'Go to bed, then, and get a good sleep.'
'Yes, I will.'
'Call me if you need anything'
'Yes.'
The marvellous little doctor got into his car and drove away down the road in the same direction as the ambulance.
10
The Great Shooting Party
As soon as the doctor had driven away from the filling-station, I went into the office and got out the sign that said SORRY CLOSED. I hung it on one of the pumps. Then I headed straight for the caravan. I was too tired to undress. I didn't even take off my dirty old sneakers. I just flopped down on the bunk and went to sleep. The time was five minutes past eight in the morning.
More than ten hours later, at six-thirty in the evening, I was woken up by the ambulance men bringing my father back from the hospital. They carried him into the caravan and laid him on the lower bunk.
'Hello, Dad,' I said.
'Hello, Danny'
'How are you feeling?'
'A bit whoozy,' he said, and he dozed off almost immediately.
As the ambulance men drove away, Doc Spencer arrived and went into the caravan to take a look at the patient. 'He'll sleep until tomorrow morning,' he said. 'Then he'll wake up feeling fine.'
I followed the doctor out to his car. 'I'm awfully glad he's home,' I said.
The doctor opened the car door but he didn't get in. He looked at me very sternly and said, 'When did you last have something to eat, Danny?'
'Something to eat?' I said. 'Oh... well... I had... er...' Suddenly I realized how long it had been. I hadn't eaten anything since I had had supper with my father the night before. That was nearly twenty-four hours ago.
Doc Spencer reached into the car and came out with something huge and round wrapped up in greaseproof paper. 'My wife asked me to give you this,' he said. 'I think you'll like it. She's a terrific cook.'
He pushed the package towards me, then he jumped into the car and drove quickly away.
I stood there clasping the big round thing tightly in my hands. I watched the doctor's car as it went down the road and disappeared round the curve, and after it had gone I still stood there watching the empty road.
After a while I turned and walked back up the steps into the caravan with my precious parcel. I placed it in the centre of the table but I didn't unwrap it.
My father lay on the bunk in a deep sleep. He was wearing hospital pyjamas. They had brown and blue stripes. I went over and gently pulled back the blanket to see what they had done to him. Hard white plaster covered the lower part of his leg and the whole of his foot, except for the toes. There was a funny little iron thing sticking out below his foot, presumably for him to walk on. I covered him up again and returned to the table.
Very carefully, I now began to unwrap the greaseproof paper from around the doctor's present, and when I had finished, I saw before me the most enormous and beautiful pie in the world. It was covered all over, top, sides, and bottom, with a rich golden pastry.
I took a knife from beside the sink and cut out a wedge. I started to eat it in my fingers, standing up. It was a cold meat pie. The meat was pink and tender with no fat or gristle in it, and there were hard-boiled eggs buried like treasures in several different places.
The taste was absolutely fabulous. When I had finished the first slice, I cut another and ate that too. God bless Doctor Spencer, I thought. And God bless Mrs Spencer as well.
The next morning, a Monday, my father was up at six o'clock. 'I feel great,' he said. He started hobbling round the caravan to test his leg. 'It hardly hurts at all!' he cried. 'I can walk you to school!'
'No,' I said. 'No.'
'I've never missed one yet, Danny.'
'It's two miles each way,' I said. 'Don't do it, Dad, please.'
So that day I went to school alone. But he insisted on coming with me the next day. I couldn't stop him. He had put a woollen sock over his plaster foot to keep his toes warm, and there was a hole in the underneath of the sock so that the metal thing could poke through. He walked a bit stiff-legged, but he moved as fast as ever, and the metal thing went clink on the road each time he put it down.