you! Are you stalking us, by any chance?’
Reuben’s jaw-muscles twitched.
‘I was busting ,’ Fergus added breezily, by way of explanation. ‘There aren’t enough toilets in this park, eh?’
I don’t know if he was expecting an answer, but he certainly didn’t get one. Reuben fixed his gaze on Amin, who had followed Fergus onto the path.
‘Oh!’ Amin coloured. ‘It wasn’t like – I mean, I wasn’t watching him pee, or anything.’
‘God, no!’ Fergus yipped, momentarily aghast. His grin vanished. ‘Amin was just looking for his . . . um, you know . . .’
‘My football!’ Amin exclaimed. ‘I kicked my football into the bushes.’
Fergus rolled his eyes. I couldn’t blame him. For one thing, neither he nor Amin had been carrying a ball back at the kiosk. And for another, Amin doesn’t look like someone who plays football. Though certainly shaped like a ball, he’s the sort of kid who always ends up at the bottom of every pile-up. I used to play on the same soccer team as Amin – as central midfielder, because of my fancy dancer’s footwork – and I never even saw him touch the ball. Ever. He just couldn’t get anywhere near it.
Reuben must have realised this, because he wasn’t fooled for a second. As he leaned forward to prod Amin in the chest with a one grimy finger, his expression was a mixture of rage and disgust.
‘Let me tell you something, Mr Smartarse,’ he hissed. ‘Next full moon, chances are that you’ll be Toby’s first meal. And you won’t be laughing then, mate.’
Amin swallowed. It was Fergus who opened his mouth to reply. But before he could think of a suitably cutting rejoinder, Reuben had gone. Phht! Just like that.
It was enough to make you believe in teleportation.
T he next morning I had an appointment with Dr Passlow.
Mum came with me. I guess she wanted to be there in case the doctor announced that I was an epileptic. By this time, I’m sure, she’d convinced herself that I was – though of course she wouldn’t admit to it. ‘There’s no point worrying until we have the results back,’ she kept saying. But she was doing Internet searches on subjects like anti-convulsive medication; I know this because I found some of her notes on Thursday night. She was preparing herself for the worst, I think.
So it must have been a big shock when Dr Passlow declared, ‘There’s no evidence of seizure activity in Toby’s brain. No lesions. Nothing untoward. The scans were perfectly clean.’
Mum blinked. Even I was startled. A clean brain? That didn’t sound like me.
‘You mean he isn’t epileptic?’ she asked.
‘Well . . .’ The doctor preferred not to pass judgement. ‘Let’s just say the indications aren’t there on the scans. Which aren’t conclusive. What this means is that we still don’t have a firm diagnosis.’
‘So he could have epilepsy. Is that it?’ said Mum.
Dr Passlow leaned back in his chair. It was a posh kind of chair, with a high back and leather upholstery, but the rest of his consulting room wasn’t very posh at all. The carpet was stained, the walls were covered with scribbles and fingermarks, and the whole place stank of old baby spew. There was a plastic crate full of toys in one corner, right underneath a photo of a happy toddler who’d had all his immunisation shots.
I couldn’t help feeling that I was in the wrong place.
‘Let me put it this way,’ Dr Passlow continued. ‘At the hospital there’s a registrar who remembers having a couple of absence seizures in the classroom when he was at high school. He didn’t mention them to anyone, and it never happened again.’ When Mum didn’t react, the doctor placed his hand on top of my file. ‘At this stage, we shouldn’t be using words like ‘epilepsy’. We should be thinking in terms of individual seizures, and taking each episode as it comes. A watching brief, in other words.’
‘That’s all?’ Mum didn’t sound impressed – at least, not to my
Reuben’s jaw-muscles twitched.
‘I was busting ,’ Fergus added breezily, by way of explanation. ‘There aren’t enough toilets in this park, eh?’
I don’t know if he was expecting an answer, but he certainly didn’t get one. Reuben fixed his gaze on Amin, who had followed Fergus onto the path.
‘Oh!’ Amin coloured. ‘It wasn’t like – I mean, I wasn’t watching him pee, or anything.’
‘God, no!’ Fergus yipped, momentarily aghast. His grin vanished. ‘Amin was just looking for his . . . um, you know . . .’
‘My football!’ Amin exclaimed. ‘I kicked my football into the bushes.’
Fergus rolled his eyes. I couldn’t blame him. For one thing, neither he nor Amin had been carrying a ball back at the kiosk. And for another, Amin doesn’t look like someone who plays football. Though certainly shaped like a ball, he’s the sort of kid who always ends up at the bottom of every pile-up. I used to play on the same soccer team as Amin – as central midfielder, because of my fancy dancer’s footwork – and I never even saw him touch the ball. Ever. He just couldn’t get anywhere near it.
Reuben must have realised this, because he wasn’t fooled for a second. As he leaned forward to prod Amin in the chest with a one grimy finger, his expression was a mixture of rage and disgust.
‘Let me tell you something, Mr Smartarse,’ he hissed. ‘Next full moon, chances are that you’ll be Toby’s first meal. And you won’t be laughing then, mate.’
Amin swallowed. It was Fergus who opened his mouth to reply. But before he could think of a suitably cutting rejoinder, Reuben had gone. Phht! Just like that.
It was enough to make you believe in teleportation.
T he next morning I had an appointment with Dr Passlow.
Mum came with me. I guess she wanted to be there in case the doctor announced that I was an epileptic. By this time, I’m sure, she’d convinced herself that I was – though of course she wouldn’t admit to it. ‘There’s no point worrying until we have the results back,’ she kept saying. But she was doing Internet searches on subjects like anti-convulsive medication; I know this because I found some of her notes on Thursday night. She was preparing herself for the worst, I think.
So it must have been a big shock when Dr Passlow declared, ‘There’s no evidence of seizure activity in Toby’s brain. No lesions. Nothing untoward. The scans were perfectly clean.’
Mum blinked. Even I was startled. A clean brain? That didn’t sound like me.
‘You mean he isn’t epileptic?’ she asked.
‘Well . . .’ The doctor preferred not to pass judgement. ‘Let’s just say the indications aren’t there on the scans. Which aren’t conclusive. What this means is that we still don’t have a firm diagnosis.’
‘So he could have epilepsy. Is that it?’ said Mum.
Dr Passlow leaned back in his chair. It was a posh kind of chair, with a high back and leather upholstery, but the rest of his consulting room wasn’t very posh at all. The carpet was stained, the walls were covered with scribbles and fingermarks, and the whole place stank of old baby spew. There was a plastic crate full of toys in one corner, right underneath a photo of a happy toddler who’d had all his immunisation shots.
I couldn’t help feeling that I was in the wrong place.
‘Let me put it this way,’ Dr Passlow continued. ‘At the hospital there’s a registrar who remembers having a couple of absence seizures in the classroom when he was at high school. He didn’t mention them to anyone, and it never happened again.’ When Mum didn’t react, the doctor placed his hand on top of my file. ‘At this stage, we shouldn’t be using words like ‘epilepsy’. We should be thinking in terms of individual seizures, and taking each episode as it comes. A watching brief, in other words.’
‘That’s all?’ Mum didn’t sound impressed – at least, not to my
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