“But I’m a scientist. My job is to dig holes – everywhere.”

  “I had a near-death experience once,” said The Girl.

  “Really?”

  “I was in a car crash and we nearly died; so in a sense, it was near death. It wasn’t otherworldly. I didn’t see my grandma or my first dog. What I can say is that it was the calmest I’ve ever felt in my life. The second my sister let go of the wheel I just thought instantly, ‘This is it, I’m gonna die’. Then everything went slow and quiet, and I remember I had never felt that amount of peace before in my life; just waiting for a truck to swipe into the side of us. No amount of meditating can make you feel that at ease, I tell ya.”

  “Were you hurt?”

  “You mean is this how I lost my vagina?”

  Isaac almost swallowed his tongue.

  “Jesus, no. That’s not what I meant.”

  And now the thought really entered his mind.

  “Do you really not have a vagina?” he asked, carefully.

  The Girl laughed.

  “What do you think?” she said. “I’m an alien, Isaac. I have no use for one. My human suit didn’t come with one. Just this specific pair of jeans.”

  Every muscle in Isaac’s face stretched, twisted, and turned.

  “You know why I love this place?” asked The Girl, letting go of Isaac’s hands and bouncing around on her own again, twisting and gyrating her body, and flinging her arms around like long fleshy streamers.

  “Why?” said Isaac, following her back into the club.

  “Because you can be whoever or whatever you want to be. That there is my planet,” she said, pointing to the stage before diving backward into the crowd with a gigantic smile on her face. “This is my home.”

  By the end of the night it was just the two of them, still dancing and still singing – their voices hoarse but their spirit just as potent as when the night started. When she jumped, he jumped. And when he sang, her voice was always right there beside his. Neither of them looked like tiring.

  “This is awesome,” shouted The Girl, bouncing around.

  “You’re awesome,” shouted Isaac in return.

  Instantly he turned bright red. His smile became oddly shaped and if he had a shell, he would retreat into it without a moment’s notice. The Girl, though, bounced towards him completely unfazed by his bout of awkwardness and hugged him as tight as she could; and as if something like that were no big deal, she bounced off again, swinging her arms in circles and inviting him to join her.

  Isaac stood there shell-shocked and stupid. The redness on his face waned as if she had shot him point-blank, and his awkwardness was bleeding from the wound.

  “You wanna go somewhere?” he said, not wanting this night to ever end. “Get a drink somewhere else; somewhere quieter.”

  “I don’t drink,” said The Girl.

  She was trying to walk on her hands from one side of the stage to the other.

  “Me neither,” said Isaac, though that was only partly true. “We could just talk or something.”

  His every instinct told him that if he let this moment slip away, he would never live it again. He felt like a fish in water or a monkey swinging from a tree. But he knew, the second he left here, if they weren’t together, he would end up back in his cage. And he would never be as free as felt now. He would never have a life that mattered.

  “We’re not supposed to,” said The Girl. “The rules of this place. No names, no promises, no problems.”

  “I know,” said Isaac.

  At the same, in the back of his head, he was telling himself, “Don’t sound desperate.”

  “It’s just….”

  ‘Be cool’ he said to himself, louder than he spoke.

  “We’re having such a good time so…”

  “So you thought you’d go and make it weird.”

  She was back on her feet now and looking serious.

  “I like you,” he said, almost throwing the words at her.

  “I like you too,” said The Girl.

  “No, I like you like you. I mean, I like being with you.”

  “I like being with you too,” she said as if all of this were patently obvious.

  Isaac looked spent. He wished he could just say exactly what he felt.

  “I like me,” he said, in a clear voice. “When I’m with you. I like being me. Don’t get me wrong,” he said in backward defense. “I’m not depressed. At least, I don’t think I am. It’s just; I’ve never felt how I felt when I’m with you. Oh, that sounds intense,” he said.

  “It did,” said The Girl laughing, but with a hint of nervous worry. “You’re not going to propose to me are you?”

  “That didn’t come outright. None of this is coming outright. I don’t know.”

  “Don’t think, just speak.”

  Isaac took a deep mind wiping breath.

  “Tonight was the most fun I’ve ever had,” he said, the truth spilling out of him like a belly full of flatulence. “And I don’t know why, maybe because people are so uptight or always talking about boring things, but I’ve never gotten on with anyone as well as I have with you. I’ve never felt as comfortable. I’ve never felt as happy or free. I don’t feel anxious with you. I don’t feel scared. I feel like I can literally do anything, anything in the whole world. And I’ve never felt like this before.”

  “Ok.”

  “Plus it’s late and there’s no taxis in this part of the city. It can be dangerous.”

  “You speaking for me or yourself?” she said, laughing. “I can handle my own. I’m a big girl. I’m not scared of anything. But if you need me to walk you home….”

  His manliness was totally in question but somehow she didn’t make it seem so.

  “Haha,” said Isaac, his humour sounding unrehearsed and forced. “I can defend myself.”

  If words were bullets, his would be the kind that tickled more than they stung.

  “I’m not saying we have to date or anything. No. Just, maybe, if tonight is all there is then maybe it doesn’t have to end. You’re special,” he said, finally, as if they were the only two words he had been pining over all along. “And I feel special when I’m hanging out with you. Life feels special. And I don’t want that to end; not yet anyway.”

  “Ok,” said The Girl.

  “Ok?”

  She was already walking towards the exit.

  “You coming or not?” she said as if it had been the plan all along.

  Track 31 (Yellow)

  “Are you coming or not?” said Isabel.

  “Mum said to stay here.”

  “So? That just means we have to be here when she gets back.”

  Her sense of adventure was only heightened by the thought of having to get back before anyone noticed anything at all. Considering how much there was to explore, she wondered if getting back was even a thing.

  “You can stay here if you want,” she said, knowing too well that he would never stay anywhere on his own. “But I’m gonna go look around.”

  It’s not like anyone would notice them anyway; they were all looking at their clipboards or their cell phones – and that’s when they weren’t just standing there staring at their shoes. Nobody had noticed them sitting here all this time, so who would notice them gone?

  “Up to you,” said Isabel, slowly walking away.

  She got maybe a foot or two before Nathan jumped off his seat feeling the cold breath of a specter on the seat beside him, biding its time to catch him alone.

  “Wait up,” he shouted. “Stop going so fast.”

  He reached out and grabbed her shirt making all the monsters in the world disappear.

  “Were you scared?” asked Isabel.

  Of course, he was, but she knew he liked to be consoled.

  “No,” he said in the toughest voice he could imagine. “Well, maybe just a bit.”

  “Don’t let go of my shirt then, got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “And when I say run, you run – ok?”

  Even though sometimes she could be a real pain, she was still probably the best bigger sister that ever existed. For starters, she was bigger than he was so she could see all the best places to hide and all the dangers too before they found them; that and she could sign her own name.

  “But don’t go too fast?”

  “We’ll just go fast enough so we don’t get caught,” she said.

  They were waiting by a closed set of doors that led to a corridor full of empty beds, wheel chairs, and trolleys, that went off in a hundred directions and had almost every room in the hospital connected to it.

  “You don’t have to worry,” said Isabel, bending over and resting both her hands on Nathan's shoulders, pressing her forehead against his. Her dad used to do the same thing when she was scared so she knew how much it worked, but now it was her turn to be brave.

  “I won’t leave you,” she said.

  There was no-one he trusted more than his big sister.

  “You promise?” he said.

  Everything hinged on the next two words.

  “I promise,” said Isabel.

  Then she gave her brother a giant back-breaking hug because she knew that little brothers needed to be squeezed just like teddy bears every now and then, even if it was as much for her as it was for him.

  “Knock, knock,” said Isabel.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Ground beef. No wait…. What do you call a cow with no arms and legs?”

  “What?”

  “Ground beef.”

  Isabel laughed first then Nathan followed, once he knew it was funny.

  “It’s funny cause the cow has no legs,” said Nathan laughing. “How does he walk around?”

  “What about when it poos?”

  “Ewwwwww.”

  “I know. That’s why it’s so funny. Can you imagine if you had no legs?”

  They both stopped and pondered.

  “Ha! That would be crazy. How would I walk?”

  “It’s like a paradox.”

  And that’s when she saw it.

  “I got a great idea,” she said. “Hop in the wheelchair and I’ll push you around. We’ll pretend you’re sick. Then you can push me.”

  There was not a degree of caution in the young boy, and neither should there be. The world was like a giant present waiting to be unraveled, and just like a box full of toys or sour candies; it had to be ripped apart with excited fingers.

  The two had been sitting on chairs for hours and both of their bums were flat and sore from all the waiting. If they had to sit any longer either their butts would explode or they’d turn into pancakes; both of which sounded hilarious but they’d probably die of boredom waiting for either of them to happen.

  “Woah,” said Isabel. “Look at the size of that elevator.”

  At the end of the hallway was the biggest elevator either of them had ever seen – in person or even on the TV. It was big enough to fit a jumbo jet and still have space for one of those people who sat on a chair and pressed all the buttons.

  “Where do you think it goes?” asked Nathan.

  The answer was either up or down but to the mind of a child, especially these two, it might as well have been a portal to another dimension but one where if you couldn’t defeat the bad guys, then they ended up becoming your friends.

  It wouldn’t be easy between here and there. As it was, they were exposed – out in the open and there were a lot of rooms and important looking people to pass on the way to the elevator. If they got caught, they’d have to sit on their butts for the rest of their lives whereas, if they made it, maybe they’d escape to a world where people had pillows instead of butts and sitting was like sleeping, but awake.

  “Go as fast as you can,” shouted Nathan.

  “Rocket blaster wheelchair ready for blast off in five, four, three, two….”

  All of a sudden there was only one thing that mattered in the universe and only one way to get there – the elevator and at the speed of light. A thousand things could go wrong. A nurse could drop a pen for example and it could get stuck under one of the wheels and they could tip and fall over. Or the police could come and arrest them once they found out Nathan still had both of his legs.

  This wasn’t going to be easy, but then again, what would be the point if it was. At least that’s what their dad always told them; always be curious, always be courageous, and always one step ahead of the rest. And that’s just what they were doing – daring to be the first to discover what it was like to ride the biggest elevator in the whole galaxy and to do it before mum got back.

  “Blastoff,” shouted Isabel.

  And she pushed as hard as she could, not even looking where they were going.

  “This is so much fun,” shouted Nathan, though in truth he was scared to death.

  They were going so fast that it felt like the wheelchair would fall to bits at any second. And that’s about how far away Nathan was from jumping out himself before they crashed into a wall or the engine exploded – that’s how scared he actually was.

  “Slow down,” said someone.

  And “Hey, watch it!” shouted someone else.

  It’s not like they did anything about it, though. They just jumped out of the way like everyone else a let the two kids whoosh past and then went back to whatever boring thing they were doing.

  “We made it!” said Isabel.

  She had half expected a thousand things to go wrong before they even got halfway down the corridor; of course, she didn’t tell any of that to Nathan or else he’d become a big chicken and wouldn’t want to be pushed.

  “My time to push now,” he said, climbing down from the chair.

  His legs wobbled as he did – that was all the fear escaping.

  “Don’t you want to see where the elevator goes?”

  She had a way of making the scariest things in the universe sound like they were easy-peezy. Once, when they were climbing in the back yard, she told him that grass was soft like jelly the higher you jumped – that was the first time he broke his arm.

  “Ok,” he said tentatively.

  The idea sounded more awesome on the other end of the corridor when there was probably no chance they’d actually do it. Most things were like that. It was always easier to imagine doing things; much more fun too.

  “Press the button,” said Isabel.

  She always did things like that – making Nathan do it. If they were ever in an elevator, he’d have to push the button; if they were in a parked car, he’d have to step on the clutch to make the car roll. But that’s just what big sisters did. They knew more stuff.

  Nathan could only reach the bottom half of the buttons, so he pushed them all.

  “I reckon there’ll probably be a toy room,” said Isabel. “What about you?”

  “I reckon there’ll probably be a toy room too,” said Nathan.

  She could have said anything and he’d repeat it verbatim.

  “Well kids come to hospitals too,” said Isabel. “So they’d have to have toys for the kids to play with because toys make kids happy and in hospitals, everybody is always crying all the time.”

  “They should have toys for grown-ups too,” said Nathan. “Then they wouldn’t be said either.”

  “I’m never gonna stop playing with toys.”

  “Me neither. I’m never gonna stop playing with mine. But why?”

  Two floors had already opened but none of them looked like they had anything remotely fun so they let the doors closed and continued on their journey, not knowing if they were going up, down, or left or right.

  “When people grow up they stop playing with their toys and instead they just work and clean up and drink beer all the time. When I’m a grown-up, I’m gonna play every day no matter what anyone says. And if I do have to come to a hospital, the first thing I’ll ask for is some toys.”

  “Me too,” said Nathan, but with a prophetic weight to his voice. “The other day at school,” he said as if confessing to a crime. “Toy day.”

  “Yeah, that was awesome,” said Isabel. “We played salon and I was the receptionist. But we had to pretend to put all the stuff on because our teacher doesn’t allow kids to bring it anymore.

  “I know,” said Nathan as if he had just found proof of the Yeti. “My teacher did the same. She took my toy chainsaw gun and she didn’t give it back until the end of school.”

  “Why did she do that?”

  “She said guns aren’t allowed in school.”

  “That’s so unfair.”

  “I know. All the other kids had toys and nobody would lend me theirs.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I pretended my ruler was a gun,” he said.

  “Yeah, teachers can be stupid sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” said Nathan, as if the idea were his alone. “Teachers can be stupid sometimes.”

  The doors opened on a floor with all sorts of people shouting and carrying on; some of them were bleeding. At one point, somebody picked up a chair and threw it across the room. It didn’t hit anybody but it sure was a crazy thing to do.

  “Let’s get off here,” said Isabel.

  She sure was courageous.

  “Maybe we should go back,” said Nathan. “What if mum’s waiting?”

  “She won’t be. Mums waiting for dad and he’s waiting for a surgeon and we’re waiting for mum. We’re still waiting,” she said. “It’s just were waiting here.”

  She made a sound argument.

  “I don’t know….”

  He didn’t want to say he was scared.

  “What are you…chicken?”

  “Am not!”

  “Well then prove it.”

  Then she jumped out of the elevator. She didn’t step out or walk out or even run out; she jumped as if it were the kind of thing that you couldn’t turn back from – like jumping off a cliff or being blasted into outer space.

  “No, Isabel, wait!”

  She’d only gone maybe a foot or two; close enough for him to reach out and almost grab her - far enough, though, for him to feel the diabolical fear of being on his own. And though outside the elevator looked downright dangerous, it was nothing compared to the thought of being left alone; especially in a place like this – and more so, especially in a big metal elevator with millions of buttons with doors on both sides that could go anywhere in the galaxy, and that’s if it didn’t swallow him up first.