Ways to Live Forever Read online

  Mrs Willis said we clearly had very scientific minds and she was sorry she’d ever doubted us. Felix and I spent the rest of the lesson planning our perfect near-death experience. We got a bit stuck because we both wanted to go to Heaven, but only if we got the elves with pitchforks as well.

  MUM AND DAD

  10th January

  My mum used to work for this charity that does things with kids with learning disabilities. She stopped when I got ill the second time. Now she stays at home and takes me to clinic and looks after everyone who comes to visit. She gets Sundays off to go to church and sing in the choir. Ella goes sometimes too, but only because everyone fusses over her. I used to as well but I don’t now, because I hate people fussing over me. Dad never does.

  Dad is very clever. He knows a lot of things, but I could never ask him any of my questions. He doesn’t talk about me being ill. I’ve never tried to talk to him about it, but Granny has and some of my aunties. He just says, “We’re not going to talk about this,” and walks out of the room.

  I have a lot of aunties and uncles. Mum has one brother, but Dad has one brother and four sisters. Mum says that’s why he’s so quiet and likes having time to read the newspaper in peace, because he never got any space when he was a kid. I think that’s rubbish, because my aunts and uncle never got any space either and they’re always talking and laughing.

  Dad’s just quiet, like me. He’s shy. When it’s just our family, he’s not quiet. He talks and tells jokes and stories. He knows a lot of stories. He just doesn’t like it when there’re loads of people in the house, like now when they keep coming to visit us. He reads his newspaper and doesn’t talk, or if it’s people he really doesn’t like, he goes and reads in the study.

  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I wish I could go and hide sometimes too.

  Granny gets angry with Dad sometimes, because she says he makes Mum do everything. But Dad does do things. He earns money. And he does help. Like one time when I was in hospital, Mum got home and there were four different types of soup on the doorstep. Dad and Ella heated them all up and brought them back to hospital and gave a cup to all the people waiting in casualty.

  Everyone thought they were mad. But it got rid of the soup.

  THE OCCASIONAL WARDROBE

  NIGHTCLUB

  13th January

  It was Mrs Willis who told me about things to do. She said we should make a list.

  “Things I want to do. Or just things I want. Preferably achievable but not necessarily.”

  There are lots of things I want to do. I liked writing them down. Mrs Willis liked it too. She wrote:

  1. Go to the Grand Canyon.

  2. Clean out the attic.

  3. Get the use of a proper laboratory.

  4. Learn how to make meringues.

  5. Train the dog.

  “Train the dog!” said Felix. “What sort of a wish is that?”

  “You haven’t met the dog,” said Mrs Willis.

  Felix’s list was very short. It said:

  1. Be rich and famous.

  2. Nuke all doctors.

  3. See Green Day in concert.

  “You’ve already seen Green Day in concert,” I pointed out. “You went with your brother.”

  Felix bent over his list again. “There,” he said. “Happy?”

  It now said:

  3. See Green Day in concert AGAIN.

  It was a good lesson. We spent the rest of it drawing pictures of people nuking Green Day from airships, with borders of beer-drinking ghosts going up escalators.

  After Mrs Willis had gone, Felix and I stayed at the table. I started laying out my Warhammer army, in the hope that he might give me a game. Felix bent over my list with his hat pulled down over his eyes. He wears hats a lot because the drugs they gave him last year made his hair fall out. They made mine fall out too, but it’s grown back now. Felix’s hasn’t. He was wearing his fedora today, which is sort of like a squashed bowler hat. It made him look like a scruffy James Bond.

  “Are you going to actually do these?” he said.

  “I dunno,” I said. I was more interested in laying out my scenery. “Probably not. Why?”

  “Well, we could. Couldn’t we?” He looked across at me, daring me to argue. I sifted through my box of pieces, trying to find another archer.

  “They aren’t things to do really,” I explained. “They’re more like . . . wishes. Not real things.”

  Felix leaned forward. He likes an argument. “So?” he said. “Mrs Willis is going to make meringues, isn’t she? So why can’t we watch horror films? Mickey’s got loads at home.”

  He shoved the list across the table towards me. I looked at it.

  “We could do two of them,” I said. I knelt on the seat of my chair and leaned across the table to show him. “Look. We could watch horror films and go up down-escalators. Maybe. We couldn’t do the others.”

  “We could do a world record.”

  “You don’t just do world records.”

  I went and fetched my Guinness Book of Records to show him. I love world records. I love how certain they are. The quickest anyone has ever jumped up the steps of the CN tower on a pogo stick is fifty-seven minutes and fifty-one seconds.1 The longest word in English with each letter in it at least twice is “unprosperousness”. There it is, a true fact, written down in this book, and if you can beat it you just send a letter to the record people and they check it and then you go in the book as a true fact too. Plus, you get to be famous.

  Felix took the book from me and started flicking through it, looking for an easy one.

  “Most worms eaten in thirty seconds! Do that one!”

  I remembered that record. I peered over his shoulder. “That guy ate two hundred worms. I’m not eating two hundred worms!”

  “Two hundred and one,” said Felix. I ignored him. He flicked over the pages. “Smallest nightclub in the world: 2.4 × 2.4 × 1.2 metres. That’s not a proper record! How old is this book?”

  “I got it for Christmas.”

  Felix shook his head. “Anyone can build a nightclub. What d’you need – music?”

  “And strobe lights . . . and a smoke machine. . .” I read.

  Felix waved his hand dismissively. “You don’t need all that. Let’s just put a CD player in your wardrobe.”

  “That’s not a record!”

  “Why not?”

  “Lots of reasons!” I never win arguments with Felix. “Clubs are open to the public.”

  “So are we. We’re just a bit rubbish at advertising.” He grinned. “Go on – fetch a CD player. Don’t you want the record?”

  I pulled a face at him. But I went and got the CD player from the kitchen anyway. When I got back, Felix was in my room, peering into my wardrobe. My room used to be the garage, so it’s on the ground floor. It’s pretty big. It’s got chunky blue furniture that all matches and lots of posters: a Spiderman one, one of the solar system, one of Lord of the Rings and one of a wolf that my uncle got me from Canada.

  “Is there a plug?” said Felix, as I came in. He’d got my Maglite torch and was shining it into the wardrobe.

  “It’s got batteries.” I dumped the CD player in the wardrobe and turned it on. “Don’t Stop Me Now” started playing. Felix groaned. I laughed.

  “No wonder we don’t have any customers!”

  “Who cares?” said Felix. “Look. We’ve got music. We’ve got lighting.” He turned on the torch and swirled it vaguely into the wardrobe. “Hey – we’ve even got a moving dance floor.” He spotlighted my old skateboard, propped up against the back of the wardrobe. “World record. What more do you want?”

  I laughed. Felix always makes me laugh. “Look,” he said, “if you still think it doesn’t count, we’ll start our own record. Smallest occasional wardrobe nightclub. I bet no one’s broken that one.”

  “Only because no one would! Who’d set a record like that?”

  “Who’d pogo stick up the CN bui
lding?” said Felix. He was laughing too. “Who cares if it’s stupid? It’s still a record, isn’t it?”

  “It really isn’t. A record is more impressive than that!”

  Felix looked up at me. You could see he was plotting something.

  “Not a problem,” he said.

  These are the new (unofficial) records Felix and I set before Felix’s mum came.

  1. Sam McQueen and Felix Stranger: smallest occasional wardrobe nightclub: The Coathanger Club.

  2. Felix Stranger: most cornflakes eaten in fifteen seconds: five handfuls.

  3. Sam McQueen: shortest time to hop up a flight of stairs (holding on to the banister): forty-three seconds.

  4. Felix Stranger: most times to recite the alphabet all the way through, without mistakes, in thirty seconds: nine.

  5. Banned (Mum): shortest time to hop up a flight of stairs (not holding on to the banister).

  A BLOODY BATTLE

  13th January

  I spent all day today writing about Felix and the lesson and the record. Sometimes, since I got ill this last time, I just get tired. All I want to do is curl up and watch films, or look at a book, or write and write and not have to think. Today was like that. Dad came home early from work, so Mum could take Ella off to buy shoes. It was nice having Dad to myself. Even if all he did was read his book. And then Mum and Ella came back.

  “Home at last!” said Mum. Mum hates buying things with Ella. They always fight. She dumped her bags on the floor and looked at us. “Haven’t you two moved since we left? Sam, whatever are you doing? Writing a novel?”

  I closed my pad. I didn’t want her to see what I was doing. She gets upset, Mum. I knew how upset she’d get by some of what I’ve written. Like the questions. Dad just ignores things like that, but Mum cries.

  “It’s for school.”

  “You’re doing an awful lot of school work all of a sudden, aren’t you?”

  Dad looked up. “He’s done nothing but write all afternoon,” he said. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “If you’re putting that much effort into your homework, don’t you think it’s time you went back to school? That poor woman’s been coming out here long enough.”

  “I like Mrs Willis,” I said quickly. I don’t want to go back to school. The kids all stare and ask questions. Like: “How come you get to go home when you get tired?” Or: “How sick are you really?”

  “Daniel. . .” Mum said, in her warning voice. Ella was staring. Dad shook his head.

  “It’s ridiculous. Anyone can see how much better Sam is now. It’s silly to keep him cooped up here with nothing to do. . .”

  “I’ve got lots of things to do,” I said. “Dad. Don’t. I’m fine.”

  “Daniel. . .” said Mum, again. All of the smile had gone out of her face. “Daniel, don’t start all that again. Please. Not in front of the children.”

  Ella was tugging on Mum’s sleeve. “Mum? Mum? What’s the matter? Mum?”

  Mum didn’t answer. She was looking at Dad. Dad looked sort of guilty and determined at the same time.

  “I don’t think that doctor knew what he was talking about,” he said. “Sam’s doing great. Just look at him.”

  They all looked at me. Ella screamed. “Sam!”

  I put my hand up to my face. It was covered in blood.

  Mum shot this look at Dad, like it was his fault. Which it wasn’t. She came and knelt down beside me. “All right, Sam. Lean forward. There you go. It’s just a nosebleed. Daniel – Daniel – don’t just sit there – go and get some tissues. All right, Sam.”

  I get nosebleeds a lot. I hate it. I hate everyone fussing. Ella being a helpful Brownie, passing tissues to Mum. Mum telling me what to do, like I don’t already know. And Dad. Not moving. Just sitting there. Watching, with this odd look on his face.

  I ducked my head, and pretended that some strong wind had swept right through the house and blown them all away. I stared instead at the drops of blood, still falling – drip – drip – drip – out of my cupped hands and on to the floor.

  And now I’m tied to a pole. This also happens a lot.

  After my nosebleed stopped, Mum phoned Annie. Annie’s my special nurse, from hospital. She’s crazy. She’s got this pink scooter that she rides everywhere. She calls herself Dracula because she’s always taking kids’ blood to do tests on.

  “What’ve you been up to, then?” she said, as she sat down next to me to take a blood sample. I took my T-shirt off so she could get at my Hickman Line. A Hickman Line is this long, skinny tube that I’ve got stuck in my chest. They use it to take blood and give me stuff through. It’s pretty boring, but it’s a pain because it’s always there and you can’t ever forget you’re ill.

  I don’t know what Annie expected me to answer. I thought about everything that was happening – this book, the things Felix and I have started doing, my questions, Dad saying Dr Bill had got it wrong and maybe I was going to get better after all.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  After Annie had gone, things stayed gloomy. What usually happens when I have nosebleeds and things is I get given platelets – I get them about once a week – but before I do they have to do tests on my blood. So while we were waiting for the results, Mum clattered about being angry and Dad skulked at the end of the table, not being sorry. Eventually, he went into the kitchen after Mum. Ella and I could hear them talking in low voices, but we couldn’t tell if they were fighting or making up.

  And I did need platelets. Annie brought them from the hospital just now. They’re yellow and squidgy and they come in a floppy bag, like blood. You hook them on to a metal pole2 and they go in through your line. They’re the bits in blood that make scabs and stop it all running out when you cut yourself.

  That’s all you can say about platelets, really.

  THE FRENCH SPY OR

  THE STORY OF HOW I MET FELIX

  Remember I told you I collected stories, right at the start? True ones are best. This is a true story. It’s the story of how I met Felix.

  It was last year, when I was in hospital for six whole weeks. I’d only been there a couple of days when I met him. It was evening and the whole children’s ward had this dark, end-of-day kind of feel to it. I was lying on my bed with the door open, so I could look into the corridor. There wasn’t much to see. Most people had gone home. I wasn’t reading or watching television or playing on my Gameboy. I was just looking at the fuzzy reflections of the lights on the hospital floor, feeling bored and tired and sort of heavy, when this boy went past in a wheelchair.

  He was a very skinny boy, a bit older than me. He was wearing tracksuit bottoms, a black T-shirt and this black beret pulled down over one ear. It made him look like a French spy, or someone in the French resistance in the Second World War.

  He was acting like a spy too. He wheeled himself to the end of the corridor where the nurses’ station was. Then he peered around the corner, just quickly. Then he reversed back into my corridor. Then he did the same thing again. He must have decided that the coast was clear, because he disappeared right round the corner. But he was soon back, reversing at top speed as if all the Nazis in the hospital were on to him. I sat up in bed, expecting to see someone coming after him, but no one was.

  I reckoned he was putting it on, mostly, because he really didn’t need to do all that forwards-and-backwardsing just to look round a corner. I leaned forward in bed, wondering what he was going to do next.

  And then he turned and saw me looking.

  We stared at each other through my open bedroom door. Then he swept off his beret and bowed to me, as well as he could in his wheelchair. That’s when I saw he’d lost his hair, so I knew he had cancer. I kept staring at him, until I realized he was expecting me to do something. So I bowed back, very serious. Then I looked up quickly to see what he was going to do next.

  He put his finger to his lips to show that I wasn’t to say anything. I nodded. He nodded back, once, and rammed the beret on to his head. He gave me this
sort of salute with two fingers, as if to say, “So long, comrade”, or something like that. Then he turned and struck out for the nurses’ station.

  I sat there, waiting. I was sure I’d see him again.

  He’d only been gone half a minute when he came back, reversing frantically. Only this time he came right up to my room and in through the door. He scrabbled for the door edge with his fingers, caught it, and flung it back.

  The door shut with a slam.

  Behind us, we heard the sound of someone’s bed rattling down the corridor.

  We sat there, me in my bed, he in his chair, staring at each other.

  I went shy. Felix didn’t. Felix isn’t ever shy. I would never have barged into some strange kid’s room without asking, but he wasn’t bothered at all.

  “Phewf,” he said. And he took off his beret and wiped his forehead. Not that his forehead was really sweaty. He was just doing it for effect. Now he was so close, I could see what was written on his T-shirt. It said “GREEN DAY american idiot”, and had this picture of a white hand squeezing a red heart. The picture had all these little lines down it, where it was worn away from too much washing.

  “Why’re you hiding?” I said.

  “I’m going to the shop,” said the boy. He fumbled in the cloth pocket on the side of his wheelchair and pulled something out, fingers curled around it so any stray Nazi parachutists in the corridor wouldn’t be able to see what it was. It was a packet of cigarettes.

  “Where did you get those from?” I said, staring.

  “The machine in my uncle’s pub,” he said. “Only I’m out and I want some more.” He put the empty packet lovingly back into the pocket. “If I can get past them,” – he jerked his head towards the nurses’ station – “then maybe I could get someone downstairs to buy me some. You know, tell them my last dying wish on earth is for a cigarette.”