Archie's Unbelievably Freaky Week (10 page)

‘We don’t make mistakes at St James’s,’ said the doctor, stiffly. ‘Your friend was brought in last night and—’

‘My friend was not brought in last night,’ said Cyd. ‘He came in this morning with me to visit our teacher, and until half an hour ago he was absolutely fine. I don’t know how he got into this bed, or why you want to drill a hole in his head, but you’re not going to.’

‘I’ll call security,’ said the nurse.

‘How about you wait,’ said Cyd, ‘until you’ve checked if what I said is true. It won’t be very difficult. You can ask our teacher, who’s in the ward down the corridor. You can phone Archie’s parents – I’ve got his number here – or you can talk to my mother, who’s down in the nurse’s restroom. You can do any of those things but there is no way I’m letting you do an operation on my friend Archie Coates.’

There was a moment’s silence as the doctor looked at his clipboard, and then at the nurse.

‘Coates?’ he said, eventually. ‘It says on my form that his name is Archie Duffen . . .’

‘I cannot believe it!’ A small man with a moustache was pacing up and down behind his desk. ‘I still cannot believe a mistake like this could happen in my hospital!’

On the other side of the desk, Cyd and Archie were sitting on a large sofa, with a table in front of them laid with plates of sandwiches, packets of crisps and a selection of cans of drink.

‘Never mind,’ said Archie. ‘These things happen.’

He was dressed in his clothes again now – all except for his socks, which no one had been able to find – and the medicine had not entirely worn off.

‘What
did
happen exactly?’ asked Cyd.

‘You may well ask,’ said the man with the moustache. ‘It seems that Archie Duffen, who is about the same age as Archie here, was brought in last night complaining of pains in his head. We took some X-rays, found a blood clot and realized he needed an operation. He was supposed to have it this morning.’

‘So why wasn’t he in his room?’ asked Cyd.

‘He’d been sent down for some more
X-rays
,’ the man with the moustache explained. ‘And he should have been back, but unfortunately the porter who was sent to get him slipped on a pool of water in the corridor, and had to be taken in for treatment himself. In the meantime, of course, a trainee nurse had put your Archie into his room, and when the nurse came in to give the other Archie his medicine – she’d only just come on duty – she naturally assumed that Archie was, well, Archie . . .’

‘Simple mistake,’ said Archie, helping himself to another sandwich. ‘Could have happened to anyone.’

‘It’s very nice of you to say so,’ said the man with the moustache, ‘and I do appreciate it. I just wish there was something I could do to make it up to you.’

Archie was about to say that there was no need, when Cyd spoke for him.

‘As a matter of fact,’ she said. ‘There is one thing . . .’

Later, when Cyd and Archie were walking home, Cyd got a text on her mobile.

‘It’s all sorted,’ she told Archie, when she’d read it. ‘Miss Jensen says they’ve looked at her tests and worked out her medicine, so she’s going home this afternoon and she’ll be back in school on Monday!’

‘That’s good,’ said Archie.

‘And Mum says she’s heard from one of her doctor friends that the other Archie had his operation and it all went very well.’ Cyd thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps we should go
and
visit him some time.’

‘You can go,’ said Archie. ‘I’m going to stay away from hospitals for a bit.’

Cyd agreed that might be best. ‘Though things don’t seem to have turned out too badly, do they?’ she added. ‘I mean, nobody got hurt and . . . well, everyone’s happy!’

And Archie had to agree that everyone
was
happy – except his mother when he got home.

‘How is it possible,’ she demanded, ‘to lose
both
socks, just visiting someone in hospital?’

She stomped off upstairs to find him a new pair.

‘Honestly! I don’t believe it, Archie!’

ON SUNDAY, ARCHIE
decided he would like to do something special for his friend, Cyd.

He had been thinking about what had happened the day before, and the more he thought, the more he realized that things could have turned out very differently at the hospital if Cyd had not been there.

Cyd was usually there to help when odd things happened to him, Archie thought. She was the one who had warned him not to pick up the Brazilian Wandering Spider. She had come to the rescue when he was stuck in the staff cloakroom without any clothes. And she was the one who put out the fire in Miss Henley’s handbag, so that they hadn’t burned
to
death in the stockroom.

He would like, Archie decided, to do something that showed Cyd how grateful he was for all she had done.

But what?

He was still trying to think of something when his mother appeared.

‘Are you ready?’ she asked.

‘Ready?’

‘I thought we’d get down to the station a bit early,’ said his mother, ‘in case there’s a rush.’

And suddenly Archie had the answer.

Three weeks before, his mother had bought two tickets for a trip on the
Tornado
, the first steam train to be built in Britain for more than fifty years. Archie had always loved steam trains and his mother had bought the tickets as an early birthday treat.

Cyd would
love
a trip on a steam train!

‘Would you mind,’ said Archie, ‘if I went on the train with someone else?

‘Someone else?’ His mother looked slightly hurt. ‘You want to go with someone else?’

‘I’d like to go with Cyd,’ said Archie. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘Mind?’ His mother gave a little sniff. ‘Why should I mind? Why should I care if my only son doesn’t want to share his birthday treat with me. No, no, I don’t mind at all!’

‘That’s all right, then!’ said Archie. ‘Thanks, Mum!’

With the train tickets tucked in his pocket, Archie walked straight round to Cyd’s house. He didn’t tell her where they would be going, he simply said he had a surprise for her.

‘Great!’ Cyd grabbed her coat. ‘I love surprises!’

It should have taken about ten minutes to walk down to the station, but several things happened that meant it took a bit longer than that.

The first thing was that Cyd’s hat blew off in the wind, only a few minutes after they’d set out, and a sudden gust lifted it up into the back of a large removal van parked by the pavement.

Cyd climbed into the van to get it back, but her hat had landed on a piece of furniture that was too high for her to reach, so Archie climbed in as well.