JohnnyBGood says I’m always the lucky one, because my Seven Day was the day that we didn’t all die.
It sounds good when JohnnyBGood tells it. Other times, I don’t always feel lucky. But mostalmost important, JohnnyBGood says he counts on me; today he says I needs to tell you too so it’s all truth and remembers.
I like truth as much as I like lucky. So here’s the thing, little kids, and don’t you interrupt, then you can do the remembers next, OK?
It was Big Bang 2.0 came and left us, on the night of the day I was seven. It was Big Bang 2.0 that came and took the Olders on the five of October when it was ten years ago. It was Big Bang 2.0 that took and left, and twisted and turned, and lifted and flattened; and everything was changed by 2.0.
You doing the remembers? Good. So listen more, little kids.
We were Littlers then, we lay low in the old PrimSchool shelter, the night of the day I turned seven. We were twenty-seven Littler kids, but JohnnyBGood was 17, a Bigger and only he was set to care for us when the OldersNotBetters went away. So now everyone’s Seventeen Day is the day you get to be a Dult because it was big enough for JohnnyBGood to know the book and make the plan. You do the remembers of this, I know you do. It’s in the new picture room, isn’t it. Us twenty-seven, names and ages on the wall. Yes.
And the end day of Littler girl Sally who died in a month, and of Littler boys Cale and Simon who died in a year, and the others too afterwards. Big Bang 2.0 made the changes. We were twenty-seven, and then we were 20 Littlers and one Bigger who was JohnnyBGood.
So we hid for a night and cried for our mams, and we hid two nights and cried for our dads, and we hid four nights and cried for ourselves. But JohnnyBGood was good, and he found us a door and he found us the book and a bit of a book, when all the world was flat and crooked and the Olders were all burned and gone. And he found the bit of food and the bit of water. And then we made the food grow tidy in the ground, and we found the lucky hidden-n-found-again chooks to grow eggs, and we all worked like Biggers – just like you Littler kids will do one day – only we had to wait to learn it, and it was hard with all the world flattened and only the learning of the world in a book and a bit of a book.
So JohnnyBGood had the care of us all, and he did the care for years and years over the hot sunner and the cold winner; and you never get the bad thirsties in sunner, nor the bad hungries in winner, like we did that first year. And that is thanks to JohnnyBGood and his lists and book and a bit of a book.
Now I know some of you do the remembers of JohnnyOtherJohnny came one day, banging his head and saying “3.0 is coming, 3.0 is coming”. Well let me remember you that was the mistake of JohnnyOtherJohnny, and don’t you think of it, because JohnnyBGood says it never can be any 3.0 because it was the OldersNotBetters what made the 2.0 and it burned them all away. And we don’t have the 2.0 book namore, nor ever was there any 3.0 book, so you Littler kids will grow up safe and soundslike, so don’t you need do that remember.
Ok? Right?
Anyway, so your parents, your each ma and your each da, were all Littler kids then, right? Like you are now. And we grew and we worked, and we built the PrimSchool for our remembers and our learns. And we built the Loos and the Caffy and the Rooms4 and eventually we were A-OK and no-one got the winner hungries. So when we’d grown a bit of a bit and there was good food and good chooks, JohnnyBGood said we could be a Dult at 17 (cos we don’t want namore OldersNotBetters!) and do the babies, and he listed it in a book, and here you kids are!
So now I’m coming to be 17 and I’ll go into JohnnyBGood’s list with a girl, and I know who I hope it will be. No, I ain’t telling you Littler kids so stop and listen. And now you do the remembers how I learned to song and make up singings? And we did bang and clap and sung when you were hardly Littlers but mostalmost babies? Well, I gotta tell you this new remember, ok?
So it’s soon my 17 Day. It’s my special lucky day, and I wanted a big special to give to JohnnyBGood for a Thankyou, and also to say “Here I am a big Dult now, too”. And then I had the remember of the Last Car Gone, for it had the biggest special. It had our Prayer. You don’t never hear that cos you still too Littlers but let me tell you the remember of the Last Car Gone.
We found it on The Edge of The World. After JohnnyBGood had showed us to search-gang all the twisteds and the flatteneds, and we’d search-ganged all the Olders’ things and got all the usefuls together, and we’d finished, and burned and buried the stinking and the sad – after that we went down to Road Out. And just exactly where Road Out became Edge of the World, where road became glass, and trees became soot, and grass became dust, we found Last Car Gone. And it was right just right on Edge – the front of the car was glass and melt and the back was just old car. And inside an OlderNotBetter. He was bad to see, his head was glass and melt, and his rest of him was just dead and dry.
Under his hand, put safe on the seat, was held the Prayer, flat down and saved by god to tell us Help Chat.
JohnnyOtherJohnny was the one for god, so he got the keeping of the Prayer. He tells us Help Chat in the Day Room, but he reads the Prayer to himself when he thinks he hears the frights of 3.0 coming up behind him.
So I had the remember of the Prayer to Give us Help Chat, because it’s the biggest special I know of. And then I had the remember of the song and beats, because JohnnyBGood says my beats give him upbeat when he’s sad, and it makes him like and good again.
So I gets the others who are 16 and waiting to be 17, there’s five of us. And I teaches them secret, so they can do the beats with me and do the song and the singing. Some of the words we all know, and some we let JohnnyOtherJohnny tells us what they meant that or this, and some of them we sung all the meanings, that and this, just in case. And some we left out cos we dinn know at all what they meant, but it namattered said JohnnyOtherJohnny.
We got the upbeat mostalmost at the start, and we worked on it like tidy food in the ground cos we were all upbeat together. We laid the song in rows with our voices. And we propped up the song of the Prayer with beats and bangs, to make it grow up and up like peas on a pole. And Pretty Ruby with her high sing made little song chickens to run between those rows, and JohnnyOtherJohnny with his down sing made shadows to follow those song chickens through the rows of words and the poles of beats.
And we did it over and over to do the remember, and each time it grew better and better and the upbeats were very much. I was so full of the upbeats and the song, and all of us, with Pretty Ruby and JohnnyOtherJohnny and Kelly-K-K and Eye-Fred and me, we wiggled and jumped for the laugh of our secret song and we was so happy I felt like real truth lucky.
I telled JohnnyBGood that I had a thing for my Seventeen Day, so all the Biggers did a Ssembly in Day Room yesterday, thinking they would just see me and my Seventeen Day. But I put my song-gang at the front to do our beats and singing out to the Biggers.
And just when I turn round to face at the Biggers I see out the big winnow, a ghost on Road Out, coming the way!
Now do the remember, I’m just now 17 on that exact day so I don’t fright for no ghosts like a Littler. But even still, I’d never seen one before, not like JohnnyOtherJohnny who has ghosts mostalmost every night. But there it is on Road Out and coming from Edge of the World, slow and like the oldest older you ever seen; like so old I never seen so old. All grey and with grey hair and grey clothes, and marks like you kids did charcoal letters on its neck and arms. And only some fingers, not all fingers like you and me have.
But I just looked a bit of bit because the song was waiting.
So we did the song and the beat and the bang. And we did it best nor never before. We did the rows of words and the posts of beats and the little chooks of high sing ran about and the shadows of down sing chased them.
And JohnnyBGood, and all the others, jumped and laughed and we all got the upbeat on my special Seventeen Day.
And then I saw the ghost mostalmost close. It had come in the door and it stood in the middle of Day Room and it cried so that pink lines were drawn down the grey face of it, from the eyes of it. So maybe it’s not be a ghost but it be an OlderNotBetter – but I never seen anyone so older.
Then JohnnyBGood saw it too. And he shushed us the upbeat to stop. “Who you stranger?’ he asked. “And where you come?”
But the oldest Older ever I saw, just said “Where’s Liam?”
“Oh God Liam is going safe for us” said every one of us, all together like JohnnyOtherJohnny has taught us. “Oh God Liam will get us down Road Out to Great Ocean and away from The Ex, when He brings Change” we all said too, because that was what always came next of our Big Remember as JohnnyOtherJohnny had taught us, and it felt wrong not to say all together.
“Who are you and where you come?” said JohnnyBGood again. And then again the oldest older cried. Then it looked straight at me, straight at me, straight at me, most almost like I was the ghost, and it said “I’m Sharon”.
And we the whole room of us had nothing left to be amazed, for all our mazes just got used up there and then. Cos we had just sung the Song of Help Chat to Oh God Liam, and what we’d sung was this:
THE SONG OF HELP CHAT
Oh God Liam Oh God Liam Oh Oh Oh
Things are weird, I’m frightened
Oh God Liam Oh God Liam Oh Oh Oh
Things are weird, I’m frightened
Oh oh oh oh oh
Get us to the Great Ocean a sap me carols
Get us to the Great Ocean a sap me carols
And save us from The Ex Ex Ex
We be safe and soundslike for we follow Your Signs
We’re waiting for You on the Road Out, Road Out
We’re waiting for You on the Road Out
We’re looking for you on the Road Out, with our
Heads down, Heads down, Heads down
Heads down, Heads down, Maxes all The Way
Oh God Liam Oh God Liam Oh Oh Oh
Oh God Liam Oh God Liam Oh Oh Oh
Oh oh oh oh oh Oh oh oh oh oh
You bring the Changes we need
You bring the Changes we need for
the measuring, the beats, the measuring, the beats
We’ll wait for You, we’ll look for You, Oh God Liam
And we’ll be safe together
Love Shhhh Love Shhhh
Love Shhhh Shhhh Shhhh
SHAAAAARRRRRRRRRONNNNNNNNN
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AFTERWORD
The Found and Given Prayer For The Help Chat (not for the eyes of Littlers!)
as Found in the Last Car Out
Oh god, Liam
Can you help? Things are getting weird and I’m really frightened. You know Carol’s place on Great Ocean Rd, I need you to get me there ASAP.
The safest way is just follow the signs. For god’s sake don’t take the turn towards Hamilton, that’s where your ex is. I’ll be on the road out of Lismore, looking for you.
Take care and keep your head down from the fuzz. So don’t speed; do 80 max all the way. I haven’t any money. You better bring change for the meters at Carol’s place, haha, ok?
I’ll wait for you. Then we’ll be safe together.
Love XXX
Sharon
P A Swanborough 