Hello God Read Online Free PDF Page B

only a teeny bit jealous, God, that he prefers Steph, hic .
    Adam’s more like me. He runs around, finds trees to climb, pulls things apart to see what makes them work. Talks quickly. Interrupts everyone. Wants to be an astronaut. He’s fun.
    Danielle and Stacey are okay. They didn’t have a bad attitude all camp, and it’s a relief really. They acted like we’d always been good, though not best, friends. Maybe they’re over the teasing. Maybe that’s what happens to most of us sooner or later. If you were to keep teasing forever, you’d grow up into a nasty kind of adult. You’d start wars and all kinds of things.

Hello God,
    Something amazing has happened. Mrs Kettlesmith came to the library while Steph was telling her story about the bear and the pussycat and she’s asked her to enter it into the Best Young Australian Writers’ Competition. First prize is a chance to present the story to a publisher, and wow, that means Stephanie’s story might be in a book in a library some time.
    So Steph now spends a fair bit of time in her tree house writing and thinking. She doesn’t mind if I’m there. I feed the lorikeets and watch the topsof houses, and I take along the binoculars from home and spy on people. Then when Steph has a break from her writing, we talk and play board games and today we spoke about Matt.
    I told Steph that Matt really likes her. As in, really likes her. I could tell by the way he looks at her and then quickly turns away. It was a sure sign.
    Steph was puzzled. Why would the class hunk be interested in her ?
    So I told her she had great eyes, lovely skin and a wonderful smile, plus she’s smart and thoughtful. She does have great eyes and she smiles more nowadays, a big open smile, and her skin is very clear though pale.
    Then, God, Steph told me that Adam likes me. That maybe half the boys in the class like me. That I have hair like brown popcorn, that my glasses make my eyes look bigger and that I have the cheekiest grin. While I felt like a peacock, preening myself, Steph said she was getting her blood tests done tomorrow.
    I felt a wave of panic, an emptiness in my stomach. I asked her if she was okay and then hiccupped.
    Sure she was, she told me, and then went back to writing her story.
    I wanted to know what adventures the bears and the pussycat would have next. Would the pussycat find its way home?
    Steph just grinned and told me to wait until she’d finished.
    Sharmi, the smallest bear cub, saw that the small cat couldn’t catch food easily and needed more attention from his mother than the other cubs. He didn’t care that the little cat was different. They were friends.

Hello God,
    There was something wrong. You knew all along, didn’t you? So why let me down? Why let me hope everything was okay?
    Steph was taken to hospital last night.
    Mum told me when I got home from school today. Her face was serious when she talked to me and she didn’t pat her baby bump once.
    We sat at the kitchen table, and Mum poured me some chocolate milk.
    She told me in a quiet voice that Stephanie was very sick. I was shocked, yet a part of me knewthat Steph wasn’t getting better. I asked Mum what she meant. I’d seen Steph after school just yesterday. She’d been off school for a few days after her tests, so I visited her at home. She couldn’t climb up the rope ladder to her tree house, so she wrote her story lying back on her bed while I read, and in between we talked and laughed. She seemed okay then. A bit tired, but she’d had a bad dose of the flu, hadn’t she?
    Mum could see that I was upset. ‘How bad is she?’ I asked. ‘How bad?’
    Mum took my hand. She stroked it. She told me, God, that Steph has cancer. She’s in hospital having treatment, and they’re doing everything they can to make her better.
    I wanted to say something important, God, but nothing came out of my mouth except for a long hiccup.
    I thumped my hand on the table. Some of the chocolate milk spilt. Mum and