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“She’s not a nutter,” Rory repeated firmly. “She’s not. I actually know her, yeah? Okay? You lot just hear things.”
“I heard she went to see psycho mad doctors,” said Tim knowledgeably without even a hint of irony. “That’s what I heard.” He and the other four boys turned to look expectantly at Rory. He looked sideways and didn’t meet their eyes.
“I knew it!” said Tim triumphantly, and “Well, that settles it,” said Will. “She wouldn’t be going to a psycho-doctor if she wasn’t mad. There’d be no point, else.”
“She’s going to a psychiatrist cos folk like you THINK she’s mad,” said Rory.
There was a pause as the other boys considered this.
“Well?” asked Evan eventually.
“Well what?”
“IS she?”
“No!” said Rory, exasperated. “I said.”
“What about the psycharists?” asked Will, folding his arms. “What do THEY say?”
“Just leave it, alright?” said Rory. “What about why we’re here, already? Kicking a ball about.”
“Okay,” said Jeff, who had the football and was getting bored of this. Rory didn’t even have time to look relieved before Will shook his head.
“No,” he said. “We all want to know. Maybe she’s dangerous and you’re hiding it.”
“She IS dangerous,” said Kevin. “She BIT me, once.” Rory glared at him. He didn’t like Kevin.
“Yeah, cos you’d nicked her backpack and were holding it away from her calling her a mad, witchy ginger.”
“I was only having a bit of fun,” said Kevin. “It didn’t call for biting. She’s a menace. She prob’ly gave me rabies!”
“You prob’ly gave HER rabies,” snapped Rory.
“Just tell us,” Evan interrupted.
“I don’t know, alright?” said Rory. “It’s a secret, what’s said in those meetings.”
“I reckon they’d give her a signed bit of paper, though,” said Tim. “Saying ‘Not A Loony’ on it maybe.”
“What?” said Rory. “Why’d they do that?”
“So she can prove she’s not,” said Tim.
“Yeah!” said Will, warming to the idea. “We should get to see proof and that. Ask her if she’s got one of those, Rory.”
“No,” said Rory. “This is daft. If we’re not playing football, I’m going home.”
“Fine,” said Will. “We’ll just ask her ourselves, then.”
“It’s a dumb idea, and you’re all being stupid,” said Rory, and stormed off.
“Are we really not playing football?” said Jeff, sounding disgruntled, before Rory was quite out of earshot. “I carried this here for nothing?”
Rory went in the direction of home but he didn’t actually go home. Instead, he went across the street to Amelia’s and knocked.
“Come in!” Amelia yelled through the open upstairs window after a moment, and Rory opened the door and went upstairs to look for her. She had paper and pencil crayons spread out across the floor of her bedroom, and she was lying on her stomach, doing pictures of her and the Raggedy Doctor. She’d even stuck Rory into one of them, which he almost felt oddly relieved about.
“Do you want to draw?” asked Amelia, and shoved some paper to the side for him without waiting for him to answer. Rory didn’t, really, but he sat down and started drawing anyway. He’d picked up a brownish-red sort of pencil, so it was going to be a house.
“When you…” he said, and then trailed off. “You know the doctor your aunt keeps sending you to?”
“Yeah,” said Amelia, only paying half attention as she coloured in a green skirt she’d drawn on her picture-self.
“Has she ever given you signed paper or anything?”
“If I have to miss school ever,” said Amelia. “That only happened once, though.”
“No…” said Rory, carefully drawing in windows. “I meant like…a piece of paper saying there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Oh, that sort,” said Amelia, frowning. “Well, they wouldn’t would they? They think there’s LOADS wrong with me. THEY keep saying my Raggedy Doctor’s an illusion. A delusion, I mean.” She eyed Rory. “Why? Do you think I’m making him up too?”
“No,” said Rory. Amelia wasn’t mad. She wasn’t what mad people acted like, surely. If she said she’d met a man with a magical box, then she had. Somehow. Just because magic seemed less and less likely the older he got, it didn’t mean it didn’t happen to Amelia. If anyone, Amelia.
“Good,” said Amelia, nodding at him. “He’s real, and he’s gonna come back because he said he would. And then I’m gonna go with him.” Rory nodded and absent-mindedly started to draw Amelia in beside the house because he was still holding a red pencil crayon from doing the door. He’d heard this same affirmation from Amelia time and again. She just needed to say it out loud sometimes, he supposed.
“It’s alright if you come, you know,” she added. “You just have to make sure you pack really fast. Or maybe I’ll tell you I’m going and we’ll come back and get you when you’re ready.”
“What bit will I miss out on?” asked Rory obediently. Amelia grinned at him. “Just the bit with dragons,” she said. “You wouldn’t like that anyway cos you don’t like fire.”
“I don’t like us lighting fires in the woods without any adults,” said Rory defensively, and Amelia rolled her eyes at him.
“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, there’ll be all these dragons but I won’t be scared, and neither will the Raggedy Doctor be.”
“Are they bad dragons, or nice dragons?” Rory asked. Now that he’d finished drawing Amelia and the house, he was realising that it seemed a bit weird, just that in the picture. Picture of Amelia. He’d put himself in and it could be them outside Amelia’s house. Amelia pondered Rory’s question as Rory reached over to grab a brown pencil crayon.
“Both. They’re having a war. And we get to fly on the nice dragons during it and we don’t get burnt at all because we’re on the fastest dragons there.”
“They’re going to come and ask you about the note like I did,” said Rory. Amelia gave him a look. He never interrupted talking about the Raggedy Doctor. He’s the prompter. That’s what he did, not…interrupting.
“What? Who?”
“The guys. You know. They think if you don’t have a note that says you’re not mad, then it means you’re mad.”
“Oh,” said Amelia, wrinkling her brow as she thought. And then grinned. “Okay, I’ve got a plan.”
“…please tell me it’s not a brick in your rucksack again,” said Rory.
“I gave up on that one,” said Amelia. “It squashed my lunch. Look, we’ll just go on Aunt Sharon’s computer and make a really official looking bit of paper and then put a squiggle on it.”
“Oh. That’s actually a good idea.”
“Of COURSE it is,” said Amelia a bit huffily. “Come on, we’ll do it now. You can come up with the big words.”
“Okay, just a sec,” said Rory. He finished drawing himself into his picture and then stood up and followed Amelia into her aunt’s study.