Space Race

by Sylvia Waugh

  He tried hard to remember the time before he arrived in the hospital bed, but there was a great gap in his memory. He could not fathom how he had arrived at this place and time.

  The last thing he could genuinely remember was putting an envelope into a post box. It was late morning. His father was walking behind him, crossing the road. Then the crash! The noise! And the being totally alone …

  Thomas had a surge of resentment.

  Why had his father left him there? Where was Patrick? He had promised no harm would come to his son. Was this not harm? To be left all alone in a strange place?

  Thoughts took puzzling leaps…. The nurse had called him Sammy. That was the name the tramp had given him. Did the people in this town always call strangers “Sammy”? What should he do about telling them his real name?

  My real name is not even Thomas. My real, real name is Tonitheen, he thought, and I come from Ormingat. Names never uttered except to his father when they were alone, names he had been trained never to tell to anyone else on Earth. For the first time in his life, he was fully aware of his true origins. To know the words— and he had always known the words—was one thing, to face the facts was quite another.

  Thomas heard footsteps and saw the curtain move. It was the nurse coming quietly to check her patient. Thomas shut his eyes and let his head fall to one side to make it look as if he were sleeping. Cornelia looked in on him briefly, was satisfied, and went away.

  Thomas, left to his thoughts again, bit his sheet so that he would not begin to sob. The thoughts were so sad and so terrible. Where are you, Vateelin mesht ? The crash must have something to do with it. The crash … Oh, Father, can it be that you are dead?

  No, thought Thomas with determination, he is not dead. If he were dead, I would know. I would somehow be bound to know.

  He has gone in search of the spaceship. He has gone and left me here. He must have had some strong reason but clearly I am not as important as the assignment he is meant to keep. If he really loved me, he would be here by my bed.

  Then, into the vacuum left by this idea, there crept a treacherous thought.

  I know where Stella is.

  If I tell the people here that I am Thomas Derwent and I live in Belthorp, and give them Stella's name, they will send for her and she will take me home.

  It was a great temptation.

  But my name is Tonitheen and I come from Ormingat and Vateelin is my father. The names are keys. Patrick had said the names were keys, to be used only in the direst of circumstances. And there could surely be no circumstance more dire than this!

  He did not tell me enough, thought Thomas angrily. He did not trust me enough to explain it all. I do not know how to use these keys. If he had wanted me to be prepared, he should have told me more.

  I can go home to Belthorp with Stella and spend Christmas there and see my friends again. There need be no diminishing, no terrifying journey. I can go on living here on Earth and never worry about any of that.

  More thoughts drifted in….

  They'll want to know where my father is. Stella will want to know. Everyone will want to know. Parents lose children sometimes. I've seen it on the news; parents do lose children. Then people hunt for them. But I have never known a child to lose a parent, not just in the middle of a street the way I did. And if I tell them everything, that might be worse.

  I'll just have to say I do not know where my father is. The truth is always best. I was with him on Walgate Hill. Then there was a crash. And I have not seen him since.

  If the truth is best, said a voice in his head like a prickly conscience, then in this, the direst of circumstances, you know the truth, Tonitheen. You know what your father would expect you to do. Use the keys. To do anything else is an act of disloyalty. To do anything else solves nothing.

  How can words be keys? How can such keys work? Where are the locks?

  Then Thomas remembered abracadabra and open sesame. They were just words uttered into the air and working magic. In stories! In childish fairy stories!

  But Patrick had said that the spaceship was not magic. It was all science—diminishing, increasing, black holes, and energy—so neither would the key words be magic. They too must be science. And if the only thing I know how to do is to say them, then that is what I must do.

  Say them, said the voice inside his head. Say them out loud and clearly.

  It was three o'clock in the morning. In the ward, other children were sleeping and a nurse and two aides were watchful as they quietly carried out small tasks, checking and tidying.

  The peace was shattered when Thomas sat up straight in his bed and called out loudly, “I am Tonitheeen and I come from Ormingat!”

  The voice was the voice of Ormingat. Its tone was high and thin, piercing the silence of the night and sounding like no accent on this Earth. The English words came out distorted by the alien voice.

  Cornelia heard it with a shiver and rushed to the spot from which it appeared to come: Sammy's bed, in the left-hand corner.

  A child at the other side of the nearly empty ward heard it and began to cry loudly. The other nurse's aide rushed to pacify him.

  Jamie heard strange noises and turned over in his sleep.

  Cornelia gripped Thomas by the shoulders.

  “What are you doing, Sammy?” she said in a loud whisper. “I've never heard anything like it! How are you making that sound?”

  It flashed through her mind that somehow Sammy might have produced this exotic noise on Jamie's keyboard, though Jamie himself had never managed anything quite so weird.

  Thomas looked directly at her, making her instantly aware that he had left behind his zombie state of the evening before.

  “I am Tonitheen,” he said once more. “And I come from Ormingat.”

  The voice was the same, so out of keeping with any voice the nurse had ever heard that she could not understand any of the words. The head nurse came over and stood behind her.

  “I think we'd better call Dr. Wallace,” said the head nurse. “This makes no sense to me at all.”

  Thomas lay back disconsolate. The keys were obviously not working. Nothing had happened. He did not know what to do next. What you have to consider, said the voice inside his head, is what not to say. You have declared for Ormingat. Let your declaration stand firm.

  So when Dr. Wallace arrived, almost stumbling for lack of sleep, Thomas just looked at him and said nothing.

  “What's wrong?” said the doctor, looking down at the notes that hung at the foot of the bed.

  “He's spoken,” said Nurse West primly. “At least, he's sort of spoken. We were told to let you know when any change occurred.”

  The young doctor stifled a yawn, listened to the patient's chest, and checked his pulse.

  “Nothing odd there,” he said. “What has he been saying?”

  Cornelia and the head nurse looked at one another dubiously.

  Thomas, seeing their difficulty, decided to help and said more softly this time, but in the same tones as before, “I am Tonitheen and I come from Ormingat.”

  Dr. Wallace heard and was suitably startled. He stared at Thomas openmouthed before looking down self-consciously at his notes. His experience of children on any but a clinical basis was very limited. He did not entirely trust them, and this one had just produced a sound that was mysteriously over the edge. To ask questions about it might expose him to ridicule.

  Thomas smiled slightly, understanding perfectly well the doctor's dilemma. Using his Ormingat voice had turned into a game. All the worry was still there and all the distress, but to play was somehow to enlist on the side of optimism. Or, to put it more simply, he was an eleven-year-old boy with a healthy sense of fun that was as good a weapon as any against fear. If you can make a monkey out of people, you are not going to find them awesome!

  “I see he is Dr. Ramsay's patient,” said the doctor thoughtfully and with some relief. “There's nothing here that can't wait till morning. Dr. Ramsay will see him
then.”

  Next morning a different nurse came and drew back the curtain round Thomas's bed. It was then that he noticed for the first time that the ward was all decorated for Christmas. There were streamers hanging from the ceiling, looped between hoops that were garlanded with holly, mistletoe, and gold and silver tinsel. Whole bunches of balloons were tied to the tops of pillars that formed part of the wall between the ward and the corridor. Everything was sensibly out of reach.

  “Breakfast, Sammy?” said the new nurse's aide. “I am Kirsty, here at your service. Would you like porridge or flakes? Not a bad hotel, this, even a choice of cereal!”

  Kirsty chattered on. She had seen the notes and knew the problem. She was also hoping to hear this strange voice the others were talking about.

  “Fell-akeses, plasselweese,” said Thomas, pointing to the bowl of cornflakes. The accent was real enough, but the words were invented, an eccentric, impromptu variation on “Flakes, please.” Thomas enjoyed the expression on the aide's face. Surprise was soon followed by a look of comic disbelief. Kirsty was Scottish, downto-earth, and not easily fazed. She put the tray across his lap and placed the bowl and spoon on it.

  “Well, you're no' frae Glasgow,” she said in an exaggerated Scottish accent, “and that's for sure.”

  Thomas smiled at her. And in his mind he was saying to himself, I can like this game. It can last till it's all sorted out.

  “So,” continued Kirsty, “is your name Sammy, or is it no'?”

  “I am Tonitheen and I come from Ormingat.”

  Kirsty could not understand a word.

  “That's harder than broad Geordie!” she said. “Let's look at your gums. Have you got some sort o' swazzle in there?”

  Thomas very nearly spoke in his ordinary English voice. What on earth was a swazzle?

  The aide held his chin between her thumb and forefinger and told him to open his mouth. He was so surprised that he did as he was told.

  “No swazzle,” said Kirsty, smiling. Thomas found it impossible to be vexed with someone whose smile was so jolly. Still, she shouldn't have looked in his mouth like that. He took a big spoonful of cornflakes before she could do it again.

  In the next bed, Jamie had been listening wide-eyed to Thomas's amazing feats of alien sound.

  “That's great!” he said when the aide moved away. “How do you do it?”

  Thomas gave him a friendly grin and said, “I am Tonitheen and I come from Ormingat.”

  “Say that again,” said Jamie enthusiastically.

  “I am Tonitheen and I come from Ormingat,” said Thomas in a louder voice.

  Jamie listened as Thomas repeated the sentence three more times. Then he gave him a look of triumph.

  “I yem Jameth Marriteen int I comf rom Cass-elltónn!” he shouted, so that the others in the ward all looked at him.

  Kirsty came straight over to his bed.

  “Do behave yourself, Jamie,” she said. “There are two very poorly children over there—and you are going home as soon as the doctor's seen you, and your mam comes in.”

  “I was only trying to talk like Tobatheem,” Jamie grumbled.

  “Who?” said the aide.

  “Him in the next bed,” said Jamie impatiently. “His name's not Sammy, you know. It's Tobatheem. He's not English. I think he's African. Though he doesn't look it.”

  “Oh!” said Kirsty. “And here's me thinking he might be Irish. He sounds like a banshee to me! What makes you think he's from Africa?”

  Jamie looked important. He was surely going to be asked to act as an interpreter!

  “He comes from a place called Organmatt,” said Jamie with the voice of authority. “And that is in Africa, I think. I'm sure we learned about it in geography once.”

  Thomas nodded vigorously. This was even better!

  “I am Tonitheen and I come from Ormingat.”

  “There, you see?” said Jamie. “It's easy to understand if you listen properly.”

  He returned Thomas's nods with interest and said, “I yem Jameth Marriteen int I comf rom Cass-ell-tónn!”

  Then both boys laughed so that their bowls and spoons bounced on their trays.

  “Now behave yourself, Jamie,” said Kirsty, “and you too, whatever your name is! The doctor will be round in half an hour. Get on with your breakfast. Remember those poor children over there. Make less noise, the pair of you.”

  Thomas found it desperately difficult not to tell Jamie all about Belthorp Primary and his friend Mickey Trent. But he had made up his mind on a course of action and he was determined to stick to it. It was a bit like being a prisoner of war. He would tell only his name and number or, in his case, his own name and the name of the planet he had left at the age of three and did not even vaguely remember. Inventing fresh words would be dicey—Jamie seemed a bit too clever. So Thomas decided to stick to the original formula. Besides, his father somewhere, somehow, would be bound to hear him—the more he thought about it, the more he knew that must be true—and gibberish would hardly help. It was important not to lose sight of the real purpose of using the Ormingat tongue, the little he knew of it.

  “I am Tonitheen and I come from Ormingat,” said Thomas to his newfound friend.

  “I yem Jameth Marriteen int I comf rom Cass-elltónn!” Jamie chanted in reply, and at the same time he set his keyboard to playing “Blaydon Races.” It was quite noisy!

  Then the head nurse came and drew the curtains round Jamie's bed.

  “You can get ready to go home now,” she said. “Dr. Ramsay will be along shortly, but I can't see there being any problems. It's away with you as soon as your mam arrives.”

  “I am Tonitheen,” said Thomas through the curtain.

  “I yem Jameth,” Jamie called back to him.

  Dr. Ramsay, Jamie's mother, and Ernie arrived together. The curtain was drawn back to show Jamie standing dressed and ready to go. Dr. Ramsay gave him a cursory glance and said, “Well, nothing to stop you going home, young man. See you next week. Your mother will make the appointment. If you would just call at reception before you go, Mrs. Martin …”

  “Don't forget your instrument of torture, James,” said Ernie, holding up the keyboard.

  Jamie took the toy and thrust it down inside his sports bag.

  “You feeling any better?” said Jamie's mother, looking benignly at Thomas. “You certainly look better than you did yesterday!”

  “I am Tonitheen and I come from Ormingat,” said Thomas loudly, and all who had not heard it before jumped and stared.

  Ernie ran his fingers through his hair and said, “Not another one!”

  Jamie's mother took her son by the hand and said quickly, “Time we were going now. Your dad's outside with the car.”

  Jamie turned to wave to Thomas, but Mrs. Martin pushed him on toward the exit.

  “Well now, Sammy,” said Dr. Ramsay, “I've had some odd reports about you. And that sound you just made is not what we expect from a sensible boy in a nice quiet hospital. So what's it all about, eh?”

  “I am Tonitheen,” said Thomas, “and I come from Ormingat.”

  Dr. Ramsay gave him a searching look and smiled slightly as he read in the notes of Kirsty Mackenzie's attempt to find the swazzle.

  “What on earth is a swazzle?” he said.

  “It's a thing used by Punch-and-Judy men, Dr. Ramsay,” said Kirsty. “I thought Sammy might be using something of the kind to change his voice.”

  “It must be a talent,” said Dr. Ramsay quite seriously. Then he turned to Thomas and said, “I'll be back to see you later, son. By then you may have decided to speak to me in plain English. I'm not much good at any other language.”

  What happened to Patrick was astonishing by any human reckoning.

  It might sound like a feat of magic or even a miracle but it definitely wasn't. It was simply the sort of science that we don't know about. Ormingat science—gone wrong, as luck would have it.

  In the split second after the tanker hit the va
n on Walgate Hill, the one pedestrian who should have been crushed between the two vehicles experienced a shock so great that he knew nothing for the next few hours.

  But he did not die.

  The lower edge of Patrick's sheepskin coat was caught and clamped in the clash of metal as if between the teeth of some fierce beast. The rest of him, like a lord a-leaping, flew through the air, his trajectory making a huge parabola that flung him to the other side of the road and onto the bonnet of a blue Mercedes that was speeding up the hill.

  Its driver must have been aware of the crash, even if he saw it only through his mirror. He must have heard the noise of it. But, like many a non-Samaritan, he went on by. There would be plenty of witnesses on the other side of the road without his having to stop and waste time. So thought the driver behind him and the driver in front. They chose, quite sensibly, to see nothing.

  And nobody saw Patrick?

  Of course nobody saw Patrick.

  In that tremendous, traumatic moment, he had mercifully diminished. The minuscule space he occupied on the blue car's bonnet was near the window trim, just below the hub that held the windscreen wiper. To the car's driver, he was completely invisible.

  It is no good trying to explain or describe his size. The cosmic illusion, put under so severe a strain, had broken down. The man on the car bonnet was simply out of context, shrunk so much smaller than the normal things of Earth.

  Fortunately, he knew nothing of this yet. He lay unconscious and inwardly healing as the car went westward up the hill and then turned north to join the traffic on the Great North Road.

  Vateelin's first thought as he regained a blurred consciousness was of his son. “Tonitheen,” he murmured. “Tonitheen ban, mellissis enerf. Enin mellissis, Tonitheen ban.”

  The blue car was traveling along the dual carriageway in growing darkness, on into the stretch of countryside where no lamps alleviated the gloom and stray animals diced with death. Vateelin raised himself on one elbow, then almost immediately collapsed again, settling in the angle of the windscreen wiper. The early evening was cold but dry.

  When he woke up again, the car had stopped. Vateelin was aware that something had changed—motion to stillness, sound to silence have their own way of sending a message to the brain, bypassing consciousness.