Queenie Read online

  ‘Now, this particular Thomas’s knee bed splint is simply longing to clasp you gently round your leg, but first we have to prepare you. Is this a clean leg, Nurses? Shall we give it another rub and scrub just to make sure?’

  They washed my leg carefully and spent ages towelling it dry, patting my spongy knee very gently indeed. They put soft wool around my leg, and then Mr Dobbin stretched my knee out just so, and slipped the bed splint into place. The leather ring felt odd and the splints were strange, but it didn’t actually hurt. They bandaged it all into place, and lifted me even more carefully back onto my bed.

  ‘There now – is that comfy, Miss Kettle?’ asked Mr Dobbin.

  ‘I – I think so,’ I said. I tried to wriggle. ‘But I can’t move it!’

  ‘Exactly! That is the point. You must rest it absolutely. Rest all of that little body, Miss Kettle. But if you get restless’ – he tapped my forehead – ‘go for a run inside your head. Hop and skip and dance in your dreams. And one day you’ll be able to do just that, in real life. Then you’ll be able to kiss your Thomas’s knee bed splint goodbye.’

  I nodded solemnly, because I was good at making things up in my head. In fact it seemed to be the only thing I was any good at. But when I was wheeled back to the others, as trussed up and helpless as they were, it was hard to hang onto this.

  ‘So you’re a prisoner now too,’ said Martin.

  I closed my eyes and tried to clamber right up inside my head – but my leg was still tied up and I couldn’t move. I kept my eyes squeezed shut but the tears started seeping out.

  No one remarked on this, but after five minutes Gillian called, ‘Here, Gobface, my secret supply’ – and a sweet landed lightly on my chest. It was an orange cough candy, a medicinally flavoured sweet that I usually avoided like the plague, but I unwrapped it and sucked gratefully.

  ‘That’s not fair! I want one too,’ said Martin.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ snapped Gillian.

  Surprisingly, he did. I lay still, breathing cough candy fumes, while my leg throbbed in its new prison. I couldn’t move it at all, not even an inch either way. I thought of not being able to move day after day, week after week, month after month. Then I thought of poor darling Nan in a similar prison of her own flesh, and that made me start howling again.

  Something poked me in the ribs. It was a folded-up Eagle comic.

  ‘I don’t mind if you have a read,’ said Martin.

  I gulped and nodded at him, and then opened up the comic. My eyes were too blurry with tears to read, but I blinked at the pictures. And then, out of nowhere, Queenie leaped up onto my bed. She padded up to me, delicately avoiding the bulk of my splint. She poked her head right up under the Eagle, trampled it out of the way, and curled up on my chest. She lay on me, her soft head under my chin, warm and sweet and beautiful. I stroked her very gently and she started purring. I stroked a little more firmly and her purrs grew louder in appreciation.

  ‘Oh Queenie,’ I whispered.

  I had tucked the shiny yellow wrapper from a chocolate toffee under my pillow. I flattened it out of its goblet shape and tried to fashion it into a tiny crown. ‘I hereby declare you Queen Queenie, Queen of all the Cats,’ I whispered, balancing it on her white head.

  She gazed at me with her beautiful big eyes, green as gooseberries. Then she bent her head and batted the wrapper away with one quick paw, telling me she didn’t need a tacky paper crown to show her status. I was scared she’d jump off the bed again, but she turned round and snuggled back, seeming to sense how much I needed her.

  I wondered if they had cats in all hospitals. I hadn’t seen so much as a whisker of one in Nan’s grim ward, but perhaps they’d simply been hiding. I tried to will a cat up onto Nan’s bed. I was sure she’d like it if it cuddled up close on her poorly chest.

  I paid more attention to the story when Nurse Patterson read aloud to us after supper. I was getting the hang of the plot now. The children climbed up the magic tree, then up a little ladder right at the very top, and stepped through the clouds into a different land. I knew which land I was after. The Land Where Dreams Came True – and Nan and I would be together, living in our own cosy cottage. It wouldn’t even matter if she was still very poorly. My land would have a special magic bed, and if Nan couldn’t struggle out of it, I’d wheel her around. She’d looked after me when I was little, feeding me and washing me and dressing me, so I didn’t mind taking my turn looking after Nan. We’d live in our cottage all by ourselves. Perhaps Mum might be allowed to visit occasionally, or maybe Laura could come to tea, but no one else. We’d have our very own pets. Queenie would leap up that ladder and stay with us.

  I’d cook cheesy beanos and make perfect cups of tea for Nan, and saucers of creamy milk for Queenie, and we’d have a big tin of sweeties all to ourselves. I’d wear my cat pyjamas every night, and I’d have a satin party frock for every day of the week with a fluffy angora bolero to match – pink, blue, primrose, lilac, mint green, apricot, and white on Sundays. And I’d never ever wear boy’s shoes. I’d have pretty little patent shoes. I might even have high heels.

  I went on telling my story to myself long after Nurse Patterson had finished her chapter, but then I was jerked rudely back into the real world by the terrible bedpan routine. It was so uncomfortable and embarrassing that I couldn’t go for ages, and then, when I did, I was so heavy and lopsided now that my bottom tilted and the bedpan spilled.

  ‘Oh you clumsy clot!’ said Nurse Patterson, sighing heavily. She didn’t really tell me off, just snorted a lot through her nostrils as she and Nurse Curtis struggled to change my sheets with me still in the bed, my leg immobile. Then at last they left me in peace. I tried to go back to my story, but Martin and Gillian and Rita kept whispering. I didn’t feel like joining in this time.

  ‘Gobface? Have you gone deaf or something?’ Martin hissed.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ said Gillian. ‘I expect she feels fed up. I know I am. So pipe down, you two, and let us all have a bit of kip.’

  They all seemed to go to sleep quite quickly, though I thought I heard sniffling right at the end, where Angus lay in his terrible plaster bed.

  I lay staring up at the ceiling with ugly Donald Duck tucked in beside me. My leg started throbbing and itching and jumping because I so badly wanted to wriggle around and I couldn’t. I always went to sleep curled up on my side, but that was impossible now. Everything seemed impossible.

  I longed for Queenie to come back, but she was still outside, prowling in the twilight, moon-white in the shadows. Then I heard footsteps squeaking on the polished floor. Nurse Patterson and Nurse Curtis were going home, and – oh glory! Nurse Gabriel and Nurse Johnson were coming on night duty.

  I hoped Nurse Gabriel would come straight over to me. She stopped right in front of my bed, but then Angus sniffled again and she went over to him instead. I was so disappointed I started crying again, forcing the tears a little, and making sad hiccupping sounds to be sure Nurse Gabriel heard – but she still didn’t come.

  I got Nurse Johnson instead, widdle-waddling over to my bed and bending over me with a strange squeaky sound.

  ‘Are you having a little weep, Elsie?’ She shone her torch in my face. ‘Oh dear, yes. Let’s mop those poor old eyes. I see you’ve got your splint on. It’s not hurting you, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said furiously.

  ‘Where is it rubbing, pet?’

  ‘Everywhere.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She pulled my covers down and very gently touched my leg, her fat fingers scrabbling about the bandages. ‘I think it’s all nicely wrapped up like a baby in a blanket. I don’t think it’s really sore, Elsie.’

  ‘It is, it is,’ I insisted. ‘Please, take it off.’

  ‘I can’t do that, dear. It’s got to stay on. It will help you heal.’

  ‘It’s awful. It’s torture,’ I declared dramatically.

  ‘Now you’re just being silly. And keep your voice down – you don’t want to wake the others,�€