It wasn’t a day stay, at all. Aiden was in for three days. When I asked Mum and Dad why, they said that there had been some complications in his treatment. Nothing to worry about, but the surgeons had gone back into his head to stop a little bit of bleeding that the tests had detected. All very routine, and he’d be coming home tomorrow. I was glad. I missed him. Z missed him as well and, although he slept on my bed for those three nights, I knew he really wanted to be with Aiden.
I was shocked when he finally got home. The head bandage was back on, though thankfully not the frame, and my brother appeared exhausted and not really interested in anything. Zorro went completely nuts when he came through the door, and jumped up, barking and whimpering. Aiden smiled and put a hand down to be licked, but even the dog couldn’t seem to lift his spirits. He went to bed and didn’t come out until morning. I wanted to go and talk to him, try to cheer him up, but I worried that I’d be stopping him from resting, so I didn’t.
He was slightly better the next day, but some of that fight seemed to have gone out of him. He answered Mum and Dad politely when they talked to him and he was very concerned about me, asking how school had been and whether I’d been okay without him there looking after me. That was puzzling in itself. This docile brother was much more like the old Aiden, but still …
‘Mum?’ I said. She was reading a book in the library, while Dad was tending to the vegetable plot. It was early evening, so the temperature had dropped considerably and it was pretty comfortable being outdoors.
‘Hmmm?’
‘Has Aiden got brain damage?’
Mum put the book down then.
‘What makes you say that, Ashleigh?’
‘Because he’s having all these mood swings. Before the accident, he was pretty calm, then after he was … I dunno, a bit crazy there. I was just wondering.’
Mum patted the chair next to her and I sat down. She chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds and sighed.
‘We’ve been worried about Aiden too, Ash,’ she said. ‘I won’t lie to you. You’re not the only one to have noticed the changes in his temperament. He’s always been such a … predictable child. You could rely on him one hundred per cent. But now … well, he’s rather difficult, to be honest. His behaviour is … unexpected.’
‘Charlotte said it was probably puberty. Hormonal changes. That would account for it, wouldn’t it?’
Mum raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, you’ve talked to Charlotte about this, have you? That tells me a lot about how worried you are. Yes, puberty would explain it, but so would the head trauma he suffered on camp. And his mood switches started immediately after that. So I think you’re right to be concerned, Ash. I really do.’
‘But he’s going to be okay, isn’t he?’
Mum smiled and patted my leg.
‘I’m sure he is,’ she said. ‘You know that your father and I will spare no expense – and that clinic is expensive – to get Aiden back to the way he was.’
‘Oh, I don’t want him the way he was, Mum,’ I said. ‘He’s much more interesting now. Before, he was … well, you said it. Predictable. I’ve always loved Aiden, but now I like him as well. Do you know what I mean? I’m all good with unpredictable, I just don’t want him to be ill.’
Zorro started being a very bad dog indeed and this helped with Aiden’s recovery.
A couple of days after he came back from the clinic, we both went for a swim. As always, Z paced along the sides of the pool while we did laps. He’d stopped jumping in and now appeared to be a little scared of the water. According to Mum that’s because he was learning. ‘A baby will have no problems with water’, she said. ‘But later it will learn to associate it with danger. That’s why it’s good to teach a baby to swim before it becomes scared. Leave it too long and then you have to train it to overcome the fears it’s developed in the meantime.’ Z, it seems, was employing something Mum called ‘deep learning’ to have a healthy worry about drowning, even though it was physically impossible for him to drown.
Anyway, Aiden and I were chatting after a few laps and we noticed that Z had disappeared. Aiden tried whistling, but he didn’t reappear. After a few minutes we forgot about him entirely. I was asking my brother about the clinic. It had never really interested me before, but now I realised that the whole place, and what happened there, was a complete mystery.
‘So what are your doctors like?’ I asked. ‘And the nurses?’
‘I never see very much when I go to the clinic, Ash,’ he replied. ‘I go in and my doctor, Mr Sinclair, talks to me for a while in his office. Then the nurse – always the same nurse, chatty, friendly Sue who insists I call her Sue – she gives me an injection as I’m lying on a stretcher and then … well, I wake up in a private room. Mr Sinclair does some tests and then I come home. Bit boring, really. I’ve never even seen the operating theatre.’
‘That happens every time you go in to have your intestines … scrubbed, or whatever?’
‘Every time.’ Aiden kicked off from the side of the pool and floated on his back. ‘With the head injury I got at camp, it’s pretty much the same deal. Except this time, when I wake up Mr Sinclair gives me these … well, I suppose you’d call them intelligence tests. A whole bunch of strange questions. I suppose they’re checking to see if my brain’s still working as it should.’ He swept his arms out, tipped upright and trod water. ‘Everyone’s worried about my brain,’ he said. ‘You, Mum, Dad. I wish you wouldn’t. I reckon it’s working better than ever.’
Later, he knocked on my bedroom door.
‘Come and see this, Ash.’
I padded along behind him to his room. I was surprised by how he’d made it his own in such a short space of time. He had a projection of the solar system on his ceiling and this amazing miniature railway track. It was only a circle of a metre in diameter and just one train ran around it, but it was cute as anything. He’d been given it by Daniel at school, who’d had it as a kid, but said he didn’t want it anymore. I think I’m developing Mum and Dad’s passion for antiques, Aiden had told me.
But when I entered his room, it wasn’t any of that that took my breath away.
‘Oh, my God, Aiden,’ I said. ‘How did this happen?’
Almost every bit of material in his room – the bedclothes, a shirt that had been slung over a chair, a small rug next to his bed – had been ripped to pieces. It was a mess. And sitting in the centre of Aiden’s bed, surrounded by chaos, was Zorro, looking very pleased with himself. His tail wagged as he looked to Aiden for approval. I was able to work out the answer to my own question pretty quickly.
‘Mum is going to go mental,’ said Aiden.
Actually, Mum didn’t go mental. Not at first. She found it interesting and quizzed Aiden on the training techniques he’d employed. When he told her about the hand gestures he’d been using to give commands, she nodded.
‘Ah, that probably explains it,’ she said. ‘You’ve taught it that a movement of the hand means that something is expected of it. But its problem is that it sees all hand movements as a command. You were both in the pool when it disappeared off to do this, right?’ We nodded. ‘Then I suspect that when you were swimming, the dog watched your hand movements in the water and thought it was supposed to obey whatever that command meant. I just don’t know why it would interpret it as a signal to destroy.’
A light went on over my head, but apparently it had also gone on over Aiden’s. He explained to Mum how he’d trained Z to grab an object by pointing a finger and the verbal command ‘Go’. He also confessed to the dog biting me at this command.
‘You hurt your sister, Aiden?’ Suddenly, judging by her tone of voice, I thought she would go mental after all. ‘I can’t believe you’d be so irresponsible. What on earth were you thinking?’
‘It was an accident, Mum,’ I said. ‘Zorro was supposed to grab me, but I guess he didn’t know his own strength. It wasn’t Aiden’s fault.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Mum replied. ‘Not so sure at all. Anyway, I believe that’s the explanation for the ripping up in your bedroom. The dog thought you’d instructed it to do that. It was just being obedient.’
‘I didn’t say the “Go”,’ said Aiden. ‘And Zorro is a he, not an it.’
‘I’m pleased you find it so convincing,’ said Mum. ‘But the dog is a machine. Never forget that. Anyway, the algorithm responsible for its learning obviously decided that part of the command wasn’t necessary. I told you, it learns for itself and, like any real dog, or person for that matter, sometimes its learning is faulty and mistakes are made. Having said all that …’
Mum cocked her head and looked at Z. He was still on Aiden’s bed, but now he was lying, head resting on his front paws and looking up at us with those big brown eyes. It was breathtakingly adorable, more so because of the mess around him. I’m sorry, he seemed to be saying. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but I’m sorry. I was with Aiden on this. Z might be a machine, but he was a real dog as far as we were concerned.
‘What?’ asked Aiden.
‘I put a limiter in its behaviour algorithm,’ Mum said, though it was more like she was talking to herself. ‘It shouldn’t be able to override that, no matter the training you give it and the learning it does. I must have made a mistake somewhere.’
She stood for a few more seconds and then clapped her hands together, which made Z blink in surprise. I think Aiden and I did as well.
‘Okay. I’ll keep an eye on it. Now. You kids. First of all, clean up this mess. You know where to find fresh bedding. When that’s done, you can make a start on retraining the dog.’ She pointed at Z. ‘It’s meant to be a toy. If it destroys anything else then it will have to go.’
We must’ve both made groans of horror because Mum held up her hand.
‘This is non-negotiable. I will not have a machine that can cause you physical harm in the house.’ She looked at me. ‘Whether it’s by accident or not. So be warned. And if you want to keep your dog then I suggest you make your retraining of it really good.’
I can’t pretend her words weren’t scary. We loved our dog, even if he had bitten me, even if he had been naughty. But we both knew by the expression on Mum’s face that she wasn’t bluffing. I vowed that we’d work hard on training to make sure Z didn’t destroy anything else in the house. But if he took a playful bite out of either of us … well, we’d put up with that.
And keep it secret.
It was the last week of school and I must admit I was glad. We’d only have two weeks off before we were back again, but I was looking forward to the time away. Mum had even said that there was a possibility she’d take us with her on her four-day conference trip to Perth, which was scheduled in that break. That was exciting because Mum had never taken us away with her before. She explained that it was dependent on a number of things, the main one being, of course, the weather in what was left of Western Australia. There had been three cyclones that season that had come perilously close to doing to Perth what one had done to Darwin forty years before – levelling the city to the ground. Nobody there had had the energy, money or labour resources to rebuild it. Mum said she’d flown over the Top End once and the sea and the bush had reclaimed the city completely.
So, the weather was a key factor. And Mum said that even if we went we’d have to stay in the hotel during the day. In the evening she’d be able to show us some of the sights, her workload permitting.
We kept our fingers crossed.
But events made all of that irrelevant.
It started so innocently. It was Thursday afternoon – one day to go – and Mr Meredith was giving us a quiz about Australian history. Most of the class were feeling dozy; it was very hot outside and the air conditioning was having difficulty coping. Maybe that had something to do with it. But Mr M had made us all stand up while he asked us a series of questions that had true or false answers. Things like, ‘The Great Barrier Reef was officially declared dead in 2030. True or false?’ If we thought it was true, then we linked our fingers together and put our hands on our heads. If we thought false, then we put our hands on our hips. Whoever got the question wrong would sit down and the winners would stay standing. Then we’d be asked another question until there was only one left – the winner, who Mr Meredith said would get a totally underwhelming prize. He said it was based on a very old game called ‘Heads or Tails’, but no one in the class really cared about that, or the quiz. I went out in the second round, which wasn’t a problem. I could sit down and drift off somewhere in my own head.
It got to where there were only three left – Daniel, Charlotte (of course) and Aiden. I suspect Daniel got there by watching what Charlotte did – a pretty sound strategy and one that must have occurred to Mr M because with only three left he got them to stand facing away from each other.
Daniel lost in the next round, which left two. I should’ve told Aiden to sit down as well. Charlotte never makes mistakes.
‘Wonderful,’ said Mr Meredith. ‘Are you excited at our finalists? Slugging it out for the main prize.’
No, we all thought. Well, I thought, and I imagine my thoughts weren’t too different from those around the room.
‘Here we go. Maybe the final question, we will see. True or false? The highest temperature ever recorded in Australia was 59.8 degrees Celsius in Oodnadatta in South Australia.’
Charlotte immediately put her hands on her head. Aiden waited a few seconds and then put his hands on his hips. We had a winner. My money was on Charlotte. Obviously.
‘The answer is …’ Mr M tried to keep the suspense going, but probably realised there was no suspense to start with, so he gave up. ‘That is true, so Charlotte is the winner. Well done, Charlotte. You have won —’
‘That’s wrong,’ said Aiden.
That stopped everyone. For a moment we were all frozen. Charlotte beaming at her triumph, Aiden still with his hands on his hips and the rest of us just blank.
‘I assure you it’s not,’ said Mr Meredith. ‘I looked all this up last night to make sure, Aiden. I’m sorry, but that’s the correct answer.’
‘The highest temperature ever recorded was 61.1 degrees in Birdsville, Queensland,’ said Aiden. Our teacher just stared at him. Aiden held his hands up in surrender. ‘Look, I’m not bothered,’ he continued. ‘That’s fine that Charlotte’s won. Seriously.’ He looked in her direction and gave a thumbs up. ‘But I think you’ll find that the temperature you looked up was the last official highest recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology. Birdsville got sixty-one plus about ten years after that but BoM had stopped keeping records by then because it was all meaningless. Point is, Birdsville was unofficially the highest but that record’s probably been broken since. I mean, who knows?’
‘You’re a sore loser, Delatour,’ came a voice from the back. Justin, a beefy kid with attitude who barely pretended to be interested in lessons. According to Charlotte he was going to inherit the family business and was just counting off the days until then. Mr Meredith had had trouble with him before.
Aiden turned.
‘Not a sore loser, Justin,’ he said calmly. ‘Just trying to get the facts straight.’
Mr Meredith, perhaps sensing that it would be a good idea to intervene, held up his hands for attention.
‘It’s a good point, Aiden,’ he said. ‘I should’ve said the highest official record. Should we do another tie-break question? Charlotte, would that be okay?’
‘Not necessary,’ said Aiden. ‘I’m happy that Charlotte’s won —’
‘Well, you sure don’t sound happy, Arseon.’
Aiden turned back to Justin once more.
‘That’s enough!’ shouted Mr M, but things had gained a momentum by then that was always going to be difficult to stop.
‘Arseon?’ Aiden said. ‘That’s your wordplay on my name, is it, Justin? Impressive. And I know that no one else in this class could have come up with such a witty remark at such short notice.’
‘You being sarcastic?’
‘Enough!’ yelled Mr Meredith again. Aiden smiled. It was his calmness that unsettled me.
‘Justin,’ he said. ‘I’m delighted to see that you’re not letting an education get in the way of your ignorance.’
‘What?’
My brother turned to the class. ‘Our classmate may look like an idiot and sound like an idiot,’ he said. ‘But don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.’
That did it. The next thing, Justin had launched himself at my brother, who calmly side-stepped, punching him in the gut as he passed. And then all hell broke loose. Mr Meredith tried to come between them, other kids crowded to get a better look and I tried to squeeze through the scrum to help Aiden. When I finally got there, he was sitting on Justin’s stomach, his knees pinning the boy’s arms to the floor. His fist was raised to punch him in the face.
‘Aiden!’ I yelled, but I don’t think he heard me. Mr Meredith was holding on to his upraised fist, trying to stop it from descending. I went to the other side of my brother as he lifted his left arm. If he couldn’t punch with his good arm, then he was obviously going to use the other. I tried to do what Mr M was attempting. I held on to his arm, but I knew I wouldn’t have the strength to stop him. As it turned out, Aiden just twisted his fist and lashed backwards, catching me in the mouth. I felt the sharp tang of blood on my tongue and I fell back onto the floor, dazed.
Aiden must have glanced behind him and seen what he’d done, because the next thing I saw was his face above mine.
‘Oh, my God, Ash,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you. I’m …’
But he didn’t get to finish and I didn’t get the chance to warn him. Over his left shoulder I saw Justin getting to his knees. His face was flushed with rage. He moved his right shoulder back and I tried to say something, I tried to tell my brother but it all happened so fast and it all happened so slow, maybe because of the knock to my head and the dizziness that resulted, but I saw the fist coming down and then I heard the sound of knuckles against bone and my brother’s eyes widened and then turned up into white and the last thing I knew was his dead weight on my body.
The school nurse examined my face and said I’d got a cut lip and that I’d probably have bruising for a few days, but other than that there was no real damage. Once Mum had satisfied herself that I was basically okay, she quizzed Mr Meredith on exactly what had gone down. She’d already sent Aiden to the clinic in the car for yet another check-up on his head. He had come to within a few minutes and said he was all good, but naturally Mum wasn’t taking any chances and insisted he be given the all-clear by a qualified doctor, rather than a nurse. The school nurse had pursed her lips at that but said nothing. Aiden grumbled, but there was no reasoning with Mum and I couldn’t blame her. As I said to Aiden, there was no point taking a risk with his health. There had to be a good chance he’d got concussion and it was better to be safe than sorry. He just nodded at that and went meekly.
I didn’t hear everything that Mum said to my teacher because they were locked in the principal’s study, but judging by the amount of time she spent talking compared to Mr M (the closed door kept most of the sound in – most, but not all), I reckoned she was unimpressed with the school’s track record of keeping me and Aiden safe. Getting over the fence to go to the park, then the disaster at camp and now this. I was worried Mum might not be so supportive of Mr M this time. I got the impression she thought once might have been accidental, twice was getting careless but three times was downright negligent. Anyway, I sat on a chair in the corridor and listened to the rumble of their voices, trying to make out the words but really thinking about my brother.
I wished he’d stop getting himself in trouble. And look after his head. Was that too difficult? Apparently it was. I’d have a good talk to him about that when he got back from the clinic.
The car returned and Mum and I finally drove home. She’d told Mr Meredith that we wouldn’t be in for the last day of school, all things considered. Mr M promised that Mum and Dad would get a copy of the incident report that he would compile and that, unfortunately, he couldn’t see an alternative to Aiden being suspended for some days next term. Of course, similar punishment would apply to the other boy involved. But Mum didn’t seem to care about any of that. I wondered if maybe we were destined for enrolment at a different school or even, God forbid, another round of homeschooling.
Mum made me go over the whole thing once more on the ride back. I stressed that Justin had provoked Aiden and that it was Justin who’d started the fight.
‘But Aiden was going to finish it, by all accounts,’ said Mum. ‘He was trying to punch that boy in the face before you got involved. Is that a fair summary?’
‘Yeah, but …’
‘And he punched you, too.’
‘He didn’t punch me, Mum. His hand caught my mouth, that’s all. He was so upset when that happened. And that gave the other boy the chance to hurt him. He got punched in the head because he was trying to protect me.’
‘Hmmm.’ Mum just pursed her lips. But she stopped the questions and just stared out of the window for the rest of the trip. I was glad. My mouth hurt and I think one tooth was a bit loose, but I wasn’t going to complain. Anyway, it gave me time to worry about my brother.
I had to tell the whole story all over again to Dad when I got home. Mum left me at the front door and drove off to the clinic to check on Aiden. I asked her to send him my love and she promised she would.
I tried swimming a couple of laps, but I wasn’t in the mood and anyway, it wasn’t as much fun by myself. So I tried playing with Z, but he wasn’t in the mood for that. He just stared at the front door as if willing Aiden to walk through it.
‘Hey, mutt,’ I said. ‘What about me, huh? What about some loving for me?’
But apparently there wasn’t enough to go around. I video-called Charlotte instead and she wanted to go over the whole fight again, so I pretended I had to go to dinner and got off the tablet as quickly as I could. Her hologram seemed disappointed when it puffed into nothingness.
Mum got home about dinnertime. Dad had made a vegetable lasagne, but none of us were very hungry, so we picked at the food and left most of it. Mum normally wouldn’t let that happen, so I knew she was really worried. She’d told me and Dad that Aiden was being examined and that he’d be staying overnight at the clinic again.
‘He’s starting to spend more time there than here,’ I pointed out. I was trying to lighten the mood, but Mum and Dad didn’t say anything and just continued toying with their pasta. I asked if she’d sent Aiden my love and she said she had, but I think she must have forgotten because she didn’t look me in the eyes when she said it.
I spent some time in the library before bed, but once again I couldn’t seem to concentrate. I wanted to video-call Aiden but Mum said he was under general anaesthetic and anyway, I knew that I was to leave him alone when he was in there. The mood in the whole house was pretty foul. At one point I heard Mum and Dad arguing in the kitchen. Their voices were raised, but it sounded like they were trying not to raise them and failing. I heard Dad say something about being devastated and I wondered if they were finally having that talk about him going back to work and if Mum was putting her foot down.
None of my business, so I kept out of the way. I had an early shower and played a video game on my tablet, but I couldn’t even get into that. I was on the point of giving up and going to sleep when I heard shouting down the corridor. To be honest, there was swearing as well. Then footsteps up to my door, which was flung open. Mum was standing there, Zorro in her arms, and she was not happy. In fact she was furious.
‘Your damned pet just bit your father,’ she said. She thrust him into my chest. ‘Keep it locked in here with you, do you hear me? I’ve had just about enough today.’ And she was gone, the door slammed.
I knew what she meant. I’d just about had enough today as well. I hugged Z to me. Now I had to worry about him. What had Mum said? One more incident and ‘it would have to go’? Over my dead body, I thought. She couldn’t do that to us. We hadn’t had time to do the retraining yet. She couldn’t be so heartless. Could she?
It was a question that rolled around in my head as I drifted off to sleep.
I don’t know why I woke up in the early hours of the morning. I don’t know why I decided to go to the fridge. Maybe all that toying around with dinner had made me starving and that’s what had woken me. I guess it doesn’t matter now.
I was padding down the corridor to the kitchen when I heard voices from the media room. Mum and Dad. Talking. Maybe arguing. I should have just walked past, got a snack and headed straight back to bed. But I couldn’t resist. I knew that what they were talking about concerned me and I had to know what it was.
The door to the room was slightly ajar and I pushed it open a little further, stepping noiselessly into the room. No one would see me, since it’s set up like an old-fashioned cinema, seats all pointing towards the screen, the entrance at the back. Mum and Dad were on the front row, so I sat on the floor in the back row. I could hear everything now.
‘You do know that Ashleigh will be destroyed by this, don’t you, Chrissie?’
‘Of course I know. I’m not stupid, Gareth. But this can’t go on. It can’t. I cannot risk it.’
My blood ran cold. Mum was going to take Zorro away from us. That was so unfair. I bit my bottom lip to stop myself from crying out.
‘And so what are you going to do? Just tell her straight out?’
‘Maybe that would be best,’ said Mum. ‘But no. I’ll just say he died in his sleep. Of course she’ll be upset, but she’s young. She’ll get over it in time. She’ll —’
‘I will NOT get over it,’ I yelled. Tears were running down my face and every part of me was shivering. Mum and Dad had jumped to their feet and were watching me. I wanted to be more grown up. I wanted to show them I could be mature about things, reason with them, persuade them my dog would be okay, we’d all be okay. But my foot was stamping the floor and I was howling. ‘You will not kill my dog, Mum. You will NOT.’
And then Mum had my shoulders in her hands, but I didn’t want to look her in the face. I heard Dad say, ‘Chrissie?’ and his voice was worried, but Mum’s grip was firm and I couldn’t help myself. My face lifted and I met her eyes.
‘I’m not talking about your dog, Ashleigh,’ she said.
‘Chrissie!’
‘I’m talking about Aiden.’
‘What?’ My voice choked on a laugh.
‘Chrissie? Don’t.’ But Mum never took her eyes from mine.
‘It’s time you knew, Ashleigh. It’s time you knew. Aiden is not your brother. He’s not even human. Do you understand?’
I shook my head. I was numb and none of this made sense.
‘I made him, Ashleigh. I made him in my lab to protect you. Aiden’s a machine.’