When You Wish upon a Rat (8 page)

That first morning after losing Rodney, she had been the last into the kitchen. Marcus and Paul had already had breakfast and were getting ready for school.

“So when can we go back to look?” she'd asked curtly.

“Back where?” Her mother was sorting through the dishes. “Come and do your lunch quickly. There isn't much time.”

“To the bridge?”

Her mother had sighed as if it were the last thing she wanted to think about.

“Look, I don't know,” she'd said. “Ask your father.”

“Dad?” But he was writing notes to himself at the table. She could see the rows of figures—calculations for some stupid new idea, she guessed—and it filled her with fury.
Couldn't he just give up and go to work like a normal person?
She'd heard him talking on the phone about a new-style yogurt he was developing that
was going to be different from anything else available because it made itself in the tub or something. Not even her mother bothered to get excited anymore.

“Ken?” Mrs. Craze waved one hand in front of his face to get his attention. “Concentrate.”

“What?” He looked up, blinking.

“Ruth wants to know when we'll go back to the river to look for her rat.”

“Oh.” Her father sighed and took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

“You said we'd go soon.”

“Ruth, it doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, that thing is gone.”

That thing? How
dare
he?
Ruth glowered at him.

“But you promised.”

“I know, but—”

At exactly that point, the phone had rung.

It was a short call. Mary Ellen had taken a turn for the worse overnight and they were being told to go to the hospital immediately. After Ruth's mother had relayed the news, she stood looking from her husband to her daughter and then back again expectantly, as though either of them might say something that would make what had just happened make sense. Mr. Craze simply looked back at his wife without speaking, his face devoid of expression.

Mrs. Craze suddenly gasped and put one hand over her mouth and the other arm around her belly. She doubled over as though she'd been hit with a sudden excruciating pain and turned away.

Mr. Craze rose from the table.

“I'll ring Faye now,” he said. “You and Ruth go to the hospital. I'll come by with the boys later.”

Her mother nodded and left the room.

Ruth pushed her breakfast aside, glad that it was taken for granted that she wouldn't be going to school. So Mary Ellen had taken a turn for the worse.
But what did that mean?
She was going to get better because people did
beat cancer
these days, and Mary Ellen, of all the people in the world, simply
must.

On the way to the hospital, Ruth worried about how she could possibly tell her aunt that Rodney was gone. Again and again she tried to string together a few sentences to explain how it had happened.
Marcus and I were fighting, and before either of us knew it or could even think … It happened so quickly …
But how could she tell Mary Ellen that? And yet how could she not! Her aunt loved Rodney the way she did.

Since being in the hospital, Mary Ellen had become even more attached to him, if that were possible.
How is our little guy doing?
she'd whispered during Ruth's last visit to the hospital, the same mischievous giggle in her voice whenever Rodney was mentioned.

Ruth had become so accustomed to the prone, wasted body in the hospital bed that it was easy for her to forget her aunt was so ill. She firmly believed that Mary Ellen would start getting better soon because …
she had to.

Occasionally, Mary Ellen would lie back on her pillows dreamily and her voice would become wistful.
Rats make good use of whatever is around them, Ruthie. They know how to forage and look under the surface for what they want. Life is never quite what it seems … for a rat.

As it turned out, there was no need to worry about telling Mary Ellen that Rodney was lost. By the time they got to the hospital that day, she was slipping in and out of consciousness.
So this was what “taking a turn for the worse” actually meant.
Ruth was totally stunned. It was such a huge change from when she'd seen her aunt only a few days earlier.

She sat back and watched as her mother and Auntie Faye tended their sister. They held her hand and gave her sips of water and turned her over and rearranged her pillows and had hushed conversations with the doctors and nurses. Sometimes Mary Ellen opened her eyes and smiled a little; then she would become fretful and agitated as though she were struggling with something huge sitting on her chest. The nurses would come in then and give her an injection and she'd become easy and calm again.

Ruth's shock gave way to numbness after a while. By mid-afternoon she was not only numb but scared. Her aunt's sallow skin and featherlight frame were things she'd grown used to, but now her skin was as yellow as cheese and weirdly translucent too, like plastic. Every bone in her body looked like a sharp stick trying to push through her skin, and her breathing had become harsh and raspy. Every now and again it stopped altogether and Ruth, her mother, and Auntie Faye would wait expectantly until the air came rushing back in deep, desperate, ragged gasps.

So what was happening? Ruth didn't dare ask. This was her aunt and yet … it wasn't. Someone else was lying in her aunt's bed.
But no … it
was
Mary Ellen.

At one point, Mary Ellen waved her sisters away as though their fussing irritated her and motioned feebly for Ruth to come nearer. Right up close, her aunt's gaunt face became huge, as big as the whole world, the eyes enormous and glittering as though someone had lit bright blue flames behind each one to make them shine. Ruth had the strange feeling that her aunt was actually in some other place, already seeing things that no one else had seen.

“Ruthie,” Mary Ellen whispered as she took Ruth's warm brown hand in both of her cold, thin, bloodless ones. “My wonderful girl.” And then, with a weak smile and a sigh,
“Sorry I won't be here, darling.” That was all she managed to say.

It was then that Ruth finally understood that her aunt was never going to leave the hospital bed and walk outside that room again. That she was never again going to open the door to her flat, smiling, or call out, “Just come up, sweetheart,” from the upstairs window. They would never laugh again about Rodney's conservative political views or his light fingers when it came to chocolate biscuits.
None of that ever again.

Mary Ellen was dying. That's what was happening.
Dying.
Ruth lowered her head onto the scrawny hands that already smelled of some other place, and closed her eyes. When she looked up again, her aunt's beautiful eyes were closed. The rasping, tortured sound of her breathing was suddenly unbearable, and Ruth crept out and sat on the floor near the door outside the ward. She put her head on her knees and let the tears leak out onto her faded jeans.

Very soon after that, her father came in with the two boys, and when they went home, Ruth went with them. In the morning she learned that her aunt Mary Ellen had died in the arms of her two sisters just after midnight and that in the end it had been peaceful.

hand, his elbow propped on the window ledge.

Ruth leaned across him and put her finger up to the foggy bus window. She drew a few circles and then connected them with straight lines. Thinking about Mary Ellen had sent a rush of tears to her eyes. They slipped down her cheeks as easily as water from an overflowing downpipe and dripped onto her sweater. It didn't worry her too much, though. Howard was asleep and all the other passengers were facing the front.
Wet cheeks for a wet day,
she thought, brushing the tears away with her hand.

“It's time to get on with things,” her mother had told her about a week after the funeral. “We have to move on … even though it's so hard.”

“Maybe
you
do!” Ruth had replied savagely.

“You're not the only one who misses her, Ruth,” her mother had replied.

Ruth knew this was true, but she hated her mother for saying it.

They were traveling through countryside now, soft green paddocks with cows and sheep huddled together under trees. The rain continued, light but relentless. They passed over a bridge and Ruth caught a quick glimpse of a brown river. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, blew her nose, and looked around. The man behind her was asleep and the older couple two seats up were leaning against each other and talking. A couple of women a few seats behind her were chattering quietly about shoes.

Ruth felt Howard shift a bit and realized that he was awake; she turned to him and then laughed because he looked a mess. His hair was flattened on one side and standing up all over on the other, and he was still groggy with sleep.

“What were you dreaming about?” Ruth asked him.

But Howard only shrugged.

They got off the bus outside a service station and looked around. It was a question of finding that back road. It had looked easy on the map, but now that they were at the town, neither of them really had a clue which way to walk to find it. The air was chilly, but at least it wasn't raining.

“You kids waiting for someone?” A heavy woman with short dyed-blond hair, dressed in dirty tight jeans and a man's T-shirt,
had walked around the corner from the garage. She stood with folded arms, scrutinizing Ruth and Howard suspiciously.

Howard closed down immediately. Ruth could feel it. He was like a snail retreating into its shell. He mumbled something, shook his head, and began to wander off.

“Howard!” she called after him. How come he was leaving this weird-looking woman to her?

He stopped a few meters away but only half turned around and stood looking at the ground, kicking stones as if nothing had anything to do with him.

“We're not waiting for anyone,” Ruth said to the woman. “Except, could you tell us please which way is Henderson's Lane?”

The woman looked from one of them to the other. “What you going out there for?” she asked eventually.

“I'm …
we're
going to … Happy Chance Bridge.”

“Why?”

Ruth had a mad impulse to chuck something at her and make a run for it. What did it have to do with her? On the other hand, why
were
they going out to the bridge? Their mission to find Rodney seemed more ridiculous by the minute.

The woman grimaced and gave a snotty sigh when she saw that Ruth wasn't going to answer her.

Howard bent down, picked up a few stones, and began to throw them at a Coke can lying some distance away in the gutter. With every hit, a little rush of elation went through
Ruth. She liked the fact that he was a good shot and, even more, that he was ignoring this horrible woman. Howard threw one more stone, dropped the rest back on the road, and began walking away again. Ruth shrugged and then followed.

“Head out to that intersection there and turn left,” the woman called after them. Ruth turned to see one massive arm pointing right. “That road will get you straight onto Henderson's.”

“Thanks,” Ruth called back, then grabbed Howard's shoulder and turned him in the right direction. “Come on, this way.”

“My bet is you're both up to something,” the woman called. “So before you try any funny business … just remember I've seen you!”

Neither Ruth nor Howard said anything or even turned around. Ruth walked stiffly behind Howard along the quiet street, not noticing her surroundings, she was fuming so much. But when she caught up to Howard, she saw that he was smiling to himself.

“What's funny?”

Howard gave one of his short laughs. “
Remember I've seen you!
” He mimicked the woman's tone, making Ruth laugh too.

By the time they got to the intersection, they had begun to entertain each other with stories about who the woman
really
was under her grimy T-shirt. A spy? A policewoman in disguise?
They got their biggest laugh imagining her dressed up as a fashion model in high heels.