The Bubble Boy

by Stewart Foster

  It usually takes him twenty-two minutes to get to my room from the reception but today nearly two hours have gone before I hear him in the transition zone. He smiles as he walks into my room.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, I’m okay, but where have you been?’

  ‘Sorry, things are a bit busy.’

  ‘With the others?’

  Amir nods his head quickly. ‘Yes, but I was looking for this, too.’

  He holds up his hand and shows me a tiny square chip between his finger and thumb.

  ‘What is it?’

  He grins. ‘My brother got us a decoder upgrade – Quantax 635i with tri-media processor.’ he says. ‘It scans through all networks at the same time, every country, every city, terrestrial, satellite and cable.’

  ‘But I don’t watch all the ones I’ve got.’

  ‘You can’t have enough,’ he says. ‘Everyone wants more channels, you can’t have too many channels. The world is so big you might miss something somewhere.’ He kneels down by the receiver.

  I get off my bed and kneel beside him. ‘Amir, where does all this come from? It must cost a lot of money.’

  He takes the cover off the receiver and looks at me. ‘No, it free. My brother gets it from backs of lorries.’

  ‘It’s stolen?’

  ‘No, we just borrow.’ Amir grins at me as he clicks the new parts into place.

  ‘There,’ he says. ‘Now all we’ve got to do is find the channel.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one your friend will be on.’

  ‘Henry?’

  ‘Who else? No point in sending a man to the moon if no one turns on the TV and watches him.’

  I smile. Henry isn’t going to the moon, but I know what Amir means. It wouldn’t be the same if Henry just told me what it was like to walk around the mall; he’d leave things out that he thought weren’t important and he might make things up that didn’t happen, which he sometimes does when he’s excited. It would be much better to see him.

  I stand up. Amir points the remote at the TV as we walk backwards towards my bed. The monitors flicker but all we see are fuzzy pictures and all we hear is white noise.

  Amir looks confused. ‘It’s not on Galaxy,’ he says. ‘But it must be on here somewhere.’

  The channels change again – cars on a racing track, a girl on a motorbike, camels walking across a desert – Amir taps the remote against the side of his head.

  ‘I call him,’ he whispers.

  ‘Henry?’

  ‘No, my brother.’ He takes his phone out of his pocket and walks over to the window. As he presses the keys I try more channels but all I find are silly adverts about cornflakes and washing powder. Amir holds his finger in the air. I stop scanning.

  ‘Rashid, we can’t find it!’ Amir listens then starts talking faster. ‘’Kay . . . ’kay.’ He turns off the phone.

  ‘What did he say?’

  He walks over and takes the remote from me. ‘My fault,’ he says. ‘We on Astra when we should be on Echo Star.’ He glances at his watch. ‘But we haven’t got time now. We’ve only got two days.’

  ‘Until the aliens come?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Until you go outside.’

  ‘What? Am I really going?’ My breath starts coming out in quick little bursts and my heart rate speeds up straight away. Outside. Outside!!

  ‘Am I really going?!

  ‘Of course, it short notice but it the only day my brother can lend us his car.’

  We’ve only got two days but he hasn’t told me anything! Henry had a plan mapped out for three months. He’s been on a special diet and been out for trial runs. All I’ve done is watch TV on my bed!

  ‘What’s wrong? Are you nervous? It okay. Everybody gets nerves, even him.’ He nods at Theo Walcott.

  I bite my lip.

  ‘Come on,’ says Amir. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m a bit scared. I don’t know what I’m wearing or where I’m . . . going.’

  Amir leans towards me. ‘Don’t worry.’ He taps the side of his head. ‘It’s all up here. I know everything.’

  ‘But I need to know, too.’

  Amir looks at his watch, then back towards the door.

  ‘Yes, of course you do. Sorry. Quick, pass me that.’

  I reach over to my table and hand him my laptop. Amir looks cross, suddenly.

  ‘What’s this?’

  He reads the post about me being in KFC.

  ‘That rubbish,’ he says.

  ‘I know.’

  Amir types:

  Your dad is wrong. It wasn’t KFC, it was Burger King.

  He presses Send and then grins at me. ‘So,’ he says. ‘I tell you what we going to do.’

  He opens a blank document then starts to blink quickly like there’s something in his eye.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Of course, I just thinking.’ He blinks again and starts to type.

  ‘This is a checklist,’ he says. ‘Things you have to do, things I have to do. Don’t save the document, just remember what I type and then delete.’

  I look at the screen and try to follow what he’s writing but his fingers move so quickly the page scrolls up before I can read.

  ‘There.’ He turns the screen towards me.

  E T D 03:06

  Compressed Air 19.5%

  Oxygen 80.5%

  Nitrogen.

  Volume 1 litre. Air flow 3 cubic feet per minute. Duration 2 hrs 52 mins 26 seconds

  E T A 06:58

  ‘Ha,’ he says. ‘Did I tell you I used to work on the trains?’

  ‘So this is all we need?’

  Amir nods quickly. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I worked it all out. I give you an extra 26 seconds of air in case we get stuck in the lift.’

  I read the rest of the list, some of it makes sense, some of it is numbers and words I don’t understand. There are things on it like cubic capacity, internal and external temperature variability, light pollution and density of traffic. At the bottom of the document there’s a picture of a person with my name by its head.

  Height 150 cm.

  Weight 54 kg.

  Body Mass 12.2.

  Lung capacity 4.5 ltr.

  Resting breath 23 per minute – variance 100% increase for PA.

  I look up. Amir grins at me.

  ‘Some I got from your records, the rest from wiki-how.’

  I scratch my head.

  Amir laughs. ‘I joke,’ he says. ‘Trust me. I consult the best doctors. I no ask anyone here but I know some of the top people in India. Oh, I nearly forgot. seven-eleven.’ He takes a deep breath.

  ‘What’s seven-eleven?’

  Amir lets his breath go.

  ‘Increases lung capacity,’ he says. ‘and it keep you calm, too. Breathe in for seven seconds and out for eleven, try it. Like this.’

  I watch him and breathe in for as long as he does, then let my breath out.

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘And again. Does it make you feel good?’

  ‘No, it makes me feel sick.’

  Amir laughs a lot. ‘Me too, but it goes after a while. Practise tonight.’

  I tell him I will, then I read the list again. There are so many numbers, he’s done so much research, but I don’t know whether to trust him or not. This is a really, really important thing. If he’d installed the TVs wrong, all that would have happened was the channels would have been mixed up or maybe they wouldn’t have switched on. If he’s got this wrong, I could go outside and die.

  Amir’s pager beeps. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he says. ‘Keep watching the screens. Especially Jim.’

  ‘But he doesn’t do anything!’

  ‘You no find him and Phil funny? They like them Chuckle Brothers. Or Ant and Dec. Maybe you take notes, Joe. They so funny you should watch them all night.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I like to know what happens when I not here. Have you got any more messages on here from the peop
le?’ He turns my laptop round before I can answer.

  BBC Bubble Boy Forum

  Thu 26 August, 12:17

  Dear Bubble Boy.

  You were so cute when you were eight.

  What happened?

  Stephen H. Bristol.

  Amir tuts. ‘Some people,’ he says. ‘They no understand.’

  He grew up, and so should you.

  ‘Brilliant!’ I laugh.

  Amir’s pager beeps again.

  ‘Must go,’ he says. ‘Somebody else need me. I might see you later, but I’m not in tomorrow.’

  ‘But Amir . . .’ I look back at the screen.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why are we going out at night?’

  ‘It’s too risky during the day. And this way you get to see what the aliens come here for.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The greatest show on earth.’

  ‘What’s—’

  Amir grins and slides out the door.

  I turn the screens off and lie back on my bed. I really am going outside. I really am. I really, really am! I pick up my phone. I want to tell Beth. I want to ask her if she thinks I’m being stupid believing that it could really happen, or even for going at all. But I can’t tell her. She’s already worried about being so far away from me. I don’t want to add another thing. I know she would think it was too risky and I can’t tell Greg because he would think that, too. I want to go outside, even though it might be dangerous. No one can understand how much. Only Henry knows what it feels like to be stuck in a bubble. But my legs start to twitch and my chest feels tight.

  Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

  I get up and walk up and down the room. My laptop beeps again. A new message.

  BBC Bubble Boy Forum

  Thu 26 August, 15:08

  Dear Bubble Boy. I saw you on TV last night and you were watching Source Code. It’s one of my favourite films. I think Jake Gyllenhaal was great in it. He was brilliant in Donnie Darko too. Have you seen that? Anyway, when you were talking to the interviewer he asked you what you would do if you had eight minutes to live and you said you would look out of the window. I thought that was a bit sad. But ever since, I’ve been thinking what I would do in eight minutes. At first I thought I would like to do exciting things like go to Disneyland Paris or climb Mount Everest, or maybe I would go to New York but then I realized that eight minutes isn’t very long and I would freeze in time before I got anywhere. So in the end I thought I would just stay at home and watch TV with my mum and dad.

  I hope you get better soon.

  You can write back if you like.

  Dan. Essex.

  I walk over to the window. The workmen are digging the trench, the people in the offices are staring at their computer screens and the planes are flying over the Lucozade building into Heathrow. If I really only had eight minutes, what would I do? I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t go anywhere. I might make it through the transition zone and the corridors and the lifts. I might be able to make it to reception but by the time I got there it would be time to go back. But now I’ve got more than eight minutes. Amir said I’ve got nearly three hours. Three whole hours outside. I walk back to my laptop and open a new tab.

  What can I do in London in three hours?

  323,000,000 results – I can buy a tourist card and get on a bus. I can visit Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London. If the queue isn’t too long, I can go to Madame Tussauds. I can walk in Hyde Park. I can get on a barge and float down the Thames. I can eat tea at the Ritz; I can see a play. I can do nearly 70 million things, but they’ll all be closed or it’ll be too dark to see anything at 4 a.m. Amir, what are we going to do when we have to get up so early?

  My chest cramps again. I’m not sure I want to go. What if I die? Deep breaths. I won’t be able to go anywhere if I can’t breathe. I lie down beside my laptop and look at the question again. Dan hasn’t got 3 hours. He’s only got 8 minutes. I close my eyes, think for a moment and open them again.

  Dear Dan. I haven’t seen Donnie Darko but I love Source Code and I’d love to do all those things you said you’d like to do. But I think if I had eight minutes, I would stay at home too.

  I turn my laptop off and look at the screens. Nothing much seems to be happening. I’m watching the same thing over and over again. It’s like when the robbers override the security system and play the film on the CCTV while they steal money from a bank. I yawn and think of trying to find some football to watch. But Amir told me to make notes. I make them on my laptop.

  16:10 Man arrives to repair photocopier

  17:05. Motor courier delivers blood.

  17:30. Julie says goodbye to Keith and walks down the road.

  18:22. Keith is talking on phone.

  19:55 Jim arrives.

  20:00 Julie meets Keith outside. They kiss in the service alley.

  20:30 Jim takes his book to the toilet.

  20:46 Jim comes out of the toilet.

  21:15 Phil checks the first floor.

  22:00 Jim goes to the toilet again.

  I close my laptop down. This is so boring. How can Amir say I should watch them all night? I don’t think the Chuckle Brothers are very funny, but they’re funnier than this. Ant and Dec definitely are. I looked them up.

  11 years, 3 months and 10 days

  I’m practising my breathing exercises when Greg comes in the next morning. His eyes are red and his face is white; he looks like he’s been up all night. He sits down beside me and leans forward with his elbows on his knees.

  ‘Much happening, mate?’ He nods at the screens.

  ‘Nothing much. Keith kissed Julie and I saw you fall off your bike when you turned the corner this morning.’

  Greg tuts. ‘It was the bloody cones, mate. Somebody moved them during the night.’

  ‘That was Terry.’ I point to screen 4. ‘He’s in charge of traffic lights and cones.’

  ‘Ha, have you given everyone names?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Go on then. Let’s hear them.’

  I get off my bed and stand by screen 5. ‘Mike, Andy, Dave and . . . hang on . . . I wish he would stop doing that!’

  ‘Who, mate?’

  ‘The guy in security. He keeps moving the cameras.’

  Greg laughs. ‘Mate, I think they’re more bothered about stopping crime than they are about you watching TV.’

  The camera pans back and I show him Dave and Mike.

  ‘They’re from Brighton,’ I say.

  ‘How do you know that’s where they live?’

  ‘It says so on their van.’

  ‘Ha, you know everything.’

  I walk back to my bed. Greg yawns and puts his head in his hands. I want to tell him that I might not have to make it all up soon, that I might be able to go out and meet them all for real. But I can’t. He might stop me going and I don’t want Amir to get the sack.

  Greg’s pager bleeps. He takes his hands down from his face and looks down at his belt.

  ‘Mate—’

  ‘It’s okay. I know.’

  ‘It’s just gone a little mad lately.’

  I want to tell him things have gone a bit mad for me too.

  Greg stands up.

  ‘Is everyone all right?’

  ‘Yeah, mate, why?

  ‘It’s just that Amir was busy last night too.’

  ‘Everyone’s fine, honest.’ He pretends to limp towards the door. ‘You just stay there and tell Terry he better not move those bloody cones again tonight.’

  Greg doesn’t come back all morning. I watch the screens and do my breathing exercises until a nurse I’ve never seen before comes in and gives me lunch. She doesn’t tell me her name but she knows mine. I decide to talk to her but she’s gone before I think of what to say.

  After lunch I click on the BBC website. I’ve got a new message.

  BBC Bubble Boy Forum

  Fri 26th August, 22:01

  Dea
r Bubble Boy

  I hope you don’t mind but I saw you on TV and just wanted to write to you. I wrote to you last year but I changed my mind before I sent it. My name is Hannah and I’m fourteen years old. I live in Wells and I go to school at St Mary’s High. I’m not that good at talking to people. I just like sitting in my room reading and playing music. I love reading The Little Prince (I’ve read it a hundred times. Have you?). And I like watching Lord of the Rings. I stay in most of the time. Sorry, that must sound bad when I could go out but don’t and you haven’t got a choice. Sorry again. I just wanted to tell you that your room looks great and I loved it when you went to the window and showed us the planes. I’ve never been on one but I often think of all the places they go. I’m not sure if I’ve said anything sensible in this letter but I just wanted to write something to you. Hope you don’t think it’s silly. Maybe I should delete it like the last one.

  Hannah

  I smile and start to type.

  Dear Hannah

  Thank you for writing. It’s OK, I don’t mind what you said about me being stuck in a bubble. People do it all the time. Even my sister does. I haven’t read The Little Prince and I prefer superheroes to Hobbits. I read Marvel Comics and DC too but I prefer Marvel because the superheroes are brave and they have more fun. Spider-Man is my favourite and I really like Wolverine too.

  The door opens. Greg walks in. ‘All right, mate? What are you doing?’

  ‘Just replying to a message.’ I turn my screen towards him.

  ‘Hey, great.’ He walks over to my bed and starts to read the messages. ‘Hey, you got one from a girl.’

  Greg looks at the screen and starts to laugh.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.

  He points at my reply. ‘Mate, I’ve not got time to read it all, but she’s a girl, they don’t want to talk about superheroes all the time.’