Robbie Forgotten

13

Robbie couldn't fall asleep. The image of Sportacus' face kept floating up in his mind, how his smile had fallen just before he left. The look on his face had been there for only a second but Robbie had seen it. A look of doubt, or worse, disappointment. Robbie couldn't recall a time he'd ever seen the man look like that before.

Sportacus had assured Robbie that he'd done nothing wrong. So why did he feel like he had?

The questions Sportacus asked him had caught him off guard. They were questions he hadn't even asked of himself before. But with one stilted conversation Robbie had the answers whether he wanted them or not. He just didn't understand why.

Why wasn't he happy with things how they were now? All the evidence in his lair pointed to a past that was lonely and wretched. With the loss of his memory he'd gained so much more in return, a vibrant life full of food and fun and friends. He had a best friend, maybe even the best friend. After all, who wouldn't want their best friend to be a super hero?

But then why would Sportacus want his best friend to be... him?

Robbie rolled one way and turned another, bundled up in the sheets and blankets that made up his makeshift bed— sheets and blankets that Sportacus had donated to him. The tree house creaked with his movement and he could feel it sway gently in the branches. It almost felt like the time he'd stayed in the airship, and the ship had rocked a little even while anchored. The sensation only disturbed him more.

Robbie opened the hatch and climbed down the ladder in the dark. As hot as it got during the summer days the nights were brisk and he shivered when he reached the ground. He rubbed his arms and walked out of the park. There was only one place he could of think where he could go. It was colder down there but it had a big furry recliner with his name on it.

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Robbie didn't really expect that he would be able to sleep down in the lair. But come the next morning he was surprised to find that he had, a deep and dreamless sleep. When he awoke he had no sense of time. Without any clocks or windows letting in natural sunlight it was impossible for him to guess how long he'd slept.

He knew he ought to get back above ground before he was missed. But the truth was he didn't really want to. He took his time getting out of the recliner and pottered around, getting an early start on his most recent pastime of exploring the bunker.

It was in this way that Robbie discovered he had a periscope. Or it may have been more accurate to say the periscope found him.

He was just standing at the control console on the catwalk trying to figure out how to get the silky looking pajamas out of one of the disguise tubes when all of a sudden something big and heavy crashed down on his head with a clang. It took him a minute to regain his senses and a few seconds more to determine that the roof wasn't caving in. In fact Robbie could see there were lots of things suspended up in the crossbeams besides the speakers and the TV set, things like chalk boards and signs and all sorts of strange devices, all of them likely designed to fall down on top of him at the slightest provocation too. But that didn't matter right now. Now he had a periscope.

And it was no ordinary periscope.

The instrument had to be incredibly long for it to extend all the way down into the bunker where he could operate it. To peer into the view port and suddenly see the bright glare of morning while deep underground was almost enough to blind Robbie.

It wasn't only the sun glare, proof that he had slept all night, that had him shocked. It was the fact that, somehow, much like a lot of the other bizarre machines down in this lair, the periscope defied all logic and reason and was showing Robbie a view of the opposite side of LazyTown. He had a clear view of the town hall as though he were standing right in front of it.