Burning Eddy by Scot Gardner Page A

I could see white bones poking out of his leg and I think that he is sure to die. I have not a licence to drive a car and it is so far to town. I could hardly lift him. I couldn’t carry him. Ziggy looked up at me and I prayed to Got again, “Got, help my Ziggy,” and I put my hand on his leg and closed my eyes because I think I’m going to be sick, and there was a miracle. Another miracle. Ziggy licked at my hand and in one minute . . . one . . . minute . . . he rolled onto his feet. I thought he will make it worse, the break, so I try to look at his leg under myhand and he licks at me again. I took my hand off and I thought, You stupid old woman, you have put your hand on the wrong leg. This one is fine. No blood, no bones poking out. Nothing. But I turn him around and his tail is wagging because he thinks I am playing with him. The other foot was fine too. Not . . . a . . . mark. And Ziggy walked home. Miracle. Praise Got.’
    I thought she was crazy. Part of me thought she must have skipped her medication or something but another part of me wanted to believe. And God? God was something that lonely people believed in so they could sleep better at night. I’d never been inside a church. Not once. Never been in a hospital and never been in a church. The few times church people have come to our place trying to sell us stuff, Dad has gone right off at them. He swears at them and tells them to bother someone else. Graham and Tina have a sign on their front gate that says ‘No Jehovahs’. Dad has never made a sign. I think he likes going off at them.
    ‘Hard to believe, huh, schat ? I know, I know. That is my experiment. You have your own experiment and I have mine.’
    ‘Experience,’ I said.
    ‘ Ja , experiment. We are different but we are the same. Sometime you will know something or see something and you won’t be able to explain it. There are many, many things from my life that I can not explain.’
    I wriggled forward on my chair, then stood up. I thought that if I didn’t get going on the apple tree soon I’d miss my ride with Tina. The leather beneath my legs hadturned dark with the water from my clothes. I wondered if it would stain.
    ‘Nay. It is fine. Here, sit on the towel. The rain is too heavy for you to work today. Today we talk. Sit. You want coffee?’
    I arranged the towel and sat down. She knew my thoughts long before they’d come out of my mouth. She moved into the kitchen. ‘I’ll pay you to keep an old lady company,’ she said, and chuckled.
    She made me a coffee — white with two sugars — and sat it on the coaster in front of me. Two windmill-shaped biscuits on a small plate. I had never had coffee before. Mum and Dad drink tea. To Eddy I wasn’t a kid. To Eddy I was just another friend. I sat back on the towel and sighed to myself. She was paying me for this?
    ‘So, Dan-ee-el, how old are you? You live in Bellan, ja ?’
    I told her my life story in two minutes. Told her about my grumpy dad and my mum in her vegie garden and my little brother who shares my room. Oh, and Kat. My big sister who lives in another world. Almost forgot her.
    ‘It is good that you have a family. Families break up all the time now. They have forgotten how important it is to bring up kids. The mum or the dad, they go when they get an itch. I feel for the children growing up.’
    I thought about my dad and how I wouldn’t miss him if he took off. It would be like a huge weight off my shoulders. And Mum’s.
    ‘Oh, but you would miss your father if he wasn’t there,’ she said, as if my thoughts had been words. ‘Just because you don’t think all the time the same, doesn’t mean thatyou aren’t good for each other. Sometimes those people that are hardest to be around teach us the biggest things in life.’
    I shrugged and the thought flashed through my mind before I could stop it: how would you know?
    She reached for her coffee cup and slurped noisily from the edge. A hint of a smile hung on her lips.