The Broken Record Player

Chapter 9

        I sit down on the couch with a plate of toast, and turn on the TV. Nothing much is on, so I watch a cartoon, I don't know what it is about. But I still watch. After about 3 episodes of the cartoon, there is a knock on the door. I put my plate on the counter at the kitchen, and open the door.

"Hi Hailey, my name is Rachel. I am a scientist, here to give you the first injection." I let her in and she tells me to lye on my bed, I refuse and say I will prefer to sit down. But she said that I will fall asleep after I have the injection so I decided it might be better to lye down. "Okay, here we go." The injection wasn't painful, it was a purple colour. After she left everything went dizzy. So I stayed in bed. After a while, I fell asleep. It was a nice sleep. No dream though.

        I wake up and it is 10am the next day. There is a note on the dining table. It's says...

"Hailey, I came in to see you, the door was unlocked. You were asleep, so I will talk soon? I am in room 2b with Clara if you want to call. I hope your first drug injection went okay. Tell me about it when I next see you. C."

Charlie wrote it. I leave it there, and sit on my bed. I don't have anything to do. So I phone Alana.

"Hello?" She says.

"Hey. It's me Hailey. How are you?" We chat for about 2 hours. Clogging up the phone bill. I hear a knock on the door again, so I say bye and open the door.

"Hello Hailey. Another injection." I let Rachel in. And I lye on my bed, "This time you can sit up." So I sit up on my bed instead. The liquid in the injection is orange this time. When she puts the needle in, I watch. It's interesting the way she does it. When she is finished she puts the needle in a yellow box, and leaves. My arm is floppy, and I am unable to move it. I leave to room 2b, and use the lift this time, just incase this injection makes me dizzy. I knock twice on the door, with my other arm, and a blond hair with blue eyes, about middle height, opens the door.

"Hi, I'm Hailey. Is Charlie here?" Her smile drops when I say my name.

"No sorry, he isn't." She closes the door a little bit, so I can't see behind her.

"Are you sure, Charlie said he would be here. Can I come in?" She turns around to look at something but I don't know what.

"I'm quite busy right now. Sorry." She closes the door and I out my right foot, so the door doesn't shut. "What do you want?" She asks.

"Charlie. Where is he?" I hear the toilet flush in the her apartment. She kicks my leg, and I bring it back, grabbing onto where she hit. She slams the door and I hear a locking noise.

"Charlie?" I shout loud enough for whoever is in there to hear me. I start knocking for a little but there is no reply. I get into he lift and go to his apartment. There is no reply after I knock. When I get back to mine, Tom is sitting outside of it.

"Tommy?" I say remembering the nickname I made for him.

"Hey, you said that you would invite me round sometime, you never did and I am on my break. So I came." He stands up, loosing his balance on his way.

"Tom, it's only been a day." He makes me smile. I open the door and he follows me in. "Do you know where Charlie is?" I put away the plate from yesterday, when I used it for the toast. Tom runs straight for the balcony door. I follow him when he gets outside.

"Tommy? Do you know where he is?" I put my good arm on the half wall, and let my other arm droop.

"I haven't seen him for ages. Sorry. Last time I saw him was about a week ago when he told me you are coming here." I move my head straight to him.

"A week ago? I was in the hospital. How did he know I was coming here?" He leans over the balcony some more, without falling off.

"Everyone knew. He said, they decided it before you were out of the coma. Do you have any beer?" He goes back inside with a little limp as he does.

"What? I thought they decided when I had that interview?" Everything is put into place in my mind. They know I am going to try to change the world, they know I was going to move to the sun class. They put me in a different area. They are giving me a new drug, that nobody has heard of. "I need to go, you can stay here if you want. The beer is in the mini fridge. I need to find out what drug they are giving me." I run out of the door, and here Tommy open the fridge. I run to the lift and go down to Clara's apartment again. I knock gently, and as she opens the door, I kick it open and push my way in.

"Charlie." He is sitting on the kitchen counter eating a bag of chips or something.

"Hailey? Your awake. How was the injection?" He jumps off the counter.

"Excuse me, but I think it's better if you leave." Clara grabs my arm, but I slam my foot on hers.

"Hailey stop. Clara, do you mind if we just quickly talk?" I see Clara in pain in the background.

"How did you know I had an injection?" I ask him, he leans against the table next to us.

"I saw the packet on the side of your bed, they didn't take it." He says, still a little confused I am here.

"Where is it?" He gets it out of his packet and gives it to me. I look at it and the drug they gave me is called 'Methadrolin.' I learnt about it in chemistry class, that meth- meant one carbon atom, or something like that. "They are going to kill me." Charlie's eyes widen. He takes the box off me and scan reads it.

"How?" He puts the packet back in his pocket.

"I don't know, but it's sure not the way you almost did." He smiles, I think he is happy that I am joking about what happened now.

"Look, Hailey. I don't want you here, so please just get out, it's my apartment." I look back at Charlie, and he grabs my arm.

"Clara. I need to go, I will be back. Promise." Charlie kisses her cheek, and starts to walk off. Before I close the door I say one last thing.

"Do you know what the difference between you and me is?" I ask.

"Your stupid and I'm clever?" She laughs at her own joke.

"The difference between you and me is that I can make Charlie smile with my clothes on." I feel a tug on my arm.

"GET OUT!" Clara screams, and I slam the door. We get into the lift.

"What was that?" Charlie asks.

"I don't really like that Clara girl." I look at him, while he looks at the buttons.

"Where are we going?" He wants to press a button, but I click the ground floor button before I tell him. "Do you have a plan?"

"Do you have a car?" He nods and the doors open. He shows me to his car as we get into the parking lot.

"I need to know where we are going so I can drive."

"Just down the road, I will direct you." As I do, we don't talk. The only talking is the direction giving. We finally get to the drive and I jump out of the car before it stops.

"Where are we?" Charlie says as I knock on the door and he gets out of the car.

"It's my house." The door opens to Peter.