by David Lubar
I waited until the nurse put me in the examining room, then swallowed the iClotz. That was definitely one of the weirder things I’d done recently. It dangled from a tooth on a piece of fishing line. I also took one of Abigail’s gumballs from my pocket and popped it in my mouth.
Dr. Scrivella smiled at me when he walked into the exam room. “Well, there, Nathan. You’ve certainly grown into a strapping young lad. I remember when you were a wheezy little baby. Let’s see how you’re doing.”
I showed him my right foot. “I had a scratch, but it’s all healed. My mom was worried. You know how moms get.”
He laughed. “Moms keep me in business.” He squinted at my foot for a moment then nodded. “The foot is fine. Let’s see if you’ve got a fever.”
I wish.
He opened a drawer and pulled out a thermometer. I got ready to bite down on the gumball. But the thermometer wasn’t the kind you stick in your mouth. It was the kind you put in your ear. Mom had one like that. I’d always hated the way it felt when she jammed it in my ear. I thought about crushing the gumball in my hand and squirting some of the mixture in my ear. But I was afraid what would happen if the reaction went off in such a small place. I might get a bunch of foam shooting out of my ear. Or I might blow my ear off. Even if I could glue it back, it would be hard to find all the pieces. And even harder to explain things to Dr. Scrivella.
If I let him stick that thermometer in my ear, it was all over. It’s definitely not cool to have no temperature.
13
Stuff Gets in the Way
I had to do something. Dr. Scrivella squinted as he aimed the end of the thermometer toward my ear. The instant he stuck it inside, I let out a loud laugh and jerked away.
“Easy there, Nathan. This won’t hurt.” He started to insert the thermometer again.
I jerked away again. “That tickles!”
He stared down at the thermometer. “You’re right. I hate this new-fangled stuff. The old-fashioned way is always the best.” He reached into the drawer and pulled out a mouth thermometer. By the time he got back to me, I’d crushed the gumball.
I could actually feel a bit of tingling as the liquid flowed under my tongue.
“Open up.”
I opened my mouth a bit.
“No jumping,” Dr. Scrivella said.
I nodded. He put the thermometer in my mouth. I sealed my lips around it. I could feel my cheeks puffing a bit. The reaction was definitely working.
A moment later, Dr. Scrivella pulled out the thermometer, looked at it, and nodded. “You’re definitely normal,” he said. “But that’s a good thing.”
He wrote something down on a sheet of paper in my file. Then he gave me a shot. I pretended it hurt.
“All right. Give me your wrist.”
I started to hold my hand out. “Achooo!” I faked a sneeze. As I bent over, I slipped the rubber ball under my arm and clamped it down in my armpit.
Dr. Scrivella took my wrist and felt for my pulse. But instead of looking at his own watch, he grabbed my other arm and turned my watch toward himself. I guess he thought that would amuse me. I wanted to yank my arm away, but that would make him suspicious.
Calm down. You can do this.
There was a clock on the wall, but it didn’t have a second hand. Dr. Scrivella was feeling around on my wrist and frowning. I had to act right away. I’d practiced so much, I was pretty sure I could keep up the right rhythm without looking at my watch.
I kept up the squeezing until he nodded and dropped his hand from my wrist. “Sixty,” he said. He smiled at me and added, “Like clockwork. You could get a job in a watch factory.”
“Thanks.”
“All right. Take off your shirt. Let’s have a listen to the ticker.”
I sneaked the ball back into my pants pocket as I was slipping off my shirt. Dr. Scrivella put his stethoscope against my chest. I didn’t feel anything, but I flinched to make him think I did. He listened for a moment, frowned, then said, “A little sluggish. I suspect you haven’t been getting enough exercise.”
I realized he’d been listening to Mookie’s heart. “Yeah. I guess I’ve been playing too many video games. I’ll try to do better.”
He slapped my knee. “Good lad. Exercise is the key to living longer. That and good nutrition.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“Deep breath,” he said, putting the stethoscope against my back.
“Excellent,” he said a moment later. “Your lungs sound really good.”
And that was it. Thanks to Abigail, I’d survived a doctor’s exam without anyone finding out that I was dead. I put my shirt back on and hopped off the examining table. “See you in a year,” Dr. Scrivella said.
“I hope so.”
I headed out to the waiting room. Mom was on her cell phone. She looked distracted.
“Do you mind walking home?” she asked.
“What’s wrong?”
“They called me from work. Stuffy Wuffy is mobbed. Seventeen people just showed up asking to make bears. They need me.”
That was weird. I had a hard time believing there were seventeen people in all of New Jersey who’d want to stuff their own teddy bear. “No problem. I can walk.”
“I could call your dad,” she said. “But he’s still at work.”
“Really, it’s no problem.” A walk would give me a chance to think. I was worried about Mr. Murphy, but there wasn’t anything I could do to help him right now.
Mom drove off, and I headed home. I hadn’t gone more than half a block when a car pulled up next to the curb. The window rolled down. Maybe the bad guys had tracked me here somehow. I got ready to run.
“Nathan, get in.”
It was Dr. Cushing. “Boy, am I glad to see you.” I opened the door and got in.
“I’m glad to see you, too, Nathan.”
“Mr. Murphy was kidnapped,” I said. “I’m totally freaked out.”
“We know. We were afraid you’d be spooked. But we needed to talk with you. That’s why they sent me instead of someone you didn’t know. And that’s why we just sent seventeen people to the mall to buy teddy bears. We need to figure this out, and we need to do it quickly. I’m afraid we’re almost out of time. Based on our experience, we’re pretty sure RABID isn’t going to risk keeping Peter around for more than twenty-four hours.”
“But they grabbed Mr. Murphy last night—so we only have . . .”
“Two or three hours,” she said.
“How come BUM was cleared out?” I asked.
“We only cleared out the entry point near where Peter was captured. He’d never reveal the other locations, no matter what they did to him, but we couldn’t take a chance in case this one was compromised.”
“Are those people really that bad?”
“Worse. I know it’s hard to accept if you haven’t been exposed to that sort of organization. But they will do whatever they can to destroy our freedom.”
“So we have to stop them. Do you have any idea where they are?”
She shook her head. “Peter figured it out. He’s brilliant at that sort of thing. But he didn’t tell anyone—not even the strike team he was trying to assemble. All they knew was that the target would be less than fifty miles from here. That’s one of our problems. We keep things far too secret—even from each other.”
“So it’s hopeless,” I said. But it couldn’t be. We had to rescue Mr. Murphy.
“Did he say anything to you last night?” Dr. Cushing asked.
I thought back. “He had me play dead. He said it was crucial to the mission.”
“Play dead?” Dr. Cushing stared up at the sky and tugged at the ends of her hair. She really reminded me of Abigail now. “If you were found dead, they’d take you to a hospital. But that doesn’t make sense. Why would he want to get you into a hospital?”
“We could go to the nearest hospital,” I said.
“But if we’re wrong, it will be too late. Peter doesn’
t have much time. We can’t afford a mistake. And we still don’t know exactly what sort of disaster RABID is planning.”
I knew what I had to say, but I thought for a long time before I spoke. “I have a friend who can help,” I said. “She can figure out anything. But I don’t want her getting all mixed up with spy stuff. I don’t want her in any danger. So you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone else at BUM about her.”
Dr. Cushing stared at me for a moment. I guess she was weighing everything in her mind. Finally she nodded and said, “I promise.”
“Okay. Let’s go.” I gave her directions to Abigail’s house.
14
Of Corpse
Luckily, Abigail was home. And, luckily, her mom was out, so I didn’t have to explain why I was bringing a stranger with me. Mookie was there, too. I don’t know whether that was lucky or unlucky.
I introduced everyone, then told Abigail the problem. She pounced right on it. “The bad guys have to be someplace where people would bring a dead kid. But a regular hospital isn’t a good place for bad guys to set up headquarters.” She went to the living room and turned on her computer. “So maybe we need to find a hospital that is in transition, or is adjacent to a location that would be suitable for a covert operation.”
“Good thinking,” Dr. Cushing said.
“I’m glad she understood that,” Mookie said. “I sure didn’t.”
Dr. Cushing leaned over Abigail’s shoulder. “You could check public records.”
“Absolutely,” Abigail said. “But any change in a hospital would be news, so I could scan news sources first, as long as I use the right keyword.”
“Try transition, repurpose, downscale, or obsolete,” Dr. Cushing said.
“Excellent idea,” Abigail said. “I’ll limit the range to regional sources.” She was almost glowing. I guess the thing she needed most was someone who totally understood her.
They kept talking like this while Abigail typed. Mookie and I looked at each other.
“How come I never know what’s going on?” he asked.
“Same reason I don’t, I guess.”
Ten minutes later, Abigail said, “It’s not a hospital. Nothing we found fits.”
“Which means it has to be somewhere else,” Dr. Cushing said. “But where?”
“Hey,” Mookie said. “In the zombie movies, they’re always taking the bodies to the local funeral home. Then, the zombies pop off the tables in some creepy old basement and everyone runs away screaming.” He held out his arms and lurched around the room.
Abigail and Dr. Cushing both stared at Mookie for a moment. I was about to tell him to stop distracting them when they both shouted, “Brilliant!”
Mookie staggered back like he’d been smacked on the head. “Really?”
They both nodded.
He grinned.
“In some towns, especially small ones, a funeral director has the job of coroner,” Dr. Cushing said. “They’d take the body there. We just need to figure out the most likely person.” She pulled out her phone. Unlike Mr. Murphy, Dr. Cushing obviously kept her battery charged.
“You have a database of suspicious persons, right?” Abigail asked.
Dr. Cushing nodded. Then she started talking on the phone. “We have a lead. I need you to screen our watch lists for anyone who works at, or owns, a funeral home.” She waited a moment, listened, then told us, “There are five hits, but only one within fifty miles of here.”
“That has to be it,” Abigail said.
“I hope so,” Dr. Cushing said. She put her phone away, grabbed a piece of paper, wrote down some information, then turned toward us. “There’s a small town in Delaware, just over the border. Dobbsville. The local coroner is also the funeral director.”
“If you know where it is, why can’t you just rush in?” I asked. “Or call the police?”
“They’d kill Peter,” she said. “And they’d destroy their computer files. We wouldn’t get anything. We need someone who can slip in there undetected and set Peter free. Maybe even reach the computers, though that’s no longer a priority. It has to be you, Nathan.”
“Let’s do it,” I said.
Dr. Cushing picked up her phone again. “I’ll call a couple field agents to take you there.”
“No,” I said. “I want you to take me.”
Dr. Cushing looked like she was going to argue, but finally she nodded.
“You’d better phone home,” Abigail said.
I reached in my pocket, then remembered that Mr. Murphy had my phone. Which was another reason I’d risk just about anything to rescue him.
“Here, use mine,” Abigail said. She tossed her phone to me, but it went too high and landed behind her bed. “Oops. Sorry. Just put it on my desk when you’re done. Mookie and I have to go do more research at the library.”
“We do?” Mookie asked.
“Yes, we do.” Abigail grabbed his arm and dragged him off.
“She seemed to be in a hurry,” Dr. Cushing said.
“I’m sure she had a good reason.” I crawled under Abigail’s bed, found her phone, then called home and left a message saying I was having dinner with Mookie.
After I put the phone on the desk, Dr. Cushing and I left Abigail’s house and drove off toward Delaware. It was time for me to play dead. I just hoped I was getting there soon enough to keep Mr. Murphy from playing dead for real.
15
From Two to Four
Dr. Cushing drives a lot faster than either of my parents. Maybe faster than both of them combined. As fast as she was going, I had the feeling the car wasn’t anywhere near its top speed. It seemed pretty powerful. Dad would have loved it.
“Is this your car?” I ran my hand along the side of the seat. It felt like real leather.
“I wish. BUM keeps a variety of vehicles near all our entry points.”
She nudged the gas a bit more. We flew past the other cars on the road. She was definitely over the speed limit. But we had a long way to go, and a life to save.
Right after we got out of East Craven, I heard sirens. An unmarked state police car shot up behind us. Dr. Cushing didn’t slow down or pull over. Instead, she reached toward the dashboard and opened a compartment above the radio. I saw five buttons there.
“That’s not for smoke screens or that kind of stuff, is it?” I guess I’d been playing too many computer games.
She flashed me a smile. “Press the one that says, ‘Authorize.’ ”
I pushed it. A moment later, the siren stopped and the police car dropped back.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You just sent their in-car computer a message authorizing us to do whatever we need to do to get where we’re going.”
“That’s cool,” I said.
“There are some benefits to helping the government.” She floored the accelerator, then said, “Nervous?”
“Nope, I like going fast.”
“I mean, about your mission?”
“Just in here,” I said, tapping my head. “Not down here.” I pointed at my gut.
“That makes sense. Your autonomous nervous system doesn’t work.”
“Autonomous?”
“The automatic stuff. Heartbeat. Respiration. All those organs that squirt chemicals into your bloodstream. When living people come face-to-face with danger, our bodies get us ready to fight or flee. Your body doesn’t do that. So, no feeling of panic. No rush of adrenaline. That’s good for a spy.”
“I guess. This is my first real spy mission.”
“Mine, too,” she said as she slid through a sharp curve.
“What?”
“I told you, I’m not an agent. I’m a doctor. I work in a lab. They don’t train us to do spy stuff. But don’t worry. We’ll be fine. I have the easy part. All I have to do is get you there in one piece.”
I guess I did have the hard part. I didn’t have a clue what I’d need to do once I got inside the funeral home. “Do you know anything abo
ut the bad guy?”
Dr. Cushing nodded. “They downloaded his file to my phone. You can check it out.”
“Mr. Murphy doesn’t like using cell phones,” I said.
“Secure phones are fine,” Dr. Cushing said.
I took the phone and read the file. It was amazing how much information there was. They even had pictures. The guy who owned the funeral home, Gregor Smetchinski, had come here from Russia twenty years ago. But he’d made five trips to the Middle East in the past three years, and one trip to Eastern Europe. He was suspected of involvement in several of RABID’s messier plots, but there was no solid evidence. Still, his actions were suspicious enough to put his name in BUM’s computer. I finished reading, then put the phone down.
A couple minutes later, Dr. Cushing sniffed the air.
“Good grief—that’s awful. What is it? Do they slaughter pigs somewhere around here?”
Since I don’t breathe, I never smell stuff unless I make myself take a breath. I sniffed. Oh, no. It wasn’t just sickening—it was also familiar. “Pull over.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just pull over and pop the trunk.”
As soon as Dr. Cushing pulled to the shoulder, I got out and went behind the car. Sure enough, Mookie and Abigail were in the trunk. Mookie was grinning. Abigail was holding her nose and quivering like she was trying not to throw up.
Dr. Cushing joined me. “This is not good.”
“I guess I blew my cover,” Mookie said.
“Cover?” Abigail screamed. “It smells like you blew out your intestines. We need to flush your entire digestive system with a fire hose.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“We figured you might need our help,” Mookie said. “So we sneaked into the trunk.” He held out a bag. “Want a pretzel?”
Dr. Cushing looked over her shoulder toward East Craven. “There’s no time to go back. Get in.”
