Lampie quickly scrambles to her feet and runs across the carpet to the door.
Hello, doorknob, I’ve been longing to see you. Hello, nice thick door that monsters can’t get through. Hello, landing outside the room.
She holds onto the doorknob but turns around, just for a moment, to see what was actually there, under the bed.
The gap in the curtains is larger now, and the light from the lighthouse glides over books and papers and over the thin little creature lying among them on the floor. Its eyes are closed and it is not moving.
It’s… it’s actually a kind of boy, Lampie sees. A boy with a head that’s a bit too big. His face is grey and scaly and his tousled hair looks almost green. He is wearing a dirty white shirt. And beneath that his legs have grown together into a dark tail. Like a fish’s tail.
*
She stands there for a moment, just looking.
“Hey, little boy,” whispers Lampie. “Hey? Fish? Are you dead? Did I kill you?”
There is no answer. She didn’t hit him that hard, did she? Or did she? Very carefully, she walks over to him, her muscles ready to run away. She gives him a gentle kick with her sock. He does not move. He hardly seems to be breathing. She leans over and touches his hand. His skin feels dry and hot. So he is not dead then.
“Are you all right? Do you need anything? Food? Water?” At the word “water”, the eyes suddenly spring open. Lampie steps back, her heart pounding. They are eyes without any whites. Gleaming black, like a devil’s eyes, or an animal’s. Then they shut again.
“That must have been a yes,” she squeaks. “So you’d like some water?” She slowly shuffles backwards until she feels the door behind her.
“Fine. I’ll go and fetch some.”
Then she slips into the corridor, quietly closing the door behind her. Escaped.
Now down the stairs! Lock the door and get away!
But she stays for a moment to listen. She can’t hear a sound.
She sees the big bolts on the door. They must be there for a reason. It is a dangerous monster, even though it looks a bit like a boy. A boy who is thirsty. Who has a fever. And she has promised to bring him water.
There is a tap downstairs with a bucket beside it. She knows all the taps in the house.
“I’ve brought some water for you.” She puts the bucket down beside him on the ground. “Help yourself.”
The boy does not move. He lies there like before.
Lampie fills the cup and holds it to his lips, but he does not drink. When she touches his hand again, it seems even hotter. His eyes do not open, even when she gently shakes him.
Lampie sighs. She wants to leave, but she can’t. Something is keeping her here and making her do things she does not really feel brave enough to do.
She sits down beside him on the floor. His chest is going up and down very quickly.
He’s going to die, she thinks. If I don’t do anything, he’s going to die.
She once found a baby bird in the grass, damp and fluffy, just out of the egg. And she found a young rabbit one day. She had to work out all by herself how to save them, endlessly dangling earthworms in front of the bird’s beak and holding blades of grass by the rabbit’s twitching nose. The bird died anyway. But the rabbit did not, at least not for a while.
Lampie stands up and takes some sheets from the bed. They are covered in dirt and mould. Carefully she lays a clean piece of sheet over the boy and pours some water onto it; maybe that will cool him down a little. She also places a wet cloth on his forehead, which is the hottest part of him. Then she drips the water from her fingers and onto his lips, as she used to do with her animals. It works. His lips open a little and he swallows.
“Well done,” whispers Lampie. “That’s better, eh, Fish Boy?”
His mouth gasps for more, and she gives him more, and pours more water on the sheet, which is almost dry again. It is as if the boy is drinking the water through his skin. She does it a few more times and then sits down beside him, leaning back against the bed.
The body under the sheet starts to breathe a little more calmly. His hand is cooler and when she touches it, his fingers take hold of hers.
“Sleep, Fish Boy,” she sings quietly.
“Boy who’s a fish
Boy who’s so quiet
And harmless and small
Boy who’s no monster
At all, at all.”
Not a monster. But what is he then?