Chapter 9: Charlie

Gordon was quick to heal and made steady improvement over the next few days. As he recovered, the family started to go their separate ways again. Scott persuaded Virgil to go back to Base so International Rescue could be ready for rescues, albeit with a reduced number of rescuers as Alan stayed in England and John went back to Thunderbird 5. Grandma, Tin Tin and Jeff also stayed at the hospital to keep an eye on Gordon but Brains was side-tracked by some fellow research scientists and spent many happy hours in the labs at a nearby university.

Gordon appreciated the concern that everyone was showing him but with four members of the family taking shifts at the hospital and the rest of his brothers calling him up regularly he found it hard to get as much rest as he would have liked. One Wednesday afternoon he found himself alone in his room for once and was just drifting off into a snooze when the door to his room was swung open with a bang. To Gordon's astonishment a clown bounced into his room.

"Hello, Gordon!" exclaimed the clown, cheerfully. The clown then proceeded to juggle some balls as Gordon stared. Then he pocketed the balls, pulled out a balloon and proceeded to blow it up.

"I can make this into anything you want. What will it be? A sword, a dog…?"

Gordon finally found his voice.

"Who the hell are you?" At his tone, the clown's enthusiasm faltered.

"I'm Charlie…." Charlie noticed the extremely irritated expression on Gordon's face. "…the Clown," he finished lamely.

"I can see that. Lose your way to the children's ward, did you?"

Charlie looked confused. "You are Gordon, right?"

"That's right. Gordon who hates clowns," Gordon replied darkly.

The clown started to fish about in his pocket. "I was told you were an adult with learning difficulties." He consulted a small notepad. "It says here you have a mental age of 4?" Charlie looked hopefully at Gordon but could see by his patient's mounting anger that he had been misinformed.

"Who in the hell told you that?" demanded Gordon furiously. The clown thought for a moment and consulted his notebook again.

"Er…I don't think I have his name. Oh, I remember, he told me to give you this." The clown delved about in another pocket, pulled something out and passed it to Gordon.

Gordon looked at the object in his hand. It was a very pink, very fluffy feather. Suddenly his anger disappeared. He was generous enough of spirit to appreciate skill in others when he came across it.

"Good one, Virgil," he said and smiled.

THE END