Hello God Read online

  For Suzy and Tam with love

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Dedication

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Kate calling God. Kate calling God. Come in, God. Where are you?

  Still no word from you, God.

  Hello nobody,

  Dear nobody in particular,

  Hello nothing,

  Hello me,

  Hello God, or Big Boss, or You Who Made All Of This,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  Hello God,

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About The Publisher

  Hello God,

  I’ve decided that you must get a bit lonely up there, so I thought I might have a chat with you each night. When I curl up in bed. I’ll snuggle under my blankets and whisper or speak to you in my head. It makes no difference how, because you’ll know it’s me talking.

  Hey, how does it feel to know everything? Do you ever suffer from brain meltdown? Sometimes our computer breaks down. Dad says there’s too much information in it. That we have to delete the old information we don’t need. A press of the button and that’s it. Do you do the same? How do you decide what’s important and what isn’t?

  In case you’ve deleted any of my files, my name is Kate. No, it’s not short for Katherine or Katrina. I’m just Kate. My parents say it’s a strong and wonderful name, like me, but I don’t feel strong or wonderful a lot of the time.

  I have short, brown curly hair and blue/green eyes. If you saw me in a crowd I wouldn’t stand out, though you might notice that I have a nice smile. Everyone says so.

  I live in a house near the beach. We have a big, bushy garden and Mum plants sweet native trees, so lorikeets can come and eat the nectar. The lorikeets are brightly coloured, and perch on the branches. It’s as if bits of rainbow have fallen into our garden and landed on our bottlebrush tree.

  Our house is a bit of a mess. Mum and Dad say the heart of the family goes into the house, so I think this might mean we have a muddled family. We have books everywhere—on couches, on beds, some even on bookshelves! Our kitchen has a lot of pots and pans, and they sometimes fill up the sink because Mum is busy reading and Dad’s in his office thinking great thoughts. Mum is a collector. She says proudly, ‘Our home is filled with knick-knacks.’

  Do you know what knick-knacks are, God? Well, of course you do. You’re God. Our knick-knacks are lots of brick-red pottery and ornaments of clowns and old houses, and plates that have pictures of small cottages with gardens of roses and lavender painted on them. We also have a collection of small elephants. They are black and white and grey and we have a baby one beside his mother. Our knick-knacks sit on shelves in the lounge room. We have miniature ceramic toilets on the bathroom shelf, seven dwarfs on the kitchen window ledge, and every spare corner of space in our house is filled with bits and pieces.

  My school is just at the end of the street, so even if my schoolbag is full of books and really heavy, it doesn’t matter because I get there in no time at all.

  My dad is an astronomer. That’s a space scientist. Scientists are people who try to find out why things happen. Like how the stars and the moon came to be, and why deep down in the Earth it’s nearly as hot as the sun, and yet our feet don’t get burnt at all. You’d like Dad. You made all this and he’s trying to find out how and why. So you have a lot in common really.

  Mum works in a library. I keep forgetting that you know everything, but just in case you’re busy and her file isn’t up to date, let me tell you. It’s the big library at the shopping centre. Mum’s the Children’s Librarian. She likes everything about books. She says that when you read, your mind becomes a movie set and all the faces and actions of the book characters become real. They frown at you, smile, climb mountains, fly spaceships, and can have green slimy skin. She even likes the way books smell, especially the old, old ones. She says that when you sniff an old, old book, you smell a bit of each person who has borrowed and read it. I’m not sure I feel happy about that. So I sometimes check the books I borrow from the school library to make sure that I like the person who has been reading the book. Some of the kids I know stink, so it makes sense, God.

  I get told a lot by Mum and Dad that I’m lucky. Lucky to be born in a wonderful country, and to live near the beach and especially lucky to have a mum who tells me about all the new books coming into the library.

  But sometimes there’s this business of being a kid, wanting to be liked, worrying about how you look, having the feeling that you’re all alone even when your family is around you. This gets in the way of feeling lucky.

  Hello God,

  School is a heap of brick buildings stuck together with bunches of trees around them. School is a teacher blowing a whistle. School is a lot of kids standing in lines, waiting for instructions, then one following the other into classrooms. School is about learning maths and English, reading and writing. School is a battleground sometimes. Some kids punch. Others use bad language. Some are just annoying.

  A new girl has come into our class. Nobody really likes her. Her name is Stephanie. She tries to make us like her by offering us cucumber sandwiches. Cucumber sandwiches? If you’ve ever tasted them you’d understand. But I suppose you don’t need to eat. Do you? You’re missing out on some good stuff like chocolate ice-cream.

  So, you’re probably wondering what’s wrong with Stephanie. School life in the playground is like playing snakes and ladders. (The board game—you’ve got that name on file, haven’t you?) If you are one of the in kids then you just keep climbing up the ladders. If you are not in, and there’s a kid in every class who isn’t in, then you just keep sliding down the snakes.

  Stephanie has a small mouse-like face and little lips. She has thin, straight brown hair, and she never smiles. She always does her homework, and when the teacher asks a question she holds her hand up straight. She never waves it. She knows all the answers, too. She’s quiet. She’s different. She also eats weird sandwiches.

  She wears glasses, so we call her four-eyes. That’s teasing. I think, God, it’s something you must want us to do, otherwise why would we do it? The thing is that she follows us around. Danielle, Stacey and me. Particularly me.

  What do I do? I want to tell her to buzz off. She’s one of those dorky kids and if I’m seen with her I’ll be a dork too. Then the other kids will pick on me. I don’t want that to happen. I’ve never been really picked on, but I don’t think it would be fun.

  I understand that you’re busy and there must be lots of kids like me telling you their problems. So send me a sign, or something, huh, just so I know you’ve heard me.

  Dad went to a conference in Canberra yesterday where famous scientists talked about pollution. Dad doesn’t just care about the rest of the galaxy, he cares about Earth as well. I thought I’d tell you about that because I know that must worry you a lot.

  I asked Mum today why people do
bad things like mess up the planet. After all, Earth is our home. I asked her about you, too. ‘Why doesn’t God fix things up? Why does he leave a lot of the important things to us?’

  Mum said, ‘Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.’ She sipped her cup of tea for the longest time. Then she said, ‘People have free will. That means they can make up their own minds.’ She said that she believes that you gave people choices, maybe for reasons that we can’t understand, but that you always hoped that we’d make good choices.

  Well, now I’m wondering why you’d give people the right to make up their own minds and stand back with your arms folded (that’s if you have arms) while we mess things up. Wouldn’t it just be easier if you did the thinking for us?

  Hello God,

  Sorry I don’t talk to you every night like I said I would, but you being so busy, I’m sure you understand. Sometimes when I go to bed I just flop like a rag doll I had years and years ago and fall fast asleep. Hey, do you ever sleep?

  My nan has come to stay for a week. She’s sleeping in my bedroom in my bed. I’m sleeping on an uncomfortable blow-up mattress on the floor as far away from Nan as I can get. She snores and makes little whistling sounds. She also puts her false teeth in a glass before she goes to sleep. When the moonlight shines on them they look like a mouth grinning up at me.

  Nan’s not very well inside her head. She forgets things. She lost her false teeth yesterday and we found them in the freezer. We have no idea how they got there. ‘They walked,’ Nan said. When I laughed, Dad was annoyed at me. I don’t know why.

  Once, on another visit, I put one of those fake glasses, the ones with a nose and moustache attached, on top of her teeth and that was the first thing she saw when she woke up. While Nan was having a conversation with the handsome man with a moustache and toothy smile, my mum came in and told me off. A kid’s got to have a bit of fun, don’t you think?

  Hello God,

  I had a real good time after dinner. Dad showed me a map of the sun and planets, and he showed me photos of the planets up close. Mars is amazing. It’s like part of the outback. The surface is red and there are rocks lying around. Nobody has ever moved them since you made the planet.

  A spaceship with robots was sent from Earth just to take photographs of the rocks. I bet you saw that spaceship whirling through space on its way to Mars.

  There were photos, too, of the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. Wow, God, you have a great imagination. And there were pictures of stars, thousands of them. Dad says that new stars are still being born. Maybe that’s why it’s hard to get a sign from you. You could still be exhausted from all that hard work.

  Hello God,

  Nan and I went to the shops today and she bought me a new dress. It was wonderful. I felt like a princess. It’s soft pink and when I swirled in it, I felt so special. ‘You must take care of it,’ she said. ‘You’re very lucky. A lot of children around the world don’t get enough to eat, let alone a special dress.’

  Then she forgot how to get home from the shops, but I knew, so it turned out okay.

  I have to say, God, that I don’t think it’s fair that I have to worry about poor children overseas when I get a new dress. Firstly, what can I do? Secondly, isn’t that your job?

  Hello God,

  Something awful has happened. I’d been noticing for weeks that I couldn’t see the writing on the whiteboard at school clearly, but when I squinted I could, so I just kept squinting, squeezing my eyes together. My teacher, Mrs Kettlesmith, noticed my squinting and said to me, ‘Kate, why are you squinting at the board?’

  I really wish she hadn’t asked that.

  My friends all looked at me and so did dorky Stephanie.

  ‘It helps me see better,’ I said.

  Mrs Kettlesmith nodded and I thought that was that, but she sent a note home to my parents.

  Mum took me to the eye specialist and he put me in a dark room facing an eye chart. There were letters on a board—a big one on the first line, smaller ones on the next, all the way down to little pinpoints.

  I don’t know how anyone could read those small letters. You’d need Dad’s telescope.

  The eye doctor put some weird-looking equipment on and around my eyes. Then he slid little bits of glass through slots in the machine, and it was amazing, God, because suddenly I could read those pinpoints—G, Y, P, R, S.

  Then he said those dreaded words, ‘You need glasses, Kate. You’re short-sighted.’

  ‘But I can squint,’ I told him. ‘I can see clearly when I squint.’ No way was I going to wear glasses. I’d be like four-eyes Stephanie.

  Now, God, I’ve been wondering why you’ve arranged things so kids have to take orders from their parents. I’d be quite happy to squeeze my eyes together forever, rather than wear glasses, but I don’t have a choice.

  The doctor didn’t think squinting for the rest of my life was a very good idea. He said to Mum: ‘Her eyes may change a lot in the next few years and her short-sightedness may get worse. Bring her in for a check-up every six months.’

  That was a complete insult.

  I’ve been thinking that you could fix me up. I mean, you could do it if you really wanted to.

  Couldn’t you?

  Hello God,

  I am totally miserable. I don’t think you truly listened to me. I had to wear my new glasses to school for the first time today. Danielle and Stacey looked closely at me and Stacey said I didn’t look too bad. She was being kind. I told my friends if they called me four-eyes I’d punch them, but don’t worry, God, I only said that. I’m not really a violent person.

  At recess Stephanie came over to me and said, ‘I like your glasses. They’re a really nice shape. They make your eyes seem bigger.’

  I felt a bit hot, though it wasn’t a hot day. I knew, God, that I couldn’t call her four-eyes again. Not ever. I said thanks and watched as she went to the library. Then, though I didn’t want to, I found myself looking at Adam. He was born with this big dark birthmark that covers half his face. We call him mudface. It’s only teasing. It doesn’t make us mean. Not really. But suddenly I realised I couldn’t, just couldn’t, call him mudface again. Not now that I wear glasses. I’d be setting myself up to be called four-eyes, wouldn’t I?

  Are there people on other planets, God? Are they like us? I wonder how we’d get on if we met. That’s hard to think about because we all do a lot of arguing on Earth. Maybe you’re busy sorting out problems on other planets because, even though I keep talking to you, you don’t give me a sign that you’re listening.

  Hello God,

  Today it rained. Little puddles lay in the driveway. I bent down to look closely at the puddles and I saw dead ants there. They must have drowned. Why can’t ants swim? This is just a suggestion, but maybe you could think about it for new ants that are being born. They’re only small and making them able to swim wouldn’t take up much of your time.

  Later, just before the sun came out, there was a wonderful rainbow. Mum and I stood on the balcony watching and you know what, a second arch appeared. A double wonderful rainbow, like a huge bridge crossing the sky.

  I haven’t had any sign from you, but I’ve heard that people believe that the rainbow is a sign that you’ll never get very cross with us and produce a huge flood that will cover the whole planet. That happened a long time ago. There are even fossils high in the mountains that show shells and sea creatures, so we know it really did happen. Dad told me that.

  So, I’m wondering, God. The first rainbow Mum and I saw was you letting everyone know that you weren’t about to send a huge flood. But maybe, just maybe, the second rainbow was for me. A sign. One I’ve been waiting for. To let me know that you’ve been listening.

  Hello God,

  I went down to the beach today with Mum and Dad. Guess who I saw? Well, of course, you know, don’t you. Stephanie was at the beach with her parents and her baby cousin. We sat quite close to them and I sort of waved at her. It’s not a good idea, God, to become friends
with the class dork. It can lead to all kinds of problems. I don’t expect you to understand this, God, you being alone and powerful, but here on Earth being teased is one of the awful things about being a kid. And I know that you know that I’m not really a bully myself. Since I started wearing glasses I don’t call anyone names. Not much, anyway. Besides, two other kids in my class wear glasses. And look at Harry Potter.

  Stephanie’s cousin, who’s about two and screams a lot, ran over to me when I sort of waved. There I was rolling out my beach towel and he threw sand at me. His aunt, Stephanie’s mum, rushed over and collected him. ‘Sorry,’ she said, and before you could say ‘Boo’, Stephanie’s parents and mine, plus Stephanie and her pesky cousin were all sitting together.

  Stephanie was stretched out on her towel next to me. I felt a little awkward. She wanted to know if I had special swimming goggles, like her, so I could see when I swim in the surf.

  ‘No, I just squint,’ I told her. Swimming at the beach was a problem, but squinting helped a bit.

  I asked to see her goggles. They were extremely ugly. She looked like a frog with them on, but she could go swimming without squinting or worrying about finding her way back to her parents, unlike me. She obviously wanted to go swimming more than she cared about the way she looked. I’d have been worried.

  I felt weird after talking to Stephanie. Mainly because she wasn’t that dorky. She talked about her favourite books and she’s read a lot of the same books as me, including books about the stars. Can you believe that, God? Then she said she wanted a telescope for her birthday, and Dad, well, he heard her and before I could say anything, he was talking about space and invited her to our place to look through his telescope. I wanted to jump on his foot. If Danielle and Stacey ever find out, there’s no saying what would happen.