Molly squared her shoulders. “I don’t need any degree to tell me that what you’ve been doing for years hasn’t been working for her, so maybe we should try something different.”
The doctor glared at her. “We? What I’ve been doing isn’t working? You haven’t even been here for a week, so I don’t know how you would know that. You weren’t here when Allison was cutting herself with knives from the dining room table and trying to kill herself. You weren’t here when she was trying to starve herself to death, were you?”
“No, I wasn’t,” Molly admitted. She hadn’t known Allison had been that bad. She decided to change her tone. She didn’t want to make an enemy of Dr. Meyer. They were going to have to work together, and obviously neither of them were going anywhere any time soon. Most of all, they had Allison’s best interest at heart. “I’m sorry, Dr. Meyer. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t taking good care of Allison.” She decided to leave the other girls out of it. She didn’t want him being upset with them too. “Allison is mentally out of it all the time. I was thinking that maybe she’s taking more meds than necessary. I wonder what would happen if she wasn’t so dependent on them. Would she be able to talk and communicate and interact with the rest of us?”
Dr. Meyer’s expression seemed to soften. “I know it seems very terrible for her, but believe me when I tell you a twenty-four-hour escape from reality is just what this girl needs. The things she’s been through—there’s no way she wants to remember them. She’s better off living in her fog.”
Molly didn’t believe that. She believed the other girls when they told her there was something Allison was trying to tell them. She also had a weird feeling about Dr. Meyer’s insistence that Allison stay on her meds. What was he getting out of keeping her drugged? Why wasn’t he willing to at least try something that might help Allison? Clearly working with him was not the way she was going to help Allison. She would have to think of something else. Somehow, she was going to get Allison the help she needed and wanted.
15
Molly needed to tell the girls what had happened with Dr. Meyer. She wanted them to know that she was at least trying to make things the way they should be. Molly went searching for them a few minutes before lights-out time. All the girls except for Tress and Isleen were gathered in the rec room. Molly could hear the laughter before she entered. It sounded nice. She liked that they could laugh now before the darkness of the curses took over.
Scarlett and Drusilla were in the middle of a game of chess. The other girls lounged around covered in blankets. Allison stared at the ceiling, making strange movements with her fingers. The room fell silent when Molly entered.
“Ms. Dillinger,” Marina said. “Is everything okay?”
For Marina to ask that, Molly must have looked worrisome. She tried to rectify that as she closed the door behind her. Molly took a seat on the arm of the sofa, and the girls moved in closer. “I just had a discussion with Dr. Meyer about Allison’s meds.” Allison was still focused on the ceiling, and Molly hated talking about her as if she wasn’t there. She hated even more that Allison had no idea what was going on. “He refuses to lessen the dosage. He was even a little angry that I’d even suggested it.”
The girls groaned. Gretchen stood and paced the room. “We need to know exactly what is in the medicine he’s giving her. We need to know the side effects and what’s putting her in this trancelike stake. Dru?”
All eyes went to her. Scarlett noticed Molly’s look of confusion. “Dru is our resident scientist-doctor-in-training. If you want to know anything about chemistry or the human body or the wonders of the scientific world, Dru’s your girl.”
Dru smiled slyly. “I don’t know. I’ve seen the names of the medicines he gives her, and I’ve never heard of them. I’ve looked them up in my books, and they’re not in them. I even tried to look them up online, but nothing. I’ve even sent messages for Jack to look, but he’s come up with nothing.”
“So, we have to get the pills,” Oriana said. “If we can get our hands on those pills, Dru can for sure figure out what they’re made of.”
Dru nodded. “Yeah. Should be easy.”
Marina stretched. “But how are we going to do that? Dr. Meyer stands right there and shoves the damn pills down her throat, and he keeps the rest locked in his office. How would we get our hands on one?”
The room fell silent as everyone tried to think of a solution. Molly had an idea. “We need to create a distraction. Just when Dr. Meyer is going to deliver Allison’s dosage, we need something chaotic to happen.”
Most of the girls nodded. “Okay, but like what?” Jolie asked.
Just then the door of the rec room banged open. Isleen stood in the doorway, staring at them accusingly as if they had been caught doing something wrong. Tress looked over her shoulder, smiling. “Hey guys.”
Isleen barged in. “What exactly is going on here?” She glared at Molly. “I should have known you would be on their side. Everyone is always on their side.”
“What side are you talking about, Isleen?” Molly asked. “We’re discussing something that’s going to benefit all of us. Join us?”
Isleen looked like she was going to argue further, but her curiosity was stronger than her desire to fight. Tress watched, waiting for her reaction. Finally, Isleen huffed and threw herself down on a beanbag chair. “Fine. What’s going on?”
Tress took a seat beside her friend, and Molly filled them in. For a moment, Isleen seemed as if she were going to denounce their plan. “I can create a diversion. I’ll make sure the pills are knocked to the floor and one of you grabs one before Doc notices.”
The room was silent again and the girls stared at Isleen, probably wondering if they could trust her. “What?” she said. “If I said I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”
“Okay,” Dru said. “But we do this tomorrow morning, and the timing has to be impeccable.”
Isleen nodded. “Got it.”
Molly hated to break things up, but she had a job to do. “Girls, it’s time to turn in. I’ll be checking in on you in a few minutes.”
Reluctantly the girls filed out of the room. Isleen hung back. “Do you need something?” Molly asked.
“I don’t think it’s fair that you’ve chosen a side. You just got here, and you don’t even know what’s been going on. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Of course, Ms. Bea would have gotten into your head and colored your vision. That woman hates me.”
“Isleen, I haven’t chosen any side. I’m here to help all of you. I need you to trust me on that. I want to help break all the curses.”
Isleen pressed her lips together. “Yeah, that’s what Ms. Pruitt said. And Ms. Carter before her. They hated me too.”
Before Molly could say anything else, Isleen was gone.
The atmosphere was tense at the breakfast table the following morning. Even Bea and Ms. Halifax seemed to notice that the normal chit-chat the girls engaged in over their breakfasts was nonexistent. “What’s gotten into you, girls?” Ms. Halifax asked over her blueberry oatmeal.
“Nothing, Ms. Halifax,” the girls answered in unison.
Bea frowned. “It wasn’t that visit from Chessy last night, was it? You know not to let that dreadful cat get under your skin by now, don’t you?”
“Yes, Ms. Bea,” the girls replied solemnly. Everyone went back to their meals, and nothing could be heard except for the sounds of silverware clanking against fine china.
Molly braced herself. She knew that at any moment Dr. Meyer would be wheeling out a screaming Allison, yet Isleen had still not shown up for breakfast. Not having a plan B may have been a mistake.
Finally, Isleen entered the room, impeccably dressed as usual. She wore a silver floor-length gown and glass heels. “Good morning.”
Everyone mumbled a “good morning” as Isleen took her seat. Bea said nothing about her coming to breakfast late. The sounds of familiar shrieking came from the end of the hall, and Molly’s body went rigid.
/> Just as Allison was being wheeled in by the doctor, one of the kitchen staff came in to refill the orange juice. Isleen pushed her plate of eggs away from her. “Excuse me, I’d like pancakes instead.”
The woman cast a glance in Bea’s direction. Bea looked pointedly at Isleen, talking over a screaming, raving Allison. “You know good and well that you are to eat what you’ve been served. It’s what you asked for, and it’s what you shall have.”
Isleen scowled, and in one fell swoop, she knocked everything within her arm’s reach off the table—including Allison’s tray with meds. This sent Allison screaming even louder. Drusilla disappeared under the table as Ms. Halifax, Bea, and Dr. Meyer tried to calm Allison down. The girl gnashed her teeth, trying to bite them.
“Leave this table right now, you horrid girl,” Ms. Halifax shouted to Isleen. “Your table privileges are revoked for a week. You shall take your meals in your bedroom.”
“Fine!” Isleen yelled, stomping away. Dru emerged from underneath the table and appeared to slide something into the pocket of her shorts. Dr. Meyer retrieved the remaining pills from the floor and sighed. “I’ll be back. I need to fix her another dosage.”
Not long after shoveling her cereal in did Dru excuse herself from the table.
Dru was missing from that morning’s class since she was hard at work in her laboratory, which Molly hadn’t even known existed. While waiting for the verdict, Molly and the girls decided to delve deeper in Alice and Wonderland. Allison was taking longer to calm down than usual since she’d gotten her meds a little late, so Dr. Meyer had promised to bring her in once she was calm enough to not be disruptive.
Allison never came. When class was over, Molly decided to check on her. She knocked on Dr. Meyer’s door. He called from the other side for her to come in. Molly poked her head inside. “Is Allison okay?”
The doctor was flipping through some papers on his desk. “She just wouldn’t calm down, even with her usual meds. I had to give her a sedative. She’s sleeping now.”
“Oh, okay.” That made Molly feel uneasy, but there was nothing to be done about it then.
On the way back to her bedroom, Molly bumped into Ms. Halifax. The woman stared at her sternly, making Molly feel like a child who had done something wrong. That was the thing Molly hated the most about Ms. Halifax. “Excuse me,” Molly said. When she attempted to step around Ms. Halifax, she stood before her, blocking her path. “Is something wrong?”
Ms. Halifax folded her arms over her chest. “Several things, actually. I was wondering when you were going to start doing your job around here.”
“Excuse me?” Molly said again, but this time in a much different tone. “What are you talking about?”
“Ms. Bea may not see it, but I do. You are supposed to be helping us break the curse, not feeding the girls useless stories about your world and what’s going on out there. That’s a waste of time.”
“For your information, I am helping them break the curse. I’m doing everything I can, but this isn’t easy. Once the curse is broken, those girls will be living in this modern world that they know nothing about. I don’t see anything wrong with me telling them as much about it as possible. How would you know what I teach them anyway? I don’t recall you being in any of the lessons.”
Ms. Halifax smoothed the sides of her hair, which were already perfectly slicked down. “There’s a camera in the room. You didn’t think you wouldn’t be monitored, did you?”
Molly shrugged. She hadn’t been expecting that, but it didn’t matter. “It’s fine. I don’t have anything to hide. Is that all?”
“Yes,” Ms. Halifax said testily. “What progress have you been making?”
Just then, Dru appeared over Ms. Halifax’s shoulder. “Pardon me for interrupting, but Ms. Dillinger, may I speak with you?”
“Sure, Dru.” Then she looked at Ms. Halifax. “I’ll get back to you with an answer to that last question, but I think we might be on to something.”
Molly excused herself from Ms. Halifax before she could say anything else. She huffed and stormed off. Molly approached Dru. “What happened? Did you find anything?”
“Yes. We need to get all the girls in on an emergency meeting now.” Dru’s brown eyes were wide, and her hands shook. Molly had never seen her beautiful face look so worried.
Molly nodded. “Okay. I’ll tell everyone to meet in the great study in five minutes.”
16
“I’m afraid I am sir,” said Alice; I can’t remember things as I used to, and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together.”
“Can’t remember what things?” said the caterpillar.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Molly and the girls were gathered in the great study. This time Molly had taken a seat on the floor amongst the girls and given Drusilla her chair.
“So, what did that brilliant mind of yours discover?” Gretchen asked.
“Dr. Meyer gives Allison two meds every morning. One is called Tripocin and the other Marketet. I looked them both up on the Internet. I didn’t have much time because I had to get Ms. Bea’s computer back to her. The pills look the way they’re supposed to look. Tripocin is a small blue pill shaped like a circle with a T printed on it. Marketet is white, long and oval shaped. I made a list of the ingredients.”
Everyone was on the edge of their seats. “So, I went to my lab to test the pills to see what was in them—if the ingredients matched. Guess what I found?”
“What? What?” Isleen said impatiently.
Dru leaned forward. “Jolie, you know how your angel’s trumpets keep turning up missing?”
Jolie frowned. “Yeah. It’s gotten to the point that I’m about to stop growing them.”
“I know where they’ve been going,” Dru announced. “I found large traces of them in both the pills.”
Jolie hopped to her feet. “No way! You know how dangerous those things are for human beings to digest? That’s why they’re considered beautiful but deadly. They make people hallucinate and put them in a dangerous zombie state.”
Molly thought that fit Allison’s description perfectly. At that moment she wanted to storm from the room and choke the doctor with her own two hands. “So, you found traces of angel’s trumpet, which obviously doesn’t belong in those pills. What else?”
“Mercury. Mercury in the amounts I found can really mess with someone’s mind and memory. It can also cause your body to start to shut down. With the amounts she’s been taking all this time, Allison is lucky to still be alive.”
Scarlett sighed. “So, she’s not schizophrenic. He’s been making her that way.”
“Wait . . .” Tress said. “Does Dr. Meyer know that Allison’s medicine has the wrong ingredients? We have to tell him right away.”
Isleen rolled her eyes. “Tress, he’s the one who tainted her medicine, obviously. The question is why? Why does he want to keep her insane? What does he benefit from that?”
Lily stood. “Again, Allison is not insane. But the question does remain. Why does he want to keep her in the mental state that she’s in?”
“Maybe,” Gretchen said, “he wants to be needed so he does it to keep his job. I mean, we have little sicknesses and injuries here and there, but most of what he does is dealing with Allison.”
“Good point, but I think there’s more to it than that,” Lily said.
Molly stood and paced the room. She couldn’t sit still any longer. “That’s something we have to find out, but in the meanwhile, we can’t let Allison keep taking this medicine that’s harming her. I can’t get Dr. Meyer to stop giving it to her, and he’ll only deny what Dru’s discovered.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Dru said. “I can make a placebo. I’ll make it with salt and sugar or something. That way Dr. Meyer will think he’s still giving her the meds, and we can slowly wean Allison off them.”
“How are we going to switch them?” Oriana asked. “Dr. Meyer keeps all her m
eds under lock and key.”
All eyes went to Molly. Isleen fluffed her dress out around her. “Ms. Dillinger, this may require a little breaking and entering. Are you okay with that?”
Molly nodded. “Yes, I am. Dru, how long will it take you to make the placebos, and what do you need?”
Dru frowned, counting off on her fingers. “I can get most of what I need from the kitchen. I can use water and coloring pigment for the coating. I have base plates to shape the pills. I have a binding solution. The pills will have to dry for twelve to twenty-four hours before we can switch them.”
“Okay, so we can do this tomorrow then,” Molly said. “Don’t worry. Somehow I will get in there and switch the pills.” There was a question Molly had been meaning to ask. “Dru? You mentioned before that you’ve asked Jack to look for information on Allison’s medication on the outside—how exactly do you get in contact with him?”
The girls fell silent, and everyone looked away. Molly knew exactly what was going on. They were doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing, and she was the uncool adult they were supposed to keep a secret from.
Molly raised her right hand. “You can tell me. I promise not to say a word to Ms. Bea or Ms. Halifax. Scout’s honor.”
“The hell does that mean?” Isleen demanded.
Molly put her hand down and sighed. “It means I won’t tell. No matter what.” She meant that. If the girls knew a way to communicate with Jack and Pinocchio, maybe she could use that same method to contact her mother. “So, tell me.”
“Skype,” Tress blurted out.
“Tress!” the girls hissed. Isleen jabbed her in the side with her elbow way too hard.
“What?” Tress asked, looking generally confused. “She promised not to tell.”
Isleen narrowed her eyes at Molly. “Of course. She’ll say anything to learn our secrets, but that’s all she’s going to get.”
Everly Academy Page 14
