Two Weeks with the Queen Read Online Free PDF Page B

away.’
    â€˜Colin,’ said Mum, ‘a terrible thing’s happening and we don’t want you to have to suffer too.’
    What could be more terrible than sending him away?
    â€˜Don’t you understand?’ said Mum, and it was almost as if she was pleading with him. ‘Luke’s going to die.’
    Colin sat on the roof of the shed and stared out over the paddocks. The sun-scorched corrugated iron stung his legs and he didn’t care.
    How dare they, he thought. How dare they give up and let Luke die.
    Did they expect him to believe that they could take a bloke’s heart out and put another one in and sew a foot back on and pull a torch key-ring out of a girl’s stomach and yet they couldn’t cure his brother of cancer?
    Bull
    What about the man in the newsagent’s? He’d had cancer on the head and they’d cured him.
    In the far distance he could see a tiny machine stirring up a huge cloud of dust.
    Did they expect him to believe that modern technology could bring the cricket live from India and make bombs that could blow up the whole world and build a combine harvester like Ian Pearce’s dad’s over there, with air-conditioning and built-in stereo headphones, and yet it couldn’t stop Luke dying?
    Bull.
    They had millions of dollars worth of modern technology down there in those Sydney hospitals, he’d seen it on TV.
    It was the doctors.
    They weren’t trying hard enough. The automatic aerials on their cars were probably playing up and they couldn’t concentrate on their work.
    He thought for a while about going down to Sydney and telling them to pull their fingers out. Then it occurred to him that perhaps the Sydney doctors just weren’t good enough.
    What Luke needed was The Best Doctor In The World.
    I’m going to need some help on this one, thought Colin, someone important who knows the phone number of the world’s best doctor.
    He thought a bit more.
    Then he went to tell Mum he was going to England.

Chapter Five
    On the train to Sydney, Colin tried to tell Mum about his plan.
    â€˜You don’t have to worry,’ he said, ‘everything’s going to be OK.’
    She was staring out the window at the Wheat Board silo, the one Luke always said was a secret fuel dump for MiGs, and dabbing her eyes.
    â€˜Luke isn’t going to die,’ said Colin.
    He was about to tell her the details of his plan when he realised she was still staring out the window.
    â€˜Mum, I said Luke isn’t going to die.’
    She turned to him sharply.
    â€˜Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,’ she said in a loud whisper.
    Colin saw her glance at the other people in the carriage, who had been looking at them with interest. The other people suddenly became even more interested in the black and white photo of the Lithgow suspension bridge screwed to the wall over Colin’s head.
    â€˜I do understand,’ said Colin.
    â€˜Love,’ she said in a softer voice, ‘it’s not up to us.’
    â€˜I know,’ said Colin, ‘that’s what I’m trying to explain.’
    â€˜Look, why don’t you think about all the exciting things you’re going to be doing with Uncle Bob and Aunty Iris and Alistair?’
    Stack me, thought Colin, some people don’t want to be cheered up.
    â€˜Mum, I’m trying to tell you about Luke.’
    Suddenly he found himself being pressed to her shirt, her quivering arms locked tight round him.
    â€˜Don’t talk about it,’ he heard her sob into the top of his head, ‘please don’t.’
    All right, he thought, I won’t.
    At the hospital in Sydney he tried to tell Dad about Luke not dying and Dad asked him not to as well.
    â€˜We’ve got to be strong, old mate, and cop it on the chin,’ he said, his voice shaking.
    Colin looked at his father’s red, bloodshot eyes and wondered why nobody wanted to hear the good