Free Hello God by Moya Simons Page B

sleep.When the moonlight shines on them they look like a mouth grinning up at me.
    Nan’s not very well inside her head. She forgets things. She lost her false teeth yesterday and we found them in the freezer. We have no idea how they got there. ‘They walked,’ Nan said. When I laughed, Dad was annoyed at me. I don’t know why.
    Once, on another visit, I put one of those fake glasses, the ones with a nose and moustache attached, on top of her teeth and that was the first thing she saw when she woke up. While Nan was having a conversation with the handsome man with a moustache and toothy smile, my mum came in and told me off. A kid’s got to have a bit of fun, don’t you think?

Hello God,

    I had a real good time after dinner. Dad showed me a map of the sun and planets, and he showed me photos of the planets up close. Mars is amazing. It’s like part of the outback. The surface is red and there are rocks lying around. Nobody has ever moved them since you made the planet.
    A spaceship with robots was sent from Earth just to take photographs of the rocks. I bet you saw that spaceship whirling through space on its way to Mars.
    There were photos, too, of the moons ofJupiter and the rings of Saturn. Wow, God, you have a great imagination. And there were pictures of stars, thousands of them. Dad says that new stars are still being born. Maybe that’s why it’s hard to get a sign from you. You could still be exhausted from all that hard work.

Hello God,
    Nan and I went to the shops today and she bought me a new dress. It was wonderful. I felt like a princess. It’s soft pink and when I swirled in it, I felt so special. ‘You must take care of it,’ she said. ‘You’re very lucky. A lot of children around the world don’t get enough to eat, let alone a special dress.’
    Then she forgot how to get home from the shops, but I knew, so it turned out okay.
    I have to say, God, that I don’t think it’s fairthat I have to worry about poor children overseas when I get a new dress. Firstly, what can I do? Secondly, isn’t that your job?

Hello God,
    Something awful has happened. I’d been noticing for weeks that I couldn’t see the writing on the whiteboard at school clearly, but when I squinted I could, so I just kept squinting, squeezing my eyes together. My teacher, Mrs Kettlesmith, noticed my squinting and said to me, ‘Kate, why are you squinting at the board?’
    I really wish she hadn’t asked that.
    My friends all looked at me and so did dorky Stephanie.
    ‘It helps me see better,’ I said.
    Mrs Kettlesmith nodded and I thought that was that, but she sent a note home to my parents.
    Mum took me to the eye specialist and he put me in a dark room facing an eye chart. There were letters on a board—a big one on the first line, smaller ones on the next, all the way down to little pinpoints.
    I don’t know how anyone could read those small letters. You’d need Dad’s telescope.
    The eye doctor put some weird-looking equipment on and around my eyes. Then he slid little bits of glass through slots in the machine, and it was amazing, God, because suddenly I could read those pinpoints— G, Y, P, R, S.
    Then he said those dreaded words, ‘You need glasses, Kate. You’re short-sighted.’
    ‘But I can squint,’ I told him. ‘I can see clearly when I squint.’ No way was I going to wear glasses. I’d be like four-eyes Stephanie.
    Now, God, I’ve been wondering why you’ve arranged things so kids have to take orders fromtheir parents. I’d be quite happy to squeeze my eyes together forever, rather than wear glasses, but I don’t have a choice.
    The doctor didn’t think squinting for the rest of my life was a very good idea. He said to Mum: ‘Her eyes may change a lot in the next few years and her short-sightedness may get worse. Bring her in for a check-up every six months.’
    That was a complete insult.
    I’ve been thinking that you could fix me up. I mean, you could do it if you really wanted