Tall Story - Candy Gourlay [62]
‘Could you try the Red Cross again?’
Mum sighed. ‘Look, Andi, they’ve got enough on their plates at the moment. Even if I got through, the Red Cross are already stretched to breaking point. They weren’t interested. I really don’t want to call them again.’
‘What about the army?’
‘Andi!’ Mum shook her head. ‘There are hundreds of people who need help. The army wouldn’t have the time.’
Poor Jabby.
Bernardo’s phone was totally silent. No more missed calls. Time was ticking away.
That a miracle had happened in San Andres had not escaped the news. The TV was full of heart-warming stories about the only village to survive the earthquake, every report ending with a photo of Jabby in his Mountain Men kit. ‘Sadly the miracle is marred by one casualty. Young Henry Montano is missing and presumed dead.’
It was not just that Jabbar was Bernardo’s best friend. Bernardo felt responsible for San Andres. In a weird way, he himself had believed he could keep the village safe. I am the blame. If Jabbar was found safe and sound, surely then Bernardo would be free? He wouldn’t have to spend his life worrying that he was responsible for an entire village’s well-being. Because the village would have survived without him.
We had to keep trying. For Bernardo’s sake.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘Call Auntie.’
15
Bernardo
It’s dead, Jabby thought. And I am dead too. Goodbye, cruel world.
The mobile phone battery had lasted a long time. Long enough for Jabby to make twenty excruciating attempts to call me. But always the phone disconnected itself.
‘Why? Why?’ he raged at it. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
And then he harangued the phone, only stopping because his sand-blocked lungs could not summon up enough air for another shout. At one point, the pain in his arms and legs became so intense, he could feel himself surrendering, falling into oblivion. He was tired, so tired. It was tempting to slip away, close his eyes, stop feeling, stop the pain. But he forced his eyes open, even though he could see nothing. If he allowed himself to sleep, he was sure he would never wake up.
He tried praying. Tried to pick the appropriate saint to pray to – the Saint of Lost Causes? The Saint of Calamity? Was there such a thing as a Saint Who Kept Earthquake Victims Alive? But then his mind went blank and he couldn’t remember any saints’ names so he gave up and started praying to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
O Most Loving, Most Gentle Kareem. Save me.
O Most Skilful Larry Bird. Save me.
O Most Powerful Michael Jordan. Save me.
Save me, please.
And then he prayed to God and made the sort of pledges a boy thought worthy of a second chance – that he would take out the garbage for his mother every night, that he would eat the bitter melon in the stew instead of leaving it on the side of his plate, that he would do better in sciences so that he would grow up to become a rich and famous doctor and look after his parents when they were old.
And then he wept.
And when he finished weeping, there was nothing to do but pray again.
That the pain would stop.
That the darkness would lift.
That the phone battery would come back to life.
And then the cellphone lit up again and he thought, My prayer worked! A miracle! But it did not ring or beep.
In fact, it wasn’t the phone at all. He realized the light was coming from a chink in the distance. And the chink became larger and larger and then a shadow appeared.
‘Henry?’ a voice called. ‘Henry, are you there?’
And Jabby spat some rubble from his mouth and replied in a voice that almost sounded like his own, ‘Please, it’s not Henry any more. It’s Jabbar. Short for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.’
16
Andi
We had to return the trophy.
The Colts sniffed around and it was not hard for them to find out that Rocky’s Secret Weapon was in fact a girl. Their school wrote a stiff letter to Saint Sim’s.
The Souls (and I) did five days of detention.
But it didn’t matter.
We won the game, didn’t we? The fact that I