Read Brigid Lucy Needs A Best Friend Online
Authors: Leonie Norrington
Brigid Lucy Needs A Best Friend (7 page)
At the hospital, Dad makes beds for Biddy, little Ellen and Matilda on the chairs in the waiting room. Matilda and little Ellen are fast asleep but me and Biddy are just pretending.
Mum is in a room. Every time the door opens you can hear machines
beeping
and
honking
.
First Granny sits with us while Dad goes in with Mum for ages. Then Dad sits with us while Granny goes in with Mum for more ages.
Then Granny comes out and Dad goes in.
Then Dad comes out and Granny goes in.
The nurses rush in and out. Their shoes
squeak
as they walk, just like the hospital on the TV where people die dead.
I know all about deadness. There is lots of it in the Great Bushland where I come from. But we don’t have hospitals, so this is a bit different.
Then Matilda rolls over, nearly falls off her chair bed and starts to cry.
‘
Shh, shh
,’ Dad says picking her up. ‘Go back to sleep. Everything’s okay.’ He lays her across his lap, patting her back.
Matilda snuggles back to sleep.
But me and Biddy know that everything is not okay. The weight of knowing it is so heavy on us we can hardly breathe.
We have to do something to stop Mum dying.
Biddy thinks so too. She crosses her fingers, and her legs and
whispers
, ‘Please, fairy godmother, don’t let my mum die. I will…’ She opens her eyes trying to think what she could give up. It would have to be something really big. ‘I will give up a best friend,’ she says. Then she realises that might not be big enough. She says, ‘And I will stop sucking my thumb.’
A panic ripples through her body. But she clenches her fist with the sucking thumb on the inside and whispers, ‘I will
never
suck my thumb again.’
‘Biddy, are you alright?’ Dad asks her.
Biddy sits up. ‘Is Mum going to die?’
‘No, darling,’ Dad laughs. ‘She’s having a baby.’
‘A baby!
Why?
’
‘Brigid,’ Dad says, ‘we told you Mum was having another baby.’
‘But that was ages ago. I thought that was Ellen.’
‘No, this is another baby.’
‘But we don’t need another baby,’ Biddy says. ‘We’ve already got Matilda and Ellen. That is already
too many
.’
Dad laughs. ‘I know, darling, but we’re getting another one anyway.’
Biddy stands up, her face serious. ‘Dad.
It’s not funny. You’ve got to give it back!’
‘Brigid Lucy!’ Dad says shocked. ‘A baby is a
miracle
.’
‘A miracle?’ Biddy asks. ‘You mean a magic miracle? Like a magic spell miracle?’
‘I suppose so,’ Dad says.
‘No way,’ Biddy says looking around for Granny. ‘Granny?’ she yells
‘Brigid sit down and be quiet,’ Dad says in an angry whisper.
‘But, Dad, I’ve got to tell Granny before it is too
late
,’ Biddy says. ‘It was supposed to be a best friend, not a baby.’
‘Brigid Lucy!’ Dad says. ‘Come back here right now.’ But he can’t get up because Matilda’s asleep on his lap.
Biddy knows she should do what Dad says. But this is an
emergency
. So she has to pretend she can’t hear Dad. She runs through the doors to Mum’s room yelling ‘Granny,’ ducking under trolleys and between legs. ‘Granny.’
It smells in here and there are machines buzzing and loud breathing noises.
‘
Waaaah!
’ There’s a baby crying.
Biddy sees Granny’s legs and pulls at her dress.
‘Granny, we made a mistake. We did the miracle spell wrong. We’re not getting a best friend. We’re getting a baby.’
Granny turns around and laughs. ‘Biddy!’ She puts her arm around Biddy and brings her in close.
And there on the bed behind her is Mum.
And on Mum’s belly is a little fat red baby. He is so tiny and red and crunched up with
squashedness
. He is kicking his little legs and arms and snuggling into Mum’s belly.
‘Hello,’ Biddy says.
And the baby opens his little not-seeing-very-well eyes and looks around. He is trying to find where the voice is coming from.
‘This is your little baby brother,’ Mum says, her voice all croaky.
‘Is he
ours
?’ Biddy asks, and reaches out to touch the baby’s hand.
The little baby grabs her finger! Biddy laughs and laughs.
I run down Biddy’s arm to touch him. His hand is warm and soft and he smells so fresh and new, like a just-opened
butterfly
. I love him. I want to snuggle into his softness and stay there forever.
‘So you weren’t sick and dying!’ Biddy says. ‘You mean it wasn’t me “being the death of you”?’
‘Biddy,’ Mum says cuddling her close, ‘you knew we were having a baby.’
‘But I thought…’ Biddy says. Then she realises that Mum was never sick and dying. And it wasn’t her fault. So she
doesn’t
have to give up sucking her thumb. She undoes her fist and releases her sucking thumb. And when she leans on the bed, she holds her sucking thumb right next to her mouth.
Then ‘Brigid!’ Dad calls from the door. ‘Brigid Lucy!’
‘Go on, darling,’ Mum says. ‘You’d better go and help Dad with Matilda and little Ellen.’
Dad doesn’t tell Biddy off. He just takes her hand and they go back to sit on the chairs next to Matilda and little Ellen. They are still fast asleep.
Biddy climbs up next to Dad and gives him a
hug
. ‘Don’t worry, Dad. I think this baby will be much better than the last one,’ she tells him. ‘At least this time it’s a boy one. That’s a difference.’
Dad laughs and hugs her.
‘Can we call him Isolde, Dad?’ she asks then changes her mind. ‘No, Isolde is a girl’s name. What about Isaac? Then he could be a
knight
. Sir Isaac Augustus.’
And we did. We called him Wilfred Isaac Augustus Lucy.
Me and Biddy did miss out on going to the Botanic Gardens. But that was okay because Granny stayed with us for ages and ages and took me and Biddy and Matilda to the
movies
. Me and Biddy and Matilda are kind of friends now because we are the big girls. And it is little Ellen who is the Miss Getting-All-The-Attention little girl and baby Wilfred Isaac who is the Crybaby. So the spell did work for Matilda. And I suppose it did work for me and Biddy too because Biddy didn’t get a best human girlfriend. Me and her just lived
happily
ever after.
Except one day when we visit Mum and baby Wilfred Isaac Augustus at the hospital there is
another
family visiting their new baby. And that family has a girl the same age as Biddy.
They smile at each other. Her name is
Ingrid
. She has long hair. But she doesn’t have a cat. Biddy wants her to be her forever best friend. And she nearly was. But guess what?
Ingrid invites me and Biddy to come to the zoo with her. Well, she just invites Biddy but I come too. We have the best fun. We eat chocolates and ice-creams. Ingrid’s mum doesn’t know about preservatives or food colouring.
And me and Biddy and Ingrid run faster than the lion. And do tricks with a huge orangutan. And we feed an armadillo inside the cage! And guess what? Ingrid’s mum has the
loudest
scream ever. Nearly louder than a slivigool’s. But now, the most splendiferous, fantasmagorical thing in the whole universe is happening. See over there, that big and beautiful lake with a giant fast-asleep-but-not-really crocodile lying on the shore. Well, me and Biddy are going to…
OOPS
… I’m not allowed to tell anyone.
No, I can’t. We will get into trouble.
Okay… maybe later. Sorry, this book is full.
So see you later.
Bye!
Fillikizard dragons—danger rating— tremendously acutely high
Fillikizard dragons are small crocodile-like creatures that have a frill of armour around their necks. They are very powerful hunters. Their back legs spin around like wheels, so they can run terribly fast. They have such huge mouths, they can eat other creatures twice their size. Never try to capture a fillikizard dragon, because they can kill you dead with a blast of their foul breaths from three metres away. If you are too big for them to swallow up, they will slobber all over you and you will stink forever.
Nefariouses
—danger rating—tremendously acutely high
