The Contest

He’s been coughing since I was small. Well, maybe since before that, but that’s as far as I can remember – I’d have to ask Mum.

Anyway, I’m more-or-less big now, so that’s a long time to be coughing, and getting worse. He can’t even go all the way up stairs in one go now, he has to stop and catch his breath halfway. He sits there like a troll or something, sometimes in the dark, huffing and puffing and wheezing and groaning. It scares me sometimes, if I’m not expecting it, or if it’s in the night-time.

Actually, I was wrong – there are twenty-two stairs, I counted them once. So, he doesn’t stop halfway, it must be just before, or just after, because there isn’t a halfway on twenty-two stairs. It’s important not to lie.

I count things a lot – I’m very good with numbers. I’m good with facts too – did you know there are thirty million people in the country? And there are thirteen countries in our Modern World?

‘One way or another, he won’t be clogging up the stairs much longer.’

That’s what Dad says, but Mum tells him off for saying it. I wasn’t sure why, so I asked her and she said it meant that Uncle Ian would either win the contest, or he wouldn’t. ‘Simple as,’ as Dad says.

I’m not supposed to talk to Uncle Ian about it, but sometimes when Mum and Dad are talking in the kitchen, and me and him are in the lounge on our own, he talks to me about it. I just sit on the scratchy carpet and listen, I don’t even have to ask him, he just starts to talk about it – tells me all the things he says I should know, in a quiet voice. Well, quieter than his normal one, which is pretty quiet because of his cough. He thinks they can’t hear, and sometimes they can’t, but sometimes they can. Tells me all his funny things, things that don’t make any sense to me.

Mum says he’s an ‘old-fashioned conspiracy theorist’ – I’m not sure what it means. Dad says he just ‘Comes from a different time, from before people learned to just trust the government.’ That doesn’t really make sense to me either. I thought he just came from the same time as Dad. Lots of things don’t make sense to me, really.

Are people different if they’re from a different time?

I heard someone say once, that we’ve got to ‘live in the moment,’ and I think I like that more. I think it means something like this – I like that my Uncle Ian came to live with us, and I like hearing his funny stories. I know it might be for a bad reason, and I think it might get worse still – but that’s something that I like, and that’s a good thing.

Uncle Ian tells me a lot about where he used to live – he used to have his own house, all to himself. He had a room full of tools, for his job, and a little garden where he used to sit. He lived there for a long time, before I was born even. He says even before Mum and Dad were born, but I think he’s joking with that one. He had to sell his house, to get ready for the contest. It wasn’t worth enough on it’s own, so he’s been living with us and waiting while Mum and Dad saved up to help. Once I heard them arguing about it when I was supposed to be in bed.

‘It’s supposed to be everything he owns, not everything we own as well!’ said Dad.

‘It’s hardly everything we own, is it? And besides, wouldn’t you want someone to do the same for us, if it comes to it? Or when it comes to it...’ said Mum.

I didn’t hear what Dad said after that – I got upset and went back to bed, they kept arguing. I’m not supposed to tell anyone about them helping, I don’t think it’s allowed. But then it’s important not to lie.

They saved up enough to help him ages ago I think, but then the waiting list took longer than he thought it would. I heard someone say the list is the worst part, and that it keeps getting longer, but I asked Mrs Briggs (she’s my teacher) and she says the lists are getting shorter all the time, and the government is working very hard. She says there is ‘only so much they can do.’ Another thing I don’t understand – what does that even mean?

Anyway, he had to wait on the list, and then another eleven people had to be ready for the same thing as him at the same time – that’s probably why it takes so long, probably why it’s been since I was small until now. So there will be twelve of them in the contest. I tried to find out why twelve, but no-one can tell me, maybe they don’t know either. They won’t know each other either, that’s one of the big rules – they aren’t allowed to know each other. Maybe it ruins the contest somehow.

In school one day, I had a great idea. I thought we could all just save up enough so that he wouldn’t have to do the contest – I’m good at numbers, remember? I thought if twelve people have to give everything they have to do the contest, then if we could get that amount for just Uncle Ian, he could do the contest on his own, and he’d definitely win!

That’s not allowed, either. Mrs Briggs says it’s about 'resources', not just money.

He gets upset about the contest, but he tries to hide it. Maybe it’s because he’s not allowed to talk about his theories (as Mum calls them – wild ideas, as Dad calls them) while I’m around. He gets upset, and wants me to know why, but can’t say, so he gets even more upset. He’ll be going tomorrow. Maybe he’ll talk to me tonight while Mum and Dad make our tea, tell me about before the contest, about ‘before-all-of-this.’ I hope he does.

I asked Mum and Dad will Uncle Ian come back to live with us if he wins the contest, and they looked at each other in a strange way. Then, when Dad wasn’t looking, Mum smiled at me and nodded. If he doesn’t win, I’m not sure what will happen. I don’t think he will be coming home.

I went into school, and I asked Mrs Briggs about Uncle Ian’s theories, about before the contest. Mum and Dad wouldn’t give me proper answers, so I asked at school instead – I’m good at school. Mrs Briggs said Uncle Ian was wrong about everything. She said some people believe silly stories from a long time ago, sometimes stories that their parents told them when they were young, or sometimes it’s like a rumour – like that game whisper down the lane, where you get confused about what’s real and what’s not real. Then she got very serious, and spoke to me like a grown-up;

‘There is absolutely no way, no possible way that every sick person in the world can be treated for their illness. There simply isn’t enough medicine for everyone to take, there isn’t enough in the world, do you understand? Even if there were, medicine is so very, very expensive, that for it to be given to people for free… well, that’s just not possible either. If medicine for just one person costs everything that twelve different people own, how could it ever have been given to everyone, for free? Free medicine is a myth, it’s never been possible – never ever.

‘The reason medicine costs so much, because it’s just so very difficult to make, and so very rare when it does get made. And it has to be a contest between twelve people, because even if they all had enough money and could buy it for themselves, there wouldn’t be any left over for anyone else. The only fair way is with a simple contest.’

So, Uncle Ian’s stories aren’t true, Mrs Briggs said. I said I liked hearing them anyway, and she said that was okay, but that it was very important not to believe stories like that. Another thing I don’t understand. How will I know which stories to believe?

Uncle Ian says things are this way now because people wanted it to be like this. He says that a long time ago we swapped our free medicine for nothing at all – or for a promise, that’s another thing he says a lot. That we gave everything away for a promise, but then it never came true. Now that does sound hard to believe.

Why would we give everything away, for nothing at all?