Her feet fly out in front of her as the chain around her neck snaps tight.
‘Come back here you little cow.’
Mummy’s voice, shouting in the other room: ‘Don’t hurt her! You promised you wouldn’t hurt her!’
‘Kicked me in the bloody balls!’
She’s dragged backwards across the floorboards, arms and legs thrashing.
‘MUMMY!’
‘YOU PROMISED!’
Thump. She’s lying on her front, with a heavy weight on her back – warm and rustling. The monster grabs her wrist, wraps something around it and pulls. It makes a Vzzzzwip noise. Then the other wrist, and both her arms are stuck behind her back.
‘MUMMY! MUMMY, THEY’RE—’
A purple hand covers her mouth. It smells like bicycle tyres on a hot day.
Tom: don’t just bloody stand there!’
More weight, pinning her legs to the floor.
Vzzzzwip. Vzzzzwip. And now her ankles are stuck together. A scritchy, ripping noise, then the hand lets go of her mouth and a strip of something sticky is jammed into place. She can’t even open her lips. All she can do is hiss and mumble and cry.
Then the monsters let go.
She wriggles as hard as she can, flopping about like a goldfish on the bathroom floor. That’s what happens to Bad Little Girls …
‘Bloody hell. Looks like she’s having a fit.’
Wriggle. Thrash. Flop … struggle … twitch. Lie panting on the floorboards, tears dripping from her nose.
Another monster steps into the room and clunks the door shut behind it. ‘Will you two stop pricking about?’ A lady monster – it’s difficult to tell from the Cyberman voice, but she has boobies. She has a name badge stuck to her white crinkly chest, with ‘HELLO MY NAME IS’ at the top, and ‘WILLIAM’ underneath.
All the monsters are wearing them. ‘TOM’ and ‘SYLVESTER’ stand back, staring down at Jenny.
WILLIAM crosses her arms. Every move makes a rustling sound. It’s not skin, not like she thought in her bedroom when they came for her – it’s that stuff the police wear on the television when something bad happens. Sticky purple gloves, blue shower-caps on their feet. Plasticy masks that hide their faces and make them look like robots. It goes with the horrible metal voices. ‘Where’s Colin?’
TOM shrugs. Then SYLVESTER points over his shoulder, Throwing up.’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake.’ She nods. ‘Get him.’
‘But—’
‘Now!’
Robots, arguing.
‘OK, OK …’ SYLVESTER hurries out, feet scuffing on the floor.
‘Get her on the table.’
TOM grabs her by the collar and waistband of her jammies and hauls her off the ground. ‘Wriggle and I’ll bloody drop you on your head, understand?’
She stays very still.
‘Good girl.’
Good Little Girl.
Thump – TOM dumps her on the table. Holds her there with a heavy hand in the middle of her back.
WILLIAM, the lady monster, stands over her. ‘Stop crying. If you behave yourself it’ll all be over soon.’
The door clunks.
Jenny blinks away the tears. It’s SYLVESTER, back with another monster. This one has ‘COLIN’ written on his chest. He’s carrying a little plastic box.
WILLAM doesn’t look at him. ‘Get on with it.’
COLIN clears his throat. T … Erm … Look, it’s just … I mean, do we have to? Can we not just send the papers another photo or something?’
‘You saw what they’re saying on the news.’
‘But I’ve never done … She’s just a little girl.’
‘I know what she is. Now do your bloody job. Or do you want me to tell David you won’t? Is that really what you want?’
‘But I—’
WILLIAM grabs him by the front of his crumply white suit. ‘What fucking good are you if you can’t do a simple bloody procedure?’
‘But amputating isn’t just … There’s the risk of infection, MRSA, septicaemia, blood clots, shock, what if—’
‘Pull – your – fucking – weight.’
She lets go and he steps back. Stares down at his blue feet. Then nods.
‘You need to roll up her sleeve.’
Fire bites her shoulders as TOM twists her arm, dragging her jammie sleeve up to her armpit.
Please no. Please no. Please no.
COLIN puts the plastic box down on the table. Opens it. She can see shiny sharp things sparkling inside. Then he takes out a tiny jar and a jaggy needle. He goes back in for a little foil packet, tears it open and pulls out a little tissue. Wipes it against the inside of her elbow, it makes the skin go all cold.
Then he fills up the jaggy needle.
‘I’m sorry …’
A hard scratchy feeling, then a stabbing pain, like being stung by a bee.
Another wipe.
‘We need to give it a minute.’
She blinks.
The bee sting doesn’t hurt any more.
‘I still don’t think—’
‘No one’s asking you to think, Colin.’
Blink. Blink.
She’s in the playground on the roundabout, spinning faster and faster, round and round, trees and houses and monsters whooshing past. Blurry plastic faces, muzzy booming Cybermen voices. Fuzzy warmth spreading between her ears.
She blinks, but her eyes won’t open again.
‘So why did she have your name written on her?’ Chief Inspector Young sat back in his seat and surveyed Logan over the expanse of his desk. The Professional Standards
