Free Two Weeks with the Queen by Morris Gleitzman Page A

bald with glasses.
    All Colin had to do was go back into the Best Cancer Hospital In London (avoiding the uniformed attendant) and find him.
    He was wondering how best to avoid the uniformed attendant (should he smuggle himself in with the clean sheets or go in through the drains?) when he noticed something across the street.
    A bloke sitting on the kerb.
    Crying.
    Not sniffing and blinking back prickles in his eyes, but really crying, his whole body shaking with massive sobs.
    Colin realised he’d never seen a bloke really blub. Kids, yes, but not an adult bloke. Adults put on Brave Faces and said, ‘Mmmm, I’m starving.’
    Colin wondered why this one wasn’t.
    He went over.
    â€˜You OK?’ he asked.
    The bloke looked up at him, startled.
    â€˜No, I’m not, I’m crying,’ he said and looked away and sniffed and blinked a few times. When he looked back up at Colin he’d stopped crying. ‘But ta for asking,’ he said and grinned.
    He was much younger than Dad. He looked to Colin about the same age as Mr Blair at school, 25, except that Mr Blair didn’t wear a leather jacket and didn’t grin.
    The bloke sniffed and wiped his eyes.
    â€˜I needed that,’ he said.
    Colin had only ever heard a bloke say that after a beer.
    â€˜Why did you need it?’ he asked.
    â€˜I’ve got a friend in there who’s very sick,’ said the bloke, pointing to the hospital across the road. ‘Normally I’m OK, but once a week I treat myself to a bit of a cry.’
    Colin could tell from the way he swallowed after saying ‘very sick’ that the friend wasn’t just a workmate or someone he played pool with.
    Must be his girlfriend.
    â€˜Cancer?’ asked Colin. He felt like booting himself in the bum. Course it was cancer.
    The bloke opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and nodded. He looked closely at Colin.
    â€˜You’re the one who was making all the commotion in the ward, right?’
    â€˜Colin Mudford,’ said Colin,. holding out his hand.
    â€˜Ted Caldicot,’ replied the bloke, shaking it. ‘What were you doing, pinching grapes?’
    â€˜No,’ said Colin, ‘trying to find a doctor for my brother.’
    Ted looked down at the road and his soft voice, with its accent Colin couldn’t quite place, became even softer.
    â€˜I’m sorry. Has your brother got cancer?’
    At last. An adult who wasn’t a doctor had actually said the word.
    Colin sat down on the kerb next to Ted and told him about Luke and the Queen and the Best Doctor In The World.
    By the time he’d finished, Ted was grinning again.
    â€˜Incredible,’ he said, ‘You, Colin, are an inspiration to us all. Come and have a cup of tea.’
    The hospital cafeteria was full of people who looked exactly like they’d just been visiting other people with cancer. Long faces, round shoulders, bowed heads.
    That was the first thing Colin noticed as he stood in the queue with Ted.
    The second was Ted’s tattoo.
    It was a small one on the back of his hand. Leaves and flowers around a word Colin couldn’t read properly. A foreign word.
    â€˜What does that say?’ asked Colin, pointing to it.
    â€˜It’s Welsh,’ said Ted. ‘Means “Forever".”
    Colin was impressed. The only other tattoo he’d seen up dose was Doug Beale’s uncle’s and that had said ‘Death Before Disco’. ‘Forever’ was much better.
    â€˜Where I come from in Wales,’ said Ted, ‘people get them done when they’re in love.’
    â€˜Has your friend got one?’ asked Colin.
    Ted nodded and turned away.
    Colin felt like booting himself in the bum again.
    But Ted had only turned away because they were at the front of the queue and a brawny woman in a white apron was waiting to serve them.
    â€˜Two teas love, ta,’ said Ted, ‘and thirty chocolate