The girl says her name is Natalie. She is smiling like Mrs Murdoe used to smile.
We slide out of the van and the air is cold but it smells strange. It's the air of trees.
‘It's big,’ whispers Chicken Angel. ‘Where are the cameras?’ Her voice is croaky. She needs more water.
Then we climb back into the van. The trees make us feel small. We are much bigger inside the wheelie thing.
Natalie says it's OK. It's safe to come out.
Lolo morses Chicken Angel. She says she can hear a Mrs Murdoe voice but who is the Hyena Man.
Natalie laughs when Chicken Angel tells her what Lolo says.
‘That's Nail.’
‘Is he going to send us back to Doctor Dearly?’ says Chicken Angel. ‘Is he going to hypo us?’
‘No one's going to hurt you. What's hypo?’
Lights Out morses again.
‘She says it's where Tin Lid puts on this sting and pushes it right through you. You moose out for hours after, days sometimes.’
The girl looks monkeys when she hears this. ‘That's awful,’ she says.
I lick my lips.
The girl climbs inside the van. She starts to clean my face with a paper towel. She is very gently.
I look at her watch. It is nearly ten. Time we were in bed.
I can see Chicken Angel is thinking like me. We've missed last tuck-in and dozie and Tin Lid. Moose will be wondering where we are and Doctor Dearly will be shouting in the voice-over and sending out the Hyena Men to catch us.
‘If the Hyena Men catch us,’ says Chicken Angel, ‘they'll hypo you too.’
‘Well, they're not going to catch us are they?’ says Natalie.
Lights Out starts morsing.
‘What's she doing?’ says Natalie.
Chicken Angel explains. ‘Her name's Lights Out and this is how she talks.’
Natalie looks at Lolo carefully. ‘Uhhmm. Does she have… I mean…’
‘A tongue?’ I say. ‘Yes, and sometimes she talks but she likes touch best. That's how she sees. Cough Cough said she can feel the warm of you.’
Chicken Angel interrupts.
‘Yes, yes. Let me tell, X-Ray. Let me. She's my friend.’
I nod OK. But I'm going to tell the Natalie girl about Cough Cough. My turn's next.
‘Lolo can hear the heart of you even after you've gone,’ says Chicken Angel. ‘We leave VAPOURS everywhere says Cough Cough and Lolo smells us. She can hear storms coming, the first hop hop of rain drops.’
‘Why is she so thin? Why are you all so thin? Don't they feed you in there? And who's Cough Cough? And why are you bleeding so much?’
By now Natalie is out of the van and standing and pointing to us to come out.
I'm the first and while Chicken Angel helps Lolo down I start telling Natalie about Cough Cough.
‘He died,’ I say. ‘Went takeaway in an ambulance. He wasn't a lumpy like the others. He was my friend. And his eyes went yellow. But his pulmonaries were wee wee balloons like Mrs Murdoe said and he couldn't get enough air to keep himself up. But he gave us a hypo and we tranked Tin Lid and that's how we got out.’
‘Tin Lid?’
‘She's the nurse. Cough Cough called her a HYPO-MANIAC. They trank us with the hypo and then do tests.’
‘And if we say no they get in Hyena Men and hold us down,’ says Chicken Angel.
‘And they took our books and all the pencils.’
‘And the mirrors,’ says Chicken Angel.
‘And Pippi,’ I say.
‘And The Natural World.’
‘And they closed the Weather Eye.’
‘And they gave us more and more dozie.’
‘And they took Cough Cough away.’
‘They tried to take X-Ray's eyes.’
‘And Doctor Dearly said it was for our own good.’
‘So we ran away because Cough Cough said it wasn't for our good and that Doctor Dearly was going to delete us.’
‘Then Moose said we were stupid to run away but we couldn't help tranking Tin Lid because she was going to hypo little Lolo and take Maiden China away.’
‘Wait, wait,’ says Natalie girl. ‘Takeaway? Lumpy? Mrs Murdoe? Maiden China? Losing eyes? What is all this?’
Chicken Angel and I look at each other. ‘It's what happens, Natalie girl. People going takeaway, witches locking up princesses, Hyena Men coming. In the Bin. It's what happens in the Bin.’
‘It's all in here,’ says Chicken Angel, holding up her notebook.
I frown. ‘But you said you wrote dreams in there,’ I say to her.
‘Bad dreams,’ says Chicken Angel.
The girl has her hand in front of her mouth. She looks halfway moosed.
She thinks we're all dafties. I can tell.
I think we've said too much.
‘What's wrong with your skin?’ she says to me.
‘It's photosensitive,’ I say. ‘Doesn't like light.’
‘You can see his ribs in the shower,’ says Chicken Angel. ‘And he's always bleeding. That's why he's called X-Ray.’ She smiles at the Natalie girl. ‘I'm Chicken Angel because I've got win's and this is Lights Out.’
We all turn round. Lolo has got back in the van and is curled up asleep. She is hardly breathing. I hope it's not too cold for her. I'm beginning to feel the green air of the forest chilling my face.
‘I'm hungry,’ says Chicken Angel.
‘Are there other kids in the Bin?’ asks Natalie girl. ‘Are you all orphans?’
ORPHANS?
We've never heard of orphans. We're children. Chicken Angel asks Natalie girl what orphans look like. Are they like spooks?
Natalie girl says nothing. She just looks sad. I think we're going to have to help her. Maybe she's one of these orphans. Maybe if we can find the Sky Boat she can come with us.
‘We're the last,’ I say. ‘The others went lumpy a long time ago.’
‘Lumpy?’ says Natalie girl.
She closes her eyes.
‘I don't think I want to know.’
5
Nail watched Natalie helping one of the noddies out. It was the blonde one.
She had something on her upper back, something under her tracksuit top, something squirming. He felt his stomach tighten.
What a freak show.
Retards. All that stuff about leopards. Troupe of nutters. How they'd escaped from that place he couldn't imagine. And just how they'd planked Kenno's ma was an all-time mystery. They didn't look like they could blow a candle out between them.
One pint, just one pint was all he wanted.
Now two of them were standing on the grass, thin and pale and holding hands like a pair of paper cut-outs. The girl had opened a cardboard box and was wiping the bald kid's mouth with a tissue. Then she took his hands.
‘Jeez!’ muttered Nail to himself. He could see the kid's trackie bottoms were smeared with red where he'd tried to wipe his hands. ‘We need a half a hospital for this lot.’
They'd have to take them back. And soon. Otherwise it would look like abduction or something. You couldn't just pick up a bunch of kids in the middle of the night and disappear into the big nowhere he told himself. They'd have to hand them over sooner or later. It was no sweat. OK, the girl could give them a taste of what it was like to be free, to be in the great outside, to be cold and lost and not have so much as a choccy bar between you and starving hungry.
A few hours of Garvie Wood and some Scottie mountain pizzle and in no time they'd be grunting to get back to the batty farm.
Yeah, give it a bit and then they could just drive back to the Bin and dump them. Say it was all a big mistake, wave bye byes and get on with a life pulling girls and pushing pints.
Then he remembered the doctor at reception and his cold contempt and his thin lips, thin as worm skin. And how he'd threatened to throw him out. He could see that face in his mind now, those unblinking eyes, like they were glass, like they'd stalk you everywhere, like they'd never give
up till they'd cornered you and sunk fangs in your throat and sucked you limp.
He shuddered.
Looked up.
*
Over the glade spread a black matrix of branches, and below, roots stretched along the ground, thin and knuckled, like the fingers of another malevolent being inching silently towards the huddle of retards.
Poor little noddies he thought. But what could he do? Eyes or no eyes every life was a lottery. Did he have a choice when his brother died? Did he ask for a drunken mother and a walk-out dad?
A pot luck life it was. Go with the flow, eh?
He looked at the flow of the last few days. The girl at the PO, Coddy's van and the Naz scam, and taxiing three freako kids through Garvie Wood by the light of the silvery moon.
What sort of flow was that? He could pull the plug on the kids and take them back to the Bin. Turn the clock back and start again from yesterday, but then Nats would tell him to get stuffed and did he want that? And Coddy would probably meatball him and parcel post him back to London if he didn't get the van back – pronto.
Either way he had to take a chance.
6
A creamy half moon was rising too, a boatless sail adrift in a limitless sky. Nail watched it seemingly caught in the wide-open black jaws of two giant branches. Crocodile carrying its egg he thought, as some old nature film from telly, The Natural World or something, suddenly started running in his head.
He looked over at the van. They were all back inside. Too cold probably.
The kids were in a tighter huddle now, arms intertwined. For warmth he wondered?
The blonde-haired girl was murmuring something and Natalie was leaning over them listening. Then the kid he'd seen first, the one with zero eyes, started finger tapping her arm.
‘What is this?’ exclaimed Nail. ‘She's not going soft on them is she?’
Then he saw the kid without the eyes was holding a clock, a yellow alarm clock. What does she want with a noddy clock for God's sake? he asked himself.
He stared at the four of them. Get them back he told himself, before they catch their death. In the light of the rising moon they looked bleached out. He was surprised the bald kid had anything as bright as red in him.
CHAPTER 19
Not So Softly Nail
1
‘Well, we can't take them back there,’ said Natalie, coming over to where Nail sat. ‘It sounds a nightmare that place.’
Nail was about to protest but saw the kids had followed Natalie. On her back the blonde one was carrying the thin no-eyes kid, who seemed to be asleep.
‘This is X-Ray. He's got this special skin. Very delicate. This is Lights Out because she's… well… you can see why. Best to call her Lolo like Chicken Angel here, who's tall and got this lovely hair.’
Chicken Angel smiled. She gently lowered Lights Out, who mewed and tried huddling up to Nail. He quickly moved out of her reach.
‘That's because she's got wings see,’ said Natalie. ‘Show Nail.’
Chicken Angel turned her back to Nail. He could see what looked like trapped fingers wriggling under the tracksuit top.
Christ he thought. It's enough to make you puke.
‘And this is Nail,’ said Natalie. ‘He's my friend. He can get bad tempered and shout a lot. But don't worry. He's OK inside but he doesn't know that yet.’
Chicken Angel smiled and held up her palms for Nail to see with all the fingers raying like the sun. X-Ray spread his hands too and bowed a little. Nail could see his skin was part see-through and open weaved with dark threads straying across the palm. Later on he realized that these were blood lines exposed by the tender thinness of his skin.
Lights Out had woken up. She sat up and faced Nail. Then she reached forward to touch him. Her bony hand moved very slowly like she was about to touch a spring-loaded frog.
Nail drew back. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Don't let her do that.’
Natalie knelt down beside him and gave him an elbow in the ribs.
Nail grunted.
‘At least smile,’ she whispered in his ear.
‘Hi,’ he said.
The three kids just stared at him. Lights Out reached over to Chicken Angel and began tapping on her arm.
‘They call that morsing,’ said Natalie. ‘It's how they communicate. At least that's how Lolo does.’
‘For God's sake, Nats!’ Nail burst out. ‘You mean they can't talk properly either?’
‘Course we can talk,’ said Chicken Angel. ‘What do you think we are, deletes or something?’
Nail backed off and raised his hands as if in apology.
‘Just don't touch me, that's all. No one morses me, understand?’
Everyone looked at Nail.
‘And don't just stare like that. It's bleedin' rude.’
‘And who's rude?’ said Natalie, giving him another elbow. She swung round and knelt upright in front of him. ‘We've gotta help these kids,’ she whispered between tightened lips. ‘That place should have been closed down years ago. It's like a prison. It's a concentration camp. It really does suck. They feed them pills and pills and more pills. Dope them up with needles and stuff. If they get out of line they jab and jab them stupid so they're out for days on end.’
‘Moosed out,’ said X-Ray, who now stood right next to Natalie.
‘Moosed out,’ she repeated, not quite sure what she was saying. ‘They don't have telly, or books or anything. It's disgusting.’
‘We have pictures,’ said Chicken Angel. ‘We picture all the time. Mrs Murdoe's a picture. We have pictures for Jack the Cat and the Sky Boat and monkeys and Pippi and porridge and roses and suns and stars and the sea and the moon and parrots and angels, but not for Tin Lid or Doctor Dearly or onion skin or pee or pitch or Hyena Men.’
‘Hyena Men?’ said Nail.
‘I think they mean Security,’ said Natalie.
‘Do you want to be a picture, Neil?’ asked Chicken Angel. ‘You've got bonny eyes.’
‘OK. OK,’ said Nail. ‘That's enough. Thanks but no thanks. Forget the eyes. I don't think I'll bother.’
‘It's easy to be a picture, Neil boy,’ said X-Ray.
‘Nail. My name's Nail.’
‘Funny name,’ said Chicken Angel.
‘That's because he's hard and sharp,’ said Natalie.
‘Then he should be called hypo,’ said Chicken Angel.
‘We don't have a picture for that,’ said X-Ray.
Nail turned to Natalie. ‘If the Bin is so bad why doesn't someone complain? Everyone else does these days.’
‘Because no one knows about the place and what really goes on there.’
‘What about Kenno's ma?’
Natalie shrugged. ‘They probably pay her to keep quiet.’ She paused and turned to X-Ray. ‘Tell him. Tell him about your friend… what's his name?’
‘Cough Cough.’
‘Yeah, tell Nail boy about Cough Cough and the eyes.’
Nail sat up. ‘No. No,’ he said. ‘I don't want to hear any more. About eyes or anything.’
‘What's wrong with you?’ said Natalie, leaning back-wards and staring at Nail like she wanted to slap him. ‘It's all wrong. Someone's got to do something about it.’
‘But it doesn't mean we have to,’ Nail whispered fiercely.
Natalie stood up. ‘So, you want to take them back? Is that it?’
Nail went silent.
No one said anything.
Suddenly they all stopped still, listening.
Owl hoot came woo-wooing through the trees.
Lights Out mewed. Natalie put her arms round her but she shrugged her off and pushed up against Chicken Angel. Then she started morsing.
‘What's she saying?’ said X-Ray.
Chicken Angel waited a moment. ‘She's seen the Sky Boat and wants to sail away in her.’
Nail groaned. ‘I told you, they're bonkers, Nats.’
‘Shut it, Nail. Just listen.’ She turned to the kids. ‘What sky boat?’ sh
e said.
‘It sails over the sea and into the sky,’ said Chicken Angel.
‘Ah, I see,’ said Natalie. ‘It's the moon, isn't it?’
Chicken Angel and X-Ray frowned.
‘No, not the moon. Mrs Murdoe told us about the Sky Boat,’ said X-Ray. ‘She said one day we'd sail away in that bonny boat and never come back.’
‘Well, I think that's bonny beautiful.’
2
By now Nail had stood up. He took hold of Natalie's arm and drew her a few steps to one side. ‘OK, we can't just let them go,’ he whispered. ‘They'd never survive round here, obviously.’ He paused. ‘Look, what we could do, and it would get us off the hook, is leave them somewhere safe like near a pub or something where they'd be found before they got run over or eaten by a big yellow leopard.’
‘Don't be so unfeeling,’ hissed Natalie. ‘So hard as. Dump them and send them back there? No way. The only leopard round here is you. You're just washing your hands of them.’
‘Of course I am. What's the point? They look like they're on their last wonky legs anyway.’
Natalie kicked him, hard as she could right on the shin. Nail shrieked, hopping and swearing and clutching his leg.
‘Serves you right, you callous sod.’
‘Look,’ said Nail, leaning against a tree trunk and breathing hard, ‘you're not thinking, you stupid mong. How can you look after kids who are bleeding and blind all over the place? What are you going to feed them on? Squirrel burgers?’
‘No, because we won't stay here. We'll get in the van and drive somewhere.’
‘Oh, yes. And get the sky ferry to the moon and back! And what happens when you hit the first police checkpoint. Eh? Not thought of that have you? Right now, the news will be out. The police will be crawling all over. You've got as much chance of escaping as…’
‘As three disabled kids from a high-security unit in the middle of Scotland,’ said Natalie.
‘Ha, ha,’ said Nail. ‘And since when do you drive?’
Natalie breathed out deeply.
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