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  ‘But huddling's important,’ I say. ‘Mrs Murdoe said so. You used to like huddling.’

  ‘Huddling's for noo noos,’ said Cough Cough. ‘We're not baby monkeys any more!’

  Is he right, I wonder?

  I shake my head. All this stuff about killing and baby monkeys is just leopard talk.

  I look over to Chicken Angel. She's still kneeling next to Lolo's bed and is morsing her arm, tapping her fingertips gently up and down. I can't see what's she saying.

  Morsing is how Lolo talks. She taps out letters with her fingers on your hand or on your face. Sometimes she draws pictures on my back when she massages me with the skin spray. She has very gently hands.

  Lights Out can talk with her mouth like us if she wants but Chicken Angel says she's just got used to finger talking. I think she just likes morsing because it keeps her in touch. It's like cosy cosy for her. Mrs Murdoe used to say that hugging and stroking and spooning, cosy cosy as she called it, were very important for us. When we were younger Mrs Murdoe used to let us cosy cosy a lot. Cough Cough said it was good for our EMOTIONAL BALANCE. Without cosy cosy said Mrs Murdoe, we would die. And look at us now. We're still alive, so she must be right. I think it's because cosy cosy kills germs. I don't say this to Cough Cough because he would probably laugh at me.

  Chicken Angel's wasting her time. Lights Out will be light out till first tuck-in tomorrow.

  4

  ‘Chicken Angel's going lumpy.’

  It's Cough Cough. His voice all breath. It's coming out of his throat not from his mouth. That's why he's Cough Cough. Because he's got these depressed pulmonaries, when he was little the fizzio nurse used to make him cough and cough and blow up balloons.

  Since Doctor Dearly came we don't have a fizzio nurse to help make Cough Cough bigger.

  Mrs Murdoe said he'd always be little. I suppose it's because he doesn't breathe a lot. You see, according to CC you need OXYGEN to grow. I told this to Chicken Angel. Oxygen gets in your blood and blows you up so you get bigger and bigger like CC's balloons. If they took all the blood out of you you'd go thin, you'd DEFLATE like a wrinkly balloon. Huh said Chicken A, you're forgetting about bones. Bones hold us up. Without bones we'd just be blobs.

  Cough Cough takes a dozie from his squirter.

  ‘Did you hear me, X-Ray?’ he says.

  I nod.

  I'm ignoring him. I don't want to think about lumpies. Especially Chicken A going lumpy like I said.

  Mrs Murdoe warned us about lumpies. There used to be more of us here in the Bin and some of them got lumpy and went takeaway. That's why there are only four beds left and why there's a big space in the dormie. Every time someone got lumpied they took the bed away with the lumpy in it.

  Nobody's gone lumpy for a long time now. I think it's because of the dozies they give us. I don't mean the trank. As CC says, that's not treatment, it's torture. The nurses jab us to stop us jumping about like monkeys and fitting but we don't fit much now. So why do they still do it to us? They could just as easily give us some tabs to make us sleep. Cough Cough says they're always testing some new dozie on us, CHEMICALIZING us. This might be true because sometimes when we are tranked and coma-ed they take us away. Doctor Dearly says we go to a special unit to recover, so we are under constant SUPERVISION and it's for our own good. After all he says, with just the four of us left they'd have to be extra VIGILANT.

  Well, if the testing stops us getting lumpies, OK. Even trank's better than having lumpies. It's just that the hypo squeals us all.

  And Tin Lid likes doing it. You can tell. It's because she hates us says Cough Cough. When we get hypo from her it's double dozie really because we're getting hate injected as well as trank.

  Why does Tin Lid hate us? I asked Cough Cough once. Because we don't fit he said. I said we're always fitting. Don't be daftie he said. We don't fit in. We don't fit together. We spoil the order of things. Some people don't like that. Tin Lid doesn't. But we're full of order I say – the same every day – tuck-in then tidy time then fizzio then tests then puzzles then tuck-in again then TV then napping then tuck-in then washes then dozie then bed. That's timetable order says CC. I mean jigsaw order where things fit together neat and complete. We're the wrong shapes – too little, too thin, too coughy, too blind – we're the last pieces and we stop the picture being perfect.

  ‘What picture?’ I ask.

  Cough Cough raises his eyes. Like I've suddenly knocked all his pieces on the floor. He thinks it's one of my daftie questions. These are the ones he says have no answers to them. I think there is an answer to my picture question but he doesn't know it. If I ever get up to the library I'll find a book with the answer in it. And then I'll tell Cough Cough and he'll see I'm not such a daftie after all.

  I think about my Tin Lid question again. She's just evil I say. CC shrugs. She's possibly got PSYCHOTIC TENDENCIES he says. I'm not going to ask CC what he means by that. It'll make me look double daftie.

  So I frown because frowning helps you to think hard. That much I've learnt from CC.

  It's certainly working now because I suddenly think, yes, I've not seen any TENDENCIES on Tin Lid. None at all. So they must be hidden like Chicken Angel's wings. And that means Tin Lid's a wrong shape as well. And that means she's no one to talk.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Bin – Puke and Dozie

  1

  Cough Cough calls me X-Ray because of my skin. I have to be careful. They tested me and said I was photosensitive. That means I'll blackout like a film if I get exposed to too much sun. I have to wear this special tracksuit with a hood and gloves just in case daylight ever gets in here. It never does because of the panelling.

  The others wear trackies too but mine's special – especially soft because I split easily and blood out and it gets on the sheets and Tin Lid doesn't like that.

  Chicken Angel says she can see through my skin. She says when she screws up her eyes and stares at me in the shower she can see bone shadows in my chest. My ribs look like spook fish she says, suspended inside me.

  She can talk.

  She's got these little stubby fingers growing out of her shoulders at the back like baby wings. She can wiggle them a bit. They feel spongy and slippery when they get wet.

  Now she's got these two little things growing on her chest. That's what Cough Cough thinks are lumpies.

  I'm not sure.

  I've seen her in the shower and they don't look like lumpies to me.

  When you get lumpies it's takeaway all right. Takeaway overnight almost. Well, it's not overnight with Chicken A. She's had these chest things for ages. So they can't be real lumpies like Cough Cough says.

  I look across at Chicken Angel.

  She's got golden hair and gently skin. If she went takeaway I don't know what I'd do.

  Next time we have showers I'll check on Chicken Angel again.

  She always smells the strangest even after soaping and showers.

  Puke and dozie.

  I suppose it's her tabs. I quite like it now.

  Cough Cough says I smell of CHEMICALS too.

  Don't we all.

  But I think CC smells different now. It's not just his breath. It's all over. I think it's pee and pitch. They're making him wear pads on his bottom now. He can't get to the washes very quickly so he has to wear them.

  Chicken Angel has gone back to her bed. She is lying under a blanket. I know she's crying.

  Lights Out hasn't moved since the trank.

  ‘Listen, X-Ray.’ It's Cough Cough again. ‘That's real hard trank they've given Lights Out. Double dozie.’ He coughs. Takes his squirter from under the pillow. ‘Why are they upping the dozie all the time? Why haven't they fixed the heating?’

  I frown.

  It's true about the heating. That's why we've spent most of today in bed, to keep warm. ‘Doctor Dearly says they're working on it,’ I say.

  Cough Cough squirts his lips and sounds like a hissing cobra like the one on The Natural World.r />
  ‘Can't be bothered more like,’ he says. He turns to me. ‘Listen, X-Ray. Ever since Doctor D came things have changed. Haven't they?’

  I shrug.

  Maybe, I think.

  Cough Cough is lying back on his pillow, his eyes closed.

  That's just like CC. He puts these bad ideas in your head then leaves you on your own with them. Walks out on you. Just when you could do with a friend.

  Chicken Angel is still crying.

  She's been crying a lot recently but that's not Doctor Dearly's fault. He took away the pencils because pencils are unnecessary and can be HAZARDOUS with their sharp points. We have to have a safe ENVIRONMENT he says. It's not like we are ordinary he says. We have to be protected.

  It's the same with the tests. Since Doctor Dearly came we have tests twice a week and exams every morning after first tuck-in. It's for our own good says Doctor Dearly. ‘We need to MONITOR your condition regularly so any DEFICIENCY can be dealt with immediately.’

  It is a change but it's a change for our own good. That's what Doctor Dearly says: ‘Everything is for your own good.’

  2

  Chicken Angel doesn't like the tests because Doctor Dearly is always twiddling with her wings. She says he doesn't like her and that's why he's taken away her pencils. You see Chicken Angel keeps a story of what happens, writes it in a book that Cough Cough found for her in the library. Cough Cough says she's still got a pencil left, one they didn't find. I hope she keeps it secret because if they find it she'll get trank double dozie.

  I sometimes ask Chicken Angel if I can read her story. She reads it to Lights Out so why can't I read it. She always says no, it's a secret. Cough Cough tells her she shouldn't have secrets, none of us should. It's OK to have secrets from Tin Lid and Doctor Dearly he says, that's different. But secrets between us four is not right.

  Yes, I think. Says you, Cough Cough.

  I know he's got a secret store-away, under a floorboard, like me. Chicken Angel doesn't know this or she'd give Cough Cough some mouth mouth if she found out. I won't tell her because CC's my friend.

  We all have secrets says Chicken Angel, inside our heads. We have secrets secret from ourselves she says. Tell me one of your head secrets says Cough Cough. It wouldn't be a secret then would it says Chicken Angel.

  I think Cough Cough has more secrets than any of us. He watches all the time and sees things we don't and he reads strange things up in the library. Books are full of secrets. You only have to open them up. Books are the biggest store-aways you can have anywhere he says.

  Then he says I've got a very big secret. It's bigger than anybody else's. And when I'm ready I'm going to tell you. He looks very serious. I don't know whether he's just saying this because Chicken Angel's keeping her story to herself and he's jealous and annoyed or because he really means it. Sometimes you can't tell with Cough Cough.

  Has he really got a big secret?

  Of course we all hide things.

  I think that's why they've started doing searches. I've got a pee bottle. I keep it under the floorboard beneath my bed. The cleaner knows it's there but she never says. She never says because she doesn't like Doctor Dearly. Once she called him a cold fish. When you say ‘fish’ to Lolo she turns into one, gliding and finning along the floor and mouthing for air. But then she is a daftie is Lolo. She doesn't do floor swimming any more though. I think it hurts her now.

  Anyway a mouse ate through the end of my pee bottle so it's no use to anybody.

  3

  ‘You don't agree then?’ says Cough Cough, wide awake now. It's like he's been listening to me thinking. ‘I tell you, X-Ray, since Doctor D came things have gone downhill.’

  I shake my head. ‘That can't be true,’ I say. ‘They still keep testing us. We still have our tabs. You've got your squirter. Tuck-in's just as good as before. Routines are the same.’

  ‘So what happened to the fizzio nurse?’ he says. ‘Soon as Doctor D came she went takeaway. Now they're searching us all the time. Tranking us every five minutes. They've taken away our pencils. I can't draw any more. It's too dangerous Dearly says.’

  Cough Cough snorts. He puts on his Doctor D voice.

  ‘After EVALUATING your PROCEDURES we have decided to INSTIGATE a RISK-REDUCTION programme. Sharp INSTRUMENTS such as pencils are to be CONFISCATED.’

  Cough Cough's getting worked up and has to take a dozie from his squirter. ‘He's mad,’ he says. ‘Next they'll close the TV, you watch. The Natural World will be no more. No more jungles and oceans and deserts and mountains and rivers, no more lions and elephants and eagles and bears and monkeys and parrots.’

  I'm stunned.

  Cough Cough has never talked like this. We've always been looked after. That's what the nurses are for. Doctor D says that. Why should they take The Natural World from us?

  I lie back.

  Everything they do is for our own good I say to myself. Everything they do is for our own good.

  I can hear Cough Cough. ‘And how good is a hypo, X-Ray? Tell me that?’ he says, coughing.

  *

  I think about Lights Out. Trank knocks you up. It takes days of fizzio to get back to normal again. They've taken her baby. Pippi's not dangerous. Maybe they want to break her heart, send her takeaway. Maybe Cough Cough's right.

  Maybe not.

  He always sees the bad side. Miserable, like Moose he is.

  Poor Lolo.

  She's the real spookie here. Even though she has no eyes she can still see. That's what Cough Cough says: she's light-alert. She's retinal all over. That's what Doctor Dearly says. She's retinal. Which is why she doesn't bump into objects. And she knows when things are moving about and when people are coming or just standing nearby. It's her skin does it says Cough Cough. It listens to the air. Cough Cough told me how it works. When we move, when we breathe, we all make invisible ripples in the air he says. Even our heat moves the air. Lights Out can read the ripples of our breathing, read our heat. According to Cough Cough she can even hear the singing of a midgie's beating wing. All with her skin. Real spookie.

  I can't hear anything through my skin. I suppose it's because I haven't got the right sort. Mrs Murdoe said we all have more than one skin. We have about seven, one on top of another like seven vests. Except me. I've only got two skins. Doctor Dearly told me that. My lips are the worst. They're always bleeding.

  Sometimes Lights Out feels all over our faces with her fingers. I hate her so close to my mouth, feeling your eyes and nose and lips and hair. It's like something crawling on you. I used to think that she'd cut me open with her nails and all my blood would come out till there was none left and I was white and flat and wrinkled like a wet vest dropped on the floor.

  I like her doing the gently on my back though. That's different. Mrs Murdoe taught her to do that, gently my skin. You've got to learn to help each other she used to say.

  Cough Cough says we have to pull together. Pull what I say?

  When Doctor Dearly came Mrs Murdoe went away.

  Went takeaway.

  CHAPTER 3

  X-Ray Tranked

  1

  For last tuck-in only Chicken Angel and I sit down in the day-room. Cough Cough is too tired he says, to eat.

  Chicken Angel's eyes are red with weeping.

  ‘Why did they take Pippi?’ she asks. ‘It's cruel. It was her baby.’

  I nod and finish chewing before answering. Chicken Angel doesn't think I know why because she doesn't give me time to answer but starts on about the heating.

  ‘Pippi is Lolo's mirror,’ I say. ‘She sees herself in Pippi. Until the mirror breaks Lolo will always look like a Pippi doll, live like a Pippi, never grow up.’

  ‘That's stupid. I suppose Cough Cough told you to say that. That's your trouble. You talk like a Cough Cough. He's your mirror. You just dummy for him.’

  We don't say anything for a while.

  I thought I was being clever about the mirror.

  Just then one of
the nurses comes in, gets the remote from the office and turns on the TV. It's The Natural World. We watch for a few minutes. It's the leopard again and the monkeys. Chicken Angel gets up and runs back into the dormie.

  I watch the leopard crawl closer and closer to the monkeys. Any moment now he's going to charge and grab the little one.

  I turn it off.

  It's very strange how the hours go in circles. It's the same thing happening over and over again. Monkey, leopard. Monkey, leopard. Dances, dies. Dances, dies.

  That's why our clock is round. Like us it goes in circles.

  I go back to the dormie.

  I take my trackies off and spray my skin. Sometimes the night nurse does my back, sometimes Chicken Angel. But Lights Out is the best. She has the softest fingers, gentle as the touch of a midgie's wing says Cough Cough.

  Tonight I use the silky. This is a strip of silk I spray with cream and run over my back like it's a drying towel. I pull on my gloves and get into bed.

  Cough Cough's the cleverest of us because he does all that reading. That's why he knows about the midgie's singing wings. Because he has these funny lungs and has to sit a lot he spends his time looking at things like I said. The longer you look the more you learn he says. He stares at walls for ages. I've tried it. Didn't learn much. My eyes just went funny and I kept falling asleep. And that's not allowed during the day hours. We can sleep in the nap time in the afternoon but not any time we like.

  CC's measured everything in here. And drawn it. He's got lots of pictures of the table and the beds and the Coke machine and the waterhole and Moose, brilliant pictures. His best was a parrot. It was blue and red and green. Colours so deep and sharp they cut open your eyes. We had it on the wall but Tin Lid took it down. This is a day-room she said, not an art gallery.

  And he's very calm and sensible is CC. Of course he has to be. If he ever got excited like Chicken Angel does sometimes he'd stop breathing. His pulmonaries couldn't take it.

  Now I'm listening to those pulmonaries struggling. I listen to each wheeze and cough, wheeze and cough till my pulmonaries start to feel the pace and my chest starts rising in time with Cough Cough's.