Half Moon Investigations - Eoin Colfer [25]
I padded across the kitchen and through the adjoining door to the garage. I had been this route so many times that I picked my way through years of junk without causing the slightest clatter.
One slipped bolt later and I was in the garden, crouching behind Dad’s prized gnome. Dad’s gnome looked pretty traditional, but when Hazel accused him of being old-fashioned, he claimed it was a postmodernist ironic gnome that was mocking its own heritage.
I heard footfalls nearby and peeked over the gnome’s pointed hat. A huge mistake as it turned out. Something sliced through the darkness at speed, heading directly for my head. A club of some kind, definitely being wielded as a weapon. I heard the prowler grunt from the effort, like a tennis professional serving for the match. No sooner had I raised my hand to protect my face than it was pinned to my forehead and everything above my neck seemed to be on fire. The force of the blow lifted me fifteen centimetres from the ground, sending me sailing into a raised rockery.
I lay there unable to do anything except wonder why the stars were going out one by one. I still had the darkness, but no more stars.
DOCTOR BRENDAN’S BEDSIDE MANNER
I woke up alone, which I felt was highly unfair. I had always known that some day I would be knocked unconscious; it went with the job. But for some romantic reason I had believed that when I came to, there would be a crowd of concerned family members and admirers hovering around the bed. But there was nobody. Just a sterile hospital room.
The pain was something else I hadn’t bargained for. Every time I moved, it felt as though brain jelly was seeping out through cracks in my cranium. There weren’t, in fact, any fractures in my skull, just bone bruising. A very cheerful doctor explained this to me when he arrived much later on his morning rounds.
‘Did you ever see those movies where the bad guys kick the devil out of the good guy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s what happened to you.’
Doctor Brendan would have been a dead man if I could have raised my head without squealing like a schoolgirl. Obviously he thought I was four years old.
‘The point is,’ continued Doctor Brendan, ‘that those movie guys aren’t really hitting each other. In actuality.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘No really, I’m serious,’ continued Doctor Brendan. ‘It’s all pretend. Human beings aren’t built to take that kind of punishment.’
I closed my eyes, hoping he would go away.
‘A knock like you got, well, you’re lucky to be alive. OK, you don’t look so good right now, but most of the damage is just deep bone bruising, except for the nose. Your left hand took most of the force.’
I opened my eyes. ‘What was that about my nose?’
‘Snapped like a wishbone. We’re going to be setting it this evening. And your hand was pounded like a raw steak. Nothing broken, but you won’t be playing the violin for a few months.’
‘My head is ringing.’
Doctor Brendan checked my ears with a pencil torch. ‘An after-effect of the trauma. But, again, it’s temporary.’
In my mind’s darkroom, a picture of Frankenstein’s monster began to develop.
‘You’ll be on painkillers after the operation. Maybe you should get a pair of dark glasses too.’
‘Why? Will the light hurt my eyes?’
Brendan giggled guiltily. ‘No, just to stop you looking at yourself in the mirror. You’re going to be quite the troll for a while.’
Troll?’
‘I’m afraid so. For at least two months, ugly is going to be your middle name. And quite possibly your first and last names as well.’
I moaned. Several bubbles popped in my nose.
Doctor Brendan took pity on me. ‘I’m sorry, Fletcher. I thought a joke might get your spirits up.’
‘Spirits up!’ I groaned, each syllable sending a laser burst of pain through my nose. ‘Are you mad?’
Doctor Brendan hooked my chart on the bed’s foot rail.
‘No, no,’ he said gallantly. ‘Just doing my job.’
Doctor Brendan held up a few fingers, then decided that I wasn’t concussed and went to fetch my family from the corridor.
Mam nearly passed out when she saw my bruised face.
‘It’s not as bad as it