Head Spinners (6 page)

That was a long day, a dot-to-dot of visits to specialists followed by a talk with Dr Drew. He spoke about physio, diet, the amount of rest I'd need after the operation, and lots more. I barely listened to any of it. He said nothing about Erin learning to glide.

I didn't see Jack until Mum had gone home and I was back in the ward for dinner. Erin had gone out with her mum, and a curtain had been pulled around Jack's bed. Hushed voices made it seem private and secretive in there.

I sipped my tomato soup as quietly as possible, straining to hear what they were saying. There were three voices, I decided, but I couldn't make out any words. I was surprised at how calm they all sounded. Halfway through my rice pudding, the curtains were pushed back with a jerk and Jack's parents emerged. They walked past with straight backs and didn't look my way.

Jack did, just for a moment. Then he lay with his back to me, facing the window, knees pulled up to his chest.

It was raining gently, the streetlights picking up every falling drop. I slipped out of bed, feeling Jack's eye on me, and stepped across the cold floor. For a moment I paused at the foot of his bed then I hitched myself up to sit on it.

‘So . . . what was that all about?'

Jack didn't move. ‘Do you really need me to spell it out?'

I sighed. Not really. As the day had gone past, I'd realised something was different for me too. Teaching Erin to fly had been about much more than just her.

‘Do you have any idea how many kids I've seen come through here?' asked Jack, still without moving. He didn't wait for an answer. ‘Seven . . . all around Erin's age. They come in, chuck a tantrum or two, get fixed up, and disappear.'

I stayed quiet, waiting for Jack to keep going.

‘You know why I've seen so many?' He glanced at me, then away. ‘Dr Drew doesn't know what to do with me. I've been in and out of this place for nearly three years while he works out how to operate . . . they don't want to leave me brain-damaged.'

The last two words hung in the air. I needed to wash them away. ‘At least he won't do anything until he's sure . . .'

‘You think?' Jack sat up. I wasn't used to seeing him without his cap. His pupils were huge. ‘Things can go wrong with any operation and I'm facing brain surgery. Next month, Dr Drew wants to go ahead.'

I swallowed and looked down at my small arm. ‘Can't you say you don't want to do it?'

Jack snorted and shook his head. ‘It's not up to me, is it.' I didn't like Jack's glare. It was as if he hated the whole world, me included.

He lay down facing the window again. I stayed on his bed for a while, not saying anything.

Finally I went back to bed.

Everything was different after that.

Jack, Erin and I were still in the same room together, but we didn't connect the way we had at first. We kept to ourselves, doing our stuff without talking. It was as if an invisible barrier had come down between us.

After another round of tests in the morning, I sat in bed and played with my third arm, twirling the wrist and moving the fingers, marvelling that it had grown.

I stopped as soon as Mum walked in. It wasn't so much the look on her face as where she looked. Her eyes slid to the side, away from my arm – away from me. It wasn't until I tucked my new arm neatly inside a sleeve that she looked at me and smiled. Even during tests that morning she'd kept her back turned, pretending to look out the window. I didn't need to ask what she had been thinking.

Not long now until this will all be over.

Not long until we can forget . . .

That night, a cry woke me from a light sleep. I slipped out of bed and padded across to Erin.

‘Are you ok—' I began, then stopped when Erin murmured something and rolled over, her face twitching in a dream. She had cried out in her sleep.

I sighed and looked out the window. It was raining again. I looked back at a lump of a wing under the sheet. Just two more days until her operation . . .

There was no way I could go back to sleep. For something to do, I tiptoed over to Jack's bed and peered at him in the dim light.

‘Don't think you can sneak up on me,' he mumbled, turning over and looking at me properly.

‘If you could stop your operation, would you?' I asked, straight out.

Jack sat up and breathed in slowly. ‘Yes,' he said clearly. ‘I would.'

‘What if it meant showing everyone . . . showing the whole world?'

One of Jack's eyebrows cocked. ‘What are you up to?'

I shrugged. I hadn't really thought it through, but at the back of my mind, I did have an idea. Not a very good one, but it seemed better than nothing.

‘Come on,' I said. ‘Help me get into that office again.'

Once Jack had worked his magic with the keypad and we were inside, I sat in the swivel chair and turned the computer on.

Jack sat on the edge of the desk, swinging one leg. ‘So . . . what? You're going to set up an online freak show?'

‘If everyone knows what's going on, it won't be so easy for them to just . . .' I trailed off, watching the screen going through its start-up. ‘Anyway, this thing is probably password protected.'

Miraculously it wasn't. Maybe Dr Drew figured two locked doors would be enough to keep people out.

‘Freak show, here we come,' said Jack.

The next thing I knew, my new hand was resting on the mouse and the online world was at my fingertips. If I'd been unsure how I felt about my new arm, I wasn't wondering anymore. It felt so good to be doing things with it, to be using it, rather than holding it out to be poked and studied for the best way to have it removed.

It was easy to find some good photos saved in a file on the desktop – including a baby foot with seven toes and someone with a hand growing out of their shoulder. I cropped the photos carefully so that you couldn't see any faces then saved them as a series of stills in a movie file so that it would work on YouTube.

‘You realise they'll just think it's a hoax,' said Jack over my shoulder. ‘Half the stuff online is fake.'

‘Yeah, but if I can get the news networks interested . . .' I searched for the contact details of all the major newspapers and TV stations around the country. Working fast, I typed a group email inviting them to come and interview us at the children's hospital and added a link to the photos.

‘Do you think they'll come?' asked Jack when I'd finished.

‘Probably not,' I said, but it still felt good to have done something.

On our way back to bed, our steps were lighter somehow.

The next morning, a hand shook my shoulder. I was awake in a flash.

‘Come listen to this,' said Jack.

We snuck down the corridor and stopped behind a corner near the nurses' station. Something was going on. Phones were ringing and people were talking over each other.

‘ . . . call security . . .'

‘I don't know how it got out.'

‘. . . we'll need someone to make a statement.'

I looked at Jack. ‘Reporters?'

He nodded, grinning. ‘They've been stopped at the ground floor.'

I peeked around the corner, not that I was worried we'd be caught. Everyone seemed too busy to care what we were doing.

‘They won't let any reporters up here,' I said, stating the obvious.

For a while we were quiet, listening and watching, enjoying the fact that we'd caused a commotion.

‘You know . . . there's nothing stopping us from getting down to them,' said Jack quietly. ‘Nothing except a keypad or two.'

I looked at him. ‘Are you sure?'

He nodded. ‘Let's do it.'

Erin watched me pull on jeans and a T-shirt. I tried to act as though nothing was going on.

‘Where are you going? Can I come too?' she asked, once I was dressed.

So much for my acting. I shook my head. ‘Stay here, okay?'

‘No!' She stamped a foot. ‘Tell me!'

‘Brooke, come on,' called Jack from the doorway.

I looked back at Erin and knelt so I was her height. ‘We're going to sneak down and show media people what's . . . different about us. But you have to stay here.'

‘No! I'm coming too.'

I shook my head as Erin put her hands on her hips. ‘I want to show them my wings and you can't stop me.'

‘Come on!' called Jack again.

I sighed. ‘Okay.'

Holding Erin by the hand, we made our way down the corridor to the nurses' station. It was quiet by now. One nurse was on the phone but everyone else had disappeared. When she turned away to look at a computer screen we snuck past, making straight for the keypad beside the sliding doors.

Jack had them open before the nurse had any idea what was going on.

‘Wait!' she called. ‘What are you—'

But the doors had closed behind us.

An alarm whirred to life. It was so loud that it made my teeth ache. For a moment I was lost, disoriented.

‘The lift . . . this way!' said Jack.

We started up the hall, holding Erin's hands between us, and then slowed when a woman in a guard uniform came round the corner. She saw us, and began to run.

Jack swore and I turned to see what he already had: two more guards coming from the other way. We were trapped.

‘Quick,' I said, pulling Erin with one hand and jabbing the other at the keypad. ‘Get us back in!'

‘What?' Jack had no idea what I was thinking, but he did as I asked. The guards, too, pulled up and slowed as they watched us break back into Ward 5G.

Inside, the nurse had her back to us, phone to her ear.

I dashed up the hall, tugging Erin behind me. She opened her wings so that she half-ran half-glided to keep up.

Jack was still holding her other hand. ‘What are you doing?' he yelled, panting. ‘That's a dead end.'

Sure, it was a dead end in the real world but it was also a gateway to the CCTV network of the entire hospital.

Working fast, I brought up the closed circuit network of surveillance cameras for Ward 5G. I was glad to have my extra arm to speed things up. There were even more cameras than I'd realised. I found the camera at the nurses' station and brought up that view.

‘Hey!' cried Erin. ‘I know them.'

I couldn't help a chuckle. The view showed the guards and nurse all huddled around a monitor. They were doing the same as us, looking through the CCTV network. For a while, we looked at them looking for us.

They had a problem, though. The office we were in didn't have any cameras, so they had no idea where we were. They kept pointing at the screen and scratching their heads. After a while they began to search through the ward, looking in cupboards and under beds.

We didn't have much time. In a new window I brought up a map of the hospital and worked out the nearest exit from the doorway to our ward – not a lift, but a stairwell.

‘Here,' I said, pointing. ‘We have to get out of the ward again and bolt for the stairs.'

‘That's a great idea,' said Jack dryly. ‘But we have to get out again first . . .' He pointed at a view of the nurses' station. Two of the guards were still looking for us, but one was standing next to the exit.

Rats.

‘What now, Brooke?' asked Erin. ‘What are we going to do?' Her eyes were eager and
trusting.

‘We need a decoy,' Jack said, looking at Erin.

I crouched down to Erin's level, two hands on her shoulders and my third brushing a bit of hair behind her ear. ‘Erin,' I said. ‘We need the guards to chase you. If you can get them to do that then Jack and I can make it to the exit.'

‘Why me?' she pouted.

‘Because we'll be faster without you,' Jack said.

‘Even with your wings,' I added, but I didn't tell her what I was really thinking: this way I know you'll be safe. ‘Once everyone knows about us, they won't be able to hide you away. We'll make sure you get to show them your wings.'