by John Boyne
“I didn’t refuse to go anywhere,” said Barnaby, sitting up in the bed. “You sent me to the Graveling Academy for Unwanted Children. I never wanted to go there in the first place.”
“Oh, you’re just splitting hairs now. The point is, if you’re going to come home to Kirribilli, then you have to stop all this attention-seeking nonsense. First thing this morning the news vans were parked outside our house again, asking questions about the boy who came back from space, the boy who can’t keep his feet on the ground, the boy who floats like a helium balloon. It’s just like what happened when you insisted on being the ten millionth person to climb the Harbour Bridge.”
“But I didn’t even know that I was going to be the ten millionth person,” cried Barnaby, feeling the injustice of it all now. “It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you.”
“You just have to draw attention to yourself, that’s the problem. And we can’t have that anymore. So we’re asking you, Barnaby—if you come home with us, will you promise to be normal? Will you give up floating once and for all?”
“He might not have to promise, Mrs. Brocket,” came a voice from the doorway, and they turned round to see Dr. Washington entering the room with a chart in her hands. She introduced herself to Barnaby’s parents, gave him a quick once-over with a stethoscope and thermometer, then smiled at them all. “I think I might have some good news for you,” she said.
“Well, we could all do with a little of that,” said Eleanor in an exhausted tone. “What is it?”
“I wonder, did you ever bring Barnaby to see an ear specialist? When he was little, I mean?”
“No,” said Eleanor, shaking her head. “The boy was on the ceiling most of the time. And there’s nothing wrong with his ears. They’re perfectly normal. But why do you ask?”
Dr. Washington hesitated for a moment and consulted her chart before nodding, apparently satisfied with her conclusions. “Yesterday,” she explained, “when your son was brought in, I was asked by the Space Academy to give him a complete medical to make sure that he hadn’t brought any space bugs back to Earth inside his body.”
“You’re not saying he has, surely?” cried Eleanor, throwing her arms in the air. “Is this to be his latest foolishness? Acting as a host for some malevolent intergalactic life-form?”
“No, he’s perfectly fine, Mrs. Brocket,” said Dr. Washington, shaking her head. “In fact, he doesn’t seem to have had any adverse reaction to being in outer space for the last week at all.”
“Actually, it was middle space,” said Barnaby.
“Well, wherever it was, he seems to have survived the ordeal perfectly well. Nor has he suffered any injuries from having circumnavigated the globe since you unluckily lost hold of him in Sydney,” she added, raising an eyebrow as if she found this a little suspicious anyway.
Eleanor shifted uncomfortably in her chair and found something to stare at through the skylight.
“But what I did discover,” continued Dr. Washington, “is an imbalance in Barnaby’s ears. The alignment of the superior canal, the posterior canal, and the horizontal canal is completely out of kilter. The canals converge, you see, and control our sense of balance. That means that the air pressure inside his head is inconsistent, and no matter what he does, he’s going to float. Actually, if you want to be absolutely scientific about this, he’s not floating at all. He’s falling.”
“Falling?” asked Alistair and Eleanor, staring at her in surprise.
“That’s right. In most people, the arrangement of the canals ensures that we obey the law of gravity, but in Barnaby’s case, as all three are inverted—they’re turned upside down—his brain can’t interpret the signals it’s being sent. It thinks that everything is the wrong way round. And so Barnaby finds himself falling up rather than down because his brain thinks that’s the direction he should be headed. We insist on staying on the ground; he insists on rising away from it.
“It also explains why he didn’t float in the spaceship,” continued Dr. Washington. “The air is pressurized so that the astronauts don’t float up and hit their heads on the ceiling. The same process aimed at Barnaby kept him on the ground, but the air up there is the opposite of what it is down here. Back on Earth, the astronauts won’t float away. But Barnaby will. Does that make any sense?”
“Not much,” said Alistair.
“It sounds completely abnormal,” protested Eleanor.
“Well, it’s not common, I’ll give you that. But the thing is, it can be fixed.”
Alistair and Eleanor sat up now and stared at her. “It can?” asked Eleanor.
“It most certainly can,” said Dr. Washington. “I can do it myself, in fact. It’s a very simple operation. It wouldn’t take more than an hour or two.”
“And when it’s over?”
“When it’s over, Barnaby won’t float anymore. He’ll be like everyone else. He’ll be normal. Whatever normal means.”
And at those three words, Dr. Washington smiled, Alistair grinned, and Eleanor looked as if she might be about to scream in delight and dance a little jig around the room. The only person who looked unsure about how to greet this potentially life-changing news was Barnaby himself, but then no one was looking at him or seemed at all interested in his opinion on the matter.
“How soon can you do it, doctor?” asked Alistair. “Would you like us to hold him down for you right now? I’m sure he wouldn’t need an anesthetic. He’s a very resilient little boy. Made of stern stuff.”
“Perhaps not right now,” replied Dr. Washington, making a note on her chart of something she wanted to discuss with the hospital psychiatrist later. “But today is certainly an option. I could fit Barnaby in for surgery around six o’clock if you wanted to go ahead with it. Then a night’s rest here and some more observation over the next twenty-four hours, and Barnaby should be able to go home at some point tomorrow evening.”
“And you’re absolutely sure he’ll be normal?” asked Eleanor.
“As normal as you or your husband anyway.”
Which was good enough for Alistair and Eleanor Brocket.
Chapter 25
That Familiar Floating Feeling
Later that day, Henry and Melanie also visited the hospital. They were carrying a leather holdall, slightly unzipped at the top, whose contents seemed to be shaking and rattling. When Melanie laid eyes on her younger brother lying in the bed, she placed it on the floor and it seemed to curl up on itself and remained completely still.
“Barnaby!” she cried, rushing forward and throwing her arms around him. “We missed you so much. Every time I looked at the empty ceiling, I burst into tears.”
“Hello, Barnaby,” said Henry, giving him an affectionate hug. “How are you anyway?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve had lots of exciting adventures. Met lots of unusual people. Seen lots of interesting places.”
“Would you like to know what’s been going on here in Sydney?” asked Melanie.
“Yes, of course!”
“Absolutely nothing,” she said, pulling a face. “It’s so boring here. Nothing ever happens.”
“But it’s the most magnificent city in the world!”
“Says you. I wish I could go off and have lots of adventures. You’re so lucky.”
Barnaby didn’t know what to say to this. He wasn’t accustomed to people envying him.
“What happened after I went?” he asked, for he was eager to know how his disappearance had been explained in the Brocket household. “What did Mum and Dad say? Did they talk about me a lot?”
“A little at first,” said Melanie. “Then, when it seemed as if you weren’t coming back, not so much. They said it was your fault that you’d floated away like that.”
“I don’t think it was entirely my fault,” said Barnaby, a bit aggrieved.
“Well, no,” said Henry. “Not entirely, I suppose. But you really should have done as you were told.”
Barnaby frowned. “Did as I w
as told?” he asked. “How do you mean?”
“Well, Mum told us how you said it was too hot that morning to wear your rucksack,” explained Melanie. “She said she’d told you that you had no choice, that you had to keep it on or you’d float away, but that you were in one of your moods and wouldn’t listen to her.”
“She told us that you took it off out of badness,” said Henry. “And up you went. She tried to catch you but the wind picked up, and before she knew it, you’d risen too high.”
“I think they’ve forgiven you, though,” said Melanie.
“Of course they’ve forgiven him,” said Henry. “Why, they’re just happy to have you back safely. What’s the matter, Barnaby? You’ve gone a funny color. That is what happened, isn’t it?”
Barnaby opened his mouth, feeling a great ball of fury rising in the pit of his stomach. He’d been away from home for weeks; sometimes he’d barely eaten, sometimes he hadn’t known where he was going to get a bed for the night; he’d been criticized on more than one occasion for smelling a little ripe. Sometimes he’d been really frightened and felt very alone. He looked at his brother and sister, wanting to tell them exactly what had happened and how he’d got himself into this situation in the first place, but their anxious expressions made it clear that not only did they believe their parents’ version of events, but they needed to believe it too. Anything else, after all, was simply too awful to contemplate.
“Yes,” he said finally, swallowing and turning away, unable to look them in the eye. “Yes, that’s what happened. I should have listened to her. But you know me, I always have to have my own way.”
“Well, that is normal,” said Henry, smiling at him.
Before they could say any more, the door opened and a nurse—a rather bad-tempered nurse—looked inside and seemed appalled by what she discovered there.
“Children!” she said. “There can’t be any children in here!”
“But it’s a children’s hospital,” said Barnaby.
“You can stay,” she snapped, pointing a finger at him. “But these two? Out! We don’t allow children like you to come in here and spread your horrible infections to the patients. Out now! All of you! Except you,” she added, pointing at Barnaby. “Out, out, out!”
Henry and Melanie sighed and turned back to their brother.
“We’ll see you tomorrow, Barnaby,” said Melanie. “After your operation.”
“Mum told you about that, did she?”
“Yes, she’s very excited.”
“Out!” insisted the nurse, practically screaming now. “Out, out, out!”
“Oh, and we brought you a present,” said Melanie quickly as she jumped off the bed, using the toe of her boot to push the leather holdall closer to him. It started to shake again, then settled a little, then shook again. Then settled again. “Don’t open it now, though,” she added, her eyes growing wide as if she was trying to impart a secret message, her head nodding in the direction of the nurse. “Wait until we’re gone.”
They made their way out into the corridor before they could be scolded any further, and the door closed behind them, leaving Barnaby alone in his room. He looked down at the bag, wondering what could possibly be inside, and as he unzipped it, to his great surprise, something leaped out and threw itself onto the bed in front of him.
“Captain W. E. Johns!” cried Barnaby in delight as the dog scrambled up the mattress and licked Barnaby’s face so heartily that it was just about the best wash he’d had in weeks.
In the afternoon, a couple of hours before his operation was due to take place, a hospital porter brought a wheelchair and said that if he wanted to have a change of scenery for a little while, then he could wheel himself around the corridors. As Captain W. E. Johns hid under the bed, Barnaby jumped into the chair, buckled himself in, and set off to explore.
Everywhere he looked, there were children wearing pajamas and dressing gowns, either walking up and down the corridors with their parents or lying in the wards as their families gathered around, playing games of chess, backgammon, or Scrabble, or simply catching up on their reading. As far as he could make out, he was the only person who had been left on his own.
Turning a corner, he saw Dr. Washington sitting at a desk, tapping information into a computer and scribbling notes on a pad as she copied information off the screen, and wheeled himself over toward her.
“Hello, doctor,” he said.
“Hello, Barnaby,” she said, turning to look at him with a smile. “And what can I do for you?”
“I just wanted to ask …,” he began, thinking about this question carefully. “What would happen if I don’t have the operation?”
“Well, you have to have the operation,” she said, as if there was simply no question about it. “Your parents have already signed the forms, and I’m afraid when it comes to eight-year-old boys, they get to have the final say.”
“Yes, but in theory,” said Barnaby. “If they hadn’t signed the forms, I mean. If they didn’t want me to have the operation.”
“But they do.”
“But if they didn’t.”
Dr. Washington thought about it for a moment and shrugged her shoulders. “Well, nothing would happen as such,” she said. “You’d remain exactly as you are. You’d keep floating. You’d never be able to keep your feet on the ground.”
“And I’d stay like that forever?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so,” said Dr. Washington. “But you don’t have to worry, Barnaby, that’s not going to happen. We’re going to fix you up. By this time tomorrow you’ll be a completely different boy. Everything in your life will have changed, and you’ll be just like everybody else. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Barnaby smiled, said that he was sure it was, then wheeled himself back to his room, back to his thoughts, back to Captain W. E. Johns.
It was getting late now. Almost five-thirty. The operation was set for six o’clock. Barnaby knew that the hospital porter would come for him at any minute; he’d be strapped onto a gurney and rolled down the corridor, pushed into a lift, and taken down into the depths of the building, where he would be sent to sleep. When he woke up again, he would be someone else entirely. He’d still be Barnaby Brocket, of course, just a very different Barnaby Brocket from the one who’d existed for the previous eight years.
He stared up through the skylight at the pale blue evening sky, at the wispy clouds that were floating by, at the birds making their way to wherever birds make their way to, and patted Captain W. E. Johns, who was lying curled up in a ball on his lap. And he thought about everything that had happened to him since the day Eleanor had cut a hole in his rucksack and let the sand run out.
He’d been in a hot-air balloon. He’d met two wonderful old ladies who’d never looked back after being thrown out by their families for being different. He’d visited a coffee farm in Brazil and got to cuddle up to a girl called Palmira. He’d had his rucksack stolen in New York and helped a young artist become successful. He’d taken a train ride to Toronto, seen a football game, floated up a tower, where he’d been saved and then kidnapped by a horrible man—but on the plus side he’d come across the most unusual and nicest people he’d ever met in his life. He’d even seen his friend Liam McGonagall again. He’d taken a bungee jump (or tried to) and a parachute jump (or tried to) and met a man who’d agreed to return to his children, even though they wanted to control everything he did with his life.
He’d even been to outer space.
Or middle space anyway.
And now he was back here again. Back in Sydney. Back in the normal world.
And it occurred to Barnaby that being normal might not be everything that it was cracked up to be. After all, how many so-called normal boys had had the adventures he’d had or met the people he’d met? How many of them had seen so much of the world and helped so many people along the way?
And who was to say that he was the one who wasn’t normal anyway? Was it normal to cut a hole in a rucksa
ck and send an eight-year-old boy off to who knew where? Was it even normal to want to be so, well, normal all the time?
From outside in the corridor he heard the sound of the lift doors opening and a trolley being pushed into the corridor. That must be for me, he thought, his heart starting to beat a little faster inside his chest. If I let them take me away, they’ll turn me into them.
Which was when he realized that he liked being different. It was the way he’d been born, after all. It was who he was supposed to be. He couldn’t allow them to change that. He didn’t want to spend his whole life feeling like he had the afternoon he’d climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
He looked up at the skylight above him, and then at the button that sat next to his bed—the one controlling the mechanism that opened and closed the window.
He looked at it.
He hesitated.
And then he pressed it.
New adventures, he thought. New places. New people.
People who won’t cut a hole in my rucksack.
With a click and a sweeping sound, the skylight started to open, and Captain W. E. Johns stirred in his lap, opened his eyes, and looked up at his master, offering him an enormous yawn.
“I’m sorry, boy,” said Barnaby. “I can’t let them change me.”
Captain W. E. Johns stared at his master with a puzzled expression on his face. Barnaby looked up toward the skylight, which had opened fully now, allowing a cool breeze to drift into the room, and started to unbuckle the strap that was keeping him tied to the bed.
The dog stumbled to his four feet and tried to find his footing on the blanket. The expression on his face suggested that he wasn’t sure what was happening but he was predisposed to disapprove of it. “Bark,” he barked, just to be on the safe side.
“Shh,” said Barnaby, that familiar floating feeling taking him over as the straps began to loosen—that wonderful sensation, that phenomenon that made Barnaby Brocket the boy he was.
Captain W. E. Johns began to panic now, his tail twirling in confusion, turning clockwise at first, then counterclockwise, then rotating back and forth in bewilderment. He tried to fasten the belt again with his teeth, but without success; there was no way it was possible for a dog.