Human.4

The first explanation was scary because our parents are always supposed to have the answers to our questions.

The second explanation was worse still.

That they knew exactly what had happened and were keeping it from me.

But what reason could they have for lying to me?

The questions kept circling around in my head, and I would have given anything for them to stop. But they wouldn't.

What had really happened to us all?

I couldn’t sort this out on my own.

I tried the TV I’ve got in my room, which meant hunting for the remote control in the chaos that covered the floor. I turned over books and comics, clothes and papers, finally finding it hiding under my pillow.

I stabbed the 'on' button with my thumb and the TV was all white.

Still no way of seeing what was going on in the rest of the world.

I found myself wishing that my parents had bought me the laptop I’d been asking for. The one I’ll get when my schoolwork improves, or when I stop daydreaming, or when I start keeping my room tidy.

The only computer in the house was my dad’s, in his study, but I didn’t trust my parents and was pretty sure he wouldn’t want me using it.

So who could I trust?

There were only three names on my list: the three people who had been with me when the rest of the village played musical statues.

Top of that list was Lilly.

Sure, she hated me because I dumped her and never gave her a reason.

But. But. But.

Why should that get in the way?

She’d never know how much it hurt to let her out of my life, or how much I’ve regretted it every time I’ve seen her and Simon together.

We’d been through the same events.

I needed to speak to her.

I sat up.

If I saw Lilly, then Simon would most likely be there too, and maybe I could see if he was acting oddly too.

I could find out what he remembered about the talent show, and see if it matched my parents' memory or mine.

I’d made up my mind.

I was going to get to the bottom of this.

***

I got downstairs to find Dad standing in the hall, seemingly studying the wallpaper.

And, more importantly, he was blocking the front door.

He made a show of pretending he wasn’t waiting for me, but had no other reason for standing where he was. He turned when he heard me on the stairs and his face lit up as if he was pleased to see me. Didn’t make it to his eyes, though. They looked at me coldly.

'Ah, Kyle,' he said. 'Are you feeling better?'

I nodded.

'I’m fine,' I told him. 'Lying down seems to have cleared my head a bit.'

'Good.' Dad nodded, perhaps to demonstrate that this was indeed good. 'There’s someone here to see you.'

I hadn’t heard anyone arrive, but then I had been sort of lost in my own thoughts.

So who was it?

Lilly? That had to be who it was. She probably had a whole bunch of questions that needed answers too. Well, she’d beaten me to it.

Dad opened the living-room door and ushered me in.

Mum was sitting in her chair, the one with the various remote controls in pouches on the arm, while the other chair was occupied by our local GP, Doctor Campbell.

The last time I’d seen him had been months ago, when I’d injured my wrist playing tennis with Simon.

Dad followed me in and pointedly shut the living-room door behind him.

'Hello, Kyle,' the doctor said, his old face watchful.

'Hi,' I said, my mind racing.

I sat down at one end of the sofa, while Dad took a seat at the other end, leaving plenty of distance between us. The three adults looked dreadfully serious, and if I didn’t know better I’d have thought I was in a great deal of trouble for something I had done.

Doctor Campbell smiled at me, but it was a controlled smile. He smoothed out some wrinkles from his trouser leg.

'Your parents asked me over,' he said. 'They thought that you might be feeling . . . ill.'

I smiled back.

'Me?' I said. 'I'm fine.'

'Good. Good.' The doctor nodded. 'So you don’t feel feverish? Or disorientated?’

'No, I really am fine.'

'Your parents are quite worried about you.' His eyes narrowed to slits and it looked like he was watching for my reactions to his words. 'That was quite a story you told them earlier, wasn’t it?'

I didn’t like this.

I didn’t like it at all.

My mouth was dry and I felt panicked. I didn’t answer. I just sat there looking at the doctor, wondering where this was going.

Doctor Campbell sighed.

'Tell me what happened today,' he said, and his voice had a coaxing tone to it.

'I don’t know,' I said. 'I mean, I’m really not sure.'

'But your parents told me what you told them; that everyone in the village turned to statues for . . . how long did you say?'

He raised an overly furry eyebrow at me.

I shook my head.

'I didn’t.' My throat felt scratchy.

He was scrutinising me as if I were a germ under his microscope.

'You didn’t say? Or you didn’t really experience it?'

I nodded. Evasive.

The doctor frowned, turned to my dad and said, 'I’m getting nowhere. Perhaps you could try…?'

Dad tried to give me a reassuring smile.

'C’mon, Kyle,' he urged. 'Just tell the doctor what you told us. Maybe he can help.'

For some odd reason I got the impression that helping me wasn’t very high on Doc Campbell’s list of goals here. So I made a deliberate show of massaging my temples and squeezing my eyes shut, as if I were desperately trying to remember something. It wasn’t an Oscar-worthy performance, but it wasn’t half bad.

'I . . . I can’t remember,' I said after a few moments. 'I think I nodded off upstairs and it’s all just slipping away.'

The doctor shrugged.

'I suspect that you have had some kind of reaction to the hypnosis,' he said gravely. 'A dream, if you like, while in a highly suggestible state. Your mind has invented an alternative version of reality where it was everyone else who got hypnotized , while you and other volunteers were the only ones that were really awake. It’s a kind of inverted version of the way things really were.'

He brushed at his trouser leg again, his eyes never leaving mine.

'You need to sleep,' he said. 'It will give your mind time to sort itself out, allow it to put fantasy and reality