Robin’s lids felt gluey, so he assumed he’d been sleeping for some time. One nostril was wedged with clotted blood. He felt like there was an axe embedded in the back of his skull and his arms and chest had dozens of grazes and a deeper wound with four stitches below his nipple.
He remembered crashing through branches into the ravine, but nothing after. Now he breathed dead indoor air, tinged with pee and disinfectant.
Robin jerked up, fearing Rangers had hauled him out of the ravine and locked him in one of the Sheriff’s cells. He could almost feel Gisborne’s whip on his back, but then realised there was nothing institutional about his hand-sewn patchwork blanket. Plus, there was a large fire door wedged open to let in a breeze and a Get Well Soon graffiti mural on the far wall.
‘So, you lived,’ a girl said sarcastically, as she approached.
Robin wondered if he was dreaming, because his vision was blurred and there was something unnervingly beautiful about her.
She looked about Robin’s age and moved with a slight limp. She wore an unzipped hoodie with fraying cuffs, over a summer dress patterned with yellow roses. Huge swimming-pool-blue eyes contrasted with a split lower lip and grimy hands with dark crescents under chipped nails.
‘Where am I?’ Robin asked, pain shooting through his head as he shifted to get comfortable.
The room was filled with light from a low sun, and he felt sure it was morning.
‘You’re safe,’ the girl soothed, combing her fingers through her tangled hair as she settled in the orange bucket-chair beside the bed. ‘This is our free clinic. We’re shabby, broke, and our only doctor is eighty-three years old. But we do our best.’
Now he’d sat up properly, Robin could see the empty bed next to him, and an elderly man attached to a drip by the far wall.
‘How’d I get here?’ Robin asked uncertainly.
‘Why were you in the forest?’ the girl asked.
‘Had to run,’ Robin said, deciding to keep things vague, because he didn’t know where he was, and Gisborne had friends everywhere. ‘My dad got busted on some trumped-up theft charge, and the cops were after me too.’
‘It’s a big forest. You’re lucky we found you.’
‘Where was I?’ Robin asked.
‘I was checking fish traps along a stream with my cousin Freya,’ the girl explained. ‘It was starting to get dark, but as we were about to head home I noticed blood swirling in the water. I tracked it back, expecting a wounded deer or badger. You were unconscious but breathing.’
The girl pulled out her phone and showed Robin a picture she’d taken when she found him.
His legs had wound up in a shallow pool. The top of his backpack and the rocks around were stained dark red, and arrows had spilled out of his quiver.
‘That’s a lot of blood,’ Robin said queasily. ‘What about my brother?’
The girl shook her head. ‘You were alone.’
Robin’s looked worried. ‘Seriously? No sign of him?’
The angst sharpened his mind. It was morning when he fell, and the girl said it was getting dark when she found him. Anything could have happened to Little John in the hours between. From being captured by Rangers to death in the ravine.
‘I closed the big cut on your head with superglue and knotted together hair from either side to keep it sealed,’ the girl continued.
Robin’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Superglue!’
‘Always keep a tube in my medical pouch,’ she explained. ‘You need first-aid skills if you’re planning to survive in Sherwood Forest.’
Robin nodded. ‘That and a lot of other things.’
‘Luckily you’re not so big. Freya chucked you over her shoulder and we ran here, to the clinic.’
Robin’s tongue felt like a scouring pad. ‘Can I drink?’ he croaked.
He fretted about Little John as the girl found a water jug and a stack of disposable cups on a trolley by the open doors. Her right leg was noticeably thinner than the left and there was an operation scar down the length of her calf.
‘I was born with a club foot,’ she explained, looking ashamed as she handed Robin the flimsy cup. ‘They operated to even my legs up when I was six, but I’ve gone back to being a freak as I’ve grown. One foot twisted and three sizes smaller than the other …’
Robin felt embarrassed that she’d caught him staring.
‘You’re not a freak,’ he said, then hid his face by gulping water.
Sometimes things are beautiful because they’re perfect and sometimes they’re beautiful because they’re not. Robin’s eyes blurred less now he’d blinked, but he was still fascinated by the girl’s amazing eyes, squashed nose and grubby hands. He desperately sought the right thing to say.
Not something creepy like, You’re pretty.
Not something patronising like, I hardly noticed your wonky leg …
But inspiration failed to strike, and Robin wound up blurting, ‘I’m really short, so …’
More intelligently he added, ‘You saved my life and I don’t know your name.’
‘Marion Maid,’ she said, smirking at Robin’s unease as he crushed his empty water cup.
‘I’m Robin Hood.’
Marion nodded. ‘When you got here, Dr Gladys made me check your wallet, in case you had a medical alert card.’
‘You saw that goofy photo on my school ID?’ Robin asked self-consciously.
Marion nodded and laughed. ‘Getting ink on your cheek was a nice touch …’
Robin glanced up and was surprised to see a cluster of mirrored disco-balls on the ceiling and a suspended sign pointing to Kids’ Department and Fitting Rooms.
He gave Marion a baffled look and asked, ‘Where exactly am I?’