Diamond Eyes by A.A. Bell Page A

They’ll make an impressive sound for the audience but won’t hurt the padded actors. Then find Neville for me and tell him I need to see him after his lunch break about that missing Braille typewriter.’
    The nurse nodded and left with the whip.
    Still in the wheelchair, Ben fiddled with his shoelace. Behind him, the guard tensed as if he knew what to expect. So she turned her attention to Mira, leaving them both to worry a little longer.
    ‘Where is your blindfold, Mira?’
    Mira retrieved it from the waistband of her tracksuit pants and rested it over Ben’s shoulder, obviously careful to keep a tight grip on both him and the bandage.
    ‘She only seems to need it in strong light,’ Ben explained. ‘She took it off down at the bus stop where I had an accident. She brought me back in.’
    ‘Ridiculous!’ snapped the guard. ‘Mira Chambers isn’t allowed anywhere near —’
    ‘The front gate,’ Sanchez finished flatly. ‘Yes, we’ve established that.’ Her gaze remained levelled at Ben.
    ‘I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I missed that staff notice.’
    ‘Well, you’re aware of it now,’ Sanchez replied. ‘I want to know why she was outside at all in such damp weather.’
    Ben coughed nervously. ‘Well, as you know, it’s our first day together — my first day in her ward without a supervisor — and to celebrate, I suggested that we do something special. We had a little time to kill before our first scheduled activities, so —’
    ‘Which, specifically?’
    ‘Appointments this morning with the VIPs. Mira was feeling a little nervous about it, and we had some time up our sleeve, so, like I said, we went out for a walk... to smell the daisies, you might say.’
    ‘In the rain?’
    Sanchez glanced at Mira for her reaction to Ben’s story, but she wasn’t giving anything away; except that she wasn’t fighting or complaining about anything, which in itself was strange, especially considering how distressed she’d been getting before the incident with Freddie. She was just standing tensely behind Ben with her hands still clutched firmly onto his shoulder.
    ‘I could have bled to death out there,’ Ben continued, ‘if she hadn’t saved me.’
    Sanchez glanced at his now-bandaged feet and knew he was exaggerating. ‘So you were outside the gate?’ she prompted. ‘In the rain? In your bare feet?’
    ‘I know it sounds odd, but —’
    ‘It’s downright bizarre!’ interrupted the guard. ‘No day pass. No record of leaving, yet there they were, on the wrong side of the gate, and him with his shoes still on the inside!’
    ‘I’m trying to explain that,’ Ben said. ‘First, you have to realise that if Mira wanted to escape, she could have. I cut my foot quite badly and passed out, so if she hadn’t brought me back, I’d still be down there. And please just think about that: she not only brought me back by choice, she did it alone, uphill, blind, barefoot and knowing there was broken glass on the path. Now I really need to check her feet to make sure she isn’t injured too.’
    ‘Don’t be such a drama king,’ complained the guard. ‘Her footprints are only bloody because she’s trodden in your mess.’
    ‘Matron?’ Ben pleaded, still hamming it up.
    Sanchez nodded and moved to check Mira’s feet for herself. The girl shrank at the sound of her footsteps and Ben waved at her to stay back. Sanchez complied and watched, intrigued, as Ben swivelled the chair around and asked Mira for her left foot, which she silently and obligingly lifted for him.
    ‘Why don’t you let her sit?’ Sanchez asked as she handed Ben the first-aid kit.
    ‘She doesn’t like wheelchairs. There...’ He swabbed the girl’s seemingly uninjured foot to remove a dab of blood which didn’t seem to be associated with any wound. ‘Next, please, Mira?’
    ‘See?’ said the guard. ‘It was just your own mess.’
    Again Mira obliged, wincing slightly as Ben extracted a small splinter of glass from