Bethy

Chapter 2

Bethy was scared
That she was losing her best friend

Jasmine was sympathetic to Bethy for the first few months after her mother’s


death. She’d share her chocolate cake or Kit-Kat bar every break.

She’d wipe Bethy’s tears from her eyes if she cried. She’d give her, her silk handkerchiefs

and she’d try to make jokes to cheer her up.
Now Bethy had a feeling she was losing her. Whenever Jasmine saw Bethy trying to wipe away tears she frowned at her and sighed. When Bethy didn’t want to play kickball or tag Jasmine rolled her eyes at her and ran off to play, leaving Bethy alone. If Bethy didn’t hear what Jasmine said because she was too busy thinking about her mum, she would walk off, muttering that she had no mother either and she didn’t whine about it. Sometimes Bethy wished that she could be like Jasmine and let go of her mother’s death. But then again, Jasmine lost her mother when she was a baby and never really got to know her.


On those cold winter days when Jasmine had ran off to play before Bethy came out, Bethy would sit by herself on a cold wooden bench and close her eyes. She liked to remember her mother’s voice, her feel, her touch. If she thought really hard, she could remember her father too. All of them together as a family, before her father left them and before her mother got cancer. Bethy liked to make resolutions as well. She told herself to be stoical and brave, she told herself to behave in class and listen to the teacher instead of staring out the window. Bethy thought maybe is she did this, Jasmine would want to be her friend again, but most of all (even though she didn’t want to admit it) she thought that if she did this, her father would want her again.

Occasionally, Bethy would see a glimpse of the old Jasmine - the one that Bethy had fun with, the one she could tell anything to, and she'd undestand. She could appear anytime she wanted to, but Bethy was scared that she was fading away, fast. On one warm, windy day, Bethy asked her if she was losing her.


“Losing me?” she laughed sarcastically. Bethy nodded her head.

“Don’t be silly…Bethy,” she said, and yet the way she said ‘Bethy’ in that mocking tone was enough for Bethy to realise the Jasmine was no longer the friend that she used to be.

The days were getting shorter now and Bethy often felt her life was meaningless. She had no ambition, no friends, no mum and no dad. She had nobody, except Uncle Al. The wind swept her face as she walked home once more, no more tears left in her eyes.

...

It was a gloomy, wet day when the letter came. The storm clouds signalled bad news...trouble. Bethy came trudging back from school in her too-tight raincoat with her gum boots filled with mud. She fell into the house and sighed, what a day, as always.
"Bethy," Uncle Al called.
"Yes?" Bethy replied, slipping off her gum-boots and placing her coat on the rack.
"Um...I've got a surprise for you,"
"Is it a good surprise or a bad one?" She asked as she walked into the kitchen to make herself and her uncle some tea.
"Well, it matters what you think,"
Bethy placed exactly three teaspoons of sugar and a teabag into each cup.
"Its from someone that you know...or used to know..."
Bethy poured boiling hot water to the halfway point of each cup.
"Someone that you haven't heard from for a long time,"
Bethy filled the rest of the cup up with milk.
"Sweetie its...its"
Bethy walked over to Uncle Al with two steamy hot cups of tea in her hand...
"Its your father."

CRASH!