Run, Pip, Run Read online

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2015

  Copyright © Text J.C. Jones, 2015

  Copyright © Illustrations Serena Geddes, 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 922 2

  eISBN 978 1 74343 986 9

  Illustrations by Serena Geddes

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  For A and M

  Contents

  Nearly me Second-Worst Birthday

  Hiding in Plain Sight

  You Want Bugs with That?

  A Place to Call Home

  The Spelling Test

  Peeing and Other Problems

  Mr Blair at The Bean

  A Day at the Races

  Person of Interest

  Right of Reply

  Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

  A Close Shave

  Up to Her Neck in Trouble

  A Long, Cold Night

  Tail of Woe

  The Journey Home

  The Front Page

  Sully's Secret

  In the Nick of Time

  Saving Spiro

  Centre of Attention

  Beginning of the End

  Go, Pip, Go

  Nearly the Second-Worst Birthday

  Pip Sullivan was expecting her tenth birthday to be the best day of her life. She had done everything she could think of to make it so. Instead it was on course to be the worst – except for maybe her actual birth day when she had been abandoned in an apple crate on Sully’s doorstep.

  Of course, Pip didn’t remember her actual birth day, having been just a ‘skinny squawker’ of a baby at the time. This was according to Sully, who said it was mostly best to ‘call a spade a blasted shovel’. Sully didn’t believe in bulldust, or that unexpected events – like the sudden arrival of a loud and smelly newborn baby in his life – were anything to celebrate.

  Not that Pip took it personally. She figured Sully had a right to be cranky. When you’re old and have a cough that sounds like a plane on take-off, life probably isn’t a whole lot of fun. These days, Sully’s old legs barely carried him further than the sagging back porch of their ramshackle cottage at Number 3 Greene Lane, Spring Hill. There he would stay all day, even the cold ones, puffing on his smokes and grousing about bludgers and drongos.

  Most bad habits didn’t worry Pip, but smoking did. Everyone knows that cancer kills, and for Pip, who had no one to look after except Sully, the big C was the biggest worry of all. Sully, though, said he was too old to change his ways, and the words ‘nicotine patch’ made him snort in a way that suggested cancer wouldn’t dare mess with him.

  Anyway, after he had suddenly fallen to the kitchen floor on her tenth birthday, taking Pip’s freshly bought chocolate cake with him, the ambos had said it was probably a stroke and not cancer.

  Pip had called 000, covered Sully with a blanket, held his crinkled old paw for a bit and gone to wait on the front step when she heard sirens in the distance.

  It was actually a police officer who got there first, who said she had been about to drive home when Pip’s emergency call came in. She wore jeans and a dark shirt, and told Pip she was Senior Constable Molly Dunlop. She immediately took charge, asking Pip her name and Sully’s, and giving Pip jobs to do like finding the house keys and Sully’s wallet to take to the hospital.

  ‘Your grandfather is in good hands,’ she said kindly to Pip when the ambos arrived and stuck a plastic thing over his face. ‘It’s just oxygen. Try not to worry.’

  ‘Can I go in the ambulance with Sully?’ Pip asked as he was lifted onto a stretcher and wheeled towards the front door.

  A look passed between Senior Constable Dunlop and the ambos, the kind that meant something bad might happen to Sully so they didn’t want Pip there. The police officer glanced at her watch and sighed.

  ‘I don’t think there will be room. Probably better if we follow them.’

  That was quite all right with Pip. A police car was way cooler than an ambulance, as long as the siren was sounding, which it was. In fact, Pip would have been happy if the hospital had been a little further away than the ten minutes it took to get there, if it hadn’t been for Sully being so sick. She liked the way a police officer could break the speed limit and blast the horn to make other traffic flee to the side of the road.

  It was scary cool and helped to distract Pip from the other sort of scary, which was Sully being so pale and still.

  Riding in a cop car would give Spotty Spiro the rats at Monday morning’s Weekend Wrap, as their class teacher, Mr Blair, called it. At Weekend Wrap they were supposed to talk about stuff that had happened over the weekend, and Spotty Spiro always had plenty to say, most of which he made up, Pip suspected. He spouted a lot of bulldust, probably to compensate for having to repeat Year 5 and for being an idiot.

  On the other hand, Pip never had anything to say at Weekend Wrap on account of never going anywhere or doing anything or having any friends, at least none that she could mention without having to make a visit to the principal.

  Going in a police car with the sirens on without being arrested and on her birthday would, for once, give her something to share that would make Spotty Spiro’s face scrunch up with envy.

  She and Senior Constable Dunlop had to wait on hard plastic chairs while Sully was whisked out of sight on the stretcher. The constable’s foot began to tap impatiently, and when her phone buzzed, she stepped over to the window to answer it. Whoever was on the other end was giving her a hard time about being late for something, Pip figured from the way she was looking at her watch. Probably her boyfriend, as she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Her face looked grim, and after a moment, she looked Pip’s way, said ‘no’ in a hard voice, and ended the call.

  ‘Who was that?’ Pip asked her when she sat back down.

  ‘Nobody,’ Senior Constable Dunlop answered, which annoyed Pip. Why did grown-ups always say things that clearly weren’t true?

  ‘You don’t have to wait with me,’ Pip said. ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  Just then a nurse came over, clipboard in hand, and introduced himself as Peter.

  ‘A doctor is with your grandfather now,’ he said in a musical voice.

  ‘Will he be okay?’ Pip asked. She was used to people assuming that Sully was her grandfather. Sully had told her when she wasn’t much more than an ankle-biter that it was nobody’s beeswax but theirs, which meant that they should mind their own business. Sully and Pip were family and that was all that mattered.

  ‘We are hoping so,’ Peter said. ‘Now I need some details to write down. His name is Archibald Sullivan, is this correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ Pip answered. ‘But he doesn’t like Archibald or Archie. Just Sully.’

  ‘Good. And what is your name?’

  ‘Pip Sullivan. Can I
see him?’

  Peter tapped his pen on his clipboard. ‘I think this will be okay. The doctor was just finishing with him. Come on through.’

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ Senior Constable Dunlop said as her phone chirped again.

  Pip followed Peter down a corridor past lots of rooms with beds in them. She saw some more nurses talking, and a man wearing a back-to-front cape and no undies. Then Peter whisked back a curtain and there was Sully on a high metal bed. Under his grey whiskers he looked nearly transparent and a bit uneven. His eyes were closed and his breathing rattled even worse than usual.

  She went slowly up to the bed. ‘Sully?’ she whispered, laying his wallet and keys on the table next to the bed. ‘It’s me. Pip. You got a stroke and fell on the cake.’

  ‘Had a stroke,’ Peter said.

  ‘Had a stroke,’ she repeated. ‘But then you got to go in an ambulance and I went in a police car which was cool, so it’s not such a bad birthday after all.’

  Sully moaned although his eyes didn’t open, and his left arm jerked. Pip took his hand, which was cold and kind of damp. He barely looked like the same man who yelled like a maniac when their horse was ahead, and who won all his arm wrestles with old Bluey Jenkins down the pub.

  ‘We should probably leave him to get some rest,’ Peter said. ‘You can come back later. Okay?’

  Pip would rather have stayed with Sully, but she gave his hand a squeeze and followed the nurse back to where Senior Constable Dunlop was pacing. She gave Pip a tight smile.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Few more questions,’ Peter said to Pip, waving the clipboard. ‘Who can we talk to? Like your mum or dad, or an auntie?’

  That was a tricky one. In the end, Pip said, ‘Mr Blair. He’s kind of a . . . a friend. I’ll speak to him.’

  Which she would do, tomorrow in class. Just not about this.

  ‘Maybe you could give me his number so I can call him and explain,’ Senior Constable Dunlop said, and Pip began to feel uneasy.

  ‘This will be a very good idea,’ Peter nodded. ‘Mr Sully is in hospital for many days perhaps.’

  At that point, Pip knew her ‘goose was cooked’. This was another Sully expression, and it meant trouble. With Sully in hospital, she would be a prime target for the welfare. She’d been warned about them by Sully and by Ginger, who she knew from the racetrack. He told her that the welfare made kids live with grown-ups who were nuts, like his mum, or who beat them up.

  No way was Pip going to live with a nutter when she could take care of herself just fine. Hadn’t she been looking after herself and Sully ever since his legs started getting so tired and his cough so throaty?

  ‘I need to pee,’ she said to distract the nurse and Senior Constable Dunlop.

  Peter pointed to the men’s, and for the first time Pip realised they thought she was a boy. They weren’t watching her, though, so she went into the ladies’ instead. She didn’t need her reflection in the wide mirror to tell her that being ten hadn’t improved her appearance one bit. She was still as skinny as a piece of string topped with a head of messy brown hair.

  But who cared how she looked when Sully was so sick and the welfare could turn up any minute to cart Pip off to live with some loony? She peed quickly to avoid having lied, and stared up at the window above the toilet. It was small, but so was she – and strong and nimble enough to hoist herself up and out.

  By the time Senior Constable Dunlop got annoyed and came to find her, Pip was long gone.

  Hiding in Plain Sight

  Number 3 Greene Lane was pretty easy to break into but Pip and Sully had never worried about that, mostly because they didn’t own much worth stealing. All you had to do was peer through a window to see that.

  Pip had left the house key at the hospital, but you just had to give the door a thump with your shoulder and it usually opened, as it did today.

  Inside it smelt different, empty and cold and a bit chocolatey due to the birthday cake smeared over the kitchen floor. Grabbing a bunch of paper towels, Pip cleaned it up. A little bit was still on the smashed plate so she ate it, washing it down with Coke straight from the bottle, enjoying the fizz of the bubbles in her nose.

  Pip’s birthday present from Sully sat on the table in old Christmas gift wrap tied with a shoelace. She knew it was a skateboard because of the shape, and because one wheel stuck out. Also because she’d bought it herself from the Salvos, as Sully had been feeling so tired the last few weeks.

  Sitting down on the floor, she unwrapped it, but it wasn’t much fun with nobody to watch and say ‘wow’. Not that Sully would have said ‘wow’. He probably would have said, ‘Don’t get yourself killed on that thing,’ which was kind of the same.

  Upstairs, Pip put it under her bed next to her other special things. There was Bear, who was actually a stuffed dog; a book about a very clever man who figured out the planet was round when everyone else told him it was flat; and the apple crate where she’d spent her first few weeks of life.

  Inside the crate was the thin blanket she’d been wrapped in as a baby and a photo so creased she could hardly make out the woman’s face anymore. It didn’t matter; Pip had long ago memorised the woman’s grey-green eyes, so like her own – and the note scribbled on the back:

  Dear Sully and Em,

  Sorry I was such a disappointment to you after all you did for me, taking me in and all. I can’t face you right now. I’m too ashamed. But I’m going to go away and sort myself out. Then I’ll come and get the baby. She doesn’t have a name yet. I’ll leave that to you.

  Sorry.

  Cassandra

  Pip zipped the picture into the front pocket of her backpack, along with the Barbie wallet she despised. Then she found spare undies, T-shirts, socks and jeans, plus pyjamas and a jacket, and stuffed them inside the pack, along with her comb and toothbrush, and her library book, which was due back on the 19th.

  Figuring Sully might need some stuff when he was feeling better, she packed two sets of his worn but clean pyjamas, his robe and a change of clothes into a plastic bag, along with his toothbrush. She thought for a moment and then included the photo-frame he kept by his bed. Inside was a black- and-white photo of Sully and his Em, smiling.

  As she stood at the bus stop waiting for a ride back to the hospital, a cop car turned into Greene Lane. For a second, Pip froze, before inching closer to the fat man next to her. He gave her a look that said she’d better not try anything on, and switched his wallet from his back pocket to the inside of his jacket.

  Pip barely noticed. Her eyes were on the car as it passed the bus stop and her brain was trying to work out how she could escape if the cops spotted her. There were two police officers in the car, but neither of them glanced at the ragged bus stop line. She relaxed a bit as the bus came, and as she clambered aboard, she saw the cop car turn into the driveway of Number 3. Too close for comfort, she thought, as she paid the fare and settled into a seat. She’d got away with it – this time – but only just.

  At the hospital, Pip kept a careful eye out for anyone who looked like the welfare or police, but no one took much notice of her as she headed for Sully’s little curtained room.

  She pulled back the curtain, and there sitting on the bed staring at her was a boy a bit older than her, his left arm in a cast.

  ‘Oh,’ said Pip. ‘I thought this was Sully’s room.’

  ‘It’s not really a room,’ the boy said. ‘It’s just where they find out what’s wrong with you. If you need to stay in hospital, then they move you to a room.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m Felix,’ he said and shot out his right hand. ‘I broke my arm falling out of a tree but I don’t have to stay here.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Pip, shaking hands. ‘That you can go home. I’m Pip. I’m looking for my friend Sully. He’s old with lines on his face and spots on his hands, and he smells like he was left out in the rain. Have you seen him?’

  Felix shrugged. ‘Maybe. They were taking s
ome old guy out when I came in. It looked like he was dead except they cover your face when you’re dead. My grandma died last year. She was the first dead body I’ve seen. A dead person is called a corpse. Did you know that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Pip said. ‘But Sully’s not dead. He had a stroke, which makes you look kind of weird and you have to lie down all the time.’

  She didn’t want to talk or think about Sully dying, so she was glad when Felix lifted his broken arm a bit. ‘You can be the first to sign my cast if you like.’

  ‘Okay,’ Pip said politely and took the marker he held out. She wrote: Get well soon. Love Pip xxx.

  She peeked out of the curtain, saw the coast was clear, said goodbye to Felix and carried on down the corridor.

  She peered into a couple of rooms, each with four beds. Most had old people in them, either sleeping or watching TV. In the third room, she found Sully, still with his eyes closed. The other beds in the room were closed off by curtains.

  Slowly, she went over to the bed and said his name quietly. When he didn’t stir, she pushed the plastic bag with his things in it under his bed, stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. It felt thin and dry, like paper.

  ‘Sully,’ she whispered. ‘You’re in the hospital. You had a stroke and you have to stay here until you get better. I’m going away for a while so the welfare don’t get me. I’ll come and see you when I can.’

  Under his breath he murmured something she couldn’t make out except for the word ‘Em’. He sometimes called her that when he got confused. Pip thought it was because he wanted to see his Em again, even though she had died a long time ago, before Pip had even been born. It must be nice to be missed that much, she thought.

  Retrieving the bag with Sully’s stuff, she felt around until she found the photo-frame. She pressed it into Sully’s hand.

  After one last look at him, she made her way back towards the exit – just as Senior Constable Dunlop came through the doors looking madder than hell. A male cop in uniform was talking on his phone and hurrying to keep up.

  Pip looked around and noticed a bunch of kids in sports gear groaning and throwing up into bowls. She could smell the vomit from where she was. Yuck! But she had no choice. So she walked over and sat next to one girl whose face was a weird pale green. Copying her, Pip clasped her arms around her belly. A second later, Nurse Peter pushed a bowl into her hands without even looking at her.