CHAPTER TEN: Quiet Fury

Blip! Blip-blip! Blip! Blip-blip! Blip . . . blip . . .

Viddying the blue point of light bounce up and down, up and down, on the bolshy screen next to her friend's hospital bed, Janelle felt her tired, swollen, bloodshot brown glazzies well up skorry with fresh tears.

Sheila was not dead, oh no. She had not snuffed it. But one of the filthy rozzes who had stopped them on the road had tolchocked the poor old dear a bit too hard on the Gulliver. Now Sheila was out. Not dead, not snoring away in sleep land, but just like out out out.

And no veck could say whether she would ever wake up again.

"Breakfast." Frank Alexander had ittied into the room quiet while Janelle wept boohoo by her friend's bedside. Now he laid his firm male rooker on her slim pletcho or shoulder.

"I don't want anything." Janelle sniffled, wiping away tears. She kept staring at Sheila's litso, all wrinkled and lifeless.

"Eat, girl. You must eat. You've got to keep yourself going." Frank steered Janelle out of the ghastly malenky room where Sheila was lying in a coma, all hooked up to machines, down the hall to a white-walled hospital cafeteria.

"I should have done more for her." They sat down at a quiet corner table, well away from all the hospital traffic. Janelle began sipping slow and careful from a bolshy hot mug of very strong hospital tea.

"Nonsense, my dear. You've already done more than your share." Frank Alexander gave her a tired smile, very droogy and sympathetic. "Frankly, it's a miracle you were able to free yourself from those police handcuffs and run for help. You're a very brave young lady."

"It was nothing. And anyway, that's not what I meant." Janelle was frowning as she picked up her knife and fork. This was really more of a late lunch than a proper breakfast, for the girl now viddied that the hour was well past noon. Janelle had not had a real horrorshow sleep the night before.

"You've got to focus on your own health for the next few days, my dear. Those cuts and bruises need time to heal." Frank watched her chewing away, a pleased look on his rugged litso. "That's better. Eat and get strong again. When Sheila recovers you can help her around the house."

"But I want more than that. I want justice for Sheila!" Janelle stabbed a fat and juicy sausage, feeling sick when she viddied herself stabbing those dirty rozzes instead. "Remember when she talked about using me in mass meetings and interviews to talk about the horrible brutal corrupt government? Well, I'm ready to do that now. Because I see now that it's not just about me. The rozzes are hurting everyone, not just criminal types. It's got to stop!"

Frank was staring at her in a peculiar way. "Janelle Wilkes, you really are something. You almost remind me of . . . but she's gone now, poor girl."

"Gone, sir?" Janelle knew Frank had been married before, but she had slooshied only bits and pieces. Had his zhena been young? Pretty? Had she been hurt by the brutal rozzes too? Janelle was really very curious about her.

"Never mind who's gone," mumble-chumbled the rugged writer veck, glaring fierce at Janelle from across the table. "Find some other way to help Sheila. I don't want you getting involved with Z.B. Dolan and his crew. I don't want them hurting you like . . . like the police did last night."

"Well, there are newspapers, aren't there?" Janelle was puzzled and hurt by Frank's moody behavior. She reached for a lomtick of toast. "We can try the mainstream media. And surely the internet would like to hear my story!"

"Mm. I hope it's not the same story you told me last night. Remember, poor Sheila was driving on the wrong side of the road. The car reeked of grass. And she gave the police nothing but a foul lip and an American attitude when they stopped her. That story won't help her – it'll help the government go on just as it is."

"But she was trying to protect me!"

"Perhaps she was," Frank sighed, in a like regretful goloss. "But don't forget, Sheila's the one who chose to take you to a shady shop and buy drugs. She was acting out like a teenager. And that anti-male anger of hers goes way back."

"So you're saying Sheila brought all this on herself?" Janelle stood up from her chair, her shrill goloss making all the sick and dying lewdies in the hospital caff look her way. She was getting angry, but she had to watch that, so she just smiled. "Maybe you think I deserve the same? Maybe you'd have done the same! Maybe next time you'd like to stand in for the police, and give me a good hard . . ."

"Be quiet, damn you!" Frank was on his feet now, for he had two fine healthy nogas of his own. He had horrorshow strong rookers, too, and he took Janelle in a tight grip, pulling her close, his gray glazzies flashing like bezoomny. Yet he kept his goloss low, controlled but full of like quiet fury, so the sick and the hospital orderlies would not slooshy or interfere.

"I'm not Sheila, you foolish child. Can't you see that? I won't allow you to put yourself in danger."

"Allow me? What gives you the right . . ." Janelle felt too razdraz to say another slovo. The two of them just stood there breathing hard, viddying each other right up close. Their rots were now very close together, their flushed litsos almost touching.

And then Frank kissed her, right on her trembling red rot!

A/N: Did everyone notice that Frank has two fine healthy nogas (legs) of his own? In the novel by Anthony Burgess, the writer veck is quite young and strong. He misses his wife, and when he learns the truth Alex is afraid of him. He is not, I repeat not, a silly old babbling fool in a wheelchair!