Ward 13 (2 page)

“Well, hospital food is no good for a growing young boy at the best of times!” said Helen, sliding the plate onto the bedside table. She reached into a bag at her side and pulled out a plastic tub. “I just had to wait until old Grotbags from the kitchen had gone before I could say so.”

Mark took the tub and opened it. Inside was a large portion of lasagne – and it was still warm.
He looked up at the nurse.

“Leftovers from my dinner before I came on shift,” she said. “But don't tell anyone else, or they'll all expect the same treatment.” With that, she ruffled Mark's hair and hurried away.

Mark rested back against his pillows and grabbed the fork from the white goo pretending to be potatoes on the plate beside the bed. He took a mouthful of lasagne – delicious! Quickly, he began to tuck in.

That's when he noticed Archie in the far corner of the ward. Another member of Jack's Loners group, Archie was only nine years old. He was in Ward 13 waiting for an eye operation, and had a large white patch secured over the offending eye. Right now, he was peering suspiciously at his chicken with the good one.

Mark glanced down at the slab of lasagne in his tub and sighed. Sometimes it didn't pay to be the good guy. He pressed the lid back into place,
carefully climbed out of bed, and half hopped, half limped across the ward to Archie.

“Budge up!” he said, dropping onto the bed beside the younger boy.

Archie sniffed at the air. “What's in there?” he asked, eyeing the plastic tub.

“Lasagne,” Mark replied. “Enough for both of us.”

Archie dumped his hospital meal and both boys tucked into the home-prepared Italian food.

“This is great!” said Archie through a big mouthful.

Mark grinned. The kid was right. It was.

“My nan used to make lasagne like this,” Archie said. “You know, before she…”

The pair fell quiet, but kept eating.

“Jack says it won't be too long before a foster family chooses me,” said Archie. “He told me after we'd finished playing cards this morning.”

Mark glanced along the line of beds on this side of the ward to the empty slot where Jack should have been. He carefully put down his fork.

“Archie…” he began, but he didn't have a chance to say any more. A cry came up from the nurse's station in the corridor outside.

“Dr Stone is coming!”

Ward 13 flew into a panic. Half a dozen nurses appeared – including several Mark had never seen before – and they began to tidy up the room as quickly as they could.

Nurse Helen dashed over to Archie's bed and took Mark by the arm. “Come on,” she said. “Time to get you back in your own bed.”

“But we haven't finished eating…”

“Never mind that!” snapped the nurse. “Dr Stone expects everything to be in order for one of his visits.”

“Who's Dr Stone?” asked Archie, shovelling as much of the remaining lasagne into his mouth as he could before the tub was taken away.

“His name is on the chart at the end of my bed,” said Mark. “He's the surgeon who's doing the operation on my leg tomorrow.” Suddenly, a thought struck him. “He's the surgeon doing all these operations, isn't he?”

But Nurse Helen didn't reply. She simply helped Mark hop back across Ward 13 and quickly tucked him back into his own bed.

Within a few minutes, the ward was as tidy as could be expected. The nurses lined up at the door, fussing with their uniforms, as a short man with thinning hair entered. He wore a long, white coat, and peered over the top of his glasses with cold, grey eyes.

He paused in the doorway of Ward 13 and looked around, taking everything in. “Good… Good…” he said. He smiled, but it was a
movement of the mouth only. His eyes remained as emotionless as before.

Dr Stone strode into the ward as though he owned the place. “I hope you all enjoyed your dinner this evening!” he said loudly.

There was a vague mumble of a reply from the patients around the room.

“I said, I hope you all enjoyed your dinner this evening!”

A weak chorus of, “Yes, thank you” rang out.

“Good… Good…” He turned to the nurse with the curly hair. “Now, where is my first assignment for the morning?” he asked. “A Mr Jackson…”

Curly-hair exchanged another glance with Helen, then she led Dr Stone towards Mark's bed. “This way, Dr Stone.”

The surgeon stopped at the foot of Mark's bed and snatched up the clipboard containing his
notes. “Hmmm… a skateboarding accident I see, Mr Jackson.”

Mark nodded. “I was trying to perform a daydream flip.”

Dr Stone stared at him over his glasses. “A daydream flip?”

“It's a skateboard trick,” said Mark. “But I got the landing wrong.”

“You most certainly did,” said Dr Stone. There was that cold smile again. “Two pins in your tibia tomorrow morning to hold the bone in place while it heals. Boys will be boys! I imagine your parents are horrified at what has happened.”

The curly-haired nurse turned away and stared at the floor.

But Mark didn't look away, didn't break eye contact with Dr Stone. “I don't have parents,” he said flatly. “No family at all, in fact. But then, I think you knew that.”

“Well, isn't that a shame,” said the surgeon, ignoring the comment. He replaced the clipboard at the end of Mark's bed and turned to leave.

“None of them had family,” said Mark.

Dr Stone stopped, but didn't turn back. “Excuse me?”

“The patients who don't come back from your operating theatre,” Mark continued. “None of them has a family to miss them.”

Now Dr Stone did turn around, his grey eyes burning into Mark's like frozen lasers. “And why would you say something like that?”

Mark smiled and shrugged as innocently as he could. “Boys will be boys, I guess.”

Without another word, Dr Stone span round and marched out of Ward 13. The patients and nurses finally allowed themselves to breathe again. Slowly, sounds of life began to return.

Mark slumped back against his pillows and stared at Jack's empty bed. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone if they'd asked, but he was terrified.

“Mark! Mark! Wake up!”

Mark opened his eyes and found the room in darkness. He'd been deep in a dream where he was the only patient left on Ward 13. Even the nurses had gone. He sat up groggily and squinted at the other beds in the dim light, relieved to find them still occupied.

“Mark, it's me!” hissed a voice.

Mark turned to find a small figure crouching at the side of his bed. “Archie! What do you want?”

“I want to talk,” Archie replied. “I've noticed it, too.”

“Noticed what?”

“That some people aren't coming back from their operations.”

Mark sighed. “Archie, listen…”

“No!” Archie said firmly. “Don't tell me I'm making it up. I know you've already worked it out. I could tell by the way you talked to Dr Stone earlier.”

“I could be wrong…”

“You're not,” insisted Archie, “and don't try to fob me off because I'm just a kid. We're both due for our operations tomorrow and if we don't do something now, neither of us will be coming back.”

Reluctantly, Mark nodded. “So, what do we do?”

“I think you were right to accuse Dr Stone of being involved in all this,” said Archie. “We have to find out what he's up to.”

“That's exactly what I was thinking,” said Mark. “But I can hardly go wandering around the hospital at night with a broken leg.”

Archie thought for a moment, then whispered, “Stay here…”

Mark watched as the young boy disappeared into the darkness, his bare feet slapping against the hard floor.

Ten minutes later, Archie was back – and he was pushing a wheelchair. “Your transport awaits!”

“Where did you get that?” asked Mark, pulling back his bed sheets.

“The store cupboard at the end of the corridor,” Archie replied. “It wasn't locked.”

“Just as well,” said Mark.

“Yeah,” agreed Archie. “It would have taken ages for me to pick the lock with just one eye…”

Shaking his head and smiling, Mark climbed into the wheelchair and allowed Archie to push him to the ward's exit. They stopped in the shadows – two nurses were sitting at the station, just outside.

“They weren't there a few minutes ago!” moaned Archie.

“Probably away somewhere checking on a patient,” said Mark. “There are loads of single rooms down the far end.”

“A patient?” whispered Archie. “Great idea…” Then he was gone again.

Mark sat alone for a moment, then he heard a buzzer sound further down the ward, followed by another – and another. The two nurses hurried past him, but neither saw him sitting silently in the darkness.

“That should keep them busy for a while!” hissed Archie as he appeared back at the wheelchair, then he pushed Mark out past the now-empty nurse's station, and into the hospital beyond.

The corridors were deserted. “What time is it?” asked Mark. He had forgotten to check the time on his PS Vita before leaving the ward.

“Two thirty-ish,” said Archie, pushing the chair. “I couldn't sleep. I was too worried about tomorrow. What do you think happens?”

“In the operations?” said Mark. “I don't know. I don't trust Dr Stone, though.”

“I spoke to Mr Denby, in the bed by the door,” said Archie. “He's in for his third heart operation this year. He says Dr Stone is a great surgeon.”

“Yes, but Mr Denby has a huge family who come in to see him every night,” Mark pointed out. “So many that they have to borrow chairs from other patients. They'd soon kick up a fuss if he suddenly disappeared.”

They reached the bank of lifts at the end of the corridor. Archie pressed the ‘down' button. “Mr Denby said that Dr Stone's operating theatre isn't upstairs with the others. He has a new one the hospital built in the basement for him.”

DING! The lift doors opened, forcing both boys to shield their eyes against the harsh light inside.

“Then I guess we're going down,” said Mark.

They found the operating theatre easily. The doors weren't locked, so the pair crept inside. In the centre of the room, beneath a large inactive light, sat a vast operating table. Various machines and monitors – all switched off – crowded around the sides of the theatre. Archie parked Mark beside a trolley laid out with scalpels, clamps and other horrific-looking surgical tools.

“What are we looking for?” asked Archie, creeping around the room.

“I don't know,” Mark admitted. “Something that looks out of place, I guess.”

“OK,” said Archie. “But how do we know what's out of place in an operating theatre? I've never been inside one before…”

Before Mark could reply, a light switched on in the room next door, sending a shaft of light shooting across the operating table. Mark ducked below the light and wheeled himself over to Archie, who was crouching behind some kind of monitor.

“Do they do operations at night?” Archie whispered.

Mark shrugged. “I guess they do if there's an emergency.”

“It's Dr Stone!” said Archie, risking a glance at the window into the next room. Mark looked. The surgeon was wearing a green gown and mask, and was scrubbing his hands beneath a running tap.

“Then this definitely is an emergency!” hissed Mark. “We have to get out of here…”

Suddenly, the doors to the operating theatre crashed open and the hospital porter pushed a bed into the room. Lying on the bed, not moving, was a middle-aged woman. The porter lifted her onto the operating table.

Mark and Archie peered out from their hiding place.

“Who's that?” mouthed Archie, pointing to the figure on the table.