a secret message to her visitors to remember her even when they were far apart. He knew he would never, ever forget her. Even when he was as grown-up as Ben. Even if he became a leg doctor or a pirate who sailed the seven seas or an astronaut who orbited the heavenlies, he would always come home again to Nell. But while he was away, he would not think of her lying in bed, wearing her forget-me-not bed jacket. He would imagine her wearing her elastic-sided boots, her red woollen socks, her primrose cardigan and her favourite apron. And in Perry’s mind, Nell would always and forever be dancing.

Propped against a drift of snowy pillows, Nell seemed to have shrunk. Though tiny and tired, she looked to Perry like a fairy queen, with her silken hair and her face as pale as a daytime moon. Perry looked sideways at Jenkins to make sure he was noticing how beautiful Nell looked.

Her legs, under the sheets, looked straight; the map of Africa was neatly stitched. But even so, Nell, pale and pillowed, seemed to Perry to be a different person from the one who stood firm and strong on the windy side of the hill at the Kingdom of Silk. The one who looked after them all. He wondered if Annie or one of the Rainbow Girls had thought to bring Nell’s magic wand and if they had, was there enough magic in it, or in the entire universe, to change Nell back to the way she used to be?