Brigid Lucy Needs A Best Friend Read Online Free PDF Page B

Granny says. ‘Everything is alright.’
    But Mum and Dad never wake up in the middle of the night unless Matilda or little Ellen is crying. Something is wrong .
    Biddy thinks so too. She opens her bedroom door and sneaks down the hall to have a look.
    I stand on top of her head holding a piece of her hair for balance, my mouth closed tight to see and hear better.
    We peek into the lounge room. Mum is frowning and walking and frowning and holding her belly. She looks sick .
    Dad is saying, ‘Are you alright?’ and ‘What can I do?’
    Granny is rubbing Mum’s back and sponging her head.
    ‘Mum is sick,’ Biddy whispers. ‘But Mum never gets sick.’
    Biddy is right. Mum never gets sick. Why would she get sick now?
    The spell!
    What if, when I stopped the Spell Incantation Song, it rebounded and accidentally hit Mum? Now she is going to get sick and it is going to be all my fault.
    ‘It’s my fault,’ Biddy says. ‘Mum said I would be the death of her.’
    She covers her face with her hands. ‘Just because you want a best friend, Brigid Lucy,’ she says. ‘You did rudeness , and arguing and telling tales to Granny. Now Mum is going to die.’ She runs to her room, climbs into bed and hides under the sheet.

    I want to tell Biddy it wasn’t her that made Mum sick, it was me and the rebounding Incantation Song. But I’m so anxious and worried I can’t move.
    But we can’t stay in the bedroom. We have to sneak down the hall again and again. But no matter how many times we look, Mum doesn’t get any better. She walks and sits. She breathes and leans on the wall. She frowns, walks and sits. She breathes and screws up her face and holds her belly.
    It is so scary that me and Biddy run back to her bed and curl into a little ball wanting to disappear into ourselves forever .
    Then Dad comes in. Biddy closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep, so he can’t tell her off for making Mum sick.
    But he just says, ‘Shh, darling,’ and picks her up and carries her out to the car.
    Mum is in the front seat, but her eyes are closed.

    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.’

Chapter ten
    then a miracle happens
    ‘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,