An hour later Dr Bunsen strolled down the corridor with a folder under his arm and a smirk on his face. The doctors had agreed that Theo should undergo a course of intensive hypnotherapy. Perhaps that way they might jog the boy’s memory as to where he came from and who he was.
Dr Bunsen liked having patients at his mercy. He would drag Theo into hypnosis and that would be an end to those smart-alec fibs about not remembering anything. The brat evidently thought he could waste everyone’s time with his ludicrous fictions. As if the doctors didn’t have anything better to do than put up with the make-believe of children.
Anyhow, I’ll put a stop to that, Bunsen thought to himself. I’ll poke through all of the corners of Theo’s mind and shine a spotlight on all the little secrets he’s got hidden away. While I’m there, I might install some valuable lessons about good behaviour and respect for authority, too.
Bunsen reached the end of the corridor and swung around the corner into Theo’s room. ‘Well, Theo,’ he said. ‘The time has come to find out just who you really are.’ But his words faded as quickly as his smile. The room was empty and Theo was nowhere to be seen.Theo was at that moment with Bozo on a lower floor of the hospital, surrounded by piles of books that were taller than him. The books in question were medical texts that had been left on the shelves for so long that they were each covered with an inch of dust. Every time they opened a new one, Bozo sneezed and they grew afraid that someone would hear them.
The books were not especially easy to read, either. In fact, you got the impression that the people who wrote them didn’t want to tell you anything at all. They used words that Theo had never heard before – indeed, he’d begun to suspect they’d made them up. Not only that, the sentences were so long that by the time you got to the end of one you’d already forgotten how it started.
Theo and Bozo had installed themselves at the back of the library. They had been hard at work for more than two hours now. The lighting was metallic and the air so stuffy that their yawning had become utterly contagious. No sooner did one of them open his mouth wide to yawn than the other followed suit. In fact, they might have fallen asleep there and then if it had not been for the occasional doctor passing by to search for some text. At the sound of footsteps, Bozo threw himself under a bookcase and Theo looked so absorbed in his reading that no one thought it strange to see a nine-year-old boy studying medical diagnosis.
‘This one might help us,’ Theo announced, turning the pages of a heavy volume called Common Illnesses and How to Cure Them. Bozo opened half an eye. He was dozing on the second shelf of medical encyclopedias. He’d already found the best application of these leather-bound volumes – they made very comfortable pillows.
‘Let’s see,’ Theo pondered. ‘Does the Storyteller have trouble sleeping at night?’
‘He never sleeps.’ Bozo yawned.
‘Insom-n-i-a.’ Theo scribbled on a notepad. ‘How about his appetite?’
‘He never eats.’
‘Come on!’ Theo objected. ‘You’ll be telling me he doesn’t breathe next.’
‘Well…’ Bozo shrugged. Theo groaned and put the book down in protest.
‘Look,’ Bozo said, sitting up. ‘Things back home are a little different to here. Life follows different rules.’
‘But how can I cure the Storyteller if I don’t know what’s wrong with him?’ Theo protested. He considered a moment. ‘This book says the majority of health problems are caused by bad diet – if he doesn’t eat, then how does he get the energy to do anything?’
‘He drinks,’ Bozo offered.
‘Ah! What? Beer? Whisky? Maybe he has liver problems….’ ‘No. He drinks starlight.’
‘What do you mean?’ Theo asked, bewildered.
‘We know because once there was such a cheese storm that powdered cheese filled the skies and blocked out the stars for days. When it was over, the Storyteller was as thin as a shadow.’
‘Does starlight have many vitamins?’ Theo asked, thumbing through a leaflet on nutrition. He sighed and reminded himself how important it was to get this right. He picked up his notepad and pen: ‘OK, let’s start with some basic information. How old is the Storyteller?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Where does he come from?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Oh, come on, Bozo. You’re not helping me at all!’ Theo cried.
Bozo slid down from the shelf and took up a seat on a dictionary of herbal remedies opposite his friend. ‘This is all new to me too, Theo,’ he said. ‘The Storyteller is the first person I’ve ever seen get ill.’ He looked down at his long, skateboard feet. ‘Us Bloons never get sick. We didn’t know what sickness was.’
‘But everyone gets sick from time to time,’ Theo insisted.
‘Why?’
‘There are viruses and bacteria and …things,’ Theo concluded vaguely.
‘Where?’
‘You can’t see them but they’re all around us.’
‘Oh.’ Bozo laughed. ‘Back in Bloonland we only believe in what we can see. It makes life simpler that way.’ Suddenly his ears swivelled. ‘Someone’s coming.’ Bozo slid under a bookshelf and Theo buried his nose in a random large volume. The sound of approaching footsteps grew louder and louder until it seemed to fill the entire library. The click-clack stopped abruptly. Theo knew without looking that the footsteps had come to a halt at his aisle. He didn’t dare look and, though he knew it was hopeless, he buried his head deep in the book in an attempt to hide. A shadow fell over him. All at once a hand reached down and grabbed him by the shoulder.
Theo spun around in fright, expecting to see the snarl of an angry doctor. His fear abated a little when he saw Nurse Sandra staring down at him. She didn’t seem angry but rather curious and amused.
‘Theo? What on earth are you doing down here? We’ve been searching high and low for you for more than an hour,’ she said. She picked up one of the books with a puzzled look on her face. ‘Why do you want to read about this crazy stuff when you’ve got piles of comics upstairs?’
Theo accepted Sandra’s hand and walked back along the corridor with her. ‘I wanted to find out what made someone sick,’ he said.
‘Did you?’ She laughed. ‘Well, Dr Theo, there’s no easy answer to that, but I’ll let you in on a secret: most of it is in the mind.’
They strolled out of the library and into the elevator that would take them back to Theo’s ward. Had anyone been watching, they might have seen a thin, blue shape dash from corner to corner in pursuit. It waited until the other elevator doors opened, rushed in and hid beneath the cover of a snack-trolley pushed by a kitchen porter.
They passed other wards and Theo’s eyes met those of the other children sitting up in bed reading or watching television. Some of them looked away nervously but others tried a nervous smile. Theo felt inclined to say hello and take up the invitation to friendship, but then turned his head and remained aloof. Somehow he didn’t want to share either his mission or Bozo’s company with anyone else.
They arrived at his private room and Theo climbed back into bed. Sandra took up a seat next to him and pulled out the pile of comics in case he was still in the mood to read something. ‘And here’s Joe with the snack-trolley,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a glass of cold milk and some biscuits …though it looks like someone else got to them first. Joe, did a squirrel get into the kitchen cupboards again?’ She turned to look at Theo who had gone quite pale. ‘Theo, are you OK? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’
Theo was looking with dread at the plate of biscuits on which sat a Bloon, chewing a hazelnut twirl. Sandra followed his gaze and raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll ask Joe to bring some more biscuits if that’s what’s bothering you.’ She patted him on the head and walked off down the hall to answer a bell rung by another child.
Theo watched her leave in amazement. Once he dared breathe again, he hissed, ‘Bozo, did you see that?’
‘Hmmm?’ the Bloon replied, looking up and wiping his mouth.
‘They couldn’t see you! You were sitting there right in front of them and they didn’t even see you.’
‘Oh. I didn’t notice. I’ll tell you one thing, though.’
‘What?’
‘These biscuits taste even better than flowers.’
Theo had trouble getting to sleep that night. The discovery that Bozo was invisible to everyone else meant they could now do all kinds of things without getting caught. Theo had been worried that they might put Bozo in a zoo and charge entry to see him. Or maybe cut him into small pieces in a laboratory to see what he was made of. Now he knew his friend was safe, they could plan their next move without fear.
Bozo had already begun to exploit his invisibility by raiding the kitchen and demolishing the biscuit supplies. On the way back to Theo’s room, the Bloon had got all the other kids into trouble by ringing their bells to drag the nurses away from their magazines. He even managed to lock Bunsen in his office for two hours until someone heard his outraged cries. The doctor had marched up and down the ward to search for the culprit, but Theo had faked a peaceful sleep until the man left, fuming.
But none of that was what kept Theo awake.
He couldn’t getstop thinking about what Sandra had said about sickness. out of his brain,It’s all in the mind. Theo felt in his belly that her words held a clue to the mystery of the Storyteller’s illness, but he couldn’t think what. It was like the answer was so close that he could smell it, yet it remained out of reach. Finally, he gave up and turned his attention to something else.
‘Bozo?’ he whispered.
‘Hmmm?’ came a murmur from beneath the bed.
‘I can’t sleep. Tell me more about Bloonland and the Storyteller.’