The Bubble Boy Read online

  ‘He’ll be on the twentieth floor.’

  Amir pats me gently on the back. ‘Great,’ he says. ‘That why I make you head of security.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Of course. I ask you to watch them.’

  ‘I didn’t know that was why.’

  ‘Top secret,’ he says. ‘Less you know, less you tell. Like spies.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t have told anyone.’

  ‘I know. I trust you. But sometimes you speak in your dreams.’ He picks up the rucksack. I put my arms through the loops and Amir fastens the clasps at the front.

  ‘You ready?’ He swings the rucksack over his shoulder.

  I nod, but I don’t know if I am. After waiting for so long, it’s all happened so quickly – suitcase, suit, oxygen, go – I thought I’d take as long as Henry did. He took hours to get ready and that was just for a walk in the car park. I’ve got nothing. It’s just me and Amir. Has he checked everything? What about the air temperature? What about the air quality? If it’s too pure then all it takes is for someone to be smoking a cigarette next to me and I could catch fire.

  ‘Amir, the air quality, should we check it?’

  He reaches into his pocket. ‘I check everything.’ He shows me his phone.

  Outside temp.: 11C

  Body temp.: 37.3C

  Heart rate: 119

  Air remaining: 3 litres

  Air purity: 97.5%.

  ‘So I won’t catch fire?’

  He presses on the air purity icon. Air – 80.5% nitrogen. 19.5% pure oxygen.

  ‘No. You won’t catch fire but I bring extinguisher just in case.’ He smiles. I’m not sure if he’s joking.

  Amir grabs my arm. ‘Come on. We go now.’

  I take a deep breath and look around the room – the monitors, the window, my bed, Theo Walcott – I’ve lived here all my life, had every Christmas here and every birthday. Now that I’m about to go outside, it suddenly looks smaller than it ever did before. I put my hand on my chest. After all this time I don’t want to leave my room behind. All my memories are here and so are all my friends.

  I want to speak to Henry.

  I want to speak to Greg.

  I want to stay.

  I want to pee.

  Amir touches my elbow. ‘It okay, we coming back. Now you help us find the way out.’

  The door slides open. I think of going back to my bed and pulling the sheets over my head but before I’ve had time, Amir has grabbed my hand and pulled me through. He leads me through the transition zone, past a row of plastic seats, a shower, canisters of sterilizing fluid and tiny boxes of pills and bottles of medicine on a shelf. Then I see white coats hanging on hooks. This is where Beth gets changed. This is where all the nurses and doctors wash. I didn’t know the room was so big. From what Beth told me, I thought it was a cupboard. In the corner are a pile of magazines and boxes of toys and I think that maybe they are things that people have brought in but weren’t allowed to give to me.

  Amir pulls me on.

  ‘If you stop all the time, we never get out.’

  We walk past oxygen bottles and stop by the door. Footsteps echo down the corridor. They get closer, get louder. We hold our breaths. They reach us, then fade away. Amir holds up three fingers. ‘On three,’ he mouths. He nods twice. On the third one he opens the door. My heart beats like it’s trapped under my suit. A strange feeling goes through me. I know I shouldn’t be doing this but I can’t stop it.

  I follow Amir out into the corridor. It’s long and narrow with dim yellow lights that stretch as far as I can see. We start to walk. Amir suddenly stops, listening as though he can hear someone coming again.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I whisper. ‘Phil only comes up here to check on the cleaners in the morning.’

  Amir holds up his thumb and smiles. All the time I’ve been watching the screens I didn’t know he was getting me ready for this. He’s trained me to be a maze runner. I know all of the corridors. I know all the doors. I know the way out and I know the way back. It’s like Amir has planted a map of the hospital in my brain.

  We creep down the corridor past pictures of elephants, monkeys and giraffes and doorways that lead off into the wards where the others are – the girl who pretends she’s a horse, the boy who reads The Hunger Games. For a moment I think we should stop and talk to them. They could tell me their own stories. I wouldn’t have to hear them from a doctor or a nurse. If I stop I might get caught, or they might talk me out of going. But I have to go. They can go home when they are better. I might be like the snooker-ball kid and never get better. I can’t stay here.

  ‘We go?’ Amir whispers.

  I nod.

  Amir walks on and we slide our backs along the wall like police on a raid. It doesn’t feel real. It’s like I’ve woken up on a film set, with bright lights on the ceiling showing us the way. We keep walking until we reach a junction: Left for visitor’s toilets. Right for exits and wards. I look up and see a camera on the wall. I tell Amir that we have thirty seconds for it to sweep the corridor before it comes back again.

  Amir nods. We jump back as the camera passes us, then we’re off down the corridor again. My rucksack scrapes against the wall as we pass more doors and the corridor that leads to one of the operating theatres. Amir grabs a wheelchair parked underneath a fire alarm. He tells me to get in. I’m glad, because my legs already feel tired, even though I can feel all the adrenalin in my body like sparks. I’ve never walked this far, except on the exercise machines.

  Amir pushes me towards a lift. I press the call button while he checks my readings on his phone.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, it fine. Maybe we just increase the vortex.’ He reaches into my rucksack, turns a switch and air hisses past my ears. I feel like Superman must do when he flies across the sky.

  Amir presses the button again but the lift is already on its way. I hear a clang of metal and watch the number change above the lift doors – 4-5-6 – I feel sick and I want to pee again. Amir puts his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘You okay, Joe? You shake.’

  ‘I know. I can’t stop it.’

  Amir’s eyes flit from side to side like he’s a scientist trying to work out an equation. He places both hands on my shoulders.

  ‘Joe,’ he says. ‘It not too late. We turn back if you like.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. It’s because I’m excited . . . not scared.’

  ‘Ha. Me too!’

  The lift cables whirr as the lift gets closer to us: 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – it stops on 13. Another four floors and it’ll be here. Amir starts to pull me backwards.

  ‘No, I just hiding you. We not know if someone get in or out.’

  He parks me tight against the wall. We hold our breaths as the number 17 lights up.

  A bell dings and the doors slide open. Amir creeps away from the wall and peers inside.

  ‘Yes, it’s okay.’ He backs me into the lift and the doors close. Then he tap-tap-taps the ground floor button rapidly like he’s firing punches on Tekken.

  ‘It overrides the sensor,’ he says.

  I don’t know if it does or not, but the lift doesn’t stop until the doors open when we get to the bottom.

  The clock on the corridor wall says 03:10.

  I tell Amir that Jim should still be in the toilet. He wheels me out and we head towards the reception. Halfway along the corridor we suddenly turn down a smaller corridor signposted FIRE EXIT ONLY. There’s a glass door at the end with a bar across it and there’s an oxygen bottle on a trolley leant against the wall. Amir slides his rucksack off his shoulder.

  ‘Here,’ he says. ‘You put this on now.’ He pulls out a white helmet.

  ‘But—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘You just hold your breath. I swap it over faster than Ferrari change a wheel.’

  I look back up the corridor. I’ve got no time to think about it. Jim’s going to be coming out of the toilet soon.

>   ‘I count to three,’ says Amir, ‘Okay? One . . . two . . . three.’

  I take a deep breath. Amir slides the hoop up my neck and disconnects the air supply. I put the helmet over my head. Amir clicks the air-line in, attaches a new tube to the oxygen bottle and clicks the other end into my helmet – then he runs his fingers along the rubber seal, and smoothes it tight to my neck. I hear a hiss as he turns a valve and the air rushes in.

  ‘All good?’ He gives me a thumbs-up. ‘Just breathe slowly or the visor will mist up.’

  ‘Okay, but how long will my air last?’

  ‘It 15 litres. It last a diver an hour. But you only little and you not going underwater.’

  I smile and put my hands on my head. The new helmet feels much safer than the Frisbee. I go to tell Amir but his back is turned and the door is wide open. He’s fiddling with a red alarm box on the wall.

  I stand by his side. The alley is dark. Darker than it is on my screens. Darker than it’s ever been in my room. There’s a torn plastic bag with bits of paper and food pouring out of it and three cardboard boxes stacked against the wall. I inch my feet forward.

  One more step and I’ll be outside.

  I look across the alley at the brick wall and follow it up past the gutters and the roof. It’s like the building grows out of the ground.

  One more step. I only have to take one more step.

  Car lights flash by the end of the alley. Amir lifts up his hand.

  ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Or they see us on the monitors.’

  I step out of the doorway. I try to look up and see the sky. The walls and the roofs start to spin. I reach out and hold onto a metal handrail. Amir grabs hold of my arm.

  ‘You be okay,’ he says. ‘It just shock.’

  A drip of sweat trickles down the middle of my back.

  ‘Amir, it’s so big,’ I say. ‘The buildings look bigger when I look up.’ I start to fall backwards. Amir puts his arm around my shoulders.

  ‘Let’s get you in the car.’ He lifts his hand and presses a button on a key fob. Red and yellow lights flash on a small car parked by a wall. ‘Sorry . . . it’s no Batmobile, but it get us there.’

  I try to smile but my head is still spinning. Amir grabs hold of the oxygen bottle and slowly walks me towards the car.

  ‘Mind your head,’ he says.

  I get in. There’s chocolate wrappers and crisps packets in the footwell. Amir reaches in and sweeps them aside, then puts the oxygen bottle between my legs and shuts the door.

  He walks in front of the car and gets in the other side. My heart beats against my suit. It seems like five minutes since I was in my room. Now I’m sat in a car with rubbish and tall buildings all around me.

  Amir sits next to me and puts the keys in the ignition.

  ‘You feel better?’

  I nod. ‘A bit,’ I say. ‘But Amir, you still haven’t told me where we’re going?’

  ‘It a surprise. Surprise is best. Like Christmas. Unwrapping presents is rubbish if you know what you get.’

  I give up. I asked him so many times but he still won’t tell me. I like surprises but just being outside is making my heart beat twice as fast.

  Amir turns the key. The dashboard lights up. The green numbers above the radio say 03:20. Amir revs the engine. It squeals like a cat.

  ‘Ah, Rashid. I tell you to fix the alternator.’ He sighs and then presses the accelerator down. The car jumps forward. I grab hold of the door handle. Amir grins.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘We in a car not a rocket.’

  He changes gear and we drive towards the bright lights at the end of the alley. A truck roars by. I sit back in my seat.

  ‘Traffic,’ says Amir ‘You get used to it.’

  Across the road, the lights are dim in Starbucks and the telephone shop. I wish I could get out and look inside but Amir turns right and drives past the front of the hospital. Jim is sat at the reception desk reading his book. I look up and see all the windows . . . hundreds of them. There’s so many that even if I had time to count to my floor I wouldn’t be able to work out which window is mine. The car goes faster and we leave the hospital behind. Streetlights flash by – bright orange lights, one after the other and behind them are the buildings. Massive dark buildings made of glass, brick and metal. They climb higher and higher, fat then narrow, floor after floor until they disappear into the sky.

  We slow down at the traffic lights. Amir taps his hands on the steering wheel as we wait for the lights to turn green. The diggers are parked up in a row. Mike and Andy are leaning against their van. Chris and Dave are resting on their drills under the floodlights.

  ‘They nearly finish,’ says Amir. ‘Then the aliens come.’

  The lights turn green and we pull away. I peer into the hole in the road. I couldn’t see any magnets from my room and I still can’t see any now. My heart beats faster again.

  Amir taps his head. ‘I know what you thinking. The magnets put them in at the end. Otherwise they drag all the cars and vans down the hole.’

  He’s gone crazy again.

  I look back out of my window and we pass more lights and shop windows with sofas and dummies and a giant picture of David Beckham on a wall. I yawn. I’ve only been out for five minutes and I’m already tired. But I can’t go to sleep. I can’t miss anything. I rest my head against the window – more shops, more dark buildings and rubbish bins on the pavement with bits of plastic and food falling out onto the ground. There are newspapers in the gutter blocking the drains.

  Why don’t people pick the rubbish up? Why don’t people empty the bins? They could be full of germs. They could be full of rats. They’re inside the bins, scurrying around eating bits of meat and fat. They’re crawling over the rubbish up to the top. They’re jumping out of the holes down onto the street.

  I shiver and wrap my arms around myself. Here they come.

  Massive rats, giant fat rats with giant teeth and tails a metre long. I glance in the wing mirrors. They’re running behind us; they’re catching us. Germs on their feet. Germs in their mouths. They’re clawing at the car bumper; they’re biting the tyres. No! We need to go back in the buildings. We need to climb back up high. It’s the only way to escape.

  Sweat runs down the side of my face. My visor starts to blur.

  Amir waves his hand in front of my face. ‘Joe, you okay?’

  I put my hands on top of my head. ‘No, take me back. Please take me back.’

  ‘You feel sick?’

  ‘Take me back. There’s germs in the air. There’s rats in the bins.’

  Amir looks at his phone. I don’t need to look. I know my numbers are going mad.

  My legs are twitching, my hands are shaking. Rats are everywhere. I googled it once. They’re only six feet away from us in city centres. They carry diseases that attack our livers and our kidneys and they’re out there now. They’re crawling up the exhaust into the car. They’re eating at my suit and creeping up my air-tubes.

  I pull at my collar and try to breathe but it’s like someone is sat on my chest with their fingers around my throat.

  ‘Joe?’

  ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t—’

  ‘Deep breaths. Slow deep breaths, Joe. Like you’re stood on a beach looking at the sea.’

  I look back out of the car window. The rats are coming. The rats are coming. Giant rats, super rats. They breed them in laboratories.

  No. No.

  I lift my feet up.

  ‘Take me back. Please take me back! The rats are coming. They’re in the car, they’re crawling up my legs!’

  ‘They not. There no rats, Joe. I show you.’

  The click of the indicator makes me jump. Amir pulls the car over into a bus stop. He leans over and puts his hand on my arm.

  ‘You okay. Just be calm.’

  I try to take a deep breath. A man and a woman walk towards us holding hands. Amir points at them.

  ‘You see,’ he says. ‘You think they walk if th
ere giant rats around?’

  I let a breath out.

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought—’

  ‘It’s okay. It’s okay.’

  Amir picks up his phone and increases the air flow.

  ‘Breathe,’ he says. ‘Breathe.’

  ‘I’m trying . . . but I don’t want to use up all of my air.’

  ‘No, you breathe all you like. I calculate it. 100 per cent PA.’

  ‘PA?’ I shiver as the sweat trickles down my neck.

  ‘PA. Panic attack. I tell you to read the instructions.’

  I try to smile and take another breath but it’s hard when every breath I take uses up more oxygen. I put my hands up to my collar. Amir stops me.

  ‘No, you can’t do that.’

  ‘But I still can’t breathe.’

  ‘Then do this.’ He leans forward and rests his head on the steering wheel. He glances across at me. ‘Come on, you know what to do.’

  He closes his eyes.

  I lean forward and put my head in my hands. I take a breath. Then another, deeper and longer. Amir opens one eye and smiles. The monitor beeps slowly as my heart does the same. Amir nods slowly. The rats are retreating, the rats are shrinking. They’re scurrying back up the road and disappearing into the holes. Amir closes his eyes. I close my eyes too.

  We start to hum.

  Outside temp.: 11C

  Body temp.: 37.3C

  Heart rate: 120

  Air purity: 96%

  Air remaining: 12 litres

  Amir is driving, following the cat’s eyes in the middle of the road. My eyelids are heavy. They start to fall.

  Don’t go to sleep. I don’t want to go to sleep.

  I shake my head but two seconds later my eyelids are dropping again.

  Amir nudges my arm. ‘We nearly there,’ he says.

  ‘Can you tell me where we’re going now?’

  ‘The edge of the world,’ he says.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘The end of this world. The beginning of the next.’

  I don’t understand what he means.

  More cat’s eyes. More streetlights. More headlights flashing across Amir’s face.

  I yawn. ‘Amir, am I dreaming?’

  ‘Only you know.’

  The road grows wider, two lanes, then three. The buildings get bigger and further apart. We’re on a motorway. They go on for miles and miles but we can’t drive for miles. This car is so old and rattly it might break down. A whale can hold its breath for ninety minutes; I can’t hold mine for ninety seconds. We’d never make it back to the hospital if we had to walk from here. We’d have to get out and flag down a car or maybe the police would see us parked at the side of the road. They’d wonder what I was doing out, dressed as a spaceman so early in the morning. I won’t be able to tell them because Amir will get the sack and I’ll get into trouble too. I hope Dr Moore won’t be too mad with me. I wonder if he would come and rescue me before my oxygen runs out. I think of asking Amir but he’s too busy watching the road as we pass more cars and more buildings, but I recognize these. I’ve seen them before from my window: E = Mc2, Lucozade, GlaxoSmithKline, and Mercedes-Benz – I look ahead and see the sign for Heathrow.