Mollie + Chester

Chapter Thirteen

The little family car reversed out of the drive-way, Mollie waving from the back seat out of the window, despite the cold frosty air.~
"Bye Chester!" She yelled and Seth picked the kitten up.~
"What about me, your big brother?" Seth yelled back and Mollie shrugged.~
"What about you?" She asked sweetly, her voice now having to drift a long distance to reach the house. Mrs Mocomile drove out of the court and Seth went back inside, leaving the door unlocked behind him. He let Chester jump to the floor and they both made their way up the stairs, into Seth's room.~
Seth's room still held the remnants of his decorations from when he was a child and it was as if as he got older, he covered the things from his childhood without exactly erasing them. Peeling blue and white striped wall-paper covered the wall. Posters cut from magazines were plastered over the wall-paper from a young teenaged Seth and over them, were quotes written in black marker.~
He had a bunk bed, the frame made of silver metal, though the upper bunk had no mattress. Instead, a plank of wood had been placed over the bars and piles and piles of books sat on top. Even the books were stacked in layers of Seth's past, the books right at the back were thin picture books like; Mr Duck Goes to School and towards the front were old hardcovers with gold titles.~
Seth flopped down into his bed, pulling the blankets up and patting the surface until Chester jumped up and curled up in a ball beside him. The boy lifted his pillow up and pulled out a little black notebook with a pen hooked onto the top. He unclipped the lid with his teeth and opened to a clean new page, flicking through all the notes and journal entries and stories he had written. He began to write.
Most people in this world live only for the future. They live every moment aspiring for something bigger and greater that could happen to them, they see their predetermined paths that will bring that to that elusive 'happiness' and follow them, not caring about what is really happening to them in the present.
But without this sort of hope, what would anyone live for? We all live life aspiring to do something. We need to yearn for something, work for something hard until that hard work pays off. And as we reach the moment we worked for our entire lives, we choose another future to work towards.
Cancer has robbed Mollie of this hope. She lives every day of her life wondering if she could die any minute now. She knows that death always happens, that no matter how much we work towards one future, something can always drag us off this path. They may drag us off completely.
Yet, here's the thing. Mollie is not the only one who could be seconds away from death. A person dies every few seconds. Every single one could not have known that death was coming, and that's what keeps away the bleakness of life.
The fact is, without hope, we are afraid to do anything to big in case we wouldn't be able to finish them. They say we have to live in the present and forget about the past and the future, but the future keeps us sane.
Today, for a small moment, hope seeped through the cracks in the cancer and got to her. I know it was just a few words that she just forgot to think about before saying, but I'll take it. She talked about having something forever. She talked about a future that had her in it.
And the times hope breaks through those wall, I see her smile.

I pressed the rusty olden day doorbell on the outside of Toby's house and listened to the crackly but cheery tune that echoed throughout the house. Mum stood unbelievably close behind me, trying to stand on the front step, not on the squishy mud that surrounded the house.
"Daaad, the door!" A girl screamed from the inside.~
I heard rumbling footsteps that sounded like a herd of elephants we coming down the stairs. "I'll get it!" A younger girl hollered.~
"No, I'll get it!" The second girl seemed to be the same age as the other shrieking girl.~
There were more footsteps and the door burst open, two girls who were identical almost bowling Mum and me over.
"Hallo!" They both said simultaneously. "Are you Toby's girlfriend?" The girls looked at each other. "Jinx!" They both said at which caused the fighting to begin again.~
I blushed and half his behind Mum and who looking at the girls as if they were dirty animals at a farm. Their hair was a dark red colour and both had tied random coloured hair ties through making their heads look like spiky brushed. Their freckled faces were smudged with something that looked like chocolate and they wore mismatched wrinkled shirts and shorts. Both had bare feet.~
"Oh, may I speak with your parents?" Mum said and the twins suddenly stopped trying to claw each other's eyes out and ran off in different directions.~
We were left staring at an open door unsure of what to do.~
I felt something nipping at my heels and I turned, finding Pip the duck pulling at my socks.
Mum shrieked, almost as loud as the twins had just before and I laughed at her, bending down to pat the white duck.
"Pip!" I little voice said and now standing in the open doorway was a toddler with a dirty face and hands like the twins and scraggly black hair. "Pip." She said again waddling like the duck over and squatting down next to the animal. I looked at her and she giggled wrapping her arms around Pip and squeezing. The duck just sat there.
"You must be Mollie's mother." Toby's Dad came around from the back of the house, wearing muddy yellow boots and a ripped farmer shirt. He held out his hand to shake Mum's and she took it tentatively, as if afraid she would contract some disease.
Someone tapped my shoulder and Toby had appeared in the doorway standing next to one of the twins. He waved and took my hand, helping me up off the floor and pulling me inside the house, the duck trailing behind us.
Have you ever been inside my house? He asked and I shook my head. Have you met my sisters?
Not before today, I replied.
The front entrance hall led off to the side to another room or led to some stairs which were strewn with books and toys. We went through the arch way into the lounge room which was covered completely in photos. Every single surface held a photo of some sort which depicted either Toby or one of his sisters.
Well, you have met the twins, Sierra and Alana, they are six. And the toddler that walks like Pip is Emma. She is two.
Are there more sisters? I asked pointing at the pictures with older girls in them.
Alora and Marina. Marina is over the watching TV. Toby pointed to the couch which was facing away from us where I could see the top of a girl's head. She held her hands up above her head and signed something which Toby snorted and laughed at.
She says we are being too loud, Toby translated.
She knows sign language?
Everyone knows it here, Mum is like me so we all grew up knowing it.
Marina turned and glared at both of us as if we were running around banging cymbals or something. Toby laughed again and led me out of the room into the kitchen where a woman with dark brown hair like Toby's was cooking. She signed hello and I responded shyly making her smile.
The twins raced past us into the kitchen whining to their Mum about a fight they had while the lady continued cooking, ignoring the fighting girls. She dodged the girls and took a round pan with a homemade pizza on it out of the oven and reached over the bench to slide it onto the thin counter top. She signed something to the twins and they both ran off yelling "lunch is ready! Lunch is ready!" To everyone in the house. Toby's mother gestured for me to sit down and started piling food onto my plate. In seconds the kitchen was full of people bustling around and pushing each other out of the way to get the best seat. The mother lifted little Emma into a high chair and the toddler waved he hands around.
Even Emma knows sign language? I asked Toby.
Yeah, how else is she meant to ask Mum for her milk or a cookie?
A tall red headed girl who looked a little bit younger, but much more mature than Seth sat down next to me and smiled.
"Hi, I'm Alora," she said grabbing the last slice of pizza off the plate. The remaining slices had been piled onto the twins' plates. She was pretty, the kind of pretty that let you win a Miss Apple Bee contest or one similar back in town.
"Mollie," I said.
"I know, Toby does not stop talking about you... Ouch!" She looked down underneath her chair where Pip the duck was hiding.
"Toby! Get your duck away from here!" Alora signed as she spoke and Toby got up, nudging Pip until the duck waddled out the back door.
"Why can't Fluffy come eat with us?" One of the twins, Alana I think, asked.
"Because stupid, it's a sheep. You can't have sheep inside the house," Marina said loudly over her headphone music.
"Sierra!" The eldest girl said yelled, "stop bouncing will you!"
One of the twins stuck her tongue out at her sister.
"I hear lunch is ready!" A man's voice said and I saw Toby's Dad coming in to sit down.
"Mollie," he said, "I talked to your Mum and she said you forgot your medicine in the car." He handed me my little red backpack and I sighed. Just once, I wanted to go to a friend's house and be a normal girl, one of those perfect, well mannered, non-burdensome girls.
"More, more!" Little Emma yelled and Toby placed another slice of pizza onto her plate. The babbling girl stuck her hands right into the food and shoved it into her mouth, missing most of it.
Lunch time at my house consisted of sandwiches on perfectly matched plates and cups at our table where only small talk conversations happened. Sometimes, Mum would invite over some big nose society ladies and they would bring their children who were perfectly dressed and who would sit in the sitting room playing quietly with their dolls or trains and at lunch, they would use spoons and never spill anything.
Yet, the conversations and the sounds of people talking over each other and yelling and clinking forks and knifes of their plates sounded like music. Half way through, the twins decided to start and food fight and loaded their spoons with olives, flinging them at everyone. The little black olives hit me on the shoulder and one hit me right in the middle of the head, but nobody even noticed. Nobody took me into their arms are told the twins to stop because I was fragile. I loaded up my own spoon with an olive and flicked it back, laughing as it hit Sierra on the nose.
Here, I was not precious china, I was just another kid having a food fight at lunch time. Here, there were no rules about which side your knives and forks should be on or which spoon should be used first.
This family lunch was completely different from my own, but it was perfect.