They know what I’ve done.
Dr Moore glances up from his pad with a concerned look on his face. ‘Young man,’ he says. ‘I think you know there’s something else. We need to have a chat with you about some of the things you said last night.’
My heart monitor beeps. It’s gone up to 98. All my worries rush through my head at the same time – me, Henry, Amir. A bead of sweat trickles down my neck.
Greg slides the chair away from the bathroom door and sits down by my side.
‘It’s okay, mate. Amir’s told us everything.’
I do a confused look like I still don’t know what he’s talking about. Why would Amir tell them? I didn’t know he’d been in. I haven’t heard him in the transition zone or seen him on my screens.
Beth leans forward. Her face is red and her eyes are watering. I can’t tell if she’s upset or angry. ‘Just tell us, Joe.’ I think she might be both.
Heart rate: 114.
Has Amir told them everything?
I open my mouth to speak but the secret has been inside of me for so long that it won’t come out. I try again. There’s a lump in my throat and my eyes start to ache. I swallow hard and look at Beth.
‘I’m sorry.’
She stands up and wraps her arms around me. ‘Hey, don’t cry,’ she says. ‘Don’t cry. It’s okay.’ She rocks me gently.
My chest cracks and the worms are turning in my stomach. ‘I wanted to tell you,’ I say. ‘I didn’t want to lie.’
‘I know. I know.’ She lets go of me. ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘But you need to tell us everything now.’
I nod and wipe my tears on my arm.
‘So you’re not angry with me?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far.’ She smiles and rubs her thumbs across my cheeks. I haven’t even started to tell them what I’ve done but it feels like the elephant has taken its foot off my chest.
My mattress sinks as Dr Moore sits down beside me.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I just need you to tell me all the places Amir took you.’
I nod and look at his pad. There’s writing scribbled all over it, with diagrams and arrows and in the centre of the page I see the word Heathrow with a circle drawn around it. I’ve never seen Amir’s handwriting but it looks so mad and scrappy that this must be his. It looks like he’s written a confession. They must’ve sat him at a desk in a room with no windows and no doors. I’ve seen it in films when the police keep people up all night without giving them drink or food. They bang their fist on the table and make the suspect wee in a pot in a corner. When they go to prison all they have is a bed and a pillow for the rest of their lives.
I look up at Dr Moore. ‘Will Amir go to prison?’ I ask.
‘Sorry?’
‘I don’t want Amir to go to prison. He was just trying to help me. It wasn’t his fault. It was all my idea.’
My heat-rate monitor beeps again – 104. It’s no good. I can’t lie. My monitor is a lie detector waiting to beep on every word.
Dr Moore shakes his head. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘It’s serious, but I’m not sure it’s as serious as that. Now . . . just take me through it, step by step. The sooner we know what you’ve been up to, the sooner we get to catch this infection.’
‘Okay.’
My thoughts float around in my head. I try to put them in order and tell about my trip outside, how I used the monitors to watch Jim and Phil. I tell him Amir made me a special suit with oxygen tanks and monitors to make sure I was safe. Dr Moore tells me that Amir has given them the suit and they’re checking it for infection as we speak. Then he listens as I describe how we drove through the streets past the big buildings and then went on the motorway until we turned off for Heathrow.
Greg folds his arms.
Beth sighs.
Dr Moore draws an even bigger circle around Heathrow. ‘What did you do there?’ he asks.
‘We watched the planes take off and land. It was brilliant!’
Beth shakes her head. I don’t think any of them want to hear that now.
‘What did you do after the planes?’ asks Dr Moore.
‘We watched the sun come up. . . .’
‘And then?’
‘Amir drove us back.’
‘The same way?’
‘I don’t know. I think so . . . I fell asleep.’
Dr Moore puts a little tick next to the word hospital 6.53 a.m. ‘Okay, Joe. Now this is important . . . did you take your helmet off at any time?’
‘No.’
Greg leans forward.
‘Just think, mate,’ he says. ‘You need to be sure.’
I put my hand on my head. I didn’t take it off, did I? I know I wanted to but I’m sure I didn’t. I can’t think properly.
‘What about when you saw the bugs, mate?’
‘No . . . I don’t think I did . . . That was in my dream . . . I don’t know.’
I start to cough. Dr Moore waits for me to stop and says he thinks that’s all he needs. Beth pours me a glass of water. I go to take it. She holds it up like she’s going to pour it over my head.
Dr Moore chuckles and stands up.
‘I think I’d better leave you two to it!’ he says. I take a sip of water as Greg follows him towards the door.
‘Oh!’ Dr Moore turns around. ‘One last thing. Don’t go flying off anywhere. It won’t look good if we have to put our superhero in chains.’
‘He’s not going anywhere,’ says Beth.
I know she means it.
The door opens and then slides closed. Suddenly me and Beth are alone. She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, then stops like she’s changed her mind. Her face is white and she looks really tired. I ask her if she’s okay. She tries to speak again then puts her hand up to her mouth. I don’t know what to do or where to look. I hate it when Beth gets upset. I hate it when it’s my fault. I didn’t want to tell her I’d been outside like this. I wanted to tell her when I’m well and she could be as excited as I was.
I sit up. I’ve already said I’m sorry but I want to say it again.
‘I’m sorry.’
Beth’s eyes start to water and her hand starts to shake. She takes her hand down from her mouth. ‘You idiot.’ Her voice wavers.
‘I said I was sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ Tears are falling down her cheeks. She sniffs. ‘God,’ she says. ‘When they told me, I thought it was just one of your superhero dreams.’
‘No, it was better than—’
‘Don’t,’ she says. ‘Don’t. God, Joe, don’t you realize how stupid you’ve been? And Amir . . . I could kill him. What the hell was he thinking? Maybe you were right all along. He is mad.’
‘No, he’s not! He just wanted to help me. I wanted to go out.’
‘He’s supposed to be your bloody nurse, not your taxi driver.’
She wipes her nose in a tissue. She was mad when I dropped my first laptop. She was even madder when I dropped the second one, but that was nowhere near as mad as she is now.
She stands up and walks over to the window. Greg told me that when his girlfriend is mad with him it doesn’t matter what he says, it’s always the wrong thing so he goes to the pub and waits for the storm to blow over. It feels like there’s a big storm in my room. I don’t know what to say either but the only room I could escape to is my toilet and I don’t want to go there.
I struggle up off my bed and stumble over to her. All I can hear are my monitors and the sound of her breathing.
She’s right. I shouldn’t have done it.
She turns her head and looks at me. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are shining.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she says. ‘I can’t . . . anything could have happened.’
‘But Henry did it.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘And look what happened to him! He had NASA; you had a crazy nurse who believes in aliens!’
My eyes fall to the ground. I wish she hadn’t said that.
‘I’m s
orry,’ she says.
‘It’s okay.’ I look up at her. Her eyes look sad, like the storm has blown over.
‘It just makes me mad. I don’t think you thought about it,’ she says. ‘You can’t just . . .’ I wait for her to speak again but all she does is look straight at me.
A tear trickles down her nose.
‘Come here,’ she says.
I turn towards her. She wraps her arms around me and pulls me so tight against her chest that I can feel her heart beating. It feels like it’s beating as fast as mine. ‘Joe, I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re the only one I’ve got.’
I swallow hard. I hadn’t thought about that. All the time I was thinking about what I wanted. I didn’t think of what would happen to Beth if I didn’t come back.
I start to cry. She holds me as tight as she knows she can.
‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have got so mad.’
‘I shouldn’t have done it.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have . . . But I don’t blame you. No one really knows what it’s like to be cooped up all of their life.’ She lets go of me and puts her hands on my shoulders.
She’s going to say something serious now.
‘Promise me you’ll never do it again.’
I didn’t want her to ask me to say that. If I say I promise I’ll be lying, but if I don’t promise I’ll upset her.
I turn away from her and look out of the window but I’m not looking at anything. I don’t want to answer. Is not saying the truth the same as a lie? Out the corner of my eye I can see her looking at me.
Please don’t ask me again.
‘Joe? Do you promise?’
‘Okay,’ I say, under my breath. I don’t really mean it. I’d give anything, anything, to do it again. Especially now I don’t have Henry here with me.
She reaches out and ruffles my hair. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s watch a DVD.’
‘What did you get?’
‘Iron Man 3.’
I smile and feel a tiny bit warm inside, even though I still feel like there’s a hole inside me from Henry being gone.
She puts the DVD in the slot while I get onto my bed. My body aches every time my heart beats. I’d been so worried about Henry that all my proper pains had gone away but now they’ve all come back worse.
Beth lies down and puts her arm around me.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Just aching,’ I say. ‘And every time things go quiet I miss Henry.’ My throat closes up again.
‘I know,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be like that for a while, but it gets better. I promise.’ She rests her head against mine. I think of telling her everything else I did when I went outside but I don’t think she wants to hear about it any more because she’s already got the remote in her hand.
My phone buzzes on the table. I look at it and wonder if it’s Amir. It buzzes again.
‘Joe, aren’t you going to see who that is?’
I look at the phone. If Beth knows it’s Amir she’ll take it off of me.
‘It’s the battery warning,’ I say.
‘Do you want to charge it?’
‘No. It’s okay. I just want to watch this.’
‘If you’re sure?’
I nod even though I’m desperate to see if it’s Amir.
She presses play.
I’ll have to wait.
The Mandarin has just blown up the Chinese Theatre. Flames are bursting out of the building. Cars are flying through the air and people are running down the street. But I haven’t been able to concentrate because my phone has buzzed four times and it’s just buzzed again. I turn my head slowly towards Beth. Her head is back on the pillow and her eyes are closed. I gently lift her arm off of me, pick my phone up off the table and go to the bathroom. The fan switches on. I check back at Beth. She rolls over onto her side but her eyes stay shut. I close the door gently behind me and sit down on the toilet seat.
My phone buzzes again. I click on the messages – six from Amir.
Joe. I tell them everything.
You no worry.
Hope you okay
I have bad signal
Are you okay?
Why you no tell me you ill?
I start to type.
Amir, are you there?
My phone buzzes straight away.
Yes. I worry. Greg say you really ill
I am.
Why you no tell me.
I didn’t want you to lose your job.
Jobs aren’t important. People are important. I tell the doctors I think it a bug in Rashid car. He not use the air-con for two year.
They’re checking everything.
Is the landing strip ready?
What?
For the aliens. They come soon.
Amir is confusing me. He’s crazy when he’s with me, and he seems even crazier when he texts. I wish we could sit down and talk properly.
Amir, can I see you?
Sunday. The aliens come. You watch them. Out your window.
But I just want to see you.
Got to go. You get better.
But –
My phone buzzes before I can reply.
Sunday. Bye.
He’s gone already. I read his messages again to see if I’ve missed anything. I read the one about the bug in his brother’s car. I wonder if he’s right. I open the bathroom door. Beth is asleep facing my monitors. I creep over to the table and flip up my laptop. I hover my fingers over the keys.
I type ‘Bugs in cars’.
33, 900,000 results in 0.64 seconds.
There are pictures of beetles and bed bugs crawling over car seats and eating rubbish in the footwells. I scroll down and click on the first link about the hidden bugs in cars.
There’s millions of them, munching away through air filters and pipes – a hidden enemy of microscopic bacteria causing illnesses like E-coli, Bacillus cereus, Staphylococcus.
I click on Staphylococcus.
It’s a bacteria that looks like a bunch of grapes. It causes boils, sores and abscesses all over the skin. In some cases it produces toxins that attack white blood cells!
My head hurts and my palms start to sweat.
Is that what I’ve got? Staphylococcus? It sounds like a dinosaur.
A wave of heat goes through me from my head to my toes. I was right. There’s a bug crawling all over my skin. I shut my laptop down and go back to the bathroom and look in the mirror. My eyes are red and my cheeks are red too. I press my fingers on my cheeks and pull them away. My skin goes white, stays white – do I have dehydration, or meningitis? My skin turns red. I’m okay. I take off my t-shirt and do the same to my body – fingers on my chest then on my stomach. My skin goes white. Come on. Come on. It goes red. I take a deep breath and check for boils and sores. There’s a mark on my chest but I think it’s where I just pressed my skin with my fingers. I turn sideways and look over my shoulder. There’s a small bruise on my right hip. I pull the waistband of my trousers down. Phew, the bruise doesn’t go any further and Staphylococcus doesn’t cause bruises anyway.
‘Joe, what are you doing?’
I look up and see Beth in the mirror.
‘I’m . . . I’m just checking . . .’
‘What for?’
‘Staphylococcus.’
Beth shakes her head slowly.
‘You’ve been on your laptop again. How many times do I have to tell you?’ She gives me my t-shirt. ‘Just leave it to the doctors . . . And you shouldn’t be up, anyway!’
I put my t-shirt back on again. I know she’s right but I can’t stop looking.
‘Come on,’ she says, ‘maybe you’ve done too much today.’ She walks with me back to my bed.
I lie down and look at my laptop again. I’m addicted to it. Some people like Mike are addicted to alcohol and some people are addicted to chocolate and biscuits. I’m addicted to finding out about every disease in the world. I turn and look
at Beth.
‘Just close your eyes,’ she says. ‘Sometimes sleep is the best cure.’
I’m so glad she’s here.
11 years, 3 months and 18 days
I’m lying on my bed watching my screens with Beth. The doctors were right. The drugs have been fighting inside me for three days. Sometimes I feel hot and want to take my t-shirt off. Sometimes I feel cold and wrap myself in blankets. And sometimes I feel hot and cold at the same time. I can’t sit still when that happens. I’m having a good day today, but I might not tomorrow.
Beth nudges me and points at screen 4.
Keith is talking to Julie in reception. She’s laughing and prodding him on the arm. Keith is laughing too – he’s standing by the drinks machine with a bunch of flowers hidden behind his back. He says something. Julie looks mad and punches his arm. Keith opens his mouth wide – hey! He pulls the flowers out from behind his back – surprise! Julie puts her hand up to her mouth. Beth does the same.
‘Awww, it’s so cute,’ she says.
‘I think they’ll get married,’ I say.
‘You think so?’
‘Yes, you watch.’
Keith hands Julie a card and they walk back to her desk. Julie smiles to herself as she reads it and then puts it down by her computer. She’s got loads of cards. She’s fifty today! Keith walks around the back of her desk, looks up and down the reception then bends down and gives Julie a kiss.
‘See, told you.’
Beth laughs. She loves my screens. She’s been watching them all the time with me. The maintenance guy came on Wednesday morning to disconnect them but all he did was look at the decoder and scratch his head. He told us he wasn’t good with technology and then went away. Greg said someone from IT was going to come on Thursday instead. We waited for them all day Thursday and Friday, too. I think they must be busy. I hope they’ve forgotten.
Beth nudges me again. I switch to screen 6.
The roadworks have nearly reached the end of the road. Dave is talking to a man in a suit wearing a white hat. I tell Beth his name is Dom.
The Bubble Boy Page 21