The Bubble Boy (5 page)

A shadow falls across the bed. I look up. Amir stands beside me holding a little cup of pills in one hand and a big cup in the other.

‘You sleep late.’ His mask puffs out as he speaks.

‘I had a dream,’ I say. ‘Then the storm kept me awake.’

He holds his hand up to his mask. His eyes water as he yawns.

‘Did it keep you awake, too?’ I ask.

‘Yes, it was a bad one.’ He turns towards the window. ‘But at least it didn’t stop the planes.’

I wonder if he’s joking, but his eyes are dark and not smiling any more. I think of telling him that the planes always stop taking off late at night, but he should know that, especially
when he spends so much time looking at the sky.

He takes my cups, puts them down on the table. I slide my feet over onto the floor and walk into my bathroom and listen as he puts the chair next to the door. I get in the shower, wash, then
check my body for bruises – the two on my legs have nearly gone and the one on my ribs has started to turn yellow. I smile.

‘No new bruises!’ I shout.

Amir doesn’t answer.

I look through the gap in the door to check where he is. I can see the chair but not the back of his head. He’s supposed to stay with me; he’s supposed to wait by the door. I lean
forward, see the monitors, see the window, see Amir’s hand on the sill. Why is he so quiet? Why does he keep looking at the sky?

I’m watching TV when the doctors arrive to take my blood later in the morning. They check my temperature – 37.3C. Dr Moore pushes his lips together as he looks at
my chart.

‘Looks like you had an exciting night, young man.’

‘I had a dream.’

‘Who were you this time?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Greg woke me up before I had time to change into a suit.’

The doctors both smile, then they ask me about my bruises as Dr Moore wraps a tourniquet around my leg. My leg begins to thud. I close my eyes and wait for the needle to go in.

‘Which is better,’ asks Dr Hussein. ‘Webs or jets?’

‘I’ve got both,’ I say. ‘I don’t have to choose – ouch!’

Dr Moore tuts.

‘Sorry, Joe, I can’t find either of them here.’

I try to laugh, but all I can do is squeeze my eyes tighter as he searches for another vein. Dr Hussein looks at my picture of upside-down Spidey on the wall.

‘He’s my favourite,’ he says.

‘Do you read the comics?’

‘No, but I’ve seen all the films.’

I tell him the comics are better because of the drawings and you can use your own imagination.

‘I agree,’ he says. ‘I wish I had the time.’ Then he goes quiet like he’s said something wrong. But I don’t mind. I know it’s true. I do have lots of
time in the day. I just don’t know how many days I’ve got left. But that’s the same for everybody.

Dr Moore taps my arm.

‘All done,’ he says. He hands the sample to Dr Hussein who puts the little bottle in his jacket pocket. Then Dr Moore puts his hand on my head.

‘How’s your throat?’

‘It’s okay.’

‘Not sore?’

‘No. It’s a bit dry, but I’ll drink lots of water.’

‘Good lad,’ he says.

Then they leave and I’m alone again.

I send another message to Henry – if he’s up we could play FIFA, but he doesn’t reply and I think that maybe it’s his big day tomorrow. Walking around the car park will
be tiring, so maybe his nurses gave him something to help him sleep.

Amir brings me two Warfarin tablets at lunchtime. They stop my blood from clotting because some of the other drugs I take make my blood too thick and that can cause heart attacks. Amir hands me
a glass of water and I swallow the pills, then he helps me unseal my food and walks around the room, checking the monitors, checking the breathing machine. I turn on the TV to fill the silence, but
it’s hard to concentrate when a man with a mask is staring out of your window. I watch a programme about a man drilling for water in the middle of the desert until Amir goes away and then
Beth comes to see me.

She sits down beside me and I tell her about my dream on the bridge, how we were stuck in the middle of it with all the cars crashing around us. She says it sounded crazy and asks me if
that’s why I’m feeling so tired. I tell her it was partly that, and partly because of the storm. I tell her about Amir, that he’s still not talking; she wonders if it’s
because he’s shy, or just he’s not good at talking to strangers.

After she’s left, Henry messages me. He’d just been watching
The Expendables
. We play Tekken until I get tired. Then Amir comes in and tidies my room while I get changed for
bed. It was nice to see Beth and speak to Henry, but apart from that it hasn’t been a very fun day.

When I come back from the bathroom, Amir’s by the window, watching the sky again. I think about what Beth said about him being shy. Just because I like listening to people doesn’t
mean that he has to like talking, I guess. I start to walk towards my bed. He watches me for a second, then holds out his arm.

‘Come here,’ he says.

I stop walking.

‘What is it?’

He smiles. ‘Come and look.’

I walk over to the window and stand beside him. Outside the sky is turning red and the street is full of dark shadows. Amir’s looking towards the Lucozade building, where the planes fly in
and out with lights flashing under their wings. He turns and looks at me, opens his eyes wide.

‘Do you believe in aliens?’

‘What?’ Uh-oh. Amir is a bit weird.

‘Do you believe in aliens?’

‘I . . . I don’t know.’

Amir’s eyes are open wide and they seem to be getting bigger the longer I look at them.

‘I do,’ he says. ‘Farmers are too busy to draw crop circles.’

I bite my lip. After three days of not saying anything he’s talking to me about aliens!

‘I’m not sure,’ I say.

Amir stands up straight, scratches his head. ‘But I thought you did,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen you watching the planes outside and the ones on your television. That Malaysian
one on the news.’

I shake my head. ‘But it just crashed.’

‘Not crashed. It disappeared. Dark, mysterious, sinister. That could be aliens.’

He stares out of the window like any moment now a plane is going to fly over. ‘And another thing,’ he says turning back to me, ‘this thing in Russia, the Crimea. If this was
sixty years ago, it would be war now, already. You know why it’s not?’

I open my mouth to say something but even if I did know what to say no words would have come out. Amir nods his head slowly. ‘Because of aliens,’ he says. ‘We should never have
meddled with Mars.’

I feel my heart beating hard in my chest. I back away from the window.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Umm . . . Toilet!’

‘Toilet? But you can’t,’ he says.

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’ll miss them landing.’ He points out of the window.

I pick my laptop off of my bed and hide it behind my back. Amir turns around. ‘You hurry,’ he says. ‘They travel faster than light.’

‘Okay,’ I say. I don’t mention that if they travel faster than light I probably won’t be able to see them anyway. I back into the bathroom. ‘I . . . I won’t
be long.’ I close the door. Amir is mad. He’s crazy. But the hospital wouldn’t let a crazy person in. They must have interviewed him and checked his qualifications. But maybe he
didn’t even meet them? Maybe he hasn’t even come from India. He might have arrived on an alien spaceship and snuck in here in the middle of the night. I put my hands on my head. I
don’t know what to do, but I can’t go back out there. I need to talk to someone. Beth will be working and I can’t contact Greg. I sit down on the toilet seat and open my
laptop.

‘Joe?’ Amir knocks on the door and makes me jump. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m . . . I’m just washing.’

‘Okay, I wait here.’

I hear a click and look up. People are talking in the transition zone. I listen, try to work out what they are saying; one of the voices sounds like it’s Greg, the other
is so quiet I can barely hear but it must be Amir. I wish they would stop and Greg would just hurry up and come in so I can tell him what is happening.

I go back out into my room and sit on my bed.

The door clicks open. I wait for Greg’s smiling face to peer round it but all I can see is a white trainer and a brown hand on the frame of the door.

I put my hand on the lid of my laptop and close it. I can’t believe Henry thinks it’s a joke, but maybe I didn’t explain it right. Sometimes we don’t
always quite understand each other. Sometimes I think it’s because it’s hard to tell from what we write; sometimes I think it’s because we’re from different countries.

Amir walks in and closes the door slowly behind him. I check the clock and wonder why Greg didn’t come in – the shift changes at seven so he should have started half an hour ago.
Amir stands at the end of my bed.

‘Where’s Greg?’ I ask.

Amir shakes his head.

‘He’s busy. He’ll be back later.’

‘But, he always checks on me before the others!’

Amir isn’t telling me the truth. Greg always comes in.

I hear a sigh. Amir is by the window with his hands on the sill. He leans forward and put his head against the glass. Everything is quiet and still, just the rush of the air-con and the beep of
the machines. I hear a low hum, so I glance at the monitors. They’ve never made a noise like this before. The hum gets louder. I look over at the window. Amir is leant forward. The noise is
coming from him! What is he doing? I lean over the side of my bed to try to see his face.

He stops when he sees me looking.

‘Headache,’ he says. ‘I’m so tired. You should try this.’

‘Urmm . . . I’m all right.’

‘No, you should. It’s better than pills. You take too many pills.’

‘They stop me from dying.’

Amir smiles. ‘I know, I’m just saying maybe you try new things.’

‘Like humming.’

‘Yes, like humming.’

I wait for him to talk more but all he does is screw his face like he’s in pain then turns away and starts to hum again. I lie back on my bed. Amir is right, the drugs don’t always
work, but there’s nothing else I can do. I have to trust the doctors because they’ve kept me alive for eleven years. The humming gets louder as Amir rolls his head against the glass
again. I rest my head against the pillow. I’ll try anything to get better. I’ll take any new drug, even if they make me sick sometimes. But humming? I don’t think that will work.
And what does a nurse who believes in aliens know anyway?