by Eoin Colfer
“Oh my God, Fletcher,” she cried. “When we found you, we thought you were dead. Hazel heard a noise, and your Dad went outside. What happened? Tell me.”
I told the absolute truth. “I saw someone in the garden, so I went outside. I was attacked with a hurl or bat and I woke up here.” I tried to put a brave face on it, but most of my face was buried beneath a mask of bruises.
Mom wanted to cradle my head, but she had to make do with hugging an imaginary head eight inches to the left of the real one.
“This is terrible. In our own garden. Outside our own door. And you, you fool, going outside in the middle of the night! Some detective you are.”
The sympathy was drying up fast.
“Yes,” agreed Hazel. “Don’t you ever watch horror films?”
She held out a small tape recorder. “By the way, could you describe exactly how you felt at the moment of impact? I’m writing a short story . . .”
“Put that away, Hazel,” hissed Mom. “The poor boy is in pain.”
Hazel persisted. “Would that be a white-hot pain? Or more of a dull, throbbing pain?”
Dad cut across my sister’s research.
“Is this anything to do with your investigation?” he asked me.
“Maybe. I don’t know. All I was doing was looking for a missing keepsake.”
“Well, whatever. This investigation is over, as of now. We put up with this detective bit because it was harmless. I won’t ban it completely, because I know it’s your passion. But from now on, all cases go through me. Understood?”
I nodded gently. There was no point in arguing while everyone was so emotional. I could present my case at a later date when I wasn’t sporting a face that would cheer up Quasimodo.
Hazel took something from her pocket when my parents weren’t looking.
“I have something for you,” she said, holding it up so I could see. Lying in her palm was my notebook.
“You dropped this in the garden.”
“Thanks, Sis,” I said.
That evening Dr. Brendan was having difficulty telling the difference between over-tens and under-fives.
“Want a lolly?” he asked.
“No. Thank you. You don’t by any chance have a pacifier?”
The doctor frowned. “No. But I’m sure one of the nurses . . .”
“I was joking. Just trying to keep my spirits up.”
“Good soldier. Now let me explain what’s going to happen when we knock you out.”
Dr. Brendan took a nasal splint from his pocket.
“Now, young man. What do you think this is?”
“It’s a nasal splint.”
“No. It’s actually a . . . ah, yes, you’re right. It is a nasal splint. You’re a clever one, aren’t you?”
“There was a module on emergency first aid in my diploma course.”
Dr. Brendan was phased. “You sure about that lolly?”
“Yes.”
“Anyway, your nose has to be set, and one of these put on. The swelling has gone down quickly, so we’re going to do that now. Obviously, you don’t want to be awake when I start hauling your broken nose into line, so were going to inject some sleepy potion . . .”
“You mean anesthetic?”
“Erm . . . Yes, anesthetic, into your arm. And when you wake up, everything will be okeydokey.”
“That’s just wibbly wobbly wonderful, Doctor.” My private-eye patter was really coming on.
Dr. Brendan searched my battered face for signs of sarcasm. I’m sure he found plenty.
“I’m sure it won’t hurt, too much.”
I had no smart answer to that.
They lifted me onto a gurney and wheeled me down to the operating room. An anesthetist stuck a drip in my arm and pumped in a syringe full of white liquid.
“Now, Fletcher, count backward from ten to one.”
I did so. Slowly.
“You still awake?” asked the anesthetist, who looked about seventeen.
“Nope,” I replied.
Dr. Brendan had dropped the kiddie lingo. “Fletcher is a real brainiac, you better give him a little extra just to stop those thoughts spinning around his head. And if he stays asleep longer than usual, I’m sure no one will mind.”
The anesthetist took a larger syringe from his tray. This one looked about the size of a German sausage.
“Are you sure?” I asked, alarmed. I decided right then and there to stop being funny with medical personnel.
“I know what I’m doing,” said the anesthetist. “I am in my second year in college, you know. Now, count backward from ten.”
“Ten,” I said.
A person has vivid dreams under anesthetic. My mind replayed the events of the past twenty-four hours in glorious Technicolor and surround sound.
I could hear vague conversations and crunching noises coming from the world outside my head, but I decided to ignore these because I suspected the crunching was being caused by my own nose being hauled into line.
Time passed and a theory emerged. The sequence of events seemed simple enough: I am hired to investigate the Sharkeys. May tells Red Sharkey about this, and so he decides to do something about it. The something being attacking me in the middle of the night. But I had no proof that Red was my assailant. Or had I?
If it was Red Sharkey who attacked me, then he had probably used the same weapon as he had to threaten me earlier. His hurl embossed with his own name. His own name!
I woke up in the recovery room and immediately tried to fill the nurse in on my theories, but she merely stroked my forehead with a cool hand until I had no choice but to go asleep again.
I woke up for the second time. Sort of. My head was awake, but my body was pleading for sleep. I ignored it. This Red idea needed to be acted on now. Tomorrow would be too late. The proof would be lost in a pool of blood.
I had no idea what time it was. Night. It was dark in the room but I could see a slit of light under the door, and hear the slap of nurses’ rubber-soled shoes in the hall.
I sat up in bed. Too quickly. I felt as though my head was balanced like a ball in a cup, and would plop off if I jiggled too much. I was back in my own hospital room now, and the nurse was gone. Nobody to lean on.
Take it slow, then. I swung my legs onto the cold floor, testing my strength. Weak but steady. The walls seemed to be flexing slightly, like fun house mirrors. That was the anesthetic. In all probability, the room was not spinning.
I stumbled into the bathroom, grabbing on to anything I could to support me. One of these things was the radiator. It could have been hot. I wasn’t sure. My fingers were still buzzing from the anesthetic.
The bathroom was cramped, which suited my lack of balance. I could lean against a wall and still face myself in the mirror. But did I really want to face myself? Did I want to see what had become of my head? Would I recognize the battered remains of once-normal features?
With a swollen head, it might be hard to see how severe my injuries actually were. Dr. Brendan had assured me that I was fine, apart from the nose. But my eyes felt like two marbles in a ball of jelly. A ball that could split its skin at any moment. Maybe I should just go back to bed.
Before this idea could take hold, I grabbed the light cord and yanked. After a moment’s wincing, I focused. It was not a pretty sight. Dr. Brendan had been right, ugly was going to be my first, middle, and last name for quite some time. In fact, the best looking thing on my face was the nasal splint, a small aluminium V clamped onto my nose. The rest of my features looked as though someone had dropped a pound of rare steak onto my face, and it had stuck.
“Focus,” I told myself. I had to act now, or the evidence could be lost.
My left arm was bound from elbow to knuckle in a soft cast. I tugged on the Velcro straps with my teeth, all the time arguing with my sensible side. The pressure eased, and my arm seemed to expand like an inflated rubber glove. I expected some pain but none came. However, beyond the anesthetic, I sensed that my
body was screaming at me just how stupid this idea was.
I slipped off the cast with my good hand. My left arm was even uglier than my face, which was saying something. The single blow had managed to connect with every inch of skin facing the weapon. I forced myself to study the bruising. There were several colors, from sickly yellow to angry red. And running from my wrist to my hand, a deep purple trio of distinct marks. My evidence.
I held my arm to the light. And there in the mirror was my proof. Three letters. R.E.D. The round-headed tacks on Red Sharkey’s hurl had etched their signature into my arm.
My detective’s brain accessed my file on bruising. Bruises fade quickly. Sometimes in hours. This purple bruising would quickly soften and spread. I needed to preserve the evidence before it blended with the rest of the tissue damage. There must be a way.
Of course, in a perfect world, I would simply press the call button and tell the nurse that I needed a digital camera immediately. But I knew from experience that adults did not react well to boy detectives. The nurse would more than likely look at me as though I had two heads and one of them was purple. I would be bundled into bed and possibly sedated until the bruising had faded. On top of that, I would be lucky to wake up without a child psychologist in the room.
I would have to do this on my own. I found my sneakers and a hospital gown in the closet. It took a minute to get the sneakers on, because my feet felt like they belonged to someone else. I scolded my toes as though they were misbehaving infants.
“Now, now, boys. Keep still. Good little piggies.”
A part of my brain realized that the anesthetic still had a grip on my good sense, but the rest of me had evidence to process and was determined to be professional.
The hallway was clear. I could hear conversation on the wards, but there was nothing but floor tiles between me and the nurses’ station. I strolled across confidently, as if I had a medical reason for being there. The station was bordered by a semicircular counter, and behind that a few worn chairs. There was an extension cord on the floor. Plugged into it were a kettle and a photocopier.
I switched on the copier and waited, shuffling impatiently while it heated up. At last the red light flashed green. I pulled back the lid and plonked my arm on the glass. That really should have hurt, and probably would later, but at that moment I felt no pain.
I made a copy. But it was worthless. No court in the world would admit it as evidence. The image was blurred and the reversed letters were barely visible. I tried again, darkening the picture. Still no good. Now my entire arm was coming out black.
This was ridiculous. In this age of technology, I was being thwarted by a Stone Age photocopier. I needed a digital camera. Right now. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed as though the incriminating bruises were already fading. If only my family were here. Hazel’s cell phone had a built-in camera. But if I removed my cast in front of my mother to take a photo of a bruise, she would have had a nervous breakdown on the spot.
May Devereux had a camera connected to the computer in her Wendy house. And I knew where the key to the Wendy house was. The Devereux house was barely a minute from the hospital. In fact, Rhododendron Road was clearly visible from the main entrance. I could just saunter over there, snap a few quick photographs, and nip back to bed before anyone knew. In my fuzzy mind, this plan made perfect sense.
I belted my hospital gown, thrust my injured arm deep in the pocket, and pushed through the double doors into the reception area. In my semi-anesthetized condition I decided it would be a good idea to sing a quiet little song, so as to appear casual and certainly not up to mischief. Unfortunately, because my brain was buzzing so loudly, I sang like someone wearing headphones. Out of tune. And louder than I intended.
“To all the girls I’ve loved before,” I warbled. My Dad’s favorite, forever on the CD player in the kitchen. “Who’ve traveled in and out my door.”
A nurse blocked my path. She glared at me the way you might look at something that has crawled from a sewer leaving a trail behind it.
“Excuse me, Julio,” she said, hands on hips. “Would you mind reining in the voice? There are babies being born in this hospital. We wouldn’t want the first sound they hear to be your painful howling. There could be lawsuits.”
I would have been hurt, if I hadn’t already been hurt.
“Of course, nurse. I’m so sorry. I get carried away sometimes.”
“This could be one of those times if you’re not careful. Now, on your way. And keep the noise down, or I may decide to check your temperature, and believe me you don’t want that.”
The threat was accompanied by a steely grin, and suddenly having my temperature taken seemed like the scariest thing in the world. I scurried to a waiting area and pretended to be engrossed in a Beautiful Homes magazine.
“What’re ye in for?” said a man beside me, a ragged line of stitches running across his forehead.
“Ingrown toenail,” I replied, thinking he was joking. After all, my injuries were as plain as the nose on my face.
“Oh,” he replied. “Sore yokes, dem.”
“Yes. Terrible.”
I checked that the nurse had gone, and scampered out the front door, very quickly indeed for someone with an ingrown toenail.
It must have been very late, because there wasn’t a car on the road. I nipped across and leaned against a gate post on Rhododendron Road. The fresh air was not perking me up like I thought it would. In fact, I felt dizzy and nauseous. No throwing up, I warned myself. Especially not on clients. That would be very unprofessional.
The gate to May’s house was open. I crept in, sticking to the grassy verges to avoid crunching the gravel underfoot. Pretty smart thinking for someone suffering the aftereffects of anesthetic.
A fine mist pattered on to my head from the fountain. They must have gotten it fixed. The water was most refreshing, so I opened my mouth and tried to catch a few drops.
I caught sight of a shadowy figure in an upstairs window. Even in my foggy state it was clear that it was not May or indeed her father, unless one of them had sprouted a beard since we had last met.
I was immediately concerned. Was this my attacker? Had he moved on to his next victim? My heart pumped faster.
Who was this mysterious bearded man, and what was he doing in the Devereux house? It was too late to conceal myself in the bushes. I was standing under the moonlight in a pool of white gravel. There was only one approach to take. The direct one.
“Who are you?” I shouted, the words vibrating inside my fragile head. “What are you doing in there?”
The shadowy figure pressed against the glass, beard hair spreading like a halo.
“If you’ve done anything to May, I will find you.”
The window creaked open, and a tremulous voice drifted down to me.
“If you’re looking for May Devereux, she lives next door.”
I was, of course, outside the wrong house.
I retreated sheepishly, bowing slightly as if that would help. My little trip was no longer a secret. No doubt the person in the window would be burning up the phone lines between here and the police station as soon as I was out the gate. I had minutes before a couple of boys in blue came to drag me back to hospital.
I hurried next door, trying not to let my head wobble too much. The dizziness was worse now, and I wanted nothing more than to lie down in the rose garden and have a little rest. Perhaps if I went to sleep here, I would somehow wake up in my own bed.
Just a few more minutes and I could rest. Record the evidence, then back to bed. Two minutes at the most.
Two minutes would have been plenty if something hadn’t caught my eye. The entire side of May’s house was glowing a flickering orange. There was a fire somewhere nearby. I loped around the corner, feeling slightly duller than a jelly knife.
I heard the fire before I saw it. Pistol-crack flames and boiling hiss. Black smoke filled the garden, rolling in thick coils from a bonfire near the Wendy
house. I staggered closer, trying to see what was being burned. All I could make out was the elbow crook of a sleeve, glinting with golden thread.
I gasped with sudden horrible recollection. May’s Irish dancing costume had gold thread.
She could be in the fire, I thought. May could be in there.
“Fire!” I screamed, and my head nearly exploded. The pain drove me to my knees in a bed of roses.
“Fire!” I howled again, and the unlikely combination of pain and anesthetic shut my entire body down for a few crucial moments.
I awoke to find myself somehow closer to the fire. Alive then, but only barely, judging by the pulpy feel of my skull. I staggered to my feet, working up to a sprint to the Devereux’s side door. Please, God, let May herself answer my knocking.
I reached up to check my nasal splint, and realized that there was a blackened stick in my hand.
That doesn’t look too good, I thought.
That was when two of Lock’s finest hurdled the garden wall and buried me deeper than the flower roots.
IN THE PUBLIC EYE—
AND NOT IN A NICE WAY
WHEN I WOKE UP in my hospital room, Chief Inspector Francis Quinn was perusing a copy of Woman’s Way from the magazine rack.
“Knit one, purl one,” he was mumbling when I sat up.
The chief was as close as it was possible to be to a human bulldog, just not as cuddly. He had black eyes buried in his head like driven nails, and red jowls that wobbled when he was talking, as he was now. I knew it should be impossible, but I had always thought that the chief slightly resembled his wife, Principal Quinn.
In spite of my situation, my mind began to drift.
I began seeing things. Suddenly Chief Quinn had a trident in his hand. It suited him.
“You have sinned, Moon,” he roared. “And now you are mine, and I will rotate your soul on hell’s barbecue for all eternity!”
A great fiery pit opened up below my hospital bed.
“So you think you’re tough?” continued Quinn. “We’ve got boys down here that will roll you up in a ball and play hurling with you. Then when they’ve finished, I’m going to rub your raw soul in salt and toss it to the hounds.”