Dear Supporters

Thank you for your kind gifts which allowed Mum and me to go to
Kenya. We had a super time and saw lots of lions, giraffe and elephants
and we even saw a leopard which is rare. The weather was really hot but
the hotel was cool inside and the food was really good. I want you all
to know that this has made a big difference for my family and once
again thank you all for your generosity.

The staff say there's lots of tape left and I can carry on recording
what I'm thinking but maybe no one wants to hear what I'm thinking
because of course what I'm thinking is that I'm going to die very soon.
How do I know? Well, it's like one of those big dipper rides where you
go up and down but the down bits are bigger than the up bits because
you're running on gravity not motors and will end up at the bottom
sooner or later; the staff got me into remission for the Kenya trip but
now I'm on a big, big down and it might be the end of the ride this
time. Also Pastor John's coming round nearly every day now which isn't
a good sign, he says there's a candle for me in his church which stays
lit all the time even when the church is closed for the night but that
just means it won't last as long as it should, like me. Also when Mum
and Samantha come they cry more and talk less and when it's time to go
they look at me like their eyes can't move any more and they end up
bumping into things 'cos they're not looking where they're going,
they're still staring at my face.

When we were in Africa they wheeled me into a village where there was
an orphanage and all the kids were dying, and they hadn't got
playstations or even proper bedding and many of them had parents who'd
already died and they just lay looking at the wall although some of
them seemed interested in me and the translator said the Kenyan kids
didn't believe you could spend all that money on aeroplanes and safaris
but you still can't buy not-dying-medicine even in Britain, so I
suppose we all learned a lot. I ought to say I learned to be grateful
there but I can't honestly say that because there's so much I know I'll
never see and do even though of course a lot of people will never see
all the animals I have even if they live to be a hundred. For instance,
I'll never have a proper girlfriend or a job or buy a house or go
skiing; I'll never have a baby and pass my genes on like the big Daddy
lion in "The Lion King" who reappeared in the sky to his little boy
lion, although perhaps this is overrated, I reckon it's a bit like
watering down the blackcurrant juice and then drinking most of it and
watering it down some more and doing it again; sooner or later there's
hardly any blackcurrant at all and that's like the really old bits in
the cemetery where you can no longer read the letters on the
gravestones, they were real mums and dads and grandparents to someone
about two hundred years ago but now the genes are all gone and the
stone's covered in moss and grass and they might just as well never
have lived.

Pastor John says that's not true and, if those old people did good
things, their deeds will live forever, and so will they. He's a real
optimist, though he's getting to the deep stuff with me now 'cos I
haven't long left. He thinks death's not like the big dipper at all but
like that new fairground ride at Alton Towers where you drop right down
into the big black hole and think, that's it then, but then you shoot
back up into the light again only this time you're in heaven with
Jesus. He also reminds me that Jesus never had a baby or went skiing or
rode in an aeroplane, and he died horribly when he was still young and
that I won't have any pain, not now and not ever because Jesus took it
all and I nod, and I know I ought to be thankful but there's still the
nasty bit of me that thinks, at least Jesus had the choice to die or
not to die, and he wasn't only eleven at the time.

I'm in bed most of the time now and I end up going to sleep even when
the sun's out, but when it's nice like today I can see out the window
and I watch the clouds and try to spot animal shapes; there's plenty
that look like elephant heads or sleeping lions but I can never find
one that looks like a giraffe.
Just found out there's a new Harry Potter book coming out, but I won't
be around to read it. I wonder if she'll kill Harry off in the last
book so she doesn't have to write them all her life. I wonder if my
secondary school would have been like Hogwarts with the same mix of
nice characters and horrible ones. I wonder if Manchester United will
catch Arsenal this season. I wonder if I'll see snow again.

I'm getting sleepy now; I expect I'll wake up again some time tomorrow,
and maybe the day after, but after that, who knows?

I think I'll sign off now.

Goodnight and thanks for listening.