I looked back.
I changed my mind. That's what I was hoping he was going to say. I changed my mind. Want to go to the prom with me?
What he actually said was, "I heard. About the kid. Sean." He looked uncomfortable, like he wasn't used to having these kinds of conversations in the middle of the school hallway, under the unnatural glow of the fluorescent overheads.
But he went on anyway.
"It wasn't your fault, Jess. The way he acted that day, outside his house … well, I thought there was something weird going on with him, too. You couldn't have known. That's all." He nodded, like he was satisfied he'd made every point he'd meant to. "You did the right thing."
I shook my head. I could feel tears pricking my eyes. Dammit, I was standing there, with about a thousand people streaming around me, trying not to cry in front of this guy I had a total crush on. Could there possibly be anything more humiliating?
"No," I said. "I didn't."
And then I turned around and walked away.
And this time, he didn't try to stop me.
Since I didn't have detention anymore, Ruth and I came home together after school. We decided we'd practice together. She said she'd found a new concerto for flute and cello. It was modern, but we'd take a stab at it.
But when she pulled onto Lumley Lane, I saw right away something was wrong. All the reporters had been herded down to the far end of the street, where they were standing behind police barricades. When they saw Ruth's car, they started yelling and frantically taking pictures. . . .
But the cops wouldn't let them near our house.
When Ruth pulled into my driveway, and I saw the blood on the sidewalk, I knew why.
Not just on the sidewalk either, but little drops of it, leading all the way up to the front porch.
Ruth saw them, too. She went, "Uh-oh."
Then the screen door opened, and my dad and Mikey came out. My dad held up both his hands and said, "It's not as bad as it looks. This afternoon, Dougie attacked one of the reporters who'd stayed behind to try and interview the neighbors. They're both all right. Don't get upset."
I guess it might have sounded funny, my brother attacking a reporter. If it had been Mike who'd done it, it would have been very funny. But since it was Doug, it wasn't funny. It wasn't funny at all.
"Look," my dad said, sitting down on the porch steps. Ruth had switched off the ignition, and we both got out of the car. I went and sat down beside my dad, careful not to look at—or touch—any of the spots of blood all around us. Ruth went to sit with Mike on the porch swing. It creaked ominously under both their weights. Plus Mike looked annoyed at having to share it, only Ruth didn't notice.
"It's not your fault, Jess," my dad went on, "but the reporters, and the news vans, and the police and everything. It was all just a little too much for Dougie. Things started going a little haywire in his head. After you left this morning, we thought we'd calmed him down. We got him to take his medicine, and it seemed like he was okay. But the doctor says stress can sometimes—"
I groaned and laid my head upon my knees. "What do you mean, it isn't my fault?" I wailed. "Of course it's my fault. Everything is my fault. If I'd never called that stupid number—"
"You had to call that stupid number," my dad said patiently. "If you hadn't called that stupid number, those kids' parents would still be wondering what happened to their little son or daughter—"
"Yeah," I said. "And Sean Patrick O'Hanahan wouldn't be being sent back to his abusive father. And his mother wouldn't be in trouble. And—"
"You did the right thing, Jess," my dad said again. "You can't know everything. And Douglas will be all right. It would just be better if he could be somewhere a little quieter—"
"Yeah, but where?" I demanded. "The hospital? Dougie has to go back to the hospital because of me? Nuh-uh. No, thanks, Dad. It's clear what the problem is here. The problem isn't Douglas." I took a deep breath. The air was thick and humid. Soon, I knew, it would be summer. It had grown steadily hotter all day and now the late afternoon sun beat down on the porch.
Beat down on me.
"It's me," I said. "If I weren't here, Douglas would be all right."
"Now, honey," my dad said.
"No, I'm serious. If I weren't here, you wouldn't have reporters dropping Powerbar wrappers all over the lawn, and Mom wouldn't be baking biscotti twenty-four seven, and Douglas wouldn't be in the hospital—"
"Just what are you suggesting, Jessica?"
"You know what I'm suggesting. I think tomorrow I'd better do what Special Agent Johnson said, and go off to Crane for a while."
Both Ruth and Mike looked at me like I was nuts, but my dad said, after a moment's silence, "You have to do what you think is right, honey."
I said, "Well, I don't think it's right that this family should have to suffer because of me. And that's what we're doing, suffering. If I went away for a while, all those reporters and everything would go away. And then things could get back to normal. Maybe even Doug could come home."
Mike said softly, "Yeah, and maybe Claire would open her blinds back up. She's been so freaked by all the cameras—"
When Ruth and I turned to stare at him, he realized what he'd said, and clamped his mouth shut.
Ruth was the only person who voiced a note of dissent.
"I don't think that's a very good idea," she said. "Your going to Crane, I mean. I don't think that's a very good idea at all."
"Ruth," I said, surprised. "Come on. They just want to do some tests—"
"Oh, great," Ruth said. "So now you're a human guinea pig? Jess, Crane is an Army base. Get it? We're talking about the military."
"Jeez, Ruth," I said. "Be a little paranoid, won't you? It'll be all right."
Ruth stuck out her chin. I don't know what it was. Maybe she'd just seen Point of No Return one too many times. Maybe she just didn't want to have to face the halls of Ernest Pyle High School on her own.
Or maybe she suspected something that I, even with my brand-new powers, couldn't sense. Ruth is smarter than most people … about some things, anyway.
"And what," she asked quietly, "if they want you to find more kids?"
My dad said, "Well, of course they'll want her to find more kids. That's what this is all about, I'm sure."
"Does Jess want to find more kids?" Ruth asked, her eyebrows raised.
They say that intelligence quotient tests only measure a certain kind of knowledge. Those of us who don't test well—for instance, me—comfort ourselves with the fact that, yeah, okay, Ruth has an IQ of 167, but she knows nothing about boys. Or yeah, Mike's 153, but again, what kind of people skills does the guy have? Nada.
But with that single question, Ruth proved there wasn't anything wrong with her people skills—at least, not where I was concerned. She'd hit the nail straight on the head.
Because there was no way I was finding any more missing kids. Not after Sean. Not unless I could be convinced the kids I was finding really wanted to be found.
Unlike Sean.
Mike went, "It doesn't matter what she wants. She has a moral obligation to the community to share this … whatever it is."
Ruth backed down at once. How could she take a stand against her beloved?
"You're right, Michael," she said, blinking at him shyly from behind her glasses.
So much for those people skills I mentioned.
"They're not going to make Jess do anything she doesn't want to," my dad said. "We're talking about the U.S. Government, here. Jessica is a citizen of the United States. Her constitutional rights are guaranteed. Everything will be all right."
And the sad thing is, at the time I really thought he was right.
I really and truly did.
C H A P T E R
14
Crane Military Base, located about an hour's drive from my hometown, had been one of the many Army bases closed by the government during the eighties. At least, it was supposed to have closed. But, somehow, it neve
r did—at least not all the way, in spite of all those stories in my hometown paper about all the locals who worked there as maintenance men and cooks who ended up losing their jobs. The military jets—the ones that were constantly breaking the sound barrier—never quite disappeared, and we still had uniformed officers showing up for lunch and dinner in all three of my dad's restaurants long after the base was said to have been shut down.
Douglas, when he was at his most paranoid, had insisted that Crane was like Area 51, that place where the Army swears there's no base, but over which people always see these flashing lights late at night.
But when I arrived at Crane, it certainly didn't look as if anyone was trying to keep the fact that it was still open a secret. And it didn't look as if it had been neglected, either. The place was pretty clean, the lawns neatly mowed, everything looking like it was in its place. I didn't see any giant hangars where spacecraft might have been hidden, but then again, they could have been keeping those underground, like in the movie Independence Day.
The first thing Special Agent Johnson did—after introducing me to Special Agent Smith, a lady officer with pretty pearl earrings who had apparently replaced his former partner, Special Agent Davies (out on disability … oops, my bad)—was show me and my dad the room in which I'd be staying—a nice room, actually, like a hotel room, with a TV and a phone and stuff. No soda fountain, I was relieved to see.
Then he and Special Agent Smith took us to a different building, where we met some Army guys, this one colonel who squeezed my hand too hard, and this pimply-faced lieutenant who kept looking at my jeans like they were thigh-high boots or something. Then the colonel introduced us to a bunch of doctors in a different building, who acted really excited to see me, and assured my dad I was in the best of hands. My dad, even though I knew he was itching to get back to his restaurants, wouldn't leave, in spite of the doctors' assurances. He kept saying stuff like, was Special Agent Smith going to be on call in case I needed something in the middle of the night, and who was going to make sure I got enough to eat? It was kind of embarrassing.
Finally, one of the doctors, whose nametag said Helen Shifton, told my dad they were ready for me, and that I'd call him as soon as I was back in my room. After that, it was sort of obvious that they wanted him gone, so my dad left, saying he'd be back to pick me up next week. By then, we hoped that all the hoopla with the reporters and everything would have died down, and I could come back home.
He hugged me right in front of everyone, and kissed the top of my head. I pretended not to like it, but after he left, I couldn't help feeling a little bit …
Well, scared.
I didn't tell that to Dr. Helen Shifton, though. When she asked how I was feeling, I said I was fine.
I guess she didn't believe me, though, since she and a nurse gave me this complete physical, and I mean complete, with blood drawn and stuff poked into me—the whole thing. They checked my blood pressure, my cholesterol, my heart, my throat, my ears, my eyes, the bottoms of my feet. They wanted to do a gynecological exam, so I let them, and while they were down there, I asked them about birth control and stuff … you know, because I might need some, someday, when I'm like forty.
Dr. Shifton was totally cool about it, unlike my family doctor would have been, and answered all my questions, and told me everything looked normal. She even examined my scar, the one the lightning had left, and said it looked as if it was fading, and that someday, it would probably go away altogether.
"When the scar goes, do the superpowers go, too?" I asked her, a little hopefully. Having superpowers was turning out to be more of a responsibility than I liked.
She said she didn't know.
After that, Dr. Shifton made me lie down in this big tube and keep really still while she took photographs of my brain. She told me not to think about anything, but I thought about Rob. I guess the pictures turned out okay anyway, since after that Dr. Shifton made me get dressed, and then she left and this little bald man came in and asked me a lot of really boring questions, like about my dreams and my sex life and stuff. Although my sex life had, in recent days, shown signs of improving—albeit all too briefly—I didn't really have anything to tell him, and my dreams were all pretty boring, too, mostly about forgetting how to play the flute right before my challenge with Karen Sue Hanky.
It wasn't until the little bald man started asking me a bunch of stuff about Douglas that I got annoyed. I mean, how did the U.S. Government know about Douglas's suicide attempt?
But they did, and when they asked me about it, I got defensive, and the little bald man wanted to know why.
So I said, "Wouldn't you be defensive if someone you didn't know started asking you stuff about your schizophrenic brother?" But he said no, he wouldn't—not unless he had something to hide.
So then I said the only thing I had to hide was the fact that I wanted to give him a big old knuckle sandwich, and he asked if I always felt so much aggression when discussing my family, and that's when I got up and left his office and told Dr. Shifton that I wanted to go home now.
You could tell Dr. Shifton was totally mad at the little bald man, but she couldn't show it, since she's a professional and all. She said to him that she thought we'd talked long enough, and he slunk away, giving me all these dirty looks, like I'd ruined his day or something. Then Dr. Shifton told me not to worry about him, that he was just a Freudian, and nobody thought much of him anyway.
After that, it was time for lunch. Special Agent Smith took me to the cafeteria, which was in yet another building. The food wasn't bad, better than at school. I had fried chicken and mashed potatoes. I noticed the little bald man eating there, too. He looked at what I was eating and wrote it down in a little book. I pointed this out to Special Agent Smith, and she told me to ignore him, he probably had a complex.
Since there was no one my age to sit with, I sat with Special Agent Smith, and asked her how she came to be an FBI agent. She was pretty cool, answering my questions. She said she was a distinguished expert in marksmanship, which I guess meant she was a good shot, but she'd never killed anyone. She'd pulled her gun on people plenty of times, though. She even took it out of the holster and showed it to me. It was cool, really heavy. I want one, but I'll wait until I'm eighteen.
Another thing I have to wait for until I'm eighteen.
After lunch, Dr. Shifton sent me into this other doctor's office, and we spent a boring half hour with him holding up playing cards with the backs facing me and asking me what suit they were. I was like, "I don't know. You're holding them away from me," and he told me to guess. I guessed right only about ten percent of the time. He said that was normal. I could tell he was disappointed, though.
Then this weird skinny lady tried to get me to move stuff with my mind. I felt so sorry for her; I really tried, but of course I failed miserably at that, too. Then she took me into a room that was like our language lab at school, and I got to wear headphones and I was kind of excited, thinking there'd be a movie.
But the doctor in charge, a very nervous-looking man, said there'd be no movie, just some photos. I was supposed to look at the photos, and that was all.
"Am I supposed to remember what these people look like?" I asked, after the doctor got the ball rolling and the photos started flashing up onto the screen in front of me. "Like is there going to be a quiz?"
He went, "No, no quiz."
"Then I don't see the point." I was already bored with looking at the pictures. The pictures were totally uninteresting. Just men, mostly white, some faintly Arab-looking. A few black. A few Asian. Some Hispanic. No names underneath, nothing. It was almost as boring as detention. Through the headphones came some piped-in Mozart—not very well-played, I might add. At least the flutist sucked. No life, you know?
After a while I took the headphones off and was like, "Can I take a break?"
Then the doctor got way nervous and asked if I had to go to the bathroom or something, and I wanted to be like, "No, this just blows
," but I didn't want to insult his experiment, so I said, "I guess not," and I went back to looking at the photos.
Middle-aged white guy. Middle-aged white guy. Middle-aged Asian guy. Kind of hot-looking Arab guy, like that dude from The Mummy, only no facial tattoos. Middle-aged white guy. Middle-aged white guy. I wonder what they're serving for dinner. Old white guy. Serial-killer-looking kind of guy. Middle-aged white guy. Middle-aged white guy. Middle-aged white guy.
Finally, after what seemed like a year, Dr. Shifton came out and told me I'd done great, and that I could take the rest of the day off.
Actually, after that, there wasn't a whole lot of day left. It was around three o'clock. Back home, I'd just be going into detention. I felt a wave of homesickness. Can you believe that? I actually missed detention, Miss Clemmings, the Ws … and Rob, of course.
But when Special Agent Smith took me back to my room, and asked if I had a swimsuit, I forgot all about Rob, because it turned out there was a pool on the base. Since I hadn't brought a swimsuit, Special Agent Smith took me to a nearby mall, and I bought a kick-ass suit and a Sony PlayStation on the government's tab, and went back to the base and went swimming.
It was plenty hot out, and the sun was still coming down hard, even though it was so late in the day. I lounged around on a deck chair and watched the other people at the pool. It was mostly women with young children … the wives, I guessed, of the men who worked on the base.
Some of the older kids were playing Marco Polo. I leaned back on my deck chair and closed my eyes, feeling the sun burning my skin. It was a nice feeling. I started to relax.
Maybe, I told myself, everything would be all right after all. The smell of chlorine was tangy and pleasant in my nose. It smelled clean and sharp.
Things usually work out for the best.
The sound of the children shouting filled my ears. "Marco!" Then a splash.
"Polo!" Then another splash.
"Marco!" Splash.
"Polo!" Splash. Laughter.
"Marco!" Splash.
"Polo!" Splash. Screaming. Hysterical laughter.
When Lightning Strikes Page 11
