I tell Willard Fox. “But Moana said horse riding’s not a superpower, even though it totally is.”
“So that’s why you had a fight?”
I shake my head. “No, we had the fight after that.”
Moana said her superpower would be mind reading and to show me she put her hands on my head with her fingers splayed at my temples. And that was when I panicked and pulled her hands off me because if Moana could read my mind then we wouldn’t be best friends any more. She would think I was a freak because of my OCD.
“So Moana doesn’t know you have OCD?” Willard Fox asks.
“No,” I say.
No one at school knows. Especially not Mrs Lowry, and sometimes it’s hard because she picks on me because I can’t write certain letters – like M and N. And so my spelling is bad.
At the Ancient Greek day, Mrs Lowry got Brodie to do the sacrifice to Zeus – because he’s her pet and he gets to do everything. But I am doing sacrifices too, every day and no one cares.
The counting and the rituals … even my bedroom. Mum thinks it’s a “god-awful mess” but really it’s my gift to the gods, a complex matrix of talismans and portents disguised as dirty clothes and old bowls of half-eaten cereal. And, then there’s my backpack, the most precious piece of my OCD universe. And those two braids in Gus’s mane. I must do them. I have to get them just right. If I don’t manage to ace it all – then I unleash hell.
“Evie, what if I told you that this is all the OCD? And it is tricking your brain. What if I told you that even though it seems real, your rituals don’t have the power to protect people?”
Willard Fox leans forward. “You’re doing this because you really love your animals, don’t you, Evie?”
I nod. “Of course I do! More than anything.”
“Well, what would you do if Gus got really sick?”
I feel my pulse quicken. I don’t like to imagine bad things happening to Gus.
“I’m protecting him,” I say abruptly. “He’s not sick.”
“Yes, but accidents happen, right?” Willard says. “So let’s say Gus gets hurt in the paddock. He cuts his leg. How would you fix it, Evie? Would you use your powers and do the braids in his mane? Pack things in and out of your backpack? Or …”
Willard Fox looks at me. “Or … would you maybe call the vet?”
I feel my cheeks turn hot. When he puts it that way I know that it is illogical, what I am doing.
“I’d call the vet.”
Willard looks at the backpack that I have beside me at my feet.
The force of my panic surprises me.
“Don’t touch it!”
“It’s OK …” Willard Fox says. “I know it’s precious. How about you show me?”
My hands are shaking as I pick up the backpack and put it on the table.
It sits there between me and Willard, like an unexploded bomb.
“Now what?” he says.
“I have to do the zips,” I say. “I do them twice. Before I take the things out.”
“OK,” Willard says. “So that’s the OCD talking. And today, we’re not going to give in to it. Today, instead of doing it twice, Evie, I want you to just unzip the zip and close it again once and then leave it. Can you do that?”
I reach out my hand, slowly, and when my fingers touch the zipper the bitter rush of pure adrenalin makes me want to be sick. Just the once? That’s so dangerous!
I close my eyes and I take a deep breath and I do it! I unzip the front pocket. Just once. It’s sitting there gaping open – taunting me! Then I zip it shut again. Just the once! It’s so wrong. I can feel the bees surging in my brain, imploring me to do it again, to make things even!”
“You’re doing great, Evie,” Willard Fox says.
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!! I hold my hand there, wanting to unzip-zip it a second time, tantalisingly close to giving in to the urge to do it again. It takes every bit of my willpower to fight it and all the time I can hear Willard’s voice talking me down, but it sounds fuzzy through the buzz of the bees in my brain.
“On a scale of one to ten,” he is saying, “where are you now Evie?”
“… eight,” I pant out the word. “I can’t breathe!”
I want to make the world safe!
“Evie,” Willard Fox says my name like he’s invoking a god. “You. Can. Do. This! I want you to say out loud with me: ‘I’m in charge, OCD. I’m taking the reins!”
I look at him and I feel a lump in my throat that blocks the words.
“Come on, Evie!” Willard says. “You don’t want to be controlled like this so do something about it. You need to fight it. Do it!”
And there, in the middle of his office, I hear his voice and then I hear another voice and it’s mine but it doesn’t sound like me. I’m screaming. “I’m in charge, OCD. I’m taking the reins!”
When I finish shouting the words, I burst into tears. Great big gasping sobs, and Willard is right there with me, telling me it will be OK and to take breaths, big deep breaths.
“Good work, Evie,” he says to me. “I’ll see you next week.”
***
Fear is not static – it is a living thing. Like the earth beneath my feet, constantly moving and changing. It sounds crazy, but looking back, at that moment in Willard’s rooms the zip on my backpack was just as terrifying to me as this half-a-tonne of Charolais bull in front of me is.
In the beam of my torch, the bull is bearing down on me. I know what’s coming and I’m about to close my eyes and brace myself for the death blow, the sharp stab of the lethal point of the horn into my gut. But the impact doesn’t come.
Thunder rolls through the ground once more and I look up and see a pale shadow appear from the darkness, galloping its way towards us and coming between me and Jock and the bull. In my torch beam, the grey dapples bleach away so that the horse looks almost white and the tail that unfurls behind him is flecked with stars. He looks like a creature from a Greek myth himself, like Pegasus. But he’s totally real, and my heart soars.
It’s my pony. It is Gus.
Gus charges in at a gallop, and he pulls to a halt right between me and the Charolais.
