If I Could Fly (8 page)

‘Are you telling me this is your new home?’ I ask. Then a thought occurs. ‘I want to show you something, Furball. We’re going to go and stand by the window, just for a minute. There’s someone I want you to meet. Don’t be scared. Here we are. I’m just going to hold you up – there’s no need to scratch. You see that face over there? It’s watching you, and watching me. I think it likes you. Yes, look, it’s waving a hand. Hey, that’s the first time it’s tried to communicate.

‘What do you think it means?’

Spiky tickles on my face, my chin, my hand. The brush of soft fur against my forehead. Small teeth pulling at the threads in my sleeve.

‘Morning, Furball,’ I say sleepily. When I open my eyes, her two pink ones are staring at me intently. ‘What’s up?’

Furball turns and hops out of my bedroom, heading towards the front door. I crawl off my mattress to see where she is scampering to and I’m surprised to find her balancing on her hind legs and scratching at the plyboard barrier with her front claws. I’m happy to see that her injured paw is mending nicely – that’s good news after only five days.

‘
Waay
, Flufty, what’s the rush?’ I glance back at my alarm clock shaped like a chicken – one of my
newest acquisitions. ‘It’s only eight o’clock.’ Her scrabbling is getting more frenetic. ‘OK, OK. I’m coming.’

It’s a cold morning. I can see my breath rising like spirals of candy floss round a stick. I wrap the big travel rug from my bed round my shoulders, shove my feet into the bear slippers which are two sizes too big and pad to join Furball.

When I push the door open, she bunny hops at full speed across Wonderland to the corridor and then just looks at me, her ears flicking back and forth in a very agitated fashion. If she could speak, she would be saying, ‘Come on!’

I follow her with a reluctant sigh, my bad leg causing me to suck my breath in as I feel a stab of pain. Furball is already heading off down the stairs. Bounce, bounce, bounce and she’s at the bottom. As I shuffle after her, amused, thinking she is having a mad moment of rabbit rebellion, I soon see the reason for her strange behaviour. The shock of it makes me move
faster. I’m jumping three steps at a time, leaving my slippers behind.

‘Dair! What are you doing?’

‘What do you think I’m doing? Waiting for the number seven bus?’ he answers quietly. He is lying on the floor of the old reception area, staring up at the domed ceiling. In the murky light of this winter morning, his face looks grey and his cheeks are as sunken as desert pools.

‘Did you fall?’ I ask, kneeling next to him.

‘No, cherub, I thought I would jump from the top step to see if I could fly,’ he answers with difficulty. He notices my look of increasing panic and decides to cut the sarcasm. ‘I didna fall. I was going out to get us some supplies and my head was spinning like a big wheel so I lay down in this very salubrious spot and here we are.’

I peer into his eyes. ‘You’re a very strange colour.’

‘That’s good. If I looked well, I would be worried,’ he says, trying to give me a little smile, which looks more like a grimace. I put my hand on his forehead.
The skin feels like ice. My fingers almost recoil.

‘Cold?’ he murmurs.

‘As a box of frozen fish fingers,’ I confirm. I’m thinking he would be much better off on my mattress, wrapped in blankets.

‘I’ll be fine.’ It’s as if he’s reading my mind. ‘Don’t bother your wee self about me.’

‘You can’t lie here on this floor. I’ll help you upstairs, come on.’ I’m pulling at his arm, which is heavy and uncooperative. Slowly, Dair begins to respond and I take his weight as he attempts to stand. We sway from side to side, like a pair of drunkards.

‘You’re a good kid,’ he tells me, attempting a wink.

With an arm round my shoulders and a hand on the wooden rail, Dair ascends the stairs, one at a time. He is trying to sing something about a stairway to heaven, which I hope isn’t a bad sign. Furball is hopping behind us, her nose twitching.

I try to guide Dair towards my house, but he shakes his head and mutters, ‘Ma chair, if you please,’
through chattering teeth. He is almost bent double now, his feet, in their mismatched trainers, scraping along the ground.

‘There,’ I say, relieved, as his large frame slumps down into the soft, blue cushions. I lay the rug over him and try to tuck it in, but his trembles have become more like convulsions and his arms are waving about erratically. I know what I have to do.

‘I’m going to get help. You need an ambulance.’

‘No,’ he replies emphatically. ‘It’s no use, cherub. It’s too late. I’m sorry.’ His eyes are holding mine with a terrified gaze.

‘Don’t say that,’ I argue with him, tears pricking behind my eyes.

‘It’s what happens when you don’t do your job properly,’ he says through chattering teeth.

‘What job?’ I ask.

‘Looking after you.’

‘We look after each other, that’s the deal,’ I say.

‘Ye have to keep fighting them, Calypso, or they’ll
take away everything that makes you who you are. Keep asking questions. Accept nothing you are told.’ Dair is almost clawing at the scar on his left temple. ‘Promise me you will.’

‘What did they do to you?’ I ask quietly.

‘Put a microchip inside my brain. I was just a bairn. But they didna win. Nobody tells Dair McFarlane what to think. So c-c-cold,’ he says, his body trembling.

‘I’ll get more blankets.’ I run the few metres to my house and grab all the covers I can find. When I return to Dair, I see he has broken out in a sweat, even though he still feels freezing to the touch. I try to swaddle him in the extra layers, but he is thrashing about, trying to push them off. Furball is lying close to his feet, making a funny gurgling sound in her throat. I think it must be fear.

‘Do you think you’ve got the virus?’ I ask, bracing myself for Dair’s reply.

‘No. This is something much worse,’ he whispers.
‘You must take this, so you can get into the Hive and destroy it.’ He is pressing the metal bottle top into my palm.

‘Keep it safe until I get back.’ I bend and am about to kiss Dair on the top of his head.

‘Away wi’ ye, ye blitherer,’ he says, and he gives me a fleeting smile before closing his eyes.

There isn’t a moment to lose. I rush to find my trainers and jacket and am still dressing as I descend the stairs again. Crawling through the hole in the café window will take too long, so I release the catch on the front door and open it, leaving it ajar for the medics I hope to persuade to come.

Never get caught
.

Don’t worry, Furball. I’ll get Dair the help he needs. I’ll watch them take him away and when it’s safe, I’ll come back here. I won’t let them take me in. I won’t.

As I set off down the moss-covered driveway at a painful sprint, there’s a deep, terrible sensation in
my gut. It’s like molten lava bubbling before it bursts through the top of a volcano.

There is an explosion coming. I can feel it with every beat of my heart.

Bam
and
bam
the slam of feet on stone and throb of pain and questions in my brain – Why this? Why now? Look for help, for someone; kids on their way to school, a mum, a dad, a gran, a man in a van, a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, good knight with mobile, an angel with iPhone.

Stop. Breathe. Scan.

Thoughts are colliding in my brain, hot with friction, like an electric blade scything through wood. The streets are empty, apart from the rubbish the gulls are pulling from overflowing bins. Where is everyone?

It’s an offence to knock on a stranger’s door, but it’s a crime to let a friend die, so in less than a minute I am at a house at the top of the hill, and the door is opening, almost before my finger has pressed the bell.

‘I need an ambulance for someone who is ill,’ I explain. ‘Can you help me, please?’

A woman of about sixty, with white hair and a sharp face, is staring at me through thick glasses. She looks curious, but irritated, like a suspicious old person who hates the world.

‘I’m sorry to ask, but it’s an emergency,’ I continue.

The woman raises her eyebrows, sighs and closes the door.

‘No!’ I yell, banging on it as hard as I can. ‘Don’t ignore me. I just need you to make one call.’

There is no response from inside.

Little Bird would never have turned away a child, not even one dressed as raggedly as me. But laws are laws, as Dair keeps saying, and people are afraid.

A church bell sounds somewhere in town. Eight thirty and still no thrum of traffic, no buses bursting with kids and office workers, no hygiene trucks, clearing up the dead animals after last night’s street cleansing.

I haven’t checked my diary for a while and it’s
dawning on me that today must be Sunday. This place may be having a lie-in, but I have to find help urgently. I will ask the first person I see. Too bad that it’s a paper boy of about my age, who suddenly hurtles past on a bike, talking into a mobile, balanced between his shoulder and his left ear.

‘Hey!’ I shout. ‘Can I borrow your phone?’ But he is already a dot at the bottom of the hill.

I’m running as fast as my legs can carry me, hoping I might be able to catch up with him on his rounds, but as I near the end of the steep slope I have lost sight of him and his bike.

‘What you runnin’ for?’ asks a small girl with strawberry-blonde ringlets under a pink wool hat. She is playing with a doll’s pram in a front garden next to where I am bent double, trying to get my breath back.

‘I wanted to borrow a phone from the paper boy,’ I tell her. This sounds really stupid.

‘You can use mine,’ she says. ‘If you give me a sweetie.’

‘I don’t have any sweeties, but I’ll get you some – whatever you want,’ I say, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

‘I want lemon fizzes,’ the girl announces.

‘Then I’ll go to the sweet shop, after I’ve used your phone,’ I say, smiling.

‘Promise?’ she asks, looking very earnest.

‘Promise,’ I agree. I’m not letting myself worry about how I would pay for them.

‘Here y’are, then,’ she says, rummaging under the covers in her pram and producing a plastic handset. ‘You press the numbers on the front and guess who answers?’ she asks darkly.

‘Who?’ I respond, crushed.

‘Barbie,’ she confides, in hushed tones.

‘I need a real phone. I’m sorry.’ I feel totally despondent. ‘Do you have one inside your house?’

‘Course I have,’ she tells me, tidying her pram covers.

‘Would it be OK if I come in and use it? I need to call the hospital.’ Irritation is creeping into my voice.

The girl looks at me for a moment and smiles. ‘You are funny,’ she says. ‘But you’re not allowed inside. Can I still have my sweeties?’

‘Can you get your mum or dad, please?’ I request, trying to stay calm.

‘No,’ she answers sadly, and something in her voice prevents me from pressing her further. There must have been a family tragedy here – maybe her parents died from the virus. I feel sorry and full of panic all at the same time.

‘Will you get my lemon fizzes now?’ she asks, softly, her blue eyes round with hopefulness. Any other time, I would say yes. Any other time, I would get her more bags than she has ever dreamed of.

‘Gotta go,’ I say, and give her a little wave. Her small hand waves back. The other one is wiping tiny tears from her eyes.

I’m jogging with a heavy heart, weighing up my options. There is an answer to my problem. If I find the hospital, I can get an ambulance for Dair myself.
And maybe I can also find the friendly doctor and get some help for my thigh. If it comes out that I’ve been near Dair, I will be quarantined, so I must be careful what I say.

More than anything, I want to speak to Little Bird, to hear her say she loves me. Something in my encounter with the small girl has left me with a deep, scary fear that I may never see my mother again.

Suddenly, an image of her face flashes through my mind. She is mouthing something at me. There is no sound, just the shape of the word, repeated many times. I struggle to lip-read. Is this my imagination playing tricks or is it a real memory? ‘Ra, ra, ra,’ she seems to be shouting, yet her tongue moves to the roof of her mouth each time.