Tall Story - Candy Gourlay [63]
None of us ratted on Mrs Green: nobody ever needed to know that she took me to her office and helped me pass myself off as a boy.
It wouldn’t have done to rat on our new coach.
Turns out Mrs Green was a fully qualified basketball coach. She signed on as Saint Sim’s Basketball Coordinator and immediately set up a girls’ team. I play point guard, of course.
Bernardo was fine.
All the time, I had thought it was the pituitary tumour. I Googled it once and read a few horror stories, people growing big heads, big hands or big feet because of a tumour in their pituitary gland. And people who grew to seven, eight, nine foot but died before they were old.
But afterwards Mum explained that the operation had not been for a tumour. It had been something else.
‘It was an aneurysm, a weak blood vessel in his brain that was about to burst,’ Mum said, glancing at Dad, who smiled encouragingly. ‘The doctors operated just in time. He’s going to be fine.’
‘But what about the tumour?’
Mum was silent for a heartbeat.
‘Well, they scanned him again, took more blood tests to check his hormone levels.’
‘And?’ Why was she being so blank? I steeled myself for some bad news.
‘It’s dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘It’s a miracle. The tumour is dead. His blood tests show that it has stopped releasing the growth hormone that makes Bernardo tall. It’s not doing anything any more.’
A miracle. My mouth dropped open.
‘What does it mean?’
‘That’s it. Bernardo isn’t going to grow any taller.’
‘Is he going to grow any shorter?’
‘Of course not. He’ll just be eight foot tall for ever.’
And I was glad.
Because I like Bernardo exactly the way he is.
Epilogue
Bernardo
The bad headache didn’t go away for weeks after the operation. But it was no longer the jagged knife turning and turning in my brain. And when it went, it was gone for good.
And the most inescapable fact was that I was alive.
From my hospital bed I could see out of the window to the rooftops below. There were the fields, so green, with the grey rectangle of the asphalt basketball court where I saw Andi play for the first time. Yellow brick houses swept up the brow of a hill. That roof must be Saint Sim’s. Somewhere just beyond was our house. Our home.
And beyond, over oceans and continents, lay my other home.
Mama got me one of those international phone cards and I spent an hour talking to Jabby about the earthquake. He said Timbuktu was selling T-shirts that said SURVIVOR across the chest. He was making a killing.
‘Have you got one?’
‘Of course!’ Jabby said. ‘Even your auntie wears the T-shirt. It’s practically the uniform in San Andres!’
I was afraid that the village would blame me for the earthquake but the fact that there were no fatalities was seen as something of a miracle.
According to Jabby, Old Tibo now says that my power reaches across the world and will always keep our village safe.
I don’t know about that.
Some people might think so. Some people say it was a miracle that my tumour died. That it was a miracle that the people of San Andres survived one of the worst earthquakes the world has seen.
I wouldn’t know.
I am just a boy with a mother and a stepfather and a sister.
That’s miracle enough for me.
Acknowledgements
In memory of Ujang Warlika, the Indonesian giant who only briefly enjoyed his time as a basketball star.
My daughter Mia, who faithfully assures me I am an author when I don’t feel like one; and my sons Nick and Jack, who keep faith with basketball even though they live in the wrong country.
My big little sister Joy Ramos, who told me Ujang’s story.
My niece Camille Ramos, an awesome basketball player, who provided the inspiration for Andi.
To my Huckleberry friend, Mandy Navasero, from whom I’ve borrowed the name Amandolina.
Fe B. Zamora, flat-mate in a previous life, who one late night told me the story of a pretty girl bitten by a rabid dog.
Rachiel de Chavez, whose legal work has helped many