Mollie + Chester

Chapter Eight

Chester watched as Mollie sat at her little table with the mirror covered in photos of smiling family members brushing her hair into different styles and sighing when she couldn't get it right. Clips and ribbons were strewn across the table top along with necklaces and rings of all different colours. She got annoyed when the short hair slipped from her grasp as she tried to tie a tiny plait and she threw a butterfly clip angrily at the reflective glass.~
The clip didn't even leave a mark, bouncing off the glass and landing at Chester's feet. The cat looked from the clip to his owner and saw she had begun to braid her hair again with no more success than last time. Chester nudged the pink clip towards his owner and it slid over, falling off the edge and into her lap. By then she had managed to do a tiny braid and she cheered, grabbing the clip and pinning her hair back off her face.
"It's long enough!" She cried pulling Chester off the table into a hug, a grin stretching across her face. "Finally."
"Oh, are you okay sweetheart?" Mollie's mother asking popping her head around the door. Mollie nodded, pushing the rest of the clips into a pile at the back of her table out of the way and placing Chester down.
"Can you tell Seth I'm nearly ready?"
She rose from her chair, pulling on her pink coat and matching gumboots before wrapping a grey scarf around her neck and pulled on a white beanie and gloves. When she patted Chester goodbye, his orange fur stuck to her covered fingers and she ran off, her feet barely making any noise at all.
Chester watched through the second story window as Mollie and Seth get into the broken down blue car, Mollie animatedly telling her brother something and he laughed. The little engine started on the third try and Seth pulled the car out of the driveway. When it had disappeared in the distance, he set off to find someone to be with.
He bypassed Mr Mocomile's study with the big scary door since Chester had a feeling the old man didn't like him very much, and found the old yellowing kitchen where the food was kept.
Mrs Mocomile was sitting at the big splintered brown table with her elbows on the surface and her forehead in her hands. Tears dripped from her face and made a puddle of the wooden top which soaked into her thin black cardigan.
Chester wound himself around the chair legs and jumped up onto the table but he wasn't told off like usual. Instead, Mollie's mother smiled slightly through her tears and scratched Chester behind his ear.
"Oh, Chester," she said, her voice wavering a bit. "I just wish it didn't have to be her, why is it my sweetheart daughter who is..." She started crying louder and Chester purred to comfort her.
"It's just, I see children Mollie's age running around outside at the park or drawing colourful pictures of rainbows! They are not meant to be acting like adults, thinking about the day they will die." She wiped her eyes with her palms, although it was useless since she kept crying. "This is why parents aren't meant to outlive their children."
There was a barely audible creek from across the room and Chester turned to find Mr Mocomile standing with wet eyes. He walked over to his wife and simply sat next to her taking her hand. She broke down again, tears spilling over.
Her husband squeezed her hand and didn't say a word.

It had been a week since meeting Toby at the hospital and I had talked to him on Seth's laptop every day. It had become kind of a ritual, booting up the old laptop at ten and turning on the webcam where we could wave at each other. Chester would always jump up in the keyboard and rub his head against the screen, typing an accidental message and Pip would sit next to Toby, biting his shirt. That duck was even allowed inside Toby's room where she had her own pink bed in the corner.
I now sat in Seth's rusted old car as it bumped along the dirt road on the way to pick Toby up so we could go to the city because Seth didn't have uni on Saturdays and both Toby and I needed to get outside.
Seth pulled into the little gravel drive way to Toby's farm house and I ran up to the front door and before I could knock, the door swung open and Toby stood with a big smile and his current notebook, his Dad behind him and Pip waddling over.
I said hello in sign language as he had taught me and he laughed coming outside, his Dad following close behind to meet Seth.
While Seth and Toby's Dad talked, Toby showed me the lake with the fluffy yellow ducks and the many sheep that looked like cotton balls on the green field. Pip followed us around the farm, quacking loudly when we seemed to forget her making both me and Toby laugh.
Seth beeped his horn, signalling us to leave and we ran back racing, Toby obviously going slower so I could keep up with him and Pip, obviously not getting memo because she ran faster than the both of us, getting disappointed when Toby's Dad grabbed her so she couldn't jump in the car.
We sat on the threadbare old seats scribbling furiously on notebooks as Seth sung to an old song on the radio I didn't know.
Pip thinks she is a person, I wrote in a purple pen Toby had brought.
Yep, she even tries to sit at the table to eat with us and sleep on my bed under the covers.
How old is she?
Nearly two. I got her when she was a duckling, she was one of the fluffy ducklings that lived in our pond but she kept wandering off and getting lost. I would feed her and hold her in my lap until the ducks came back and she would go off back with them. And then, the other ducks flew away, but she got left behind.
I drew a sad face on the page making Toby laugh.
So now she stays with me.
I wrote down how I found Chester and saved him from Spit.
Chester is a lucky cat.
I nodded. Pip is a lucky duck.
Toby shifted in his seat, leaning on his right hand with the crossed fingers.
Why do you always cross your fingers? I asked.
I always have. My grandma used to do it too, I guess I learnt from her.
But you never even stop, how do you keep your hand like that all the time? Toby uncrossed his fingers and said something in sign language which I obviously couldn't understand. I had been learning a bit in a week but that was only enough time to learn to say hello and goodbye. We both preferred writing anyway.
I stop to do stuff, I just like to keep my fingers crossed. Toby wrote.
But what does it mean? I had never really heard of 'fingers crossed' before, my family just didn't want to believe in luck.
It means hope. I cross my fingers because I need hope.
Hope for what? I asked. Toby shrugged.
Hope for things I can't change by doing something else. Like, I can't do anything to keep my family happy, so I hope. It's like wishing upon a star.
I had stopped believing in wishing upon a star when it had been a whole year where I constantly wished for remission and for my cancer to just go away.
What are you hoping for now?
Toby smiled. You.
I blushed and was trying to think about something to say when Seth interrupted us.
"I had... The time of my liiiife..." Seth sang very loudly and off key. I laughed and poked him in the back of the head with my pen.
"Hey! Don't poke the driver!"
"My ears are bleeding because of your singing!" I saw Seth roll his eye in the mirror but could tell he was smiling.
Soon, a sick feeling grew in my stomach from looking down and Seth had to pull over due to our green faces. We sat on a rotten old picnic table breathing in the fresh air and sipping from cold waters bottles, Seth laughing at both of us.
"Maybe it's not such a good idea to write in the car, guys," he said, leaning over and snatching my notebook from the table surface.
"Hey! Give it back!" I said jumping up to try to reach it but Seth was much taller than me because he was older and because the cancer made me grow slower than normal. Seth flicked through the pages and began to read out one of the messages. Toby had gotten up on the seat and snatched the book out of Seth's hands when he wasn't concentrating.
"Sneaky kids," Seth said when we laughed at him. I sat back down and took another sip from the squashed water bottle.~
The old table was right on the top off little hill covered in green grass and autumn leaves with almost bare trees scattered across the field that seemed to go on forever. The blue sky was trying so hard to poke through the fluffy clouds and in the distance, I could see grey clouds moving together and the slight blur over the horizon suggesting rain. I imagined if this was what it would be like without houses or roads or skyscrapers. Would beauty like this be everywhere?
Something came flying at me and I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the dust and dirt out. When I opened them again, I was covered in orange leaves and Toby was laughing loudly.
He ran off into the field as soon as I stood, leaves crunching under his boots and I scooped up a bunch of dry leaves in my hands, racing after him. My legs pumped, the wind blew into my face and made my eyes water. My chest tightened but I kept going, I was no longer running to catch Toby, I was running because I could.~
Seth came running up behind and scooped me up into his arms, running faster than I ever could after my friend. We caught up and I grabbed onto Toby's shoulder just as Seth tripped over and we all collapsed laughing on the ground, rolling over the soft grass and crunching leaves. Seth put his arm around me and Toby leaned in close on the other side.
Seth moved his arms and legs like he was making a snow angel and both me and Toby did the same laughing.
My beanie had flown off somewhere in the field and the burnt leaves stuck to my pixie cut hair. The blue sky was scattered with fluffy clouds, one cloud held the bright sunlight behind it.
I lay there and thought about the leaves, the sky and anything else. What I didn't think about was dying. Or cancer. Or anything bad.
That was the first time in a long time.