The Distant Home by Tony Morphett Read Free Book Online Page A

‘It’s knitting. Look. Left tib and fib were fractured too,’ he said, pointing to the lower leg, ‘and they’re knitting. She’s healing in fast forward!’
    Rosen leaned in and stared at the X-ray screen. ‘You seen anything like this before?’ she said.
    ‘Of course I haven’t seen anything like this before!’ the radiologist yelled. ‘Are you kidding or something? It’d be in all the text books! No one’s ever seen anything like this before! This kid’s a medical freak!’
    Freak.
Sally heard the word and winced. Freak is not a word anyone wants applied to them. Her eyes shifted and she caught Rosen’s movement as the doctor reached for the phone. She was punching in a number.
    ‘Dr Rosen here, would you please page Dr Chambers? It’s urgent.’ Then Rosen put the phone back into its cradle, and moved to Sally and looked at her. Sally had closed her eyes and now lay there, pretending to be unconscious. ‘Sally?’ said Rosen. ‘Can you hear me?’ Sally just lay there, and after a moment Rosen turned away, hands together, cracking her knuckles, waiting for her boss to answer her page.

chapter
thirteen
    In the hospital lobby, the desk clerk was leaning in to speak into a microphone. ‘Dr Chambers please. Dr Chambers wanted in X-ray.’
    Bobby, pushing his mop along a corridor, heard it. ‘Dr Chambers please. Dr Chambers wanted in X-ray.’
    In the waiting section of the emergency department, Maria and Jim heard it. ‘Dr Chambers to X-ray please.’ Maria checked her watch, looked around, not for the first time, and then said to Jim, ‘Maybe Bobby’s locked in the toilet. Would you go and look please Jim?’
    ‘Look for … ?’
    ‘Bobby. Our son. Remember him? He’s been gone a quarter of an hour.’
    ‘Oh, that Bobby,’ said Jim. He squeezed Maria’s hand, and then headed off to look for Bobby.
    Bobby was still looking for Sally. As he pushed his mop along the corridor, two nurses passed him, talking, and ignoring him completely. He took that as a good sign. The disguise was working. Then two old men in pyjamas and dressing gowns came past and stared at him. Bobby hurried past them and as he moved on he heard one say, ‘You know you’re getting old when cleaners start looking younger.’
    Along the corridor, a set of elevators doors opened and out came a small, compact man with dark hair and a very pink face. His name was Dr Chambers. Shortly Bobby would get to know and fear him but for the moment he was a stranger. But even though he was a stranger, he looked to Bobby like the sort of person who might not believe you when you said you were a cleaner who had just started work that day. He was preparing to run for it when Dr Chambers turned in through a door marked ‘X-ray’.
    Seconds later Bobby himself reached the door, and stood on tip-toe to look through the glass panel in it. And there was Sally lying on her trolley!
    Bobby’s instinct was to barge in and get her, but he knew from playing Castle of Zahan that if you barged through doors you stood a very good chance of being killed by Tenth Level Thieves, Members of the Assassins’ Guild, Warriors, Were-wolf Knights, Warlocks and Entities. He knew there was none of those in the X-ray department but figured that there might be creatures just as dangerous to his plans, so he checked the room out further.
    There was the woman doctor who had taken Sally from the emergency department, talking to the pink-faced man who had just entered, and with them were another man in a white coat, and a sour-looking nursing sister. They were talking to each other like mad—everyone talking at once. There was a big machine between them and Sally. He decided he could get in unobserved. Bobby propped the mop against the wall of the corridor, opened the door slightly and squeezed through.
    As he entered, he heard the woman doctor saying, ‘You’ve got to look at this, Dr Chambers, we’ve got something here I’ve never seen before.’
    Then Bobby was