Queenie Read online

  I hated Martin and I’d just commanded the Mekon to attack him with his ray-gun, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him when he screamed.

  I thought we might have a bit of peace till lunch time, so I was surprised when Nurse Patterson and Nurse Curtis seized little Michael’s bed and started trundling it noisily right out of the ward.

  ‘Where are they taking him?’ I asked Martin.

  ‘They’re taking him away to the torture chamber – and you’re next,’ he said, his voice still jerky from crying.

  ‘You’re just telling silly lies. You’re pathetic. You can’t scare me,’ I fibbed.

  I decided the nurses were probably taking him to the bathroom to give him a proper bath, though I wasn’t sure how his horrible frame and buckles and straps would all fit into the tub – but in a minute they came back without him.

  ‘Nurse Curtis, where’s Michael?’ I whispered.

  ‘Oh, we’ve just taken him to play in the sunshine,’ she said. ‘You’re next, sweetheart.’

  I stared at her. I was sure Nurse Curtis couldn’t be a liar too – but what did she mean? How could Michael play outdoors when he was clearly very ill and strapped rigid on his bed?

  The two nurses seized my bed and trundled me down the ward. Martin went ‘Ha-ha-haaaa!’ like someone in a horror film. I knew he was simply trying to wind me up, but it was working. I had tight knots in my stomach and I could hardly breathe.

  ‘Nurse Curtis!’ I gasped.

  ‘What’s up, pet? Are we pushing you too fast? You’re not getting giddy, are you?’ she said.

  ‘You won’t let anyone hurt me, will you?’ I whispered it, but Nurse Patterson heard and snorted.

  ‘Don’t be such a silly sausage, Elsie Kettle. No one’s going to hurt you!’ She laughed mirthlessly at the idea – and yet half an hour ago I’d seen her reduce tough Martin to tears with her injection.

  They pushed me through a set of double doors, out onto a veranda. Michael’s bed was already there. He was huddled under his covers, shivering. There was a very watery smudge of sun between the clouds, but a chill wind was blowing and it felt desperately cold. It might be spring but it felt like January.

  ‘It’s cold out here,’ I said plaintively.

  ‘Nonsense! You’re in your lovely cosy bed,’ said Nurse Patterson.

  It wasn’t cosy at all. I had a sheet and one pale green thin blanket. I tucked the Chicks’ Own comic over my chest, which helped a little. The nurses went off to collect the next child.

  ‘Why are they shoving us out here?’ I asked Michael. ‘Have we been naughty?’

  ‘We always come out here. It’s to get fresh air,’ he said. His face was blue-white and pinched with the cold. I felt so sorry for him I slipped out of bed and gave him back his Chicks’ Own, tucking it under his little armpits.

  ‘There now, that’s a bit cosier, isn’t it?’ I said.

  Michael gave me a sudden beaming smile. I grinned back at him and held his tiny frozen hand. He was much too little to be in hospital, tied up in this terrible manner. The covers were hiding his straps and buckles, but I could see the shape of all the little knobs through his blanket.

  Then the nurses came back trundling Martin – and Nurse Patterson shouted at me.

  ‘Get back into bed this instant, Elsie Kettle! You’re on total bed rest, like the other children. Don’t you dare start messing about.’

  ‘But Michael was so cold. I was only trying to warm him up,’ I protested.

  ‘You have to learn to do as you’re told,’ said Nurse Patterson. ‘We know what’s best for you. It’s essential that you all have lots of good fresh air. It will improve your general health, stimulate your appetite, and make you sleep better.’

  ‘But I’m shivering!’

  ‘Because you’re out of bed! Now get back in before I smack your bottom, young lady.’

  I got back in sharpish. Martin was giggling at me. When the nurses marched off to fetch the next bed, I pulled a face at their backs.

  ‘I’ll smack her bottom back,’ I muttered.

  Martin sniggered and Michael went into peals of laughter. ‘I’ll smack her bottom too!’ he gurgled.

  ‘No, Gobface can push our beds and we’ll run her over. Watch out, Nurse Patterson, you’re going to get squashed,’ said Martin.

  We warmed up a little inventing fresh ways of getting even with Nurse Patterson, suddenly united. Big Gillian joined in when she was pushed onto the veranda with us. Our beds were pushed so close together they were almost touching, so it was much easier to talk. Angus didn’t say anything at all when he joined us, but Rita and Babette and Maureen laughed too, coming up with inventive new ways to humiliate Nurse Patterson. It was still hard work remembering which of the two little girls was which, and I mixed them up.

  ‘I’ve got straight hair and Maureen’s curly – it’s simple, Gobface,’ said Babette.

  I couldn’t stop Martin, but Babette was just a little squirt of a girl and I wasn’t going to let her insult me. ‘I’m not Gobface, I’m Elsie. It’s simple, Babette,’ I said fiercely.

  ‘Oh shut up, you small fry, I’m blooming perishing,’ said Gillian, and when the nurses came back, she called Nurse Curtis. She clearly knew it was a waste of time appealing to Nurse Patterson.

  ‘Look at all my goose pimples! Couldn’t I at least have my cardie from my locker?’ she said.

  Nurse Curtis rubbed her own chilly arms. ‘Yes, it is a bit nippy today. Tell you what – I’ll see about hot-water bottles,’ she said.

  ‘It’s spring now, Curtis,’ said Nurse Patterson crisply. ‘They’re only allowed hot-water bottles in winter.’

  ‘Oh, pish posh,’ said Nurse Curtis. ‘It’ll only take ten minutes and then they’ll be so much happier.’

  ‘They’re not here to be happy,’ said Nurse Patterson. ‘They’re here to get well.’

  ‘Only some of us don’t,’ said Martin.

  ‘I’ll thank you not to eavesdrop and interrupt, young man,’ said Nurse Patterson, and vented her temper on him because Nurse Curtis had run off, doing a funny Charlie Chaplin kipper-feet routine that made us all laugh.

  She came back with a whole trolley full of hot-water bottles, and they made such a difference.

  ‘You’re the lucky ones! For two pins I’d get into bed with you,’ said Nurse Curtis, clapping her plump arms. They were rosy red with the cold.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re all making such a fuss,’ said Nurse Patterson. ‘I think it’s quite mild today’ – though her sticky-out ears were scarlet.

  A new lady came puffing out onto the veranda. She was wearing a hat and a winter coat and a woolly scarf and leather gloves. She kept them on all morning, clearly agreeing with us that it was freezing. She was Miss Isles, our school teacher.

  ‘I didn’t know you had teachers in hospital,’ I said, sighing.

  She wasn’t soft or pretty, and I was sure she didn’t have an angora jumper under her coat like dear Miss Roberts back at my proper school.

  She’d be wondering where I was now. Marilyn and Susan would be peeved that they didn’t have anyone to pick on. I wondered if Laura might miss me just a little bit.

  Miss Isles gave me an ugly grey workbook and a pencil, though at school I’d used a pen for ages. She set me twenty sums, made me read an excerpt from a story and then answer ten silly questions, and then had me tackle endless IQ puzzles.

  ‘If beak is to bird, then whisker is to . . .’ I mumbled.

  I hated these stupid tests. They were never specific enough. Whisker could well be to Nanny – she had quite a few growing on her top lip, and a couple on her chin too. Mum was always nagging her to tweeze them away. She tweezed her face so much she didn’t have any eyebrows at all when she took off her make-up.

  I thought of Nan now, imprisoned in the sanatorium, and a tear ran down my cheek, plop, onto the paper.

  ‘Oh dear, don’t cry, Elsie! Don’t worry if you can’t answer many of the questions. They’re j