Whakahapa, 13

He slumped forward at some time during the night because when he woke in the morning his bum was still on the chair and his head was on the bed. He hauled himself upright, stood and stretched, feeling stiff in every joint. What a dumb way to sleep!

Jeroboam was still sleeping, he didn't look like he'd moved all night. Amos didn't know if that was a good thing or not.

The lamp was out, as in not going, and the room ponged of kerosene. He hadn't turned it off so it must have run out of fuel some time in the night. They'd put up with the smell, opening windows might make the room too cold.

He sat down again to have another, closer, look at the boy he adored. It was so strange that, of all the people in the world, there seemed to be just Jeroboam, Esther and himself left and everyone else had gone. What made them so special? Did they have something that nobody else did?

He didn't know. Life always was a mystery, it seemed to be getting worse. Or, maybe it was getting better? Who knew?

What woke him up? He didn't know but he knew that something had. Then he did know, at at least he thought he did. Something changed in Jeroboam's breathing, some interuption to the regular pattern. His face was still still, but it twitched and twitched again like dreams were running below the placid surface.

He almost missed it because he was leaning forward studying the face, but then he couldn't miss it – Jeroboam's hands, his arms, on top of the duvets, began moving feverishly in small, jerky circular movements.

Amos grabbed his wrists and held them still but he pulled them away and the face frowned and tightened. He grabbed again and held them still. Jeroboam struggled, then stopped and then his legs started moving like he was running. Damm.

Asmos held both of the wrists in one hand and used the other, plus his right knee, to hold the legs still until he settled down again. He relaxed all of a sudden and went on sleeping, so Amos relaxed too. He let go, warily but safely and nothing else happened.

Everything was quiet and he almost dozed off again but snapped awake at a noise from the bed. Jeroboam moaned in his sleep and his head rolled from side to side. It looked like he was trying to speak.

“Oh, oh!” Asmos felt so helpless, he didn't know what to do. Esther! Esther would know; he needed her now.

He went out, across the hall and knocked on the closed door there. “Esther! Are you in there?”

“I'm here,” she groaned a reply. “What's wrong, Boy?”

“Jeroboam. I think he's waking up. He's making moaning noises and I don't know what to do!”

“Okay, I'm coming. Go back and sit with him.”

When she came stumbling in he was sitting by the bed holding both of Jeroboam's hands and trying to keep them still. She came over, felt his temperature, felt his pulse and pulled his eyes open to look at them. They stayed open, full of fear (?), staring at her.

“Okay, My Friend. I think the best we can do is to put you back to sleep for a while. Hold him still, Amos.”

She loaded a hypodermic, lifted it to test for air-bubbles, and then swabbed a vein on Jeroboam's inner forearm with antiseptic. She tossed the cotton-wool away and sunk the needle in. Amos looked the other way. He knew that it was a good thing that she was doing, but he couldn't watch. He almost felt the needle himself.

The patient sighed and relaxed back into a deep sleep. Whatever she gave him was powerful stuff. What did she give him? No, he didn't want to know. It worked, that's all that mattered.

“How long is he going to sleep now?”

“Don't know. Maybe 12 hours, maybe longer. It'll be a while anyway, so we can start sorting what we need to sort.”

“He's going to be starving! Could we fix-up one of those IVF things, to feed him that way? You know, with a bottle and a tube into his veins.”

“I don't think so!” she laughed. “Sorry, Boy, but that's funny. He's not a girl you know.”

“I know that, I've always known that.”

“IVF would do him no good at all then would it? It stands for 'In Vitro Fertilisation' – making babies by fertilising eggs with sperm outside of the body, and I think your church doesn't approve? It's a different thing anyway. What you're thinking of is an IV Drip – an intravenous drip.”

“Yeah, okay. Don't laugh at me. Couldn't we do that then?”

“I'd rather not. We'll try it if we have to, but I'd sooner avoid it if possible. An ordinary injection is one thing, a drip is a bit more complicated and I've never done it, have you?”

“I haven't, but he'll be hungry!”

“You're a typical, teenage, walking stomach. Amos, he's not going to starve. It's not even 12 hours since we found him. When he wakes, if he wakes, we'll give him some of this.”

She picked up a small bottle and read from the label. “An easily digested, high-energy, nutritionally complete, milk-shake style, food supplement for special medical purposes.”

“Eh?” he puzzled.

“It's food in a drink, a complete meal in a bottle. We'll get some of this into him and that's all he needs.”

“Are you sure it'd be enough?”

“It's enough. You could live on this stuff. It'd be a boring diet but you wouldn't need anything else.”

“Good then. Have we got plenty of it?”

“We've got a boxful and there's lots more at the hospital. There's no way we're going to run out.”

“Well good! That's really good.” He looked at Jeroboam and smiled. “But, I . . . I'm going to have a shower now. I haven't had one in ages and I must stink!”

“No, you don't stink, no worse than I do. Have we got water here?”

“There is. The taps are all running normally. There's no hot water though, just cold, so it will be a fast shower.”

“Cold water? Better than nothing, I guess. We'll see if we can't jack-up a water-heating system. Shouldn't be hard. Also, with a generator or two, we can have electricity in here.”

“That would be great! You're very clever, Esther.”

“Yeah, bloody brilliant, except when I'm crash landing. I don't know what you'd do without me.”

“Neither do I. I really don't and thank you for everything, especially thank you for taking care of Jeroboam.”

“Ah! Don't get soppy on me. We do what what we can – it was me who ran him over, remember?”

“It was an accident!”

They spent the day cleaning up and improving their bivouac, going out 'shopping' one at a time. Jeroboam just slept but he was never left alone.

Mid-afternoon, Esther came back in, said that she'd started a car out in the street, she would take that now to the hospital and exchange it for her ute. She'd be back in an hour or so and would Amos be okay here?

He hoped he would and told her to be sure to hurry back.

“I'll be back,” she sighed. “Don't trust me, do you? Do you trust any girls?”

“Of course I do. Your being a girl has got nothing to do with it, I'm just worried, that's all. He really, really needs you. If it was just me he'd probably die.”

“I see. Nothing to do with my being a girl then?”

“Of course not! My mother's name is Esther, did I tell you that?”

“I don't think you did. But I'm not your mother.”

“I know that. I used to rely on her too, when I was little. You are my friend, aren't you?”

“I guess so. I'm your friend, for now. Don't get too dependent on me because I'm still going to fly away one of these days. Once our patient is stabilised and recovering, I'll be gone.”

“But you said you're coming back. You are still going to come back, aren't you?”

“I am, if I can. Who knows what will happen? I might crash-land again.”

“Let's hope not. Elder Bethuel, he was our schoolmaster, he always said, 'Once is a learning experience, twice is an error and culpable'.”

“I'll try not to make an error then. I won't be going for a day or two yet. I'm going to the hospital now, for my ute. Don't you dare shoot at me when I come back.”

“I won't. I promise.”

She wasn't gone long but he worried anyway. Jeroboam kept sleeping, that was good, wasn't it? Amos sat by him, smoothing his hair and dabbing his face with a wet towel.

Outside, the weather was turning sour again. Gray/white clouds covered the sky and were reflected in the broken surface of the harbour. The wind was getting up, it was going to be a rough night. Good that they were safely indoors. Where was Esther?

Shouldn't she be back by now? It had been well over an hour, hadn't it?

She returned and she was so happy he forgot to growl like he was going to. She'd recovered her ute and been to a library and found some great, detailed, maps of the city and of the whole country too!

Soon she'd go to the airfield and select another microlight, but probably not until both boys could go with her. Also, she'd seen some more pigeons flying around. “Trust the bloody pigeons to survive.”

Amos was hereby appointed chief cook and bottle washer for tonight. She'd sit and study the maps while she was waiting for her meal to be served. Amos said, sure he'd cook and she should remember that he was not as good at it as she was. Esther shrugged and told him that he needed more practice then.

He cooked – spam, scrambled eggs and broccoli. An unlikely combination, but good enough. After eating they sat and talked. Esther had a glass of wine, Amos had fruit juice.

“I wish he'd wake up.” Amos looked at their sleeping patient.

“You sure about that? He might be hurting when he does.”

“Well, no I don't want that. But we could give him some more pain-killers.”

“And knock him out again? We'll see how he is when he wakes.”

“All things considered, he feels pretty good really,” said a quiet voice at the other side of the room.