Alyzon Whitestarr Read Online Free Page B

a concussion from a very hard bump on the head.” She paused. “Alyzon, it seems as if your memory is intact. Can you tell me what happened just before you blacked out last time?”
    “I … I’m not sure. Everything seemed so bright and loud, and there was so much shouting and crying and all of these weird smells ….”
    She nodded as if she had expected the answer. “A hard bang on the head can cause your senses to become confused and magnified, and produce a lot of odd sensations. How is it now?”
    “I can still smell a lot of stuff that … well, that doesn’t seem to come from anything. But it’s not as bad as it was. No one is yelling.”
    “I had the nurses give you a drug to dull your senses slightly when I thought that might be the reason you were not waking up. But don’t worry, they will gradually go back to normal.”
    “How long have I been here?” I asked.
    Another silence, this one longer and as heavy as a block of metal. The smell of cloves grew stronger, but there was also a peppermint smell. “You have been here a month,” Dr. Reed said.
    I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say.
    “It’s somewhat unusual for a blackout caused by concussion to last so long, but not unheard of; in any case you are awake now,” Dr. Reed said briskly. She stood up. “Well, I’d better let your father know the good news. He’s walking the grounds.” At the door, she hesitated. “Try to rest and don’t worry about anything.”
    After she had closed the door behind her, I felt limp with exhaustion.
    * * *
    “Alyzon?”
    Da’s voice groped for me, and I let it lift me gently to wakefulness. The room was still dark, and Da was kneeling beside the bed. Again I could smell coffee grounds but, as with Dr. Reed’s scent, it was weaker than when I had first woken. Oddly, the pine-needle smell seemed stronger than when I had first smelled it before. Then I reminded myself that I wasn’t smelling any of those things. It was my confused senses making them up, and it would be a lot worse without the sense-numbing drugs Dr. Reed had prescribed.
    “Da, Dr. Reed said I’ve been asleep for a month,” I whispered. “What’s wrong with me?”
    “Nothing permanent, I swear,” Da promised. The pine-needle smell seemed to get stronger. “Dr. Reed says you can come home in a couple of days. They just want to do a few tests first.”
    “What sort of tests?”
    “They’re a bit puzzled about why you slept so long.” Maybe I looked scared, because Da touched my hand lightly,and at once I seemed to feel his fear pressing against me like a hot panting dog.
    I shifted my hand away. “What happened about Mum’s show?”
    Da gave a breathy laugh. “The last thing Zambia has wanted to think about is exhibiting.”
    “You didn’t miss the gig with Urban Dingo?”
    He laughed incredulously. “You remember that? It’s coming up. I wanted to pull out, but the band would have lost the gig. Now I don’t have to worry. Maybe you’ll be well enough to come along and cheer your old da on.”
    “Maybe,” I said, thinking:
He is telling me he wasn’t sure I would wake up.
    * * *
    That evening, early, Dr. Reed came with another doctor and they did a series of tests. The next day I had a CAT scan and some other tests that involved electrodes being glued to my head and connected to beeping machines. Nothing hurt, but the doctors’ presence was the hardest thing to endure because of how the concussion had affected my senses. I was drained by the smells and the bursts of emotion I felt whenever they touched me.
    At one point I tried to tell Dr. Reed about how the smells seemed to be associated with people, but a doctor I had not seen before had come in to mess with the machines and he snapped at me: there were no smells; I was just imagining them because of the concussion. Then he started talking to Dr. Reed about prescribing a stronger sense suppressant. Hecame over to the bedside as he spoke, and I nearly gagged