16
The Explosion
As Patrick had gone there was me, Mattie and a new arrival by the name of David Deckton. I didn’t like that time at C.H.I.S as it was not as before because very early on I found that me and David didn’t have that much in common. The weeks dragged on slower than ever. On Tuesday I came over all funny.
“Morning Angie.” I said whilst sniffing
“Hello Chris, how are you feeling?”
“A bit under the weather” I replied.
“We’ll see what Sarah has to say when she arrives.”
I heard Pat’s car arrive just before Sue C’s Land Rover, Pat arrived with her head in the newspaper, as she sat down two seats away from me she read out the headline.
“A captain of a boat is at the wheel.” She showed us a picture of a wrecked ship; it appeared to have crashed into a wave breaker and capsized. Mattie handed her some of the tissues that were on the table, then I realised she was crying.
“Pat what’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing.” She replied.
“Come on.” She gestured with her hand for me to stand up with my crutches and follow her. When we reached the gym she confessed as to why she was so sad before.
“I was shocked to find out that it was my brother James who was the captain of the boat that crashed in France.”
I didn’t know what to say so I just got on with my exercises.
I did some standing on my right leg hanging on to the wall bars and then on my left, then some calf stretches. The K walker appeared out of Pat’s amazing cupboard where she kept all sorts of things including Patrick’s old crutches. This signalled the end of my physio session and as if by cue Eleanor my O.T. walked in.
“Hi Eleanor, what are we doing today?” I asked.
“We’re going over the road to Westfield; the area of the building that was unharmed. We went over to Westfield going up to the meeting room on the first floor. It was two in the afternoon; I was getting hungry, Eleanor sat beside me. The others sitting around the room had come to discuss my return to school. Sitting round the table was Miss B my old religious education teacher, Mr M who I knew and a Mr P (I wasn’t sure about him as I didn’t really know him).
“Should I introduce myself?” he was talking directly to me.
“I’m Mr P, I’ll be your new technology teacher at Warden Park Secondary School.” He went on.
This really nice lady sat next to me her name was Gail who I gathered must have worked in additional support. Eleanor asked me.
“Are you getting bored?”
“Yes.” I replied.
“Shall we go?” Eleanor suggested, “Anyway I think we may have a theory driving test for you to try and complete.” I thought Destruction Derby on my Play station was bad enough. We went back to C.H.I.S to find all the staff in the office.
“Shhhhh… we’re having quiet time that means you should be in your room resting.” One of the nurses told me. I went up to my room, I slept for ten minutes I then reached over to get my remote and checked that everything was in the same place as I had left it that morning.
The following day when I woke up I turned on the TV. Fern was on Diggit and then Sue C, a nurse came through the door.
“Morning Chris.” She said brightly.
I liked Sue because she was so good natured. Sue was a shorter woman with jet-black hair who was really quite funny, because she was chatty “Morning Sue.” I replied.
Sue wheeled me in my chair out of the room. I had to be weighed on the scales every Tuesday. When I looked down at the gauge I saw that I weighed 300lb with the chair. I looked out the window by the lift, I saw a bird box and the woods but not much else. Next we went in to the lift to go downstairs to the dining room. I was intrigued by what seemed to be a chocolate cereal as there had only been toast for the past couple of days. I looked in the lower cupboard there were Shreddies and porridge - I didn’t fancy either of them. I had already looked on the board to see what I had today - later I was going to the library with Chris P but before that I had physio with Pat then occupational therapy. Pat arrived five minutes late, carrying her usual copy of the Daily Mail.
“How are you both today?” Pat enquired as she walked in.
“Fine.” I replied.
Pat looked and sounded tired. She looked really anxious during my session. The time seemed to be dragging on forever. Finally she let me go. It was Sarah who came
to get me and luckily for her she only had to push me to the next room along the corridor which I had already walked two lengths of using my K walker with Pat earlier. Eleanor was waiting, she was at her computer. I could see Mattie playing basketball out on the patio.
“Hi! How are you?” I greeted Eleanor.
“Fine.” She replied.
I could see what I was going to be doing for the next half an hour. I was wheeled past the other two computers to the one which Eleanor was using.
“Do you know that Mario isn’t here?” I asked.
“Yes – why, do you know where he has got to?”
“I think he’s in France, are we going to get on with it?”
I played a rally car game on the computer. I ended up coming third, which Eleanor said was good. Meanwhile a big white van with a black and sunset orange emblem on pulled into the lay-by outside. The driver got out of the van holding an order form. Apparently he was delivering some new gym equipment for Matthew. It was quiet time next so Angie took me upstairs. As I had read all of my J.K Rowling books and there wasn’t anything worth watching on the TV at 2pm I decided to go to the room where I usually had my private tutor to look for a book or two. I was almost there when I heard a load of banging closely followed by the sound of the smash of windows. It seemed to be coming from the upstairs toilet and bathroom. I quickly pushed my chair up to the bathroom and went to see if I could find out what was going on. I pulled the emergency cord outside the bathroom expecting it to bleep but nothing happened. Obviously the person or persons who were responsible for the noise had cut off the electricity supply. Suspecting that someone was looking for me I quickly swapped the name plates on the doors so that Mattie’s door had my name on and my door had Mattie’s name on. I had just finished when two men rushed up. I managed to jump into my bed as a man in some kind of uniform and wearing a protective helmet with a visor entered my room. He pulled me out of bed and put me into a black material sack. I was then hauled down the stairs, outside, lifted into the van and then lastly chucked into some kind of metal box.
Now I was kind of wishing that I hadn’t swapped the names round on the doors. I could hear the man who had kidnapped me talking to someone inside the van that he referred to as “Harry H.” I then heard a familiar voice, which sounded like Harry Howler, the known assassin.
“You know we’re going to enjoy spending all your fathers’ money, think of all the things we can buy Barry.” said Harry.
I kept quiet. They then drove the van a short distance. When we stopped I was taken out of the van and taken into another place.
“We’ve got the boy, can we go now?” said Barry.
“Affirmative. A more sinister voice replied.
I heard the clatter of feet above my head; I wanted to test my theory to see if I was alone. I used my quietest voice to see if I was in any immediate danger. I then started getting louder, leaving a pause of about five seconds for a reply in between to test my theory.
I managed to get out of the bag quite easily and then climbed out of the metal box. I pushed the door open, half expecting to see Harry pointing a gun at my forehead. I was relieved to find there was no one in sight just an empty bunkroom. I crawled past the bunk beds and saw two clocks on the wall, one showing Greenwich Mean Time and the other French time, which gains an hour. I crawled up the spiral staircase of what turned out to be a Belfast aeroplane. I got to the top of the stairs on my bum and then there were two doors, I guessed that one of them lead to the cockpit. I took the left door and found myself in another room but this had a proper single bed and a sink cupboard with a mirror built in, there was a door at the far end of this room, I crawled under this bed, where I stayed.