Gudday all, and welcome to my epic, whirl-wind masterpiece, filled with drama, mystery, romance, action, nail-biting tension and thrills that will keep you on the edge of your seat!
(I'm a very sarcastic person, have you realized yet?)
Authors note - Kuia means 'old woman' in Maori - it is also used to mean 'grandmother'.
*
Calypso floated back into reality.
Her head throbbed like a car engine. Chuga chuga chuga. Ow ow ow.
Consciousness flowed up her head slowly, so she could feel her body lying on her back and the rough sheets over her body. She could also feel every lobe of her brain as it thumped against her skull. Ker-thump ker-thump ker-thump.
She could feel her body, but to her horror, she could not move it. At all.
She succumbed to the blackness once again.
She could hear voices, distant, fading in and out, murmuring indistinctly.
She blacked out again.
Finally, she woke up. It was like someone had just thrown a bucket of cold water over her.
Her eyes snapped open.
She was still lying on her back, and she could see, at first, only the ceiling. It was white.
Trying to roll over, she discovered that she couldn't again. She was completely immobile. The only things she could move were her eyes. She looked as far as she could to the side.
She was in a hospital - which was clear enough. Nothing looks quite like a hospital. The sterile, clean, sanctuary that is a hospital cannot be replicated. Also no architect with any design sense would paint a long hall a sickly green colour and litter it at regular intervals with white metal framed beds.
Also, nothing quite felt like a hospital bed - creaky and scrunchy with the rubber sheet underneath, and the thin, scratchy hospital bed sheets. And the smell. Janola and Formeldehyde and vynal.
Yes, Calypso thought. I am in a hospital. I had a vision of wizards blowing up the village, so I phoned in a bomb threat, and the place blew and I got knocked out. So, yes, I probably am in hospital. I am sane, because I am thinking very logically here. Good.
She tried not to think about why she couldn't move, but the thought crept in and stabbed her in the stomach, making the bile in her gut surge.
Oh God not paralyzed. God not that.
She had been in this same predicament twice before, the first time when she was out mustering in the back blocks, when her horse had slipped and, rolling down the steep hillside, crushed her underneath it's massive bulk. She had woken up in hospital, strung up to metal things, unable to move, with Ben sitting beside her, holding her hand. She had a broken neck that time.
There was no-one sitting beside her this time.
And the second time............
She didn't want to think about it.
It was only about two minutes before someone came, but to Calypso, who was lying on her bed like a root vegetable, it was more like twenty with only the white ceiling to look at.
The doors at the end of the hall crashed open and in walked a squat, rounded figure in a white dress. No, correction, a sack. Also called a nurse's uniform. The little nurse started investigating the contents of the beds, all the time blabbing away like all nurses do, in a friendly, broad English accent. None of the other patients said anything. The nurse just kept on chatting, though, all the time working swiftly and deftly, scribbling things on charts and doing such things.
Finally she had worked her way up to Calypso.
Calypso stared at the nurse as she came closer, imploring her to realize that she was conscious.
"Ooh awake are we?" the Nurse said cheerfully
God bless English accents, Calypso thought dreamily. The Nurse's voice flowed in one ear and out the other, bathing her thumping brain.
Calypso blinked. That was supposed to mean, HELP ME! I CAN'T MOVE! but of course the nurse did not hear that, and simply grabbed one end of her wheeled hospital bed and started rolling it down the rows of beds and towards the double swinging doors at the end.
As she passed each bed, Calypso strained to see who was lying in the other beds.
After seeing the first one, Calypso decided to avert her eyes. Its skin was lobster red, and quivering. Calypso stared at the ceiling. If that person was like that, what was the state of her body like....
They banged into the swinging doors and burst into the corridor.
It was much noisier now, she could hear distant voices and scurrying feet, shoes slapping on lino, mixed with the general bustle of a hospital.
The bed swung around a corner in the corridor and towards the noise more. Then they banged another pair of swinging doors open and entered another long room, again, painted that sickly pea green and lined with metal beds.
"Dr. McBurney" sang the cherry little nurse. "This little blondie is back in the real world again."
Into Calypso's sight walked a bearded, wrinkled old man wearing a blue sack that could be described as a doctor's uniform. He grunted at the nurse, who returned a brilliant smile. He leant over Calypso and looked carefully at her eyes.
Calypso blinked and winked.
"Aye, we'll unbind her." he said, with a voice like an avalanche. It grated nastily on Calypso's sore head.
The nurse nodded feverishly and the doctor reached into his uniform pocket and brought out.....
a wand.
He pointed it at Calypso and muttered something. Calypso didn't care which spell he used, because with a sudden jolt, she discovered she could move and speak.
"Hoy now!" the doctor cried as she tried to sit up. "Dinna move!"
Calypso was only too happy to oblige - just trying to sit up felt like someone had hit her in the back of the head with a sledgehammer. She flopped back into her plastic-y hospital bed.
"Who are you, love?" said the nurse sweetly.
"Cal...........Carla Grey." she replied raspingly. "Can I have a drink?"
The nurse beamed, and pulling a wand out of her pocket, conjured a glass of water into her hand and gave it with a flourish, to the parched Calypso.
Drinking gratefully, Calypso thought quickly. Wizard hospital. That's where I am. Watch your mouth honey.
Finished, she handed the glass back to the nurse and was forced to put up with the doctor pointing his wand, now with a light at the end, into her eyes and ears.
The nurse was looking at Calypso quizzically.
"People usually ask 'where am I' or 'what happened'." she commented. "You're awfully quiet."
"Well, I can pretty confidently say I am in Wizard hospital and I was knocked out by the explosion at Peachgrove Village so why ask?" Calypso said stumblingly as the doctor looked down her throat.
The doctor muttered "Nox" and turned to speak to Calypso.
"Carla, we need to contact your family. You were knocked out so we wish to keep you overnight for observation. You also had three broken ribs and a cracked wrist but dinna worry, we healed those while you were unconscious."
There was a few moment's silence.
"A contact person?" the doctor demanded
"Uh....Remus Lupin." ventured Calypso finally.
"Relationship?" asked the nurse, scribbling the information down on a clipboard that had suddenly appeared in her hand.
"Uh.........I live with him at the moment." she replied hesitantly.
The nurse and doctor exchanged shocked looks over Calypso's bed.
There was more silence.
"How come I couldn't move?" asked Calypso.
"Ye had a head injury, so we put the Complete Body Bind on ye to stop ye movin an doin any more damage." replied the doctor. "How do ya feel?"
"Like I've been run over by a truck" she replied.
"Hmmm" said the doctor coldly.
"My head aches though" she added.
The doctor jumped, and quickly looked at her eyes again.
"Holy crap. Bleeding on the brain."
"NURSE!" he bellowed suddenly.
"Yes Doctor?" said the shocked little nurse.
"Get her into surgery now. Dr. Cortex should be free in Theatre three. I'll inform him now."
He turned to go, and looked back at the nurse.
"What are ya waiting for? GO!" he yelled.
The nurse quickly grabbed the end of Calypso's bed and, suddenly they were flying down the corridors again.
Calypso looked frantically from side to side as they raced down hallways in a blur of colour, and other nurses and doctors joined them. Just as she was about to tell the nurse to stop going so fast, she realized that the nurse wasn't pushing the bed - it was moving by itself. One doctor running alongside her bed grabbed her wrist and took her pulse with one hand, and with the other pointed her wand right between Calypso's eyes.
The world disintegrated into blackness again.
*
The sun was hot and the north-west wind was dry as the girl got off the bus. She leapt down the stairs onto the grass and ran along side the dirty green-and-yellow clanging contraption as it drove away, children laughing and waving out the windows. The bus left a swirling cloud of dust in its wake, and the girl slowed to a trot, waving back. She turned to a long driveway and walked with ease of practice over the smooth shining metal bars of the cowstop, never slipping once. Collecting the scanty mail out of the rough tin letterbox, she stuffed it in her purple backpack next to her lunchbox and started to walk up the bumpy driveway to the house at the top of the hill. Grass seeds flew in the air as she treked through the long, dry grass next to the fenceline. The girl leant over the fence to stroke the nose of a cow who had come to investigate, but it shied from her touch, rolling its great brown eyes dramatically. The girl reached out to touch it again, and felt coarse black and white hair under her fingers before the lumbering cow could move it's bulk away in time. The girl giggled an eleven-year old laugh, twin blonde plaits over her shoulders bouncing. She turned and ran the rest of the way up the driveway, plaits thumping and swaying, and grass seeds billowing as she ran her hand through the stalks as she ran.
Panting, she reached the house, shielded from the merciless sun by large, leafy, drooping trees that created an oasis of green in the burnt brown that was to be seen for miles in every direction. Birds flew from all places to go there, and as always the trees were singing with their voices. The girl stopped, panting under them, and pushed loose tendrils of hair off her face, and wiping sweat off her lightly freckled cheeks before walking serenely to the front door.
"Kuia!!!!!! I'm home Kuia! We had such a cool day today, we went swimming at the High School pools and I could dive right to the bottom of the deep end of the pool and........"
The girl started warbling away the moment she stepped in the door, and kept talking as she dropped her bag in the kitchen, after spotting a pile of pikelets sitting on a cooling rack, covered with a tea towel. Still nattering away, she located jam and cream and started loading a plate full of sticky, fresh pikelets.
"...and no-one else could do that, and the swimming coach said I had very developed lungs, and then Ian started telling him off because he thought he had said something rude and then Tessa jumped off the diving board and landed with a huge bomb and spalshed everyone's towels and Mike went and dunked her and got in heeeeaps of trouble coz it was all an accident coz she, I mean, Tessa, didn't meant to splash anyone she just didn't know how to dive..... hey Kuia, where are you?"
The girl started stuffing her face with sweet piklelets and walked back outside, looking around. The dry wind rustled the leaves in the giant trees and made swooshing sounds as the girl walked around the house and gardens, chewing pikelets. Finding birds, sheep and cows, but no Kuia, the girl looked puzzled, and absently fed a pikelet to an inquisitive and friendly old pet sheep. Where was Kuia?
Aaah, maybe she was in the toilet.
The girl went to the back door and followed a little paved path to the bottom end of the garden, to a little wooden outhouse. Knocking lightly on the heavy door, she called softly
"Kuuuuia? Ya in there?"
There was no response.
She pushed the door slowly open with a finger, but there was nothing in there apart from the toilet roll, a few old copies of Women's Weekly and the white painted wooden toilet seat over the can. The girl looked puzzled, shut the door and went back up the path to the house.
Opening the back door, she stuck her head inside, and called again.
"Hey Kuia, whaddare ya playing at? Where are ya?"
There was no reply.
The girl moved into the hallway, and opening each door off it as she walked along, investigated, calling each time for Kuia.
She put her hand on the bedroom door's large brass handle, and turned it slowly, opening the door just a crack. She peered through the gap to see into Kuia's bedroom. She could see the end of a large, cream four-poster bed, and a pair of wrinkled, callused old feet on the end of it.
"Kuia?" she whispered.
There was no reply.
Smiling, the girl slowly shut the door, and crept back outside. She went to the stone tub attached to the outside of the house and picked up a wicker washing basket and an apron full of pegs. Filling the basket up with wet, clean clothes and wrapping the apron around her waist, she reminded herself that Kuia was not young anymore. At her age, she thought, Kuia should be looking to buy one of those new washing things instead of doing it all the old way with a scrubbing board. But she knew what Kuia would have to say about that. Kuia liked doing things the old way - she disliked change, Ian said. But the girl knew that Kuia loved the feel of doing hard work, and washing, cooking and gardening was all about she was up to now. Humor the old woman, and let her scrub her clothes by hand, said Ian. But she's ruining her fingers! Protested the girl. Ian simply gave her that patronizing 'I'm seventeen and you're only eleven, and you say the cutest things' look that the girl always seemed to be getting those days.
Picking up the heavy basket of sodden clothes, the girl waddled over to the rickety washing line and started hanging up clothes and bed sheets with wooden pegs.
She loved it at Kuia's - not like at home. Kuia's was different. Even though Kuia was not really her Grandmother, the girl had always called her Kuia. And despite the girl being blue-eyed, having wheaten blonde and lightly freckled, unlike Kuia's deep, chocolate- brown skin, wavy gray hair and eyes so dark they looked black, the girl personally reckoned that Kuia was her Grandmother. Despite the fact that this was obviously not the case, the girl loved the old woman like she really was her Kuia. And the old woman loved her back like she was her mokopuna. There was a bond between them that no-one could explain.
Finished with pegging the clothes out in the dry north-westerly wind, the girl untied the peg apron and sneaked back inside to start making tea for Kuia before she had to go home. She didn't want to go home. She never wanted to go home. Before tea, she would always make excuses to stay at Kuia's - but Kuia always saw straight through them.
"Aaah my little mokopuna, you have to hurry along home now. I know what you are playing at, sweetie. You can't stay here. Your caregivers want you back home before six, eh?"
And oblivious to the girl's protests, she would always make sure she was home by six.
And the Kuia would wave from the top of the hill as the girl walked off along the road, with a strange, sad look of longing on her weather-beaten face.
*
Calypso woke up, feeling decidedly groggy.
"Gaaaah. Ugggggh."
A large, out-of-focus head zoomed into her view.
"And how are we feeling, Ms. Grey?"
"Terrible." She croaked.
"That's to be expected when you have been through the mill like you have."
"What's going on?" Calypso demanded in a scratchy voice suddenly.
The blurry head sailed in and out of focus, and finally settled on a sharp-nosed, middle aged woman with brown hair firmly pinned back on a tight bun.
"You are in the Recovery ward at St. Mungo's Hospital. I hear you were involved in the Peachgrove Village Disaster?" she said crisply as she scribbled something on a clipboard with a quill.
Calypso nodded.
"You were out of luck. You got clear of the blast, but when the shockwave hit the enchanted lane, it blew the spells to bits, and whacked you up quite badly. You should be fine now, though. We operated on your head - you had bleeding in the back of your skull from when you hit the fence. Lumos." The doctor lit the end of her wand, and Calypso suffered her eyes, ears and throat being inspected again.
Suddenly Calypso jumped.
"Shit! Snuffles! Aaah, I mean, my dog - what happened to my dog?" she added apologetically to the doctor, who looked shocked at the swear word.
"Your dog was collected by a certain Mr. Lupin, I do believe."
Calypso sighed and sank back into her bed.
"So how long do I have to stay here for?" she asked.
"At least three days, maybe four" said the doctor with a shrug of her shoulders.
Calypso smiled wryly. It could have been worse, she thought.
The doctor had her back to Calypso, and seemed to be busy combining things from a chrome trolley. Turning back around, she handed Calypso a glass phial filled with a deep blue liquid that was smoking lightly.
"Sleeping Potion. You need to get all the sleep you can after a head injury. When you wake up, you will be in a general ward, and should be well enough to receive visitors."
Calypso didn't argue. Then a sudden thought struck her.
"I have visitors?"
The doctor raised an eyebrow.
"Oh yes dear. Quite important ones, too."
Calypso opened her mouth to ask who they were, but the doctor gave her a withering look and shoved the phial at her. Meekly, Calypso took it, and drank deeply.
It tasted queer, like bubblegum and lemonade and yogurt and peas all blended together, was icy cold and kept smoking on the way down. But it worked. Calypso only had time to lie back on her bed before seeing the doctor smiling self-satisfactorily at a potion well brewed as her eyelids became heavier and heavier and heavier...........
Calypso's sweet oblivion was interrupted by a vision.
Calypso found herself standing in a large room, fully three stories high, dominated by a huge, long, wooden desk that ran like a horseshoe in the center of the hall. Behind the desk was a wall of cubbyholes, and a women and men in shapeless red shifts were posting pieces of paper into them, which disappeared as soon as it left their hands. Looking around, Calypso concluded that this must be the reception for St. Mungos. There was a large, impressive entranceway with elaborate swinging doors carved with pictures of healing and harmony. Surrounding the walls of the reception were numerous squishy chairs, is random, but intense colors. People sitting in these armchairs had views out of the windows of a hot, busy street, with cars and people rushing past, but no-one outside looked in at the reception. They didn't seem to notice it at all. In the chairs at the corner, a young man was sitting, looking intensely worried. An elderly woman in lime-green robes stroked his arm soothingly, but to no avail. Expectant father, Calypso thought. Other people in shocking colored robes sat around, waiting, watching, crying, joyful, shocked, pleased, anxious...... Calypso watched as a doctor in blue robes walked up to the worried man and said something. Calypso's vision had no sound. Whatever the doctor said must have been good news, as the man leapt up, gave the doctor a crushing bear-hug, and ran out a side door leading further into the hospital. Calypso grinned as the doctor recovered his breath, and walked up to the long desk. After saying something to a man dressed in red robes, he turned to leave, and the man in red robes - a receptionist, obviously - scribbled something on a piece of parchment with a quill, and, to Calypso's confusion, held the piece of paper high up in the air. An owl dropped out of mid air to land silently on the desk. It was a tiny little owl, so small it could have fit in the receptionist's hand. The receptionist began tying the piece of paper to the owl's tiny leg, and Calypso looked up.
The ceiling was littered with owls flying around - large, small, but all various shades of white. There was no visible roost, but there were large gaps in the wall, high up, where owls were flying in and out with the greatest of ease. As Calypso watched, a large owl flew gracefully in and dropped to the reception desk. A woman in red met it, and ripped the letter off it's leg.
She read it, and looked up. She said something, and another receptionist nodded. They both began writing, and held up pieces of paper. Again, two tiny owls dropped to the desk, and the receptionists attached the notes to their legs. The owls took flight, but flew straight into the cubby holes.... and disappeared. Within thirty seconds, two doctors, both tailed by nurses, burst through the doorways off the side of the reception. A few brief words were exchanged between doctors and receptionists, and they all turned to look at the entranceway.
Right on cue, the swinging doors burst open, and in rushed four wizards, surrounding a body lying on an invisible stretcher. Calypso looked at the body on the stretcher, and gave a gasp. Bouncing up and down on the man's stomach, was....
a monkey dressed up in Jamacian clothes. It had dreadlocks, a yellow, red and green teacosy hat, a shirt printed with Bob Marley faces and khaki shorts. The monkey was screaming a high pitched monkey scream that ran chills up and down Calypso's back. She could hear the monkey.
The dreadlocked monkey started tearing at the man's robes, and gripping them, thrashed back and forward. He leant forward and bit at the man's throat, tearing flesh, and then resumed bouncing hard up and down, making the man's body convulse spastically. Calypso ran over to the monkey, just as the team of doctors and nurses were doing the same.
"Stop it!" she screamed futilely at the monkey.
It bared its teeth and hissed at her, then resumed screaming.
Calypso looked around hopelessly at the team of doctors, who were now racing the man on the invisible stretcher towards the innards of the hospital, yelling at each other, and trying spell after spell to stop the convulsions. Running alongside them, Calypso suddenly had a thought - they can't see the monkey. She looked back at the monkey, and straight into it's eyes. The monkey stated back at her, dreadlocks swinging madly. Calypso felt her stomach freeze. The monkey's eyes were blood red.......
Calypso woke again, shuddering violently. A nurse grabbed her shoulder. She opened her eyes.
Large, concerned, hazel eyes looked back into hers.
"You OK, hon?"
"Yeah......just bad dreams" Calypso lied.
She looked around. She was now in a large, long ward, much like the ones before, but with a few notable differences. The people in this ward were awake and moving. Some were reading books, some were talking, others practicing spells with their wands, others writing. Some were simply looking bored. All were surrounded with bouquets of flowers, gifts, posters and bowls of fruit. Calypso looked at her little bedside table. It was bare.
"The doctor will be with you in a minute" said the hazel-eyed nurse, who turned and walked over to a man who was shooting green sparks from the end of his wand.
It was now or never, Calypso though. Careful to make sure no-one was looking, she pulled the covers aside and slipped out of bed. The wizard doctors had done a good job with her head - she felt no pain or dizziness as she silently stood up. Apparently though, they hadn't quite mastered healing bruises though - Calypso winced as her body ached in uncountable spots. Looking around again, Calypso walked purposefully to the end of the hall and pushed open one of the swinging doors.
In the hall, Calypso was faced with a decision - left or right? Deciding to go right, Calypso had only taken two steps before she felt a familiar feeling in her head. The buzz.
It wanted her to go left.
Dammit, thought Calypso angrily. I thought I had got rid of that thing for good! But she obediently turned to the left and jogged down the corridor.
From behind her, she heard a yell.
Crap, she thought. That was quick. The doors banged open.
"OI! COME BACK HERE YOU!!!"
Calypso broke out into a run
"STOP!"
She stretched out her legs and ate up the lino.
"Goddammit STOP! STUPEFY!"
Calypso leapt and landed on her hands as a beam of green light shot past her, missing her right arm by inches. She did a forward roll, and leapt smoothly back up onto her feet and kept running, never missing a beat.
Right! Cried the buzz
Calypso skidded around the corner, and kept on running.
There was more yelling behind her as more people joined in the chase. Feet pounding on the lino, Calypso turned left, right, straight ahead, down a flight of stairs, left, left, right, second to left, and right.
The pursuers crashed past down the hallway and turned the corner. Calypso lithely dropped from the ceiling without a sound, and crouching spider-like for a few seconds, stood up and back-tracked a little before turning right down another passage.
Wait, said the buzz. Smart idea, Calypso thought. At this rate she would be too early, and besides, she was puffed. She hadn't down any real running since she had boarded the first plane to America, and was starting to feel the effects of it. Breathing deeply, she put her hands on her thighs and rested for a second. That was when she saw the picture on the wall. A wizard photo, it was old, black and white, and featured a sharp looking nurse with ironed creases down the front of her white robes. The nurse was peering curiously at the panting Calypso.
"'Scuse me, but do you happen to know where the reception hall is from here?" Calypso asked politely.
"Of course I do. It's the third left, and then the second right. You can't miss it." She replied crisply.
"Thank you" said Calypso breathily, and turned to continue to the reception at a more leisurely pace. But no sooner had she turned than the nurse in the photo gave a gasp and let rip.
"ESCAPED PATIENT IN THE PEADATRIC CORRIDOR! HEEEELP!"
Calypso swore loudly and broke into a run. Did she have, she thought, a large red stamp on her forehead that read 'Escaped patient from Mental Asylum - please give chase?'
Doors flashed by, and curious heads popped out as she dashed past, long legs working hard to give her the extra few metres on her chasers. She could hear them behind her, and more were gaining the pack every second. She dashed around the corner of the third left corridor, not bothering to slow down, and ran straight into someone.
"Aarugh!"
"Oomph!"
"Calypso! What the hell are you doi..."
"Remus!"
Calypso was just as shocked as Remus was. She broke free of his grasp and dashed further down the corridor, which was now wider and had signs pointing to the reception and exit. Just ahead of her, she could see the dual team of doctors and nurses dashing to attend the man with the dreadlocked monkey, and a confused and winded looking doctor waking the other way. Right on time, she thought.
"Calypso! Fuck! Come back here now!" she heard Remus yell from behind her.
Calypso didn't even slow down. What is wrong with these people? Even Remus. She hit the swinging doors at the end of the corridors hard, to the sound of another STUPEFY! And a jet of green light bounced off the swinging doors as she disappeared through them.
On the other side, Calypso looked quickly around. It was all the same as in her vision, from the identical doctors attending the man on the stretcher, to the people sitting in the armchairs. The only difference was that she could no longer see the monkey - only what it was doing. The man in the stretcher was thrashing about wildly, and suddenly flesh tore off his throat and blood spurted everywhere. The people in the chairs watched in morbid fascination as the doctors tried charm after charm, all to no avail. Calypso dashed up to the stretcher and muscled her way in.
Raking her eyes over the convulsing man, her eyes were drawn to the clasp on his cloak. It was a blood red stone, just like the monkey's eyes. Quickly, before anyone could object, she ripped the clasp off his cloak, and turning, hurled it at the floor.
With a sharp crack, the stone shattered on the marble floor into a thousand tiny, clear shards. From the slivers came a thick, slow moving, green and red smoke that wormed it's way up in the air in front of Calypso. The vapors twisted and twirled, and finally formed the same shape she had seen above the supermarket in Peachgrove, the snake with a pointed tongue.....then it spread, and rose higher, until it reached the owls swooping above. Several breathed in the fumes and came plummeting to the ground.
Behind Calypso, the man had stopped convulsing, and was now breathing raggedly. The doctors and people on the couches were all staring at the floor, the air and at Calypso. Turning, Calypso stared back at them.
"What are you staring at? Have I grown a second head or something? Remus, what's going on?" she demanded as Remus and a group of puffed doctors, nurses and orderlies moved forward, wands at the ready.
Suddenly, Calypso felt a breeze where there shouldn't be a breeze.
Some things never change, whether in a muggle or wizard hospital - like the plastic sheets on the beds, the sickly green paint scheme, the creaky beds......
And hospital nighties with only one little lace to keep them together at the back.
Calypso flushed beetroot red and clapped her hands over her bare buttocks.
"Whoops." Was all she could say, standing uncomfortably on one foot.
Later on, Calypso couldn't remember the next few seconds clearly at all. They were all a blur of people running, yelling, people apparating, screaming, shooting spells at the air where the snake-smoke had been, bringing a hail of stupeied owls raining down on everyone, and in the middle of it all, Calypso wearing next to nothing and totally confused and embarrassed.
She was only saved by the cherry little nurse she had first encountered throwing a cloak over her shoulder and dragging her out of the middle of the fray. Back on the corridors, the nurse opened a door and maneuvered Calypso into a chair.
"Stay there" she said firmly.
"And no more streaking" she added with a wink.
Sitting in the chair, highly embarrassed, Calypso didn't think she could ever face anyone in that hall ever again. Shaaaame! She though. Showing my ass to everyone apart the pope. Dammit you are an idiot.
After twenty minutes, though, the chaos outside had diminished to mere rumblings, and the nurse slipped back inside the door. Pressing her finger to her lips, she beckoned to Calypso to follow her. Squeezing out the door and down deserted corridors, the eventually wound up in a small room filled with cupboards.
The nurse opened a cupboard and started pulling out underwear and robes.
"What's this for?" asked a bemused Calypso
The little nurse shot her an amused look.
"What, you think you can meet the two most influential wizards in the whole of England in a hospital gown? Geez, that won't do at all. Tell you what, if it hadn't been under such serious circumstances, this would have been one of the funniest days of my life in this hospital, even better than the time Dr. Rowley enchanted nurse Ethyl's potion schedule....." the nurse talked non-stop as she handed Calypso underwear, shoes and deep navy robes and Calypso, still scarlet, dragged them on. The nurse, still talking, then took her wand and charmed Calypso's hair to lie flat and vanished the bags under her eyes before propelling her out the door and down the winding corridors to another room
"This is where I leave you, love. Good luck, and thanks for the laugh!" she said , before shutting the door.
Calypso looked around despairingly. This must be a waiting room, she thought. There were two chairs and another door off it. She took a seat, and thought miserably about what she had just done. She was just reliving the moment when she realized she was showing everyone her bum when the outside door swung open and in walked a disheveled Remus Lupin.
Calypso flushed again.
Remus took the empty seat next to Calypso.
"Do you realize what you have just done?" he asked quietly
"Yeah, make a major ASS in front of everyone in this hospital" she replied miserably.
Remus smiled
"No, you idiot, you saved a man's life. A rather important man's life, and you will probably be congratulated on that. Add that to the hundreds you saved two days ago at Peachgrove Village, and......"
The door swung open.
Remus looked at Calypso, who was busy looking at the floor.
"I guess that's our cue to come in" he said cheerfully and offered Calypso his outstretched hand.
"C'mon, get over it. It wasn't that bad, and it was rather funny at the time."
Calypso looked up slowly, and smiled wryly.
"I guess I've done worse things when I've been drunk." She said, and took Remus's hand.
Remus smiled.
"Come and meet a good friend of mine. I think you'll like him. He's wanted to meet you for some time...."
Well, by now you should know how much I just looooove having reviews, and since I adore flames too, go right ahead. Now, peoples, I have spent HOURS of my time that I should have been spending doing Calculus revision writing this, so the very LEAST you can do is take a few measly SECONDS of your time to review. So, what are you waiting for? C'mon, I'd love to hear from you!
(I'm a very sarcastic person, have you realized yet?)
Authors note - Kuia means 'old woman' in Maori - it is also used to mean 'grandmother'.
*
Calypso floated back into reality.
Her head throbbed like a car engine. Chuga chuga chuga. Ow ow ow.
Consciousness flowed up her head slowly, so she could feel her body lying on her back and the rough sheets over her body. She could also feel every lobe of her brain as it thumped against her skull. Ker-thump ker-thump ker-thump.
She could feel her body, but to her horror, she could not move it. At all.
She succumbed to the blackness once again.
She could hear voices, distant, fading in and out, murmuring indistinctly.
She blacked out again.
Finally, she woke up. It was like someone had just thrown a bucket of cold water over her.
Her eyes snapped open.
She was still lying on her back, and she could see, at first, only the ceiling. It was white.
Trying to roll over, she discovered that she couldn't again. She was completely immobile. The only things she could move were her eyes. She looked as far as she could to the side.
She was in a hospital - which was clear enough. Nothing looks quite like a hospital. The sterile, clean, sanctuary that is a hospital cannot be replicated. Also no architect with any design sense would paint a long hall a sickly green colour and litter it at regular intervals with white metal framed beds.
Also, nothing quite felt like a hospital bed - creaky and scrunchy with the rubber sheet underneath, and the thin, scratchy hospital bed sheets. And the smell. Janola and Formeldehyde and vynal.
Yes, Calypso thought. I am in a hospital. I had a vision of wizards blowing up the village, so I phoned in a bomb threat, and the place blew and I got knocked out. So, yes, I probably am in hospital. I am sane, because I am thinking very logically here. Good.
She tried not to think about why she couldn't move, but the thought crept in and stabbed her in the stomach, making the bile in her gut surge.
Oh God not paralyzed. God not that.
She had been in this same predicament twice before, the first time when she was out mustering in the back blocks, when her horse had slipped and, rolling down the steep hillside, crushed her underneath it's massive bulk. She had woken up in hospital, strung up to metal things, unable to move, with Ben sitting beside her, holding her hand. She had a broken neck that time.
There was no-one sitting beside her this time.
And the second time............
She didn't want to think about it.
It was only about two minutes before someone came, but to Calypso, who was lying on her bed like a root vegetable, it was more like twenty with only the white ceiling to look at.
The doors at the end of the hall crashed open and in walked a squat, rounded figure in a white dress. No, correction, a sack. Also called a nurse's uniform. The little nurse started investigating the contents of the beds, all the time blabbing away like all nurses do, in a friendly, broad English accent. None of the other patients said anything. The nurse just kept on chatting, though, all the time working swiftly and deftly, scribbling things on charts and doing such things.
Finally she had worked her way up to Calypso.
Calypso stared at the nurse as she came closer, imploring her to realize that she was conscious.
"Ooh awake are we?" the Nurse said cheerfully
God bless English accents, Calypso thought dreamily. The Nurse's voice flowed in one ear and out the other, bathing her thumping brain.
Calypso blinked. That was supposed to mean, HELP ME! I CAN'T MOVE! but of course the nurse did not hear that, and simply grabbed one end of her wheeled hospital bed and started rolling it down the rows of beds and towards the double swinging doors at the end.
As she passed each bed, Calypso strained to see who was lying in the other beds.
After seeing the first one, Calypso decided to avert her eyes. Its skin was lobster red, and quivering. Calypso stared at the ceiling. If that person was like that, what was the state of her body like....
They banged into the swinging doors and burst into the corridor.
It was much noisier now, she could hear distant voices and scurrying feet, shoes slapping on lino, mixed with the general bustle of a hospital.
The bed swung around a corner in the corridor and towards the noise more. Then they banged another pair of swinging doors open and entered another long room, again, painted that sickly pea green and lined with metal beds.
"Dr. McBurney" sang the cherry little nurse. "This little blondie is back in the real world again."
Into Calypso's sight walked a bearded, wrinkled old man wearing a blue sack that could be described as a doctor's uniform. He grunted at the nurse, who returned a brilliant smile. He leant over Calypso and looked carefully at her eyes.
Calypso blinked and winked.
"Aye, we'll unbind her." he said, with a voice like an avalanche. It grated nastily on Calypso's sore head.
The nurse nodded feverishly and the doctor reached into his uniform pocket and brought out.....
a wand.
He pointed it at Calypso and muttered something. Calypso didn't care which spell he used, because with a sudden jolt, she discovered she could move and speak.
"Hoy now!" the doctor cried as she tried to sit up. "Dinna move!"
Calypso was only too happy to oblige - just trying to sit up felt like someone had hit her in the back of the head with a sledgehammer. She flopped back into her plastic-y hospital bed.
"Who are you, love?" said the nurse sweetly.
"Cal...........Carla Grey." she replied raspingly. "Can I have a drink?"
The nurse beamed, and pulling a wand out of her pocket, conjured a glass of water into her hand and gave it with a flourish, to the parched Calypso.
Drinking gratefully, Calypso thought quickly. Wizard hospital. That's where I am. Watch your mouth honey.
Finished, she handed the glass back to the nurse and was forced to put up with the doctor pointing his wand, now with a light at the end, into her eyes and ears.
The nurse was looking at Calypso quizzically.
"People usually ask 'where am I' or 'what happened'." she commented. "You're awfully quiet."
"Well, I can pretty confidently say I am in Wizard hospital and I was knocked out by the explosion at Peachgrove Village so why ask?" Calypso said stumblingly as the doctor looked down her throat.
The doctor muttered "Nox" and turned to speak to Calypso.
"Carla, we need to contact your family. You were knocked out so we wish to keep you overnight for observation. You also had three broken ribs and a cracked wrist but dinna worry, we healed those while you were unconscious."
There was a few moment's silence.
"A contact person?" the doctor demanded
"Uh....Remus Lupin." ventured Calypso finally.
"Relationship?" asked the nurse, scribbling the information down on a clipboard that had suddenly appeared in her hand.
"Uh.........I live with him at the moment." she replied hesitantly.
The nurse and doctor exchanged shocked looks over Calypso's bed.
There was more silence.
"How come I couldn't move?" asked Calypso.
"Ye had a head injury, so we put the Complete Body Bind on ye to stop ye movin an doin any more damage." replied the doctor. "How do ya feel?"
"Like I've been run over by a truck" she replied.
"Hmmm" said the doctor coldly.
"My head aches though" she added.
The doctor jumped, and quickly looked at her eyes again.
"Holy crap. Bleeding on the brain."
"NURSE!" he bellowed suddenly.
"Yes Doctor?" said the shocked little nurse.
"Get her into surgery now. Dr. Cortex should be free in Theatre three. I'll inform him now."
He turned to go, and looked back at the nurse.
"What are ya waiting for? GO!" he yelled.
The nurse quickly grabbed the end of Calypso's bed and, suddenly they were flying down the corridors again.
Calypso looked frantically from side to side as they raced down hallways in a blur of colour, and other nurses and doctors joined them. Just as she was about to tell the nurse to stop going so fast, she realized that the nurse wasn't pushing the bed - it was moving by itself. One doctor running alongside her bed grabbed her wrist and took her pulse with one hand, and with the other pointed her wand right between Calypso's eyes.
The world disintegrated into blackness again.
*
The sun was hot and the north-west wind was dry as the girl got off the bus. She leapt down the stairs onto the grass and ran along side the dirty green-and-yellow clanging contraption as it drove away, children laughing and waving out the windows. The bus left a swirling cloud of dust in its wake, and the girl slowed to a trot, waving back. She turned to a long driveway and walked with ease of practice over the smooth shining metal bars of the cowstop, never slipping once. Collecting the scanty mail out of the rough tin letterbox, she stuffed it in her purple backpack next to her lunchbox and started to walk up the bumpy driveway to the house at the top of the hill. Grass seeds flew in the air as she treked through the long, dry grass next to the fenceline. The girl leant over the fence to stroke the nose of a cow who had come to investigate, but it shied from her touch, rolling its great brown eyes dramatically. The girl reached out to touch it again, and felt coarse black and white hair under her fingers before the lumbering cow could move it's bulk away in time. The girl giggled an eleven-year old laugh, twin blonde plaits over her shoulders bouncing. She turned and ran the rest of the way up the driveway, plaits thumping and swaying, and grass seeds billowing as she ran her hand through the stalks as she ran.
Panting, she reached the house, shielded from the merciless sun by large, leafy, drooping trees that created an oasis of green in the burnt brown that was to be seen for miles in every direction. Birds flew from all places to go there, and as always the trees were singing with their voices. The girl stopped, panting under them, and pushed loose tendrils of hair off her face, and wiping sweat off her lightly freckled cheeks before walking serenely to the front door.
"Kuia!!!!!! I'm home Kuia! We had such a cool day today, we went swimming at the High School pools and I could dive right to the bottom of the deep end of the pool and........"
The girl started warbling away the moment she stepped in the door, and kept talking as she dropped her bag in the kitchen, after spotting a pile of pikelets sitting on a cooling rack, covered with a tea towel. Still nattering away, she located jam and cream and started loading a plate full of sticky, fresh pikelets.
"...and no-one else could do that, and the swimming coach said I had very developed lungs, and then Ian started telling him off because he thought he had said something rude and then Tessa jumped off the diving board and landed with a huge bomb and spalshed everyone's towels and Mike went and dunked her and got in heeeeaps of trouble coz it was all an accident coz she, I mean, Tessa, didn't meant to splash anyone she just didn't know how to dive..... hey Kuia, where are you?"
The girl started stuffing her face with sweet piklelets and walked back outside, looking around. The dry wind rustled the leaves in the giant trees and made swooshing sounds as the girl walked around the house and gardens, chewing pikelets. Finding birds, sheep and cows, but no Kuia, the girl looked puzzled, and absently fed a pikelet to an inquisitive and friendly old pet sheep. Where was Kuia?
Aaah, maybe she was in the toilet.
The girl went to the back door and followed a little paved path to the bottom end of the garden, to a little wooden outhouse. Knocking lightly on the heavy door, she called softly
"Kuuuuia? Ya in there?"
There was no response.
She pushed the door slowly open with a finger, but there was nothing in there apart from the toilet roll, a few old copies of Women's Weekly and the white painted wooden toilet seat over the can. The girl looked puzzled, shut the door and went back up the path to the house.
Opening the back door, she stuck her head inside, and called again.
"Hey Kuia, whaddare ya playing at? Where are ya?"
There was no reply.
The girl moved into the hallway, and opening each door off it as she walked along, investigated, calling each time for Kuia.
She put her hand on the bedroom door's large brass handle, and turned it slowly, opening the door just a crack. She peered through the gap to see into Kuia's bedroom. She could see the end of a large, cream four-poster bed, and a pair of wrinkled, callused old feet on the end of it.
"Kuia?" she whispered.
There was no reply.
Smiling, the girl slowly shut the door, and crept back outside. She went to the stone tub attached to the outside of the house and picked up a wicker washing basket and an apron full of pegs. Filling the basket up with wet, clean clothes and wrapping the apron around her waist, she reminded herself that Kuia was not young anymore. At her age, she thought, Kuia should be looking to buy one of those new washing things instead of doing it all the old way with a scrubbing board. But she knew what Kuia would have to say about that. Kuia liked doing things the old way - she disliked change, Ian said. But the girl knew that Kuia loved the feel of doing hard work, and washing, cooking and gardening was all about she was up to now. Humor the old woman, and let her scrub her clothes by hand, said Ian. But she's ruining her fingers! Protested the girl. Ian simply gave her that patronizing 'I'm seventeen and you're only eleven, and you say the cutest things' look that the girl always seemed to be getting those days.
Picking up the heavy basket of sodden clothes, the girl waddled over to the rickety washing line and started hanging up clothes and bed sheets with wooden pegs.
She loved it at Kuia's - not like at home. Kuia's was different. Even though Kuia was not really her Grandmother, the girl had always called her Kuia. And despite the girl being blue-eyed, having wheaten blonde and lightly freckled, unlike Kuia's deep, chocolate- brown skin, wavy gray hair and eyes so dark they looked black, the girl personally reckoned that Kuia was her Grandmother. Despite the fact that this was obviously not the case, the girl loved the old woman like she really was her Kuia. And the old woman loved her back like she was her mokopuna. There was a bond between them that no-one could explain.
Finished with pegging the clothes out in the dry north-westerly wind, the girl untied the peg apron and sneaked back inside to start making tea for Kuia before she had to go home. She didn't want to go home. She never wanted to go home. Before tea, she would always make excuses to stay at Kuia's - but Kuia always saw straight through them.
"Aaah my little mokopuna, you have to hurry along home now. I know what you are playing at, sweetie. You can't stay here. Your caregivers want you back home before six, eh?"
And oblivious to the girl's protests, she would always make sure she was home by six.
And the Kuia would wave from the top of the hill as the girl walked off along the road, with a strange, sad look of longing on her weather-beaten face.
*
Calypso woke up, feeling decidedly groggy.
"Gaaaah. Ugggggh."
A large, out-of-focus head zoomed into her view.
"And how are we feeling, Ms. Grey?"
"Terrible." She croaked.
"That's to be expected when you have been through the mill like you have."
"What's going on?" Calypso demanded in a scratchy voice suddenly.
The blurry head sailed in and out of focus, and finally settled on a sharp-nosed, middle aged woman with brown hair firmly pinned back on a tight bun.
"You are in the Recovery ward at St. Mungo's Hospital. I hear you were involved in the Peachgrove Village Disaster?" she said crisply as she scribbled something on a clipboard with a quill.
Calypso nodded.
"You were out of luck. You got clear of the blast, but when the shockwave hit the enchanted lane, it blew the spells to bits, and whacked you up quite badly. You should be fine now, though. We operated on your head - you had bleeding in the back of your skull from when you hit the fence. Lumos." The doctor lit the end of her wand, and Calypso suffered her eyes, ears and throat being inspected again.
Suddenly Calypso jumped.
"Shit! Snuffles! Aaah, I mean, my dog - what happened to my dog?" she added apologetically to the doctor, who looked shocked at the swear word.
"Your dog was collected by a certain Mr. Lupin, I do believe."
Calypso sighed and sank back into her bed.
"So how long do I have to stay here for?" she asked.
"At least three days, maybe four" said the doctor with a shrug of her shoulders.
Calypso smiled wryly. It could have been worse, she thought.
The doctor had her back to Calypso, and seemed to be busy combining things from a chrome trolley. Turning back around, she handed Calypso a glass phial filled with a deep blue liquid that was smoking lightly.
"Sleeping Potion. You need to get all the sleep you can after a head injury. When you wake up, you will be in a general ward, and should be well enough to receive visitors."
Calypso didn't argue. Then a sudden thought struck her.
"I have visitors?"
The doctor raised an eyebrow.
"Oh yes dear. Quite important ones, too."
Calypso opened her mouth to ask who they were, but the doctor gave her a withering look and shoved the phial at her. Meekly, Calypso took it, and drank deeply.
It tasted queer, like bubblegum and lemonade and yogurt and peas all blended together, was icy cold and kept smoking on the way down. But it worked. Calypso only had time to lie back on her bed before seeing the doctor smiling self-satisfactorily at a potion well brewed as her eyelids became heavier and heavier and heavier...........
Calypso's sweet oblivion was interrupted by a vision.
Calypso found herself standing in a large room, fully three stories high, dominated by a huge, long, wooden desk that ran like a horseshoe in the center of the hall. Behind the desk was a wall of cubbyholes, and a women and men in shapeless red shifts were posting pieces of paper into them, which disappeared as soon as it left their hands. Looking around, Calypso concluded that this must be the reception for St. Mungos. There was a large, impressive entranceway with elaborate swinging doors carved with pictures of healing and harmony. Surrounding the walls of the reception were numerous squishy chairs, is random, but intense colors. People sitting in these armchairs had views out of the windows of a hot, busy street, with cars and people rushing past, but no-one outside looked in at the reception. They didn't seem to notice it at all. In the chairs at the corner, a young man was sitting, looking intensely worried. An elderly woman in lime-green robes stroked his arm soothingly, but to no avail. Expectant father, Calypso thought. Other people in shocking colored robes sat around, waiting, watching, crying, joyful, shocked, pleased, anxious...... Calypso watched as a doctor in blue robes walked up to the worried man and said something. Calypso's vision had no sound. Whatever the doctor said must have been good news, as the man leapt up, gave the doctor a crushing bear-hug, and ran out a side door leading further into the hospital. Calypso grinned as the doctor recovered his breath, and walked up to the long desk. After saying something to a man dressed in red robes, he turned to leave, and the man in red robes - a receptionist, obviously - scribbled something on a piece of parchment with a quill, and, to Calypso's confusion, held the piece of paper high up in the air. An owl dropped out of mid air to land silently on the desk. It was a tiny little owl, so small it could have fit in the receptionist's hand. The receptionist began tying the piece of paper to the owl's tiny leg, and Calypso looked up.
The ceiling was littered with owls flying around - large, small, but all various shades of white. There was no visible roost, but there were large gaps in the wall, high up, where owls were flying in and out with the greatest of ease. As Calypso watched, a large owl flew gracefully in and dropped to the reception desk. A woman in red met it, and ripped the letter off it's leg.
She read it, and looked up. She said something, and another receptionist nodded. They both began writing, and held up pieces of paper. Again, two tiny owls dropped to the desk, and the receptionists attached the notes to their legs. The owls took flight, but flew straight into the cubby holes.... and disappeared. Within thirty seconds, two doctors, both tailed by nurses, burst through the doorways off the side of the reception. A few brief words were exchanged between doctors and receptionists, and they all turned to look at the entranceway.
Right on cue, the swinging doors burst open, and in rushed four wizards, surrounding a body lying on an invisible stretcher. Calypso looked at the body on the stretcher, and gave a gasp. Bouncing up and down on the man's stomach, was....
a monkey dressed up in Jamacian clothes. It had dreadlocks, a yellow, red and green teacosy hat, a shirt printed with Bob Marley faces and khaki shorts. The monkey was screaming a high pitched monkey scream that ran chills up and down Calypso's back. She could hear the monkey.
The dreadlocked monkey started tearing at the man's robes, and gripping them, thrashed back and forward. He leant forward and bit at the man's throat, tearing flesh, and then resumed bouncing hard up and down, making the man's body convulse spastically. Calypso ran over to the monkey, just as the team of doctors and nurses were doing the same.
"Stop it!" she screamed futilely at the monkey.
It bared its teeth and hissed at her, then resumed screaming.
Calypso looked around hopelessly at the team of doctors, who were now racing the man on the invisible stretcher towards the innards of the hospital, yelling at each other, and trying spell after spell to stop the convulsions. Running alongside them, Calypso suddenly had a thought - they can't see the monkey. She looked back at the monkey, and straight into it's eyes. The monkey stated back at her, dreadlocks swinging madly. Calypso felt her stomach freeze. The monkey's eyes were blood red.......
Calypso woke again, shuddering violently. A nurse grabbed her shoulder. She opened her eyes.
Large, concerned, hazel eyes looked back into hers.
"You OK, hon?"
"Yeah......just bad dreams" Calypso lied.
She looked around. She was now in a large, long ward, much like the ones before, but with a few notable differences. The people in this ward were awake and moving. Some were reading books, some were talking, others practicing spells with their wands, others writing. Some were simply looking bored. All were surrounded with bouquets of flowers, gifts, posters and bowls of fruit. Calypso looked at her little bedside table. It was bare.
"The doctor will be with you in a minute" said the hazel-eyed nurse, who turned and walked over to a man who was shooting green sparks from the end of his wand.
It was now or never, Calypso though. Careful to make sure no-one was looking, she pulled the covers aside and slipped out of bed. The wizard doctors had done a good job with her head - she felt no pain or dizziness as she silently stood up. Apparently though, they hadn't quite mastered healing bruises though - Calypso winced as her body ached in uncountable spots. Looking around again, Calypso walked purposefully to the end of the hall and pushed open one of the swinging doors.
In the hall, Calypso was faced with a decision - left or right? Deciding to go right, Calypso had only taken two steps before she felt a familiar feeling in her head. The buzz.
It wanted her to go left.
Dammit, thought Calypso angrily. I thought I had got rid of that thing for good! But she obediently turned to the left and jogged down the corridor.
From behind her, she heard a yell.
Crap, she thought. That was quick. The doors banged open.
"OI! COME BACK HERE YOU!!!"
Calypso broke out into a run
"STOP!"
She stretched out her legs and ate up the lino.
"Goddammit STOP! STUPEFY!"
Calypso leapt and landed on her hands as a beam of green light shot past her, missing her right arm by inches. She did a forward roll, and leapt smoothly back up onto her feet and kept running, never missing a beat.
Right! Cried the buzz
Calypso skidded around the corner, and kept on running.
There was more yelling behind her as more people joined in the chase. Feet pounding on the lino, Calypso turned left, right, straight ahead, down a flight of stairs, left, left, right, second to left, and right.
The pursuers crashed past down the hallway and turned the corner. Calypso lithely dropped from the ceiling without a sound, and crouching spider-like for a few seconds, stood up and back-tracked a little before turning right down another passage.
Wait, said the buzz. Smart idea, Calypso thought. At this rate she would be too early, and besides, she was puffed. She hadn't down any real running since she had boarded the first plane to America, and was starting to feel the effects of it. Breathing deeply, she put her hands on her thighs and rested for a second. That was when she saw the picture on the wall. A wizard photo, it was old, black and white, and featured a sharp looking nurse with ironed creases down the front of her white robes. The nurse was peering curiously at the panting Calypso.
"'Scuse me, but do you happen to know where the reception hall is from here?" Calypso asked politely.
"Of course I do. It's the third left, and then the second right. You can't miss it." She replied crisply.
"Thank you" said Calypso breathily, and turned to continue to the reception at a more leisurely pace. But no sooner had she turned than the nurse in the photo gave a gasp and let rip.
"ESCAPED PATIENT IN THE PEADATRIC CORRIDOR! HEEEELP!"
Calypso swore loudly and broke into a run. Did she have, she thought, a large red stamp on her forehead that read 'Escaped patient from Mental Asylum - please give chase?'
Doors flashed by, and curious heads popped out as she dashed past, long legs working hard to give her the extra few metres on her chasers. She could hear them behind her, and more were gaining the pack every second. She dashed around the corner of the third left corridor, not bothering to slow down, and ran straight into someone.
"Aarugh!"
"Oomph!"
"Calypso! What the hell are you doi..."
"Remus!"
Calypso was just as shocked as Remus was. She broke free of his grasp and dashed further down the corridor, which was now wider and had signs pointing to the reception and exit. Just ahead of her, she could see the dual team of doctors and nurses dashing to attend the man with the dreadlocked monkey, and a confused and winded looking doctor waking the other way. Right on time, she thought.
"Calypso! Fuck! Come back here now!" she heard Remus yell from behind her.
Calypso didn't even slow down. What is wrong with these people? Even Remus. She hit the swinging doors at the end of the corridors hard, to the sound of another STUPEFY! And a jet of green light bounced off the swinging doors as she disappeared through them.
On the other side, Calypso looked quickly around. It was all the same as in her vision, from the identical doctors attending the man on the stretcher, to the people sitting in the armchairs. The only difference was that she could no longer see the monkey - only what it was doing. The man in the stretcher was thrashing about wildly, and suddenly flesh tore off his throat and blood spurted everywhere. The people in the chairs watched in morbid fascination as the doctors tried charm after charm, all to no avail. Calypso dashed up to the stretcher and muscled her way in.
Raking her eyes over the convulsing man, her eyes were drawn to the clasp on his cloak. It was a blood red stone, just like the monkey's eyes. Quickly, before anyone could object, she ripped the clasp off his cloak, and turning, hurled it at the floor.
With a sharp crack, the stone shattered on the marble floor into a thousand tiny, clear shards. From the slivers came a thick, slow moving, green and red smoke that wormed it's way up in the air in front of Calypso. The vapors twisted and twirled, and finally formed the same shape she had seen above the supermarket in Peachgrove, the snake with a pointed tongue.....then it spread, and rose higher, until it reached the owls swooping above. Several breathed in the fumes and came plummeting to the ground.
Behind Calypso, the man had stopped convulsing, and was now breathing raggedly. The doctors and people on the couches were all staring at the floor, the air and at Calypso. Turning, Calypso stared back at them.
"What are you staring at? Have I grown a second head or something? Remus, what's going on?" she demanded as Remus and a group of puffed doctors, nurses and orderlies moved forward, wands at the ready.
Suddenly, Calypso felt a breeze where there shouldn't be a breeze.
Some things never change, whether in a muggle or wizard hospital - like the plastic sheets on the beds, the sickly green paint scheme, the creaky beds......
And hospital nighties with only one little lace to keep them together at the back.
Calypso flushed beetroot red and clapped her hands over her bare buttocks.
"Whoops." Was all she could say, standing uncomfortably on one foot.
Later on, Calypso couldn't remember the next few seconds clearly at all. They were all a blur of people running, yelling, people apparating, screaming, shooting spells at the air where the snake-smoke had been, bringing a hail of stupeied owls raining down on everyone, and in the middle of it all, Calypso wearing next to nothing and totally confused and embarrassed.
She was only saved by the cherry little nurse she had first encountered throwing a cloak over her shoulder and dragging her out of the middle of the fray. Back on the corridors, the nurse opened a door and maneuvered Calypso into a chair.
"Stay there" she said firmly.
"And no more streaking" she added with a wink.
Sitting in the chair, highly embarrassed, Calypso didn't think she could ever face anyone in that hall ever again. Shaaaame! She though. Showing my ass to everyone apart the pope. Dammit you are an idiot.
After twenty minutes, though, the chaos outside had diminished to mere rumblings, and the nurse slipped back inside the door. Pressing her finger to her lips, she beckoned to Calypso to follow her. Squeezing out the door and down deserted corridors, the eventually wound up in a small room filled with cupboards.
The nurse opened a cupboard and started pulling out underwear and robes.
"What's this for?" asked a bemused Calypso
The little nurse shot her an amused look.
"What, you think you can meet the two most influential wizards in the whole of England in a hospital gown? Geez, that won't do at all. Tell you what, if it hadn't been under such serious circumstances, this would have been one of the funniest days of my life in this hospital, even better than the time Dr. Rowley enchanted nurse Ethyl's potion schedule....." the nurse talked non-stop as she handed Calypso underwear, shoes and deep navy robes and Calypso, still scarlet, dragged them on. The nurse, still talking, then took her wand and charmed Calypso's hair to lie flat and vanished the bags under her eyes before propelling her out the door and down the winding corridors to another room
"This is where I leave you, love. Good luck, and thanks for the laugh!" she said , before shutting the door.
Calypso looked around despairingly. This must be a waiting room, she thought. There were two chairs and another door off it. She took a seat, and thought miserably about what she had just done. She was just reliving the moment when she realized she was showing everyone her bum when the outside door swung open and in walked a disheveled Remus Lupin.
Calypso flushed again.
Remus took the empty seat next to Calypso.
"Do you realize what you have just done?" he asked quietly
"Yeah, make a major ASS in front of everyone in this hospital" she replied miserably.
Remus smiled
"No, you idiot, you saved a man's life. A rather important man's life, and you will probably be congratulated on that. Add that to the hundreds you saved two days ago at Peachgrove Village, and......"
The door swung open.
Remus looked at Calypso, who was busy looking at the floor.
"I guess that's our cue to come in" he said cheerfully and offered Calypso his outstretched hand.
"C'mon, get over it. It wasn't that bad, and it was rather funny at the time."
Calypso looked up slowly, and smiled wryly.
"I guess I've done worse things when I've been drunk." She said, and took Remus's hand.
Remus smiled.
"Come and meet a good friend of mine. I think you'll like him. He's wanted to meet you for some time...."
Well, by now you should know how much I just looooove having reviews, and since I adore flames too, go right ahead. Now, peoples, I have spent HOURS of my time that I should have been spending doing Calculus revision writing this, so the very LEAST you can do is take a few measly SECONDS of your time to review. So, what are you waiting for? C'mon, I'd love to hear from you!