Then I begin to remember other things. How a few days back before the tests he put his nicks on back to front. How they move him in a wheelchair all the time now, how he sleeps more and more, how he hadn't been reading for ages, way before the banning. This is something I've not thought of till now, the reading. No, I can't remember the last time I saw CC with a book. Over the last few days he's just shuffled about from washes to tuck-in, from tuck-in to bed. As I watched his stubby fingers morsing his route I just thought he was still dozied out after the tests and stuff. But now I'm not so sure. He's scared Lights Out. She's knows something.
Will we really go all out blind? Surely Doctor D could stop it if he wanted to. He could give us drops. Lenses.
Do CORRECTIVE SURGERY. After all our welfare is is primary concern.
Poor CC.
I get out of bed and tiptoe to Mrs Murdoe. I put my hand on her face. It has a few wrinkles but it's smooth. I check Cough Cough is still asleep. Then I close my eyes. ‘Please, please, Mrs Murdoe, help us. Help Cough Cough's eyes get better. Help his wheeze if you've got time. And if you've any ideas about why they've banned the books let me know. Because I don't believe it's because of all that retina stuff. Hope you're OK. Don't forget us. Love, me and Cough Cough and Lights Out and Chicken Angel. Bye.’
I take my hand away and turn for bed.
Cough Cough is on his elbow and looking straight at me.
‘Who's there?’ he says.
Tears start to roll down my cheeks.
CHAPTER 10
The Purple Baby
1
Next morning Nail was up the Scootie on his own. He was sitting on a kiddie swing and fixing himself a roll-up.
And smiling.
No Kenno. Coddy had dragged the zombie out early. He needed his muscle lifting half a dozen wrecked radiators being stripped out of some hotel or other. He had till midday to complete the job. ‘Thirty-fin Victorian rads,’ said Coddy. ‘Weigh a ton each.’ Nail grinned. Kenno would be so creased he'd slump back to bed all afternoon.
So, he had the sweetie at the PO all to himself.
He lit the roll-up.
For a sweetie she had some mouth on her. But he liked that in girls. A bit of resistance. The easy ones weren't worth the sweat. Yeah, she was right for him. Right size, not too much shape. Yeah, fit for the job. But nothing too heavy, he didn't plan on being around for long. He just needed someone to tie him over till he got back to London where there was some serious choice on the street.
He took a drag and thought of Coddy. Bin-breath Coddy!
He spat out the roll-up and squashed it with his trainer.
The girl wouldn't want minging mouth all over her face.
Suddenly he was in the hospital again on his tiptoes looking through the screen at the incubators and at the tiny purple baby staring back at him through the perspex. Maybe losing a kid had frozen the heart out of his mum, driven his dad into exile. Maybe that's why she'd never bothered with him much. She went through the motions. Said he had to go to school, made sure he had decent trainers most of the time.
He couldn't remember when she started going missing and how often he'd had to help her to bed, cover her with the duvet, fully dressed, and open the window to let out the stink of pub. Then she met Costa, the man with skin the colour of ketchup. And that was it – goodbye Camberwell, hello Havana.
Nail stood up and looked across at the PO but he wasn't really seeing it.
Maybe his mum blamed him. But you can't blame a six-year-old with asthma for his baby brother's death. Can you? And he was bad with asthma for a long time till he grew out of it middle of primary. Maybe in her heart of hearts his mum felt bitter at fate delivering her not one but two sick kids. He was the only one left to point the finger at after his dad upped and offed. Maybe looking after a toddler gasping and heaving at the oxygen mask shot her chances of having healthy babies ever again.
So it was his fault.
He picked up a rock and hurled it at the trees below. It smashed through the canopy of leaves and branches like a bomb through a roof and blew out an explosion of pigeons.
I could have had a brother now he said to himself. A little bro.
And he could have been a Kenno said another voice.
Nail nodded.
Can't change yesterday he thought. Let's see if today's doing any deals.
And he started walking down towards Garvie Post Office.
2
Suddenly someone is shaking me. It's one of the day nurses. I look for the clock and then remember the buzzer isn't working.
‘Doctor Dearly wants to see you. Go to the washes.’
The others are asleep and the lights are still dim.
As I stumble across the cold dormie floor and past the curtain he says after me: ‘It's about the tests. A follow-up.’
The shower's warm but my skin is pimpled with fear and I'm cold inside. I spray soap and gently all over. I look at my hands. The palms are covered in fine strands of hair.
I'm going bald like Cough Cough.
*
Doctor Dearly is sitting waiting. The room is dark except there's a desk lamp lighting lots of dials and screens.
I have to sit down on a wind-up wind-down stool. I can feel my heart rib-butting.
For a long time Doctor Dearly sits examining some cards and occasionally looking at his monitor.
On the screen is the picture of an eyeball. It is slowly revolving in a sea of blue jelly. As I watch it drifts towards me and stares from its strange out-of-space aquarium. It looks like a giant one-spot puff puff fish like we used to see on The Natural World. It examines me then drifts away trailing a seaweedy tangle of nerves and blood vessels.
Then Doctor Dearly turns to me, eyes me over his half glasses. It's not just a look. Doctor Dearly never looks at you, he examines you – like the fish eye.
Then he gets up, stands in front of me.
‘Look up. Straight into the light.’ He has a fat torch with a bright eye.
‘Uhhm.’
‘You still having dreams, G4?’
I nod. I don't really dream now but if I say I do I'll get more tabs and these I can give to Cough Cough. Help him sleep.
‘What do you dream about?’ says Doctor Dearly.
‘Sky Boats,’ I say.
He frowns. ‘Sky boats! Why sky boats?’
‘To be free. To go on the Outside. To get a cure for my friend Cough Cough.’
Doctor Dearly frowns. ‘And what's wrong with G1?’
Suddenly the question's a precipice and I try and stop at the edge but then I'm falling right over it, falling headlong, and I'm terrified. CC's blindness and his hair and his yellow eyes and his wheezing and his crying comes hurtling at me.
‘He's dying,’ I say. ‘And he's my friend. And it's not fair.’
‘Yes… er… well,’ says Doctor Dearly. ‘Maybe you need a little help here. I'll prescribe something to the nurse. Now let's leave this story about sky boats and people supposedly dying and get back to the task in hand. I want to see that other eye.’
He looks through his torch.
‘Ah,’ he breathes and I can smell sweeties on his breath, like the mints Mrs Murdoe used to give us. ‘As I suspected. There's incipient nebulization in the right eye. Uhhm. We're going to have to do something.’
NEBULIZATION. I can feel a chill sliding down my back. ‘Is that bad?’ I say.
Doctor Dearly looks down his glasses at me.
Did I dare ask a question!
‘Bad if we leave it,’ he says. He leans back and studies my face. ‘Yes, I think we'll get another doctor in. Have a closer look. Do a preliminary investigation.’
He starts to ask me about the supplements. Am I taking them regularly?
I nod without really thinking what he is asking.
And I am doing the fizzio? He repeats the question like he wants to be sure my life is all-day, non-stop fizzio.
I nod again.
What I am thinking
about is what Cough Cough said: ‘They've shut up my eyes.’ Those were his very words.
I look at Doctor Dearly. Out of a plastic packet he's taking a pipette. I can see the blue plastic plunger.
I am fixed by the sharp needle, by the leopard look of Doctor Dearly.
I can feel my legs shaking.
He's going to kill my eyes. Cough cough me.
He turns round.
He approaches.
I've got the shakes.
He raises the pipette.
And I vomit.
I stand up and vomit all over him. All last night's tuck-in, all my terror. I vomit out of me Cough Cough and his weary lungs and Lights Out and her squealing and all the silent screams of Chicken Angel's gently soul.
And most of all, Doctor Dearly, I vomit you, with your bleachy hands and your thin face and your dozie dozie and your needles and your terminations.
Suddenly I'm cold and shivery.
‘Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry,’ I gabble.
Doctor Dearly hasn't moved. He just stands there, his trousers dripping, hands up in surprise.
‘Nurse,’ he shouts.
She comes running, stands in the doorway, catches her breath. ‘Don't gawp, nurse, get me a lab coat,’ says Doctor Dearly. ‘And take this vomiter back to the unit. Shower him and give him a shot for his stomach. He's gone hyper. A dose of immo will slow him down. The usual milligrams. And bring me a towel.’
3
Hours and hours later I wake.
The night light is on. Lights Out and Chicken Angel are asleep. Cough Cough is lying on his back. That means he's awake.
‘You OK, X-Ray?’ he whispers. His voice is more husky than wheezy.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
But I'm not. My head is fluffy as Lights Out would say and I'm not seeing too clearly. I put this down to the stomach jab and its after-effects.
Suddenly I sit up.
What if… what if… it wasn't immo? I grab the metal side of the bed to steady myself because I can feel the shakes coming. Sometimes I fit after stomach jabs.
Then I think some more. Immo doesn't put you out, not for hours and hours. No, they must have tranked me.
Why?
I hold on to a few floating thoughts as the trank swirls me round.
I'd sicked Doctor Dearly and made him smell. He wanted his own back. He doesn't like smell and he doesn't like us. His face floats in the water next to me. It's like skin peel. And he hates mess like pitch in a bed. It sicks him, the rubber mats and stuff, especially Lights Out because she pees all the time, because when he comes into the unit he always wears a mask and stretchy gloves, whitish like my skin when it comes off.
*
Now I'm grabbing the bed again because something even worse has just fluttered in my head. Suppose… suppose… suppose while I've been coma-ed he's come and put that stuff in my eyes.
Doctor D!
I slide out of bed and stumble into the washes.
I stand in front of the mirror but there's no mirror any more. I look around. There are no mirrors anywhere. Just holes in the wall where the screws were. They've taken all the mirrors!
What's happening?
I splash my face with water.
I wait for my head to clear then I drag myself back to the dormie and stand beside Cough Cough's bed. ‘Check my eyes, check my eyes,’ I cry.
He turns his face towards me.
I gasp.
His right eye is patched.
How could I?
How could I forget?
‘Oh, CC,’ I whisper. ‘Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.’ I stroke his face, gently gently. ‘What's happened?’
‘More tests, this morning,’ he says. His voice is strong and he's not wheezing. ‘They measured you up too,’ he says. ‘While you were coma-ed.’
‘Measured? Why? My eyes are OK, aren't they?’
Cough Cough is silent.
‘Yours are good,’ he says quietly.
Then I remember Doctor Dearly telling me I was nebulized. I tell Cough Cough about it and me sicking Doctor Dearly.
‘Sicking Dearly,’ he murmurs. ‘It's for his own good.’ He says this in his Doctor Dearly voice.
We both smile.
‘And forget about that nebulize stuff. That's just noo noo, X-Ray. Nebulized means your eyes are going misty. Mine are nebulized. In deep fog. Yours are OK, aren't they?’
‘Yes, yes.’ And I blink and blink. Then I stand up, climb on the bed and look over the partition to where Moose chews his sullen cud. In the glow of the night light I can see his eye clear and deep sea blue.
I clamber down and kneel next to CC.
I tell him about the mirrors.
He shakes his head. He doesn't know why they've taken them down.
‘They're up to something,’ he says.
‘We won't be able to see ourselves now.’
Cough Cough is looking hard ahead almost like he's talking to himself. ‘That's it. They're going to do something to us and they don't want us to see ourselves. That's why they were measuring you up. That's why Dearly's lying about your eyes.’ He grabs my arm but is still looking ahead. It's as if he's seeing the truth shining on the wall above the curtain and beyond Lights Out and Chicken Angel. ‘I think they're going to experiment on us,’ he whispers. ‘I think they're trying out something. That's why…’ He pauses like something's just fired in his brain. ‘Of course! That's why they've been giving us supplements, building us up.’ He turns to face me. Then he takes my hand. His fingers wrap round mine. ‘X-Ray,’ he says, ‘I think we're being set up.’
‘For what?’ I say uneasily.
CHAPTER 11
An Eye for an Eye
1
I can feel Cough Cough's hand shaking. He grips my arm tighter to steady himself.
‘What exactly happened with Dearly?’ he says. He's wheezing all the time and taking shots from his squirter.
I start to tell him again about sicking and being jabbed with immo but he doesn't want to hear about it. ‘What did Dearly say before that? Anything?’
I tell him about the nebulizing and the pipette and the eye on the computer and about the Sky Boat. Then I tell him about another doctor coming and doing a prelim.
‘Ah,’ Cough Cough lets out a long wheezy breath. ‘An OPERATOR then.’
‘Operator?’
‘They coma you and open you up. That's what operators do.’
I stare at CC in disbelief.
‘That's a prelim? They open you? What happens to the blood?’
Cough Cough ignores me.
‘Why are they going to open me, CC? Why?’
‘It's part of the experiment,’ he says.
‘But Doctor Dearly says it's to stop my eyes getting worse.’
Cough Cough lets go my arm. ‘X-Ray, you are a goo goo brain. There's nothing wrong with you. They want to persuade you there is so they can mess about with you, just like they have with me. Don't believe them. We're their guinea pigs.’
I'd seen those little furry piggies on The Natural World. They always seemed OK chewing grass and keeping a lookout for eagles. I could see how we were guinea pigs. The Bin was our hutch. We sleep and eat and pee. And we're warm and we're alive. So I can see what CC is saying.
‘Look, X-Ray, listen to me.’
And suddenly I feel him stiffen like he's fitting. I jump up and lean over him, pressing his shoulders down to steady him. Eventually the fit passes. He stares up. At me or beyond me, I don't know.
‘You're OK now, CC,’ I say. ‘I've saved my tab. Do you want one?’
He shakes his head. He's wearied out, moosed.
‘X-Ray, just get out while you can,’ he whispers. ‘Just get out of here.’
‘Get out?’ I say. ‘But that's impossible. You can't get out of the Bin. No one can.’
‘Look, I've been telling you for ages, they're trying to break us down. Tranking us with harder and harder shot, degrading the environment – pencils, mirro
rs, television, books, heating – and fattening us for the knife, you and me. Can't you see it now?’
His voice trails off. I bend down closer so I can hear the faint words and I smell his breath – dozie and sick.
‘Get out, get out, X-Ray,’ he says again. ‘Dearly's mad. I wish he was dead. We've got to fight them, X-Ray. We can't just sit back like dozied monkeys and give in. It's an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.’
He bangs his chest with his fist.
I've never heard CC talk like this. Is it the chemicals?
Gradually he calms.
‘I dream about him. In my dream we've drowned him, you and I. We're in The Natural World and Dearly is floating down a river and on his back is one of those birds.’
‘That pick insects off hippos?’
‘No, that eat dead people. Vultures.’
He seizes some air.
‘He's evil,’ he wheezes. ‘Evil.’
I sit back. I don't like what CC is saying. I don't think he should be saying such things. I don't like Doctor Dearly but he's not that bad, not evil anyway.
I don't think.
‘Well, I'm getting out, X-Ray. I am.’
I stare at him in amazement. ‘How?’
But his eyes are closed.
2
I slip back into bed.
It's not fair to call your friend a goo goo brain. The more I think about it the more I see it's not me who's the goo goo, it's Cough Cough.
How does he think he's going to get out of the Bin? Jump through the Weather Eye like Jack the Cat?
Be sensible, CC. You're getting daftie like Moose. Better be a little piggie than a daftie.
I watch the camera's red eye. Cough Cough once said rats have red eyes. That's how they see in the dark. Of course it is. Anyone knows that, otherwise why would our cameras have red eyes? They can easily see us in the dark. One-eyed rats they are.
I think Cough Cough's got Doctor Dearly on the brain. I think the dozie they've been giving him has dizzied his head. I bet the stuff in his squirter goo goos him too. Anyway, Doctor Dearly once said we were valuable scientific specimens. CC's forgotten that.
Cough Cough is snoring.
I'm going to ask Chicken Angel about Doctor Dearly. Just taking away the books and The Natural World doesn't mean they're trying to bin us. And no one's given me extra dozie. And the heating's off because Outside's got warm again. It gets warm and then it gets cold. That's how it is. Some Outsides on The Natural World are warm all the time like jungles, they have warm Outsides. That's because they have sun. We have radiators. Lolo thinks fish live in radiators. She says she can hear them talking, syllabubbling Moose-time.
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