The Return of Peter the Penguin
The Return of Peter the Penguin was our opportunity.
My enhanced brain was moving so fast that it didn’t even tell me what I was doing. It just started moving. I tapped gently on my window. The penguin heard. Turned. Listened. Came over to my door to investigate. When it was right up against the woodwork, I clobbered the door as hard as I could with a chair. Peter was terrified. He flapped. He squelched. He waddled off down the corridor towards the officey bit where Nurse Rock sits. Five seconds later there was a scream, then the sound of a chair falling over, then bins clattering around. The nurse was trying to corner the penguin, but the penguin was too quick. Then came her voice – she was yelling into the phone, calling for help.
I was ready.
The Singing Duck door opened and two men in overalls dashed in. The door began to close itself, slowly drifting back on its hydraulic hinges.
I was straight out of my fish tank and into Tommy-Lee’s. I shook him awake.
‘What?’
‘Do as I say. We’ve got thirty seconds till the door closes. Move.’
When I opened Koko’s door, she was already up and waiting. ‘What’s going on?’ she said.
‘We’ve been saved by a penguin. Move quickly while they’re busy.’
‘Green is for Go!’ she whooped.
‘Shh!’ I led the other two out into the corridor.
It was early morning now. The first time we’d been off the ward in the daytime. Light piled in through the big, grimy windows. We looked greener than ever.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Keep moving. Follow me.’
I led them to the waiting room with the Lego in and started pulling open drawers. I didn’t even know why I’d done it until I saw them all laid out in front of us.
‘Face paints,’ I said. ‘Tommy-Lee, you’re the best at art—’
‘I’m not good at art!’
‘What are you talking about? You drew that map. Here’s an instruction book.’ There was a kind of pull-out leaflet in with the colours that told you how to make different designs and how to get the paints to work. ‘You could try a tiger face – page three. You could make Koko into a butterfly – page forty-seven.’
‘A butterfly?! Why? Because I’m a girl?! No, thanks. I want to be a gorilla. Here – look.’
‘What,’ roared Tommy-Lee – sounding like a gorilla himself – ‘is going on??!!’
‘We’re going out to save the world.’
‘With face paint?’
‘Our distinguishing characteristic is our bright green skin. If we want to escape from here, all we have to do is cover up the green with face paint so we look like normal kids. Then we can walk around in broad daylight undetected.’ I stabbed my finger at the picture at page ten and told him I wanted to be Spider-Man.
I thought of all the times I’d seen kids dressed up as superheroes – at parties, on own-clothes day. One time I’d seen a really big muscly Batman sitting in a KFC eating a bucket of spicy wings on his own. The streets were full of people who looked like superheroes but weren’t. I figured making yourself look like a superhero was probably the best way of concealing the fact that you really were one.
‘But why do we want to walk around in broad daylight?’
‘Think about it, Tommy-Lee. They’re never going to let us out of here. Think of all the blood and wee tests you’ve had. All the quinoa you’ve eaten. And you haven’t got any better. They won’t let us out until we’re better. But we’re not getting better. If we want to get out, we have to break out. If we want to be astounding, we have to do astounding.’
Looking around the room, my 200-per-cent brain could pick up the traces of all the families that had waited in there. Families like mine. There were newspapers. Magazines. Drawing pads. The bin was full of sweet wrappers and broken crayons. There was even a road atlas with loads of pages turned down at the corner, like in my dad’s, and a bag with drinks cartons, a sandwich box and a tin of Spam.
‘It’s the only way,’ I said, ‘that we’re ever going to see our mums and dads again.’
‘So,’ said Tommy-Lee, ‘we’re breaking out of hospital because you want your mum?’
‘No. We’re breaking out of hospital because England needs us. Including my mum.’