LYLA

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 THROUGH MY EYES NATURAL DISASTER ZONES
series editor Lyn White

LYLA
FLEUR BEALE

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 First published by Allen & Unwin in 2018

Text © Fleur Beale 2018

Series concept © series creator and editor Lyn White 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

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that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency
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Cover and text design by Sandra Nobes

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Lyla_PAGES.indd 5

Papanui High School

North Island
Whangarei

Auckland

Tasman NEW
Sea ZEALAND
Shirley Boys’
High School
Nelson Dallington

Burnside High School Victoria

Dorset Street Square
Wellington Bealey Avenue Swanns
Road
r
Rive Avonside Girls’
Christchurch Avon Park Terrace High School
Darfield
Lyttelton Hagley Park Christchurch
Burnham Pacific Cathedral
Riccarton Latimer Square Linwood
Ocean
Oamaru
N
Phillipstown
N

Colombo Street
School
5/12/2017 2:20 pm

South Island
0 200 km Cashel Street/ Cathedral
City Mall Square 0 1 km
 One

School was out, the sun was shining and I didn’t

have babysitting duty until six o’clock. Hmm, I’d better
remind Shona and Katie not to go home without me.
I grabbed my phone.
Meet you outside GG Block.
Other people called it Main Block but we called it
GG Block in honour of my great-grandmother because
she’d been head girl at Avonside Girls’ a million years
ago. The building was like a symbol of endurance for
me because the big September earthquake hadn’t killed
it thanks to the strengthening done at the end of last
century. True, the whole place was a bit broken and
we weren’t allowed inside until more work was done,
but it for sure wasn’t busted. She was a red-brick, two-
storeyed grand old lady, gracious and tough.
It had survived the zillions of aftershocks since
September, too. Can you call buildings resilient?
Yeah, why not? The whole country kept saying, OMG
those Christchurch people, their city is munted but look

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 at them – they’re so resilient. GG Block wasn’t munted;
therefore it must be resilient. Good logic there, Lyla!
But I was sick of being resilient. In my opinion, the
resilient-sayers should try living here in Christchurch,
City of Shaky Ground. My message to the God of
Earthquakes was: Hey, Ru-aumoko! It’s February now and
you’ve been shaking us for five months. Enough already! Go
back to sleep. Please.
Ugh! Quake memories. Quick! Think of something
else. Yes! Saved by an incoming text from Katie.
C U in 5.
I wandered through the crowd of girls milling
around on the big lawn at the front of the school where
we always met up, trying to decide where to park myself.
Nobody seemed to be in a hurry to get home. A group
sprawled under one of the trees, others gossiped at
picnic tables. Joanne from my class waved me over.
‘Lyla, Mum can pick us up from Swanns Road bridge
tomorrow if you like.’
‘Tell her she’s a star! You sure you don’t want to come
into town with us?’
She shook her head. ‘Love to, but Mum’s dragging
me to the eye-man. I won’t be out of there until about
one-thirty.’
‘Want some help choosing new frames? Just in case
your mum thinks granny glasses are the way to go.’
Joanne’s mum wouldn’t, though. I’d known her forever
because they lived in Linwood not far from us, and she
was one styly woman.
Joanne suddenly looked a lot more cheerful. ‘That’d

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 be awesome! Then I can escape and hit town with
you guys.’
I put the appointment details in my phone.
Katie and Shona appeared only two minutes after
they said they would – a record. Shona was stomping
her way across the grass and venting about something,
judging by the way she was tugging at her frizzy hair –
trying to untangle the hair band from her ponytail would
be my guess. Katie, as always, looked put-together and
unruffled. It could have had something to do with being
constructed along model lines, plus the fact that she
liked her hair to know its place, which was pretty much
always in two long plaits.
‘Why aren’t you at kapa haka practice?’ Katie
dumped her bag on the grass and slid in beside me.
Shona snapped, ‘Cancelled till next week. She told
us that already, just like she told us about no sprog-
sitting.’
I grinned at her. ‘What’s got your knickers in a knot?
Don’t tell me drama sucks!’
She shook her head. ‘No, drama’s great. It’s Greer.
I just wish she’d finish her wretched thesis and go flat-
ting. My sister the stress queen. Take a look at this!’ She
held out her phone.
Katie and I bent over it, shading the screen to read
the text that had thrown Shona into grump-land. Get
me another USB. Urgent!! I’m depending on you. Don’t
let me down.
‘Oops!’ I said. ‘That’s Blake’s fault. He told her
having only two back-ups for something as important

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 as her PhD thesis was just asking for trouble.’ He was
totally OTT about it even though she had everything
backed up on a separate hard drive and another back-up
on a USB she wore round her neck including when
she went to bed. My bro was in his second year at uni
study­ing computing, so figured he was an expert.
Shona heaved a sigh. ‘He’s right, I guess, and I
wouldn’t mind, but that text is so rude. And she threw
a fit at me this morning.’
Katie stood up. ‘We’ll be grateful to her when she
invents some amazing sustainable house and saves
the planet. But for now, anyone fancy a snack at mine?’
That would be yes. Katie lived just across the Avon
River, and Shona and I always left our bikes at Katie’s
house so we could all walk to school together. We took
our time; it was pretty by the river. But when we had to
cross the bridge we didn’t linger – it was closed to traffic
since it got damaged in September but was safe enough
for pedestrians, so they told us.
‘Is Greer worried she’s going to fail?’ I asked once we
were back on steady-ish ground.
Shona shrugged. ‘Yeah. She won’t, though. She’s
been getting really positive feedback from her supervisor.
An eco house-building firm read an article she wrote and
wants to interview her, too. But her thesis is due in really
soon and she’s driving Mum and me crazy.’
‘She’ll calm down once she’s handed it in,’ I said.
Greer was cool. She’d often hung out with the three
of us, ever since we were about eleven and didn’t need
a babysitter but our picky parents wouldn’t let us be on

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 our own. ‘But speaking of annoying things, I’ve got to
move into Blake’s room for an entire week.’
Katie tipped her head to one side in her Query Pose.
‘Wellington grands, or Queensland?’
‘Wellington. It’s Mum’s fortieth tomorrow.’ I was
actually looking forward to spending the week with my
grandparents – it would be perfect if I didn’t have to
share room space with Blake.
Shona, still snippy, said, ‘Betcha Blake won’t be
doing any of the adrenalin stuff you’ve got planned.’
‘Not my bro,’ I said. ‘He says he’s going to take snaps
of the grands’ faces when Mum’s teetering up on the
high ropes.’
Blake wasn’t into adventure, but nothing much both-
ered him either. He was very Zen about the earthquakes,
too, even though the big September one had thrown him
out of bed. He just said that’s what can happen when
you live in a city built above a fault line and it decides to
do a bit of stretching and bending.
Myself, I blamed Twitchy-Earth God Ru-aumoko for
all the damage to my city. You can talk to a god, but
a fault line – not so much.
Katie unlocked her front door. There was a note on
the floor. Katie, be an angel and collect the kids from
school. And if you can find my phone I’ll love you forever.
Neither of those requests was unusual. Katie backed
out the door saying, ‘Make the toast. Unless you’d rather
have yesterday’s bread.’
Her half-brother and sister were five and almost
seven, quite cute and quite loud. There would be the

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 usual mayhem when they arrived home in a race with
Katie, which she sometimes made them lose – to show
them life was a struggle.
She let them win today. We put toast in front of them
so it was almost quiet when we heard the dull roar of an
earthquake. If we’d been by ourselves we’d have waited
to see if evasive action was needed, but we weren’t by
ourselves so we slid under the table with the kids. The
house shook. The five-year-old yelled, ‘Do the turtle!
Keep safe!’ Both of them curled up on their knees, one
hand protecting their heads and the other clutching a
table leg, foreheads resting on the floor.
‘It’s stopped now,’ Shona said. ‘I’m guessing a three
point eight.’
The Christchurch guessing game: what’s the strength
of the aftershock?
The kids guessed five point one, and four point five.
Katie ruffled their hair. ‘Let’s see what the computer
says.’ She checked the geonet site. ‘Shona, you’re
spot on.’
We were all fed up with playing Ru-aumoko’s
guessing game. How many more times was the earth
going to shake?

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 Two

When I got home Mum greeted me with a hug –

and a not so subtle reminder that I’d be sharing with
Blake. ‘I’ve made up all the beds for tomorrow, Lyla.’
‘So kind! But I’m not sleeping in Blake’s room tonight.
Nana Kiri won’t mind.’ My grandmother always slept in
my bed and she wouldn’t mind day-old sheets. She was
very Zen about things, just like Blake.
Mum waved a hand. ‘Fine by me.’
I took myself off next door to my babysitting job.
Henry, aged six, and Leo, eight, weren’t bad kids, but
they were pretty spooked these days by the shaky earth.
Their mum, Natalie, tilted her head towards the boys.
Uh oh, the spooked-kids tilt.
I gave her my competent child-carer nod and she left
after a kiss for each of the boys. She was a receptionist at
a medical centre, and evening shifts were only a problem
when her hubby Don was travelling like he was right
now, doing agricultural advising.
‘Show me where Dad is today,’ I said to the kids.

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 They raced to the map on the wall. Henry plonked
a finger in the middle of South America. ‘Here.’
Leo landed on Buenos Aires. ‘Mum says we can get
out of school and go to the airport to meet him.’
‘Yeah,’ Henry said. ‘He’ll be here in four more sleeps.’
‘How about we make him welcome-home cards?’
It was a good idea – they hardly noticed a minor
shake happening among the glue, glitter and spelling
glitches.

They were in bed all tucked up and asleep by nine

o’clock – something of a record these days. Well done,
Lyla! I was deep into my homework when a text arrived
from Nana Kiri. Would Clemmie like a  replacement
china shepherdess for her birthday? I’ve seen the exact
same one!!!
Clemmie being my mum, who reckoned the only
good thing to come out of the September quake was the
shattering of that stupid statue. For a second, I thought
about texting back She’d be thrilled!! But no, I couldn’t be
that mean – mainly because I’d have to live with Mum’s
reproachful sighs forever after.
Truthfully, not her thing. She needs trainers, size 39.
Keeps borrowing mine.
I added a link to shoes I’d be happy to own if Mum
didn’t like them.
Thanks, Lyla. See you tomorrow. We get in at 2.30.
Remind Clemmie!!! Xxxx
Nana Kiri always said that, ever since Mum didn’t

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 pick them up on time years ago. I forget the reason, but
it would have been a valid one – a gunman on the loose,
or maybe a lost toddler. I could have gone to the airport
with Mum to meet them, but I had other plans for the
afternoon, thanks to school finishing at midday so that
all secondary teachers could have a union meeting.
Go, unions!
Pops and Nana Kiri didn’t usually fly down from
Wellington for Mum’s birthday, but apparently turning
forty is huge. So on Tuesday the twenty-second of
February we’d booked a posh restaurant for a family
dinner in town. The rest of the birthday celebrations
had already been organised by super-planners Dad,
Blake and me, even though my bro and the grands
wouldn’t be doing any of it. They preferred to keep
their feet on the ground.
I often looked at my grandparents and couldn’t
figure out how two such gentle people could produce an
adrenalin junkie like my mum. It was a mystery – and
I knew they worried about her being a cop.
Dad was a trauma nurse in Christchurch Hospital’s
emergency department, so pretty much into the adren-
alin too. And I got Blake’s share of that gene as well as
my own.

Breakfast Tuesday morning with both parents taking

the day off was an Event. Dad made fritters from
the frozen whitebait he’d secretly thawed overnight.
I made pancakes. Blake got out of bed in time to join

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 in the eating part, but I guess he’d have got up anyway
because lectures had started for the year.
Mum opened her present from Dad, Blake and
me – vouchers for a gliding trip and a high ropes course,
although to be honest that was because I wanted to be up
in the treetops on a skinny rope high above the ground.
For a second she just stared as if she couldn’t believe
what she was seeing, then she leapt to her feet. ‘I’m
going gliding! I really am! Wow, you fantastic, wonderful
people. It’s the best present. I absolutely love it!’
Dad leant towards me and Blake to stage whisper,
‘Do you think she likes it? Is she just pretending?’
Mum didn’t even hear – I reckon her head was
already somewhere up in the stratosphere.
Blake asked, ‘So what are you guys going to do with
your day off?’
Dad nodded towards Mum. ‘Jean Batten there is
meeting up with a couple of old school friends this
morning. Some fancy café in town.’
I reached across the table to prod his chest. ‘Which
leaves you free to drool over fancy cars in Fazazz. Right?’
He grinned. ‘I might take a bit of a look. Just for
ten minutes.’
More like ten hours – Dad’d live at Fazazz if he could.
Mum came back down from the stratosphere. ‘What are
you doing with your free afternoon, daughter mine?’
I gave a summary of my plans. ‘Catching a ride into
town. Hitting the mall. Hanging out.’
Mum fixed me with a glare. ‘Who’s driving you?
What type of licence is she on?’

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 Oh, the joy of having a cop for a mother. ‘Joanne’s
mum. Sorry, I should have asked her for a photo of
her licence.’
She patted my head and grinned.
‘But I won’t be biking, so I could use a ride to school,
Mummy dearest, Daddy darling.’
Blake made puking noises.
Dad regarded me across the table, his face wearing
a suspiciously calculating look. I beat him to it. ‘Okay! I’ll
do the dishes if you’ll take me to school.’
He laughed. ‘Deal. And it’s cooler today. Dress
appropriately.’ Dad in Health Monitor mode.
Peace, harmony and happy birthday-ness. All we
needed now to make it perfect was a whole day without
earthquakes.

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 Three

We got to the designated pick-up point just as

Joanne’s mother pulled up. ‘Colombo Street lights okay,
you lot?’
‘Sure. Great. Thanks.’
Joanne spent the trip swivelled around helping to
plan what we’d do once she was free from the eye-man.
Her mother dropped the three of us off at the lights.
I pointed ahead of us to Victoria Square. ‘Look – they’re
putting the Chinese New Year lanterns in the trees.’
We watched for a minute or two before wandering
on to the centre of town where Cathedral Square still
had displays from the Festival of Flowers. A couple
of tourists knelt behind an elephant made of wire and
greenery, trying to get a picture of it with the cathedral
in the background.
‘Sweet,’ Shona said.
‘Lots of tourists around,’ Katie said. We scuttled out
of the way of a Japanese man with a thousand cameras
round his neck lining up a shot of the cathedral. He

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 looked to be having trouble getting the spire and the
rose window in the same shot.
‘I hope they fix it soon,’ Shona said. ‘It’ll be good to
be able to go inside again.’
I laughed at her. ‘And you were such a regular
churchgoer!’
She gave me a shove. ‘You know what I mean. That
cathedral – it’s the heart of Christchurch.’
Katie started walking. ‘Yeah. True. But I need food.
Let’s do it.’
She towed us down High Street until I hauled her to
a stop. ‘Not the food hall.’ I waved my hand at the sky.
‘The sun’s out. It’s a sit-outside day, not a food hall day.’
‘There won’t be any empty benches,’ Shona said.
‘Look around you, Lyla. The whole city’s in town today.’
‘Fine! You go to the food hall. Come and find me on
my sunny bench.’ We kept walking and arguing – food
hall or sun. Sun or food hall.
But we didn’t get to the food hall. We were still
walking down the mall when the world around us shook
itself to bits.

We were used to aftershocks. This time when the shaking

started, for a nanosecond we thought it was just another
one – nothing to worry about.
It wasn’t just another one. The shaking knocked us
off our feet before we had time to panic, yell or think
about what we should do. We huddled together as much
as we could with the ground going crazy beneath us.

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 I don’t remember hearing screaming. I had no breath
for screaming. I remember jagged thoughts – it’s never
going to stop. W   e’re going to die. Stop. Please. Just stop.
But the ground didn’t listen to prayers or pleas
or screams. It just kept on bucking and buckling and
heaving. So much noise. Earthquakes are loud. The
earth shrieks as it tears itself apart. Buildings moan
before they give up and crash to the ground.
This time the noise and shaking seemed to go on
forever. Fifteen seconds felt like fifteen years. And when
it did stop we were in an alien place full of chaos.
For seconds after the ground quieted we waited,
not believing it was over, before we clambered to our
feet. I didn’t trust the ground. I expected it to go crazy
all over again. We looked at each other and maybe
my eyes were wide and shocked just like my friends’
were. I wiped at blood on Katie’s neck with my finger.
‘You okay?’
She shook her head. ‘Yes. No. I’m still alive. I think.’
‘It’s foggy,’ Shona said. ‘Why is it foggy?’
We couldn’t see much through the swirling fog but
we could hear buildings all around the mall collapsing
and dying, their bones shattered. Car alarms and
building alarms shrieked, all adding to the racket.
‘The buildings. They’re falling down.’ Shona scrab-
bled for her phone. ‘I’ve got to call Greer. Mum’ll be
okay, but . . .’
‘There’ll be aftershocks.’ Katie grabbed our hands.
‘Let’s get out of here. Greer will be fine. It won’t help if
you get yourself killed.’

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 Mum? Dad? Blake? Was Joanne okay?
We stumbled along over the uneven road. There
were sirens now. I tasted grit. The white stuff in the air
wasn’t fog, it was dust. I looked around. There were lots
of people.
So much dust. It swirled and lifted in great clouds.
Sheets of paper from shattered offices flew and fluttered.
I couldn’t see up or down the street, but the dust didn’t
hide the destruction on both sides of us.
Katie headed towards the square. ‘Come on.’
It was what we’d been told, time and again: head for
open space away from buildings.
Shona was crying. ‘There must be people under
the rubble.’
The Japanese man? The giggling couple behind the
elephant? How many others? Were they hurt – or worse?
A woman holding a toddler’s hand stumbled along
through the rubble a few steps ahead of us. They were
both crying. ‘Why isn’t she carrying him? She should be
carrying him.’
Shona tried to hold me back. ‘No, Lyla! We have to
go home. Follow the quake plan.’
‘I will. But I’ll just . . .’ I caught up with the woman
and saw she was very pregnant.
I picked her kid up, tears, snot and all. She took hold
of my arm too. ‘Thank you. I can’t . . .’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Eli.’
Eli put his arms around my neck and hung on. Great.
Survive an earthquake and suffer death by toddler.

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 Up ahead, Katie stopped. Her voice floated back on
the dust. ‘The cathedral! The spire’s gone.’
The air had cleared enough to give a view down the
street to the square. She was right. The spire wasn’t there.
It lay on the ground, just a pile of rubble now.
I couldn’t bear to look at it. There had to be people
under those heavy stones.
I led the woman to a bench. She took Eli onto her
lap. ‘Thank you.’
‘Will you be okay? D’you want . . .’
‘We’ll be all right now. My husband – we’d arranged
to meet here at one o’clock.’ She pulled out her phone.
‘It’s nearly that now.’
But it looked as though she was only just holding it
together. Her face was pale and strained. It was the tear
tracks through the dust on her cheeks that got to me.
She shouldn’t be by herself.
‘I’ll wait with you.’ I took out my own phone.
‘The network’s jammed.’
‘Like September.’ I sent texts to both parents and
Blake. I’m ok. You? It could be hours before they got
them and hours before I got theirs. If . . . don’t go there.
The square was a mass of people, ghostly shapes in
the dust. I couldn’t see Shona or Katie. A man stood
near us, his hands over his face and blood pouring down
his fingers. I jumped up and ran to him. ‘Come over
here. Sit down.’
He came with me, as if on automatic pilot. The
woman patted the bench beside her. ‘Sit with us.’
Weird. It seemed to help her, being able to do

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 something for somebody else. He peered at me through
bloody fingers. ‘Thank you, young lady.’
He wasn’t doing a good job of stopping the bleeding.
Even less when he dropped one hand to steady himself
on the bench. The woman took it. She didn’t seem to
mind the blood and she didn’t seem to understand he
needed more help than just having his hand held. I’d
have to do it.
Apply pressure to stop a wound bleeding. But if I put
my hand over the cut, germs would get in. Both my
hands felt gritty from the dust, and they sure hadn’t
been sterile before the earth moved. But he was going
to bleed to death if somebody didn’t do something. The
woman – if she’d had a nappy bag for Eli once, she
didn’t have it now. There was nothing I could use for
a dressing.
‘Move your hand,’ I told him. ‘You need more pres-
sure on that.’ He dropped his hand and blood spurted.
The cut was jagged and it looked deep. Please, don’t let
him die. I pressed my palm over the wound, then wrig-
gled around to stand behind him. ‘Lean back. It’s okay.
I’ve got you.’
At a rough guess he was in his seventies – about the
same age as Grandy. How much blood had he already
lost? I wanted Katie and Shona. We needed help, but
nobody seemed to see us. I looked towards the police
kiosk – it seemed undamaged and people were milling
around it, but nobody even glanced at us.
Eli’s mother was talking. ‘It’s all right,’ she kept saying
to the man. ‘You’re okay. You’re going to be all right.’

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 Another wicked aftershock hit. First the roar, then
the shaking. My hand flew off the man’s head. I was on
my knees, and I wanted to scream and scream and never
stop screaming. Eli did scream. Blood cascaded from
the man’s head. More bricks and chunks of concrete
peeled themselves from high on buildings.
The woman was shouting. ‘It’s all right, Eli. We’re
safe. Don’t cry. It’s okay. We’re safe.’
We weren’t safe and we never would be ever again.
The man moaned. I lurched to my feet. ‘Lie down.
You’ll be safer lying down.’ I almost tugged him off the
bench, slapping a hand against his wound – so much
blood. I tried to wriggle out of my cardigan to make him
a pillow and discovered I was still wearing my backpack.
The woman pulled herself together enough to help me
take it off.
A man running past stopped. ‘I’m a doctor. Let’s
have a look at you.’ But there wasn’t anything he could
do that we weren’t already doing. He didn’t have any
supplies either. ‘Keep the pressure on that wound. Don’t
let him go to sleep. Somebody’ll be along eventually to
take him to hospital.’
How long would it take somebody to come? I didn’t
want to stay. I wanted to find Mum and Dad. Blake was
at uni – I just had to hope he wasn’t hurt, that the shaking
wasn’t so bad out at Ilam. Here it felt like we were on
a trampoline that just kept bouncing.
Katie and Shona would be following their family
quake plans by now. Go home. Wait there. Stay safe.
I should go home too. That’s what I was supposed to

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 do. I didn’t want to be here with a bleeding man and
a woman who might give birth at any second. She
shifted on the bench, wincing. ‘Hey! The baby’s not
coming, is it?’
She gave a tiny laugh. ‘No. I promise.’
Sirens. The throb of helicopters. Cracking followed
by crashing as more masonry gave up and fell. Dust and
grit and sheets of paper.
People walked by, faces blank with shock. A couple
of boys in Boys’ High uniforms ran towards each other,
arms out to crush each other in a hug. Still nobody
stopped with offers of help.
A policeman strode through the crowd shouting,
‘Hagley Park. Go to Hagley Park. Keep going. Hagley
Park.’
I ached to get up and join the tide of shocked, dusty
people walking away from the desperate city. It was cold
now. I wished the sun would come out again. I wished
my cardigan wasn’t under the man’s head. His eyes were
shut. The woman kept talking to him. She asked him
his name.
‘Ian.’ Long pause. ‘Ian MacKenzie.’
‘Don’t go to sleep, Ian MacKenzie.You’re going to be
okay, but you have to stay awake.’
He said something, or it could have been just a moan.
She took it for an answer. ‘Good. You’re doing well,
Ian. My name’s Selina. And this is . . .’
‘Lyla.’
Her husband arrived. He put his arms around his
family. Tears from both of them. He squatted down

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 to check Ian. ‘I’ll get help. There’s triage setting up in
Latimer Square.’ Eli wailed as his father ran away.
Cathedral Square emptied. Eli watched the helicop-
ters. Selina talked to Ian, nagging until he made a noise
in response. I couldn’t think of anything to say to him.
I was so cold. A woman hurried towards us, her arms
full of a pile of white hotel bathrobes. She gave us one
each. ‘It’s getting chilly now.’ She was gone before we
could thank her.
Blood gushed as soon as I took the pressure off
the wound. I slapped my hands back in place. Selina
wrapped the robe around my shoulders and wiped
blood from Ian’s face with it. It made a difference,
being warm.
The ground kept shaking. Selina’s husband came
back with men carrying a door. They lifted Ian onto it
and told me to walk beside him. ‘Keep the pressure on
as much as you can.’
I tried, but blood ran out from under my hand. My
mind kept skipping ahead. Dad would be doing triage
in Latimer Square. Mum would be helping people but
I couldn’t guess where she’d be.
It was only two blocks from Cathedral Square to
Latimer Square – but it was two blocks over broken
roads filled with rubble and shocked people. Aftershocks
kept the ground unsteady. I could only hold one hand
pressed to Ian’s head. I hoped it would be enough.
We got there. The men lowered the door to the
ground. One of them put an arm round my shoulders in
a brief hug. ‘Well done, but you go home now, eh.’

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 A woman bent over Ian. ‘We’ll take over now. Good
work.’ She had an Aussie accent.
‘Will he be okay?’ I could only whisper.
She didn’t raise her eyes from Ian’s bloody head.
‘Hope so. Time will tell. At least he’s got a chance, thanks
to you.’
He had to be all right. He had to live. I stepped
away to look around me. The square thronged with
people: the injured, the helpers and those like me who
were searching for family. The ground rolled. People
screamed.
My parents weren’t there.

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