The Call Button in Room 12

Ingeborg had worked night shifts on the third floor of St. Brendan's Hospital for six years, and she liked the quiet. At ten past one, she was writing notes at the nurses' station when a small red light came on above Room 12. Somebody was pressing the call button. She frowned. Room 12 was empty. The patient who had been in it had gone home that afternoon.

She walked down the dark hallway and opened the door. The bed was made. The window blinds were half open, and the lights of the city were shining through them. There was nobody inside. She checked the bathroom, turned off the light on the button and went back to her desk. "A problem with the wires," she told herself, though she didn't really believe it.

At ten past two, the red light came on again. This time Ingeborg walked faster. The room was exactly the same: empty bed, half-open blinds, silence. But the pillow, which she was sure had been flat, now had a small dent in it, as if someone had been kneeling on the bed. She stood very still and listened. She heard only the hum of the hallway lights.

She called the security guard, who looked under the bed and inside the closet and found nothing. "Old buildings do strange things at night," he said. Ingeborg didn't argue, but she did something she had never done before. At four minutes past three, she went into Room 12, closed the door behind her and sat down in the dark, in the chair behind the curtain.

At nine minutes past three, the door opened slowly. A small boy in pajamas with airplanes on them tiptoed in, climbed onto the bed and knelt at the window. As he leaned forward, his knee pressed the call button, which was clipped to the pillow. Far away, past the city lights, a plane was coming down toward the airport with its lights blinking. "There it is," he whispered. "Right on time."

His name was Pancho, and he was a patient in the children's ward on the fourth floor, where the windows only looked out onto the parking lot. He had been sneaking down the stairs every night to watch the planes land. Twice that night, when he heard footsteps in the hallway, he had slid under the bed and held his breath until the door closed again. Ingeborg didn't call anyone. She pulled her chair up to the window, and the two of them watched the next plane come in at ten past four. Then she walked him upstairs, and on the way she unclipped the call button and put it in her pocket.