But I’m meant to be going to Jamie’s house tomorrow, my inner-self cried, before I realised that tomorrow was now today, 12.30 a.m. on Saturday morning.

  The doctor turned a chair around and straddled it backwards, his arms propped on the back.

  ‘Alex Byrd?’

  ‘Hi,’ I mumbled, pushing my blankets aside. My rigor had stopped, thank God, and I was feeling hot all over again.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Like crap.’ I tried to smile but gave up. What was the point?

  ‘Got any pain anywhere?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Shortness of breath?’

  I kept shaking my head.

  ‘How about when you pass urine?’

  ‘It stung last time I went,’ I admitted, glad Mum wasn’t there to hear me. She’d gone off in search of coffee, her usual coping strategy for middle-of-the-night crises. We’d done this a few times before.

  The doctor felt my pulse, listened to my heart and lungs, and pressed on my stomach. By then, Mum was back with crappy machine-coffee, and I was having another rigor.

  Rigors are the worst. No matter how many clothes I was wearing, and how many warm blankets were piled on top of me, it still felt as though ice-water were running through my veins. When I closed my eyes, words danced in front of them, like I was in class.

  Rigors = sepsis.

  Sepsis x? = death. Please solve the equation, showing all your workings.

  My eyes flew open. Was I dreaming or hallucinating? I couldn’t tell.

  ‘Well,’ the doctor said, pushing his stethoscope into the front pocket of his scrubs top, ‘your chest sounds fine, but we’ll get an X-ray. We’d better get a urine sample off you, too.’

  Blood cultures, chest X-ray, a sample of urine. Pieces of me, off to the lab, to see where the bacteria were coming from.

  If only I could be back on Cave Rock, sharing moon-kisses with Jamie.

  Within the hour, I was tucked up in bed in the adult haematology ward, AKA the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit. It was my first time in the BMTU. In some ways, it was nice not to be back on the kids’ ward, with the screaming toddlers and clown posters on the walls. On the other hand, the BMTU felt sterile and unfamiliar. The smell was pretty similar, though — disinfectant and alcohol hand-wash.

  My isolation room was HEPA-filtered and under positive pressure, so no manky air from outside could enter. Between my room and the main body of the ward was the airlock, a narrow room where staff and visitors had to stop and wash their hands before entering my room.

  ‘We can set up a mattress on the floor for you, if you like,’ one of the nurses told Mum.

  ‘You should go home. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘A mattress would be great, thanks,’ Mum said, in a voice that brokered no further argument. So much for being an adult. I wondered how old I had to be before Mum stopped wanting to stay in hospital with me.

  And yet another part of me was relieved she wasn’t leaving me alone.

  ‘The control’s here, if you want to close the blind,’ the nurse said, handing a remote to Mum.

  I stared at the darkened world outside my window.

  ‘No, don’t. I want to see.’ I felt like an animal, back in a cage after a long time on the run.

  Once the lights had been turned off, I spun into restless sleep. When I opened my eyes again, it was still dark. I heard Mum’s slow, regular breathing on the floor beside me. The display on my phone said 6.04.

  I sighed, and sent two text messages. The first was to Jamie.

  Sorry, but I won’t be able to come over today. In hospital with suck fever.

  The second was to Nicole.

  I’m in hospital. Looks like I’ll be here for a while. My leukaemia has come back.

  There. I’d told two people.

  And still, it didn’t seem real.

  When I next opened my eyes, the sun was spilling through the trees. From my bed I could just see the river winding through the willows. I sat up and reached for the glass of water that had appeared beside my bed. The mattress beside my bed was empty, the blanket tidily folded and placed on top of the pillow.

  There was a cursory knock on the door and it swung open.

  ‘Good morning.’ A freckly nurse pushed a blood-pressure monitor on wheels through the door. She plugged the monitor into the socket beside my bed and beamed at me. ‘I’m Bonnie. How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I turned, so she could insert the thermometer in my ear. ‘Did my mum go home?’

  Bonnie shook her head. ‘She went to get a coffee. She’ll be back soon.’ The thermometer beeped.

  ‘What does it say?’

  Bonnie held it up. ‘Thirty-six point nine degrees.’

  My heart leapt. ‘So I can go home today?’ Perhaps I could have my weekend of freedom after all.

  ‘Hmm, not sure.’ Bonnie wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around my arm. ‘Let’s see what the doctors say when they do their round. Look, here they are now.’ She nodded towards the basin outside my room, where a tall doctor with very large ears was waiting for Mum to wash her hands.

  After they’d both washed their hands, the doctor pulled a plastic apron over his head. Then he held the door open for Mum, and followed her in. Mum’s usually glossy black hair was rumpled and sticking up at the back, and her eyes were slightly bloodshot. She bent to kiss me on the cheek.

  ‘How are you, honey?’ Her breath smelt like coffee.

  ‘I’m much better,’ I insisted, my eyes darting towards the doctor. I wondered if they’d been talking about me out there, and what had been said.

  Please, please let me go home.

  ‘Hi, Alex.’ He smiled, and offered me his hand. ‘I was talking to Dougal McIntyre about you last week.’

  ‘What a coincidence,’ I said, giving him my best fake smile. This doctor looked a lot like the main giant in my favourite Roald Dahl book, The BFG.

  ‘I’m Tom Yates.’ The Big Friendly Giant, AKA the BFG, released my hand. ‘How are you this morning?’

  I sat up. ‘I’m much better. Can I go home?’

  The BFG peered through the bottom of his glasses at me.

  ‘Your neutrophil count is zero point four. Do you know what that means?’

  I groaned, and slumped back against my pillow. 0.4 was less than the magical 0.5 get-out-of-jail-free card.

  My life sucked.

  ‘So, you do.’ He reached above my head and took a stethoscope off the wall. ‘Any shortness of breath?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How’s your mouth? Can you open up?’

  We went through the same routine as the night before, only in more detail. I knew this routine. It was the same examination I’d had every day of every week for the four months I’d spent in CHOC, the year I was thirteen.

  ‘The urine sample shows you’ve got a urinary tract infection,’ the BFG said, once he’d examined me from head to toe. ‘They found the same bug in your blood cultures, too.’ He sat on the end of my bed. ‘I know it’s disappointing for you, but we’re going to have to keep you until you start your treatment on Monday.’

  I nodded, and looked away. On the river outside my window, a man in a pinstriped jacket and boater hat punted past. My heart wasn’t leaping anymore. It didn’t even feel like it was in my chest.

  ‘Have you got any questions?’

  I didn’t reply. I couldn’t, because I was too scared of what might fall out if I opened my mouth; like Why is this happening to me again? and What did I do to deserve this? and Have you ever been told you look like the BFG?

  ‘We’ll carry on with the antibiotics,’ he said. ‘You’ll have your Hickman line inserted here, on Monday.’ He touched me below the collarbone. ‘There are advances all the time, but the chemo’s got many of the same side-effects as before. You’ll likely feel a bit sick for a while, and your blood counts will get worse before they get better. And you’ll lose your hair.’

  ‘I figured that,’ I said. I’d become a nothing, a nobody — again. I took a deep breath.

  ‘So, what are my odds? No one’s told me that.’ My heart thrummed. Did I really want to know? Well, why shouldn’t I? From the look on Mum’s face, I could see that she’d been through this conversation already, presumably while I was lying under a redwood tree in the Botanical Gardens, watering the soil with my tears.

  The BFG inclined his head. ‘You’ve been in remission for a few years, so I’m hopeful the chemo will put you back into remission. But given it has returned, it’s very unlikely you’ll be cured without a bone marrow transplant.’

  ‘So what are the chances of being cured with that?’ I dug my fingers into my thighs.

  He pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘About twenty to thirty per cent.’

  ‘Twenty to thirty per cent,’ I repeated, rolling the words around my tongue, like marbles.

  The BFG waited for a moment before asking, ‘Have you got any more questions?’

  ‘No,’ I mumbled, avoiding Mum’s eyes. The BFG nodded and stood up.

  ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, Alex.’ He glanced at Mum, then back at me. ‘If you think of any other questions, write them down, so you don’t forget them.’

  ‘So,’ I said, once the door had closed behind him, ‘that means there’s a seventy to eighty per cent chance that I won’t be cured.’

  Mum’s dark eyebrows drew together. ‘You mustn’t think of it like that.’

  ‘Any statistician would think like that,’ I shot back. Mum’s face twisted.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, her voice wobbling, and she walked out.

  Bonnie squeezed my shoulder.

  ‘Why don’t you have a shower?’ she suggested. ‘It’ll make you feel better, I promise.’

  She left the room, heading in the same direction as my mother. My stomach scrunched up like a used tissue at the realisation that I’d made my mother cry.

  My phone beeped, and it was Jamie — a chink of sunlight sneaking into the fog in my head.

  That sucks. Can I come and see you? Literally and metaphorically yours, OG

  My lips curved upward in my first genuine smile of the morning.

  I’d love a haunting, OG. Simultaneously yours, SC

  CHAPTER 6

  HB IS FOR HAEMOGLOBIN

  Dad and Hannah arrived mid-morning. Dad was carrying a large zip-up bag containing some clothes, my phone charger, Mum’s knitting bag and the family iPad.

  ‘What if I want to use the iPad?’ Hannah whinged. She was wearing her hair in plaits, and her mascara was so thick that her eyelashes looked like dead flies’ legs, all matted together.

  I rolled my eyes at her. ‘God forbid you should miss a Facebook post.’

  Hannah pouted. ‘I do schoolwork on that sometimes.’

  ‘Is that what you call it?’

  ‘Quit it, girls,’ Dad said, not looking up from his newspaper.

  My phone dinged.

  Nicole: OMG that’s the worst news ever. Can I come visit?

  OK I began to text, but Hannah chimed, ‘What are the numbers up there for?’ She pointed at the whiteboard opposite my bed.

  ‘They’re my blood counts. “Hb” is for “haemoglobin”, which is like my red cells. If it’s too low I have to have a blood transfusion.’

  ‘Is ninety-two low for haemoglobin?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Kind of. Platelets are what help you clot.’

  ‘Is thirty-one low for platelets?’

  ‘Yes. And before you ask, neutrophils of zero point four is low, too. Can we stop the twenty questions now?’

  Crossing her arms, Hannah slouched back in the armchair.

  ‘Just asking.’

  ‘Well, I’m the one with leukaemia here so you don’t get to be the grumpy one,’ I shot back.

  ‘Girls,’ Mum and Dad chorused. Click-click went Mum’s knitting needles. Last time I’d been treated for leukaemia, she’d made five jerseys, ten pairs of booties and four hats, mostly for friends’ babies. It was an anxiety thing.

  I picked up my phone again. The time on the display said 10.59.

  ‘You don’t have to stay,’ I said, just as Hannah said, ‘There’s your boyfriend.’

  At first I assumed an exceptionally good-looking (or exceptionally ugly, depending on Hannah’s mood) guy was walking past. But I looked up and saw Jamie standing outside the airlock, talking to Bonnie.

  ‘Oh, so this is the Jamie you’ve been spending every spare minute with?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Dad,’ I said, my cheeks flaming. Bonnie walked into the airlock, waiting for the external door to close behind her before opening my door.

  ‘There’s a handsome young man out there who says you’re expecting him?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said, my cheeks hot enough to melt tar. Smiling, Bonnie stepped back and waved Jamie into the airlock.

  ‘He’s very blond,’ Mum said inanely. I suppressed a groan.

  ‘He’s got lovely baby-blue eyes,’ Hannah said, hugging the iPad to her chest. Oh my God, was my little sister swooning over my boyfriend?

  Jamie stepped inside the airlock and stood at the basin, washing his hands. He had a faded blue backpack slung over his right shoulder, and was wearing jeans and a bright green t-shirt. It was the first time I’d seen him out of his school uniform.

  Dad stood up and opened the door for him. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘You must be Jamie. I’m Oscar, Alex’s father.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Jamie said, pausing to shake Dad’s hand. ‘I’m Jamie.’ He smiled at me, and my heart began to spin. If only he’d arrived after my family had left, so I could have had him all to myself.

  Next he introduced himself to Mum, and Hannah, who kept batting her stuck-together eyelashes at him in the grossest way, and then the million and one questions from my parents began. What school do you go to? What year are you in? What subjects are you taking? Blah blah blah. I could have died of embarrassment.

  Finally Dad, bless him, looked at Mum and said, ‘Well, I’m sure you’re dying to come home for a shower, hon. We’ll come back this afternoon, huh?’

  From the expression on Mum’s face, I could see that she hadn’t been planning on leaving anytime soon. Hannah didn’t look too excited either. But they all stood up, Mum asked if I needed them to bring anything else from home, and they left.

  ‘Sorry about the grilling,’ I said, once my family had exited the airlock.

  ‘Nothing wrong with a meet-and-greet.’ Jamie sat beside me on the bed, his hip pressing against mine. ‘How are you?’

  My stomach whirled. ‘I’m heaps better.’ I was glad I’d had a shower and brushed my teeth, because he leaned forward and kissed me. He smelt so good, like apples and sunshine and, oh, there was that musky-aftershave smell again, driving me crazy. All sorts of X-rated thoughts were starting to fly around my head, when Jamie drew back and said, ‘It sucks you can’t come and see my opera mask collection.’

  I laughed. ‘I can’t believe you have an opera mask collection. Aren’t they really expensive?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know. My dad buys them for me when he goes overseas.’ He sprang off the bed and picked up his backpack, which was sitting beneath the TV. ‘I brought one to show you, though.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said, when he sat back beside me, holding a fullface silver mask decorated across the forehead, nose and cheeks with swirls of gold and blue diamantes. Jamie held the mask over his face.

  ‘It’s from Venice,’ he said, his voice muffled.

  ‘What was your dad doing over there?’

  Jamie took off the mask and handed it to me.

  ‘He travels to Europe a lot. He imports furniture, and sells it in these high-end shops in Auckland. That’s how he and my mum split up.’

  ‘Because he travels all the time?’ I ran a finger over the gold swirls.

  ‘Because he couldn’t keep his pants zipped up when he was away,’ Jamie replied matter-of-factly.

  ‘Your dad was having an affair?’

  ‘Affairs, plural.’

  ‘Does he live with you?’ I felt bad questioning him just like my family had earlier. Jamie didn’t seem to mind, though. He sat beside me again and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

  ‘He lives in Auckland. With his partner, Guy.’

  ‘His business partner?’

  Jamie laughed. ‘No, his boyfriend partner.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, my cheeks boiling again. Jamie’s eyes flicked towards the window looking out into the airlock.

  ‘Can we close that blind, do you think?’

  I smiled. ‘Sure.’

  So Jamie closed the blind and sat beside me again, and he told me a few more things about himself, in exchange for kisses.

  I have an older sister, Kristin. She’s at ballet school in London.

  A butterfly kiss, on each cheek.

  My birthday is next week, and my dad’s flying me up to Auckland.

  A kiss on the lips.

  My mum’s from Norway, and she’s a librarian. We have a study with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and a ladder.

  A long, open-mouthed kiss, his tongue touching mine.

  Our hands began to roam. I ran my fingers across Jamie’s stomach, and into his belly button. He trailed his fingers down the side of my breast and kissed the angle of my jaw.

  ‘So many questions,’ he murmured. ‘Imagine what could happen if we weren’t stuck in here.’

  ‘Imagine,’ I agreed, although the thought of that made me a little nervous too, because what if I didn’t know how to stop, and things got out of hand? What if I wanted them to get out of hand? I’d known Jamie less than a week, and he was making my whole body ache, in a good way.

  Jamie drew back and glanced out of the window again.

  ‘Do you think they’d let me take you out for a walk, like in a wheelchair?’

  ‘I’m not allowed out.’

  His forehead wrinkled. ‘How come?’

  ‘My white cells are too low. I could catch a serious infection. It could kill me.’

  Jamie’s face fell. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘That’s how leukaemia kills you,’ I said. ‘You either die of infections, or bleeding.’

  ‘Oh.’ I could see the cogs in Jamie’s head whirring. How could he not know how serious my illness was? But then, how could I expect him to know that?