‘I can’t help it,’ said Kurt, lifting his foot to stare at the sole of his shoe. ‘I didn’t know I had to wear special footwear.’
‘Yeah, well, you might have been more careful if it was your mother’s lab you were breaking into,’ said Anna.
‘What do you mean?’ Kurt retorted. ‘I’m the one who’s been in trouble with the police before. If we get sprung, then I’m the one who—’
‘SHHHHH!’ Anna turned around and stared urgently at him, her eyes flashing with fear. She held her finger up to her lips, warning Kurt not to speak. Kurt frowned, but then he looked ahead and suddenly understood. There was a bright light shining from the next open doorway and in the silence he could hear a strange, sporadic rumbling noise coming from inside. Anna motioned to Kurt to follow her back around the corner.
‘Damn,’ she whispered. ‘There’s a light on in that room. And did you hear that funny noise? It sounded like someone was in there.’
Kurt nodded uneasily.
Anna cursed again. ‘But there’s no other way around,’ she said. ‘To get to the animal lab we have to go past that door.’
They stood silently fretting, ready to flee at the sound of footsteps.
‘But who would be here at this time of night?’ said Kurt. ‘Cleaners? Students? Staff?’
‘I don’t know.’ Anna shook her head.
They stood for a few moments without talking, then Kurt put his head cautiously around the corner again.
‘I’ve got an idea how we could find out if there’s someone in there,’ he said. ‘We could chuck something outside the door.’
‘Chuck something?’ said Anna.
‘Yeah, just a stone or something that makes a noise. If there’s anyone in there they’ll hear it and come out to see what it was.’
Anna stared at him uncertainly. It wasn’t the best plan she could have hoped for, but then again she couldn’t think of anything better.
‘Okay. Well, what do we use?’ said Anna, then her face brightened and she started rustling around in her backpack. She brought out a biro. ‘How about this?’
‘Perfect.’
‘You’d better do it since you’ve got the better aim.’
Kurt took the pen and peered cautiously around the corner. He narrowed his eyes and, with a careful underarm throw, launched the pen down the corridor. With perfect timing it hit the floor near the lit doorway and clattered to a stop by the wall. Kurt ducked his head back around the corner and held his breath. Everything remained silent.
After a short while he exchanged a hopeful glance with Anna.
‘Nobody has stirred. It must be empty,’ he said.
Anna thought carefully. If anyone was inside the room, they would definitely have heard the clattering pen and come out to investigate. Kurt must be right. ‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘I’ll check it out.’
Kurt watched Anna edge her way to the open door. Was she brave or crazy? Kurt found it difficult to decide. Perhaps she was both.
Anna paused in the corridor and peered warily into the room. Her head darted out and she took a breath then looked into the room again, this time for a slightly longer period. She glanced back towards Kurt and held her finger up to her lips, warning him not to speak. After an uneasy few seconds, Anna stepped past the doorway then turned and beckoned to Kurt. He tiptoed towards her, and when he got to the doorway, glimpsed inside. With a sense of shock he saw that there was someone in the room. It was Jeff, seated at a desk in front of a thick textbook. His arms were folded on the book and his red dreadlocks were splayed over the top of them. He was fast asleep and snoring fitfully.
‘He’d better not wake up in the next little while,’ whispered Anna.
‘Didn’t you see the title of the book?’ Kurt asked. ‘It was biochemistry. He’ll be asleep for hours.’
Two minutes later, Kurt sighed with relief. He tapped Anna on the shoulder and pointed to a sign in the distance. Further up the corridor a familiar doorway loomed below the sign which stated in bold black letters: ‘ANIMAL LABORATORY’.
‘I guess it’s maximum trouble level from here, isn’t it?’ said Kurt as they paused outside.
‘Grade ten,’ Anna confirmed, and she lifted her mother’s security card to the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Earl Rasmussen walked with slow steps along the darkened perimeter fence of St Sebastian’s Hospital. Being a security guard wasn’t his ideal job but he figured it paid the bills until he was discovered by Hollywood. As he walked, Earl’s left hand hovered near his hip, where a walkie-talkie was clipped onto his belt. His other hand hovered over an imaginary gun holster on his right hip. Suddenly he stopped and curled his face up into a sneer.
‘Is that right?’ he said in an exaggerated American accent. ‘Well, it seems you don’t know who you’re talkin’ to, pardner. That’s right, they call me Bullwhip Jones, fastest draw in the West.’
Earl glared unblinkingly into the eyes of his invisible assailant. With what he dreamed was lightning swiftness, Earl grabbed his walkie-talkie with his left hand and his imaginary pistol with his right hand. ‘Pow! Pow! Pow!’ he said in hushed tones, making wild shooting motions into the dark night. With a meaningful scowl, he blew on the first two fingers of his right hand. As he brought the walkie-talkie towards his mouth to do the same, it suddenly crackled into life: ‘Earl? You there?’
‘Aaarrrgh!’ Earl jumped in fright and the walkie-talkie dropped to the ground with a clatter.
Earl swore as he bent down and picked it up.
‘Earl?’
‘Yeah, Earl here. Go ahead,’ he said in a flustered voice. Just then, he decided it was time to get serious about changing his name. Earl Rasmussen was just too ordinary for a movie star. Clint ‘Tumbleweed’ McCoy appealed. So did Roy ‘The Whip’ Robinson.
‘Anything to report?’ It was his co-worker, Lindsay, from the control room. He sounded bored.
Earl longed for the day when he could reply with some interesting or dangerous happenings. ‘Yes, I’ve just apprehended a terrorist.’ That would be good. Or maybe ‘I’m just escorting the Prime Minister into surgery for an emergency gallbladder removal.’ Earl thought that might get him a couple of free beers and a spellbound audience at the pub on Friday night. It was disappointing that in two years of service the most excitement he’d had to deal with was removing a crazy naked man from the hospital fountain.
‘Nah, it’s all quiet out here,’ Earl spoke into the walkie-talkie. ‘I’m just heading for the underground car park.’
‘Roger that,’ said Lindsay. ‘Hey Earl; be vigilant out there.’
Earl snorted with laugher. At a recent team-building meeting, the security manager had said the word ‘vigilant’ over thirty times; Earl and Lindsay had kept count on the side of the piece of paper they were playing noughts and crosses on.
‘As vigilant as ever,’ said Earl and he returned the walkie-talkie to his belt, still sniggering. He glanced at his watch: 01:47. Good. If he inspected the underground car park slowly and thoroughly enough, it would nearly be time for a coffee break. And tonight Lindsay said his girlfriend had given him a whole box of leftovers from her job at the cake shop. Lindsay had promised Earl the custard squares.
‘Pow!’ he said, shooting at an imaginary fugitive in the bushes. Sometimes this job wasn’t so bad.
Rom was neither awake nor asleep. He stood completely still, his head hanging down, and his legs stiff with non-use. His mind was blank. There was nothing for his brain to do, so it had switched itself off. But Rom did not sleep. He didn’t like ‘quiet time’. At least ‘busy time’ had different sounds and things to look at. ‘Quiet time’ made him wish he didn’t exist at all.
A sudden clattering broke the silence. Rom didn’t react. He was used to sounds from the past being conjured from his own head, chortling magpies and snorting horses which weren’t really there. It was just his under-stimulated brain playing games with him.
A beeeee-uuuurp! sound made his
head jerk up. It was the sound of a door being unlocked. But nobody ever came into the lab during ‘quiet time’. Rom shook his head to make the noises stop. He heard a creak and thump, followed by quiet, squeaky footsteps, and after a short while, to Rom’s amazement, two people appeared before him. Rom stared at them. They were different from the usual people that came to the laboratory and they weren’t wearing white coats. Was he starting to hallucinate now as well?
‘Well, here he is,’ said the girl in a quiet voice. ‘Hello, Rom.’ ‘Look at him, poor thing. He’s in some sort of stupor,’ said Kurt. He felt strangely elated seeing the sheep. ‘Do you think he’s drugged?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Anna. She looked at Rom and couldn’t stop grinning. In the back of her mind she had been worried that the lab had relocated him already, or that the operation had been moved forwards and they would be too late to save him. But here he was, right where they had first met.
Anna looked Rom over carefully. Kurt was right; Rom did look a bit sluggish, but at least he was standing up, and he wasn’t sneezing. She put her hand gently under his chin and lifted his head; she had read somewhere that you could tell if someone was drugged by looking into their eyes. Rom’s eyelids were slightly closed but his eyes looked bright enough. He jerked his head and snorted warm air into her hand.
‘Maybe he’s just sleepy,’ said Anna. ‘It is the middle of the night.’
‘It’s one fifty-three,’ Kurt confirmed, looking at his watch.
Anna shook her head. ‘How could anyone with a heart perform experiments on this helpless animal?’ she demanded. ‘It’s disgusting.’
‘I bet he hasn’t had a good walk in months,’ Kurt remarked. ‘I wonder if his legs will even carry him down the corridor.’
Anna grimaced. ‘I hope so. He’d be far too heavy and awkward to carry.’
Anna and Kurt stood and petted Rom for a while.
‘Hey, Kurt. I’m sorry I barked at you before,’ said Anna quietly. ‘You know, about your shoes and stuff. I didn’t mean it.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Kurt. ‘Sorry I yelled at you too. I actually reckon you’re really brave.’
‘Me?’ said Anna. ‘It was your idea. You’re the brave one.’
Kurt was just about to protest when a high-pitched beep startled them. Kurt’s face turned ashen and he slapped his hand to his jacket pocket with a curse. ‘That’s my cellphone!’ he yelped. ‘Duggie must be in trouble.’
Anna’s stomach lurched and she pictured leading Rom all the way out of the hospital only to find the car park empty.
Kurt answered the phone. ‘What’s happened?’ he hissed urgently into it.
‘Brains! How’s it going up there?’
Kurt frowned. ‘Are you okay? Is someone hassling you? Why are you ringing?’
‘Just seeing how you’re getting on,’ said Duggie in a chirpy voice. ‘Got the woolly dude yet?’
Kurt was both appalled and relieved. ‘I thought you were in trouble. “Only ring if you’re in trouble”, that’s what I said.’ Kurt’s voice was laced with frustration.
‘No, I’m all good,’ said Duggie. ‘How’re you guys doing?’
Kurt looked at Anna and rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t worry, it’s okay,’ he told her. ‘We’re on our way out now,’ Kurt said to Duggie. ‘Don’t call unless you’re in trouble, right? See you soon.’
‘Cool.’ Duggie hung up.
Kurt swore under his breath. ‘I think we’d better get Rom out of here before we discover that neither of us is particularly brave,’ he said.
‘Yeah, let’s move,’ said Anna. She stepped around to Rom’s side. ‘See that tube near his stomach? That’s a luer, to feed drugs and fluids straight into his body. It’s going to have to come out.’
‘Oh.’ Kurt looked apprehensive. ‘I’m not too good with needles.’
‘It’s okay, I’ll do it,’ said Anna. ‘I looked it up in one of Dad’s medical books the other night. It’s a fairly straightforward procedure to remove them. I’ve got some cotton wool and tape for the wound too.’
Anna pulled several items out of her backpack and passed them to Kurt.
‘Hold these while I pull the needle out,’ she said.
Kurt glanced at Rom’s stomach and shuddered, then turned his face away so he didn’t have to watch.
‘Finished yet?’ he asked, staring fixedly at a shelf full of ring binders.
‘Nearly,’ said Anna.
Kurt heard the sheep bleat softly and shuffle its feet and he shuddered again. ‘I don’t feel so well,’ he said.
‘All done,’ said Anna, and she held her hand out for the cotton wool and tape. ‘I’m going to have to wind this tape right around his back a couple of times,’ she said as she worked. ‘It’s not sticking very well to his stomach.’
Kurt was relieved when the wound was finally covered and he could look at the sheep without fear of fainting.
‘That seems to have woken him up a bit anyway,’ Kurt remarked, patting Rom’s head. While Kurt unlatched the cage, Anna attached a collar and lead around Rom’s neck and coaxed him towards the cage door.
Rom put his front left foot unsteadily forwards, then his right. His back legs followed stiffly, as though his body weighed a great deal. Halfway out of the cage he stopped. Anna pulled gently on the lead but he wouldn’t budge.
‘Come on, Rom,’ said Kurt. ‘We’re setting you free.’
Anna pulled on the lead and Kurt tried pushing him from behind, but Rom refused to walk.
‘What now?’ said Kurt. ‘Perhaps we need a trolley.’ He smirked to himself, picturing the sheep skateboarding down the corridor.
Anna replied, ‘I think he just needs a bit of encouragement.’ She reached into her pack and brought out a plastic shopping bag. It was half full of green grass.
‘Man, you’ve thought of everything!’ said Kurt in amazement.
Anna put a handful of the grass in front of Rom’s face. His nose twitched and then Rom jumped as though he had suffered an electric shock. Tentatively, he put out his tongue and nibbled a blade of grass.
‘Wow, what kind of grass is that?’ said Kurt, amazed at the effect it had on Rom.
Anna smiled. Rom’s eyes were suddenly gleaming with new spirit and he seemed to hold his head up with greater ease. He bleated softly as the blade of grass disappeared into his chomping jaws. Anna backed away towards the door holding out more grass and Rom followed her on shaky legs. Slowly they made their way towards the door; away from the cage, away from the machines and away from the rats and rabbits.
‘Come on,’ said Anna. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Even though it was only a couple of hundred metres, it took Earl longer than he anticipated to make his way to the underground car park. He arrested three armed cattle rustlers who were hiding behind a stand of cabbage trees, mowed down a band of hijackers in their invisible helicopter and disarmed a bad man whose crime he didn’t even have time to think up. Earl’s weapon had changed from a pistol to a machine gun to a taser, and it was now a lightsabre, which he had to hold with both hands.
He stealthily crept towards the car park entrance, forever watchful for his arch rival, The Dark Mauler. It would be just like him to hide down here, waiting to get his revenge for the destruction of his home planet.
Inside the car park Earl could only see four cars; three had the hospital logo on the side and one was a rather beaten-up-looking orange sedan. Probably belonged to one of the cleaners, thought Earl. They were paid even less than the security guards. Earl decided he had better check to see if there were any extraterrestrial hostages in the back. He took two steps towards the orange car and then stopped. He drew in a sharp breath and then flattened himself against the nearest concrete pillar. Was that The Dark Mauler hiding behind the second staff car? Earl frowned and slowly poked his head out to look again. It was, the sly old cretin! The Dark Mauler should know better than to try to outsmart Clint ‘The Laser’ S
kywalker.
Earl took a strong grip of his lightsabre. ‘Zrrrrmmmm,’ he said, pretending to turn it on. He took a breath and stepped out from his hiding place.
‘Earl! Come in, Earl!’
Earl cursed Lindsay. Didn’t he know he had The Dark Mauler in his sights? If he got away it would be Lindsay’s fault. Earl picked up his walkie-talkie.
‘Yeah? This is Earl.’
‘You right out there?’ Lindsay inquired.
‘Yep, all under control,’ said Earl. His eyes darted around the car park. The Dark Mauler had disappeared again. Perhaps he’d snuck in behind the orange car.
‘Could you check out Ward 4X, please, when you’re free?’
Earl hesitated. ‘Did you say Ward 4X?’
There was no Ward 4X at St Sebastian’s Hospital. It was Lindsay’s code word for saying that the coffee had just brewed, just in case someone from management happened to be listening in on their frequency.
‘Yep, Ward 4X,’ Lindsay confirmed.
‘I’m on to it,’ said Earl. He replaced the walkie-talkie and checked the time. It was still thirty minutes until his actual coffee break, but what the hell? If anyone questioned him, he had been checking out Ward 4X, not drinking coffee and eating custard squares in the security guard’s tearoom with Lindsay. Besides, both he and Lindsay agreed that extended tea breaks were only fair for working such unsociable hours. He’d miss them when he got called up for Hollywood.
Earl paused and looked around the car park. It was so quiet that the only noise he could hear was a ringing coming from his own ears. He scowled theatrically into the silence. The Dark Mauler was in here; he could sense his evil energy. But for now, coffee called and Earl had to let him go.
‘Zrrrrmmmm.’ Earl turned his imaginary lightsabre off and pocketed it. ‘I’ll be back for you,’ he muttered into the darkness.
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