ALSO BY CAROLINE B. COONEY
THE JANIE BOOKS
The Face on the Milk Carton
Whatever Happened to Janie?
The Voice on the Radio
What Janie Found
THE TIME TRAVEL QUARTET
Both Sides of Time
Out of Time
Prisoner of Time
For All Time
OTHER NOVELS
A Friend at Midnight
Hit the Road
The Girl Who Invented Romance
Family Reunion
Goddess of Yesterday
The Ransom of Mercy Carter
Tune In Anytime
Burning Up
What Child Is This?
Driver's Ed
Twenty Pageants Later
Among Friends
CHAPTER ONE
On Friday, Mr. Lynch walked around the classroom making sure everybody had written down the due date in their assignment books. Luckily he started at the far side, giving Mitty Blake time to whisper to his best friend,“Due date for what?”
“Notes for the term paper,” whispered Derek. “The one you've been working on for four weeks?”
Mitty hadn't even chosen a topic yet.
But Mr. Lynch had been teaching for years. He had encountered many Mittys. So although the paper itself didn't have to be turned in until February 18, on this coming Monday, February 2, each student in advanced biology had to submit an outline, ten pages of notes and a bibliography including four physical books.
“Books?” said Mitty, stunned. He was sure this had not been mentioned before. “Mr. Lynch, nobody uses books anymore. They're useless, especially in science. Facts change too fast.”
“Books,” repeated Mr. Lynch. “This is to prevent you people from doing a hundred percent of your research online.”
Mitty had done zero percent anywhere, but he had certainly planned—insofar as Mitty had plans, which he didn't—to do his research online. So he said,“Mr. Lynch, an actual book is out of date before it gets printed. Anyway, a good scientist does laboratory research.”
“We did laboratory research last fall, Mitty,” said Mr. Lynch. “I don't recall that you threw yourself into your project. I recall that you received a passing grade only through the efforts of the rest of your team. A scientist, Mitty, has to be able to dig through the published research of others. A scientist has to grasp the background and history of things. That means books.”
Mitty was willing to grasp the background and history of rock music. On a slow day, he could listen to Nirvana or Pearl Jam. But the background and history of disease?
Because that was the depressing topic of this assignment: infectious disease.
“Each of you,” Mr. Lynch had said, so many weeks ago that Mitty could barely remember it, “will choose an infectious disease of plants, animals or humans. You will study the disease in history and its ancient treatments or lack of them. If the disease has a specific history for us here in New York City—for example, during the yellow fever epidemics of the 1700s, people sometimes died at the rate of three hundred per city block per day—you will cover that. Other sections of your paper: description and course of the disease, current treatments and ongoing research. Finally, if your disease has an application in bioterrorism, you will cover that also.”
Even Mitty had awakened briefly to the exciting possibility of bioterrorism.
Derek of course had wanted to be an exception to the rules. “Can we research bioterrorism only? I want to do anthrax but specifically Ottilie Lundgren, the ninety-four-year-old woman who died of anthrax in 2001 when she opened her mail. She's FBI case number 184. It's impossible for me to use books. No book has been written about her yet. All my research has to be online.” Derek warmed to a favorite topic. “I can solve her mystery. I believe everything is online now, every clue I need, and I can nail her murderer.”
“I would be proud of you,” Mr. Lynch had said, without sarcasm,“and you may focus on Ottilie Lundgren, but all that will do is make your paper longer. You still have to include everything I described and you still must have four books. Remember, class, that I too know how to use Amazon.com. I too can pull up a title that looks useful and stick it in a bibliography without actually reading the book. I too can open up the free first chapter and find something to put in my notes. I will know if you actually read a book or if you are cheating.”
Mr. Lynch was one of the few teachers who admitted that even here at St. Raphael's, a Manhattan prep school for the rich and/or brilliant (Mitty fell into the first category), there was such a thing as cheating. Other teachers skirted this possibility as if it were anthrax-laced mail.
Right away, rare cool African diseases like Ebola and Lassa fever had been chosen by eager students. Two other kids also wanted anthrax but promised not to invade Derek's territory by mentioning Ottilie Lundgren. As the days went by people began discussing their topics with excitement, as if they were genuinely interested. One girl had been allowed to choose “Immunization: Does It or Does It Not Cause Autism?” Mitty would get autism just thinking about that. Another girl really did pick a plant disease and was deep into corn blight. Olivia, whom Mitty adored, had chosen typhoid fever and was already so advanced in her research that she was using the library of Columbia University's medical school, because every other library in New York City was too limited. Mitty hadn't been inside any library in the city of New York.
As soon as Mr. Lynch finished ranting, Mitty slumped down in his seat. He had perfected the technique of listening to music on his iPod while a teacher talked. It was easy if he wore long sleeves. He kept the iPod in its armband and ran the cord down his arm and into his hand. Cupping the earpiece in his palm, he would rest his head on the same hand and listen to his music. His eyes stayed fixed on his teachers, who tended to be fond of him because he seemed so interested.
Mitty's main interest was music. His life plan was to become a rock concert reviewer, the world's best job, and to prepare for this career, he had to buy, listen to and memorize everything out there. He really didn't have time for term papers. He certainly didn't have time for books.
Mr. Lynch extended his hand for Mitty's assignment calendar.
Every fall, St. Raphael's handed these out. There were people who filled them in. Mitty was not one of them. He usually tossed his calendar in the garbage in September, because he wouldn't be making any entries. It was kind of amazing that the thing was still in his backpack, but then Mitty mainly used his backpack to carry snacks and hardly ever examined the debris at the bottom. With a degree of pride, he held out the February page, on which he had just scribbled the right words.
“No other teacher in the entire school has given you a single assignment for February of 2004?” asked Mr. Lynch, handing the calendar back.
Mitty made it a policy not to answer dangerous questions, so he just smiled in a friendly fashion.
“Persons,” said Mr. Lynch, looking hard at Mitty, “having a low quiz average who do not hand in their ten pages of notes on Monday will be transferred out of this section and into a regular biology class.”
This was not a threat biology-wise, because Mitty certainly didn't care what or even if he learned, but if he got transferred he would no longer be in a class with Olivia Clark.
Olivia was the pinnacle of studious activity. When Olivia faced an exam, she divided her efforts carefully over the correct number of evenings. She never slacked off and never lost focus. She was light-years ahead of everybody. Olivia had been nagging him to start his biology paper, which—because this was advanced biology— was supposed to be an advanced paper as well.
Mitty didn't deserve to be in anything advanced. He was in this class only because his father and mother had put pre
ssure on the school, since their life plan for him involved a brilliant high school career, an awesome college acceptance and then medical school. They attributed his academic slump to attention deficit disorder, laziness, hormones and bad teachers. None of these had anything to do with it. Mitty just had other plans.
The moment school ended, Mitty bounded out of St. Raphael's and looked for his parents, who would be waiting in the car, motor idling, his father itching to accelerate. Mitty leaped into the backseat, slammed the door and forgot the whole concept of assignments.
Every weekend, the Blakes went to their place in the country. (When you lived in Manhattan, the “country” was anywhere more than twenty miles from downtown.)
This particular weekend was perfect. It wasn't until Sunday afternoon, February 1, 2004, at about four o'clock, that he remembered homework, because he was thinking of Olivia. She was unquestionably at her desk in New York, sitting between towers of books, her long thin fingers racing over the keyboard of her laptop, her long dark hair falling around her shoulders.
Mitty moaned. He too should be writing. Where was he supposed to get books at four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon?
Connecticut had assets. Not only did Mitty have a huge bedroom with several closets, a basement full of tools and a media room full of DVDs, but he even had his own side of the garage, his own basketball hoop, his own creek for fishing, his own bikes and ATV. Still, at times like this, Connecticut had only drawbacks.
In New York City, Mitty just walked out the door and everything was right there: every conceivable store and restaurant, and on the sidewalk, Mitty's favorite shopping area, he could pick up sunglasses, watches and baseball caps to replace the ones he had almost certainly lost during the week. And not only was everything right there, everything was always open. Just to test this, Mitty and his dad would sometimes get a hot dog, sushi or a toothbrush at three a.m.
If he were in the city, he'd just cross the street and head down the block to a huge Barnes & Noble. In the science and medicine section, he'd copy bibliography material, scribble enough sentences to keep Mr. Lynch happy, and then take the escalator to the café on the top floor, buy a pastry and watch people reading magazines, a more pleasant hobby than actually reading a magazine himself.
But Mitty was not in New York.
The country didn't even have bookstores unless you had time to drive for miles, and Mitty didn't drive yet. He could ask his parents to take him, but then he'd have to admit he had not yet started a project due in sixteen hours. They wouldn't understand that sixteen hours was plenty of time. Subtract eight for sleep—or ten, which was more like Mitty on a weekend—and that left eight or else six hours, and anybody could take a page or two of notes per hour … if they had books to take notes from.
If only his family had stayed in the city this weekend. Of course, if they had, Mitty still wouldn't have been working on his paper. He'd have been hanging out with Derek or else with Olivia. They didn't do well together; they were separate activities. And if he'd been in New York, Mitty would have been completely distracted by the city in winter, when everything good happened; the best concerts and bands, the best basketball and hockey, the biggest Christmas tree and the brightest lights. He and Derek would have gone to Madison Square Garden. He and Olivia—well, actually, he and Olivia had not yet done anything on their own. He liked her so much he needed lots of other people around to dilute how much he liked her.
If he wanted to stay in the advanced class with her, he'd better get launched.
He didn't rush into it.
First he put on a CD of his current favorite rock band, Widespread Panic. He had heard them live last year at the Beacon Theatre. His apartment was close to Lincoln Center, so his parents could easily attend the symphony, opera and ballet. This excellent location was also close to a venue for real music, the Beacon, whose only drawback was being so close to home that Mitty couldn't take the subway. Mitty loved the subway.
If Mitty ever had extra money, he gave it to subway performers. He loved those guys. He loved the really bad sax player and the touchingly hopeful string quartet. He loved the gospel singers and the trumpeters, the mimes and the guy who painted himself silver and pretended to be a statue. Mitty always dropped money in their cups. Every time he heard a subway musician, he looked forward to the day when he too could concentrate on music and not worry about class.
Books, thought Mitty, frowning, and a faint book-type thought penetrated his mind. He turned down the volume on his music in order to process the thought.
Mitty's mother was an interior decorator with a peculiar specialty: creating libraries for people who did not read. These clients turned to Kathleen Blake to provide a warm, rich, British-looking room full of leather, antique maps, dark velvet and books with gold page edges. Mrs. Blake scoured New York, New Jersey and New England for leather-bound sets of dead English authors. Content didn't matter, because nobody would ever read them. The books just had to have terrific bindings. The week before, she'd bought out the library of some very old— and finally dead—doctor in Wallingford. It had taken two trips in her van to bring back the guy's hundreds of books.
Mitty had unpacked for her. He didn't read if he could avoid it, but when words were directly in front of your face, you couldn't help deciphering them. Hadn't some of the doctor's books been about infectious disease?
Dragging his backpack, which held his laptop, Mitty went down a flight of stairs, crossed the center hall and entered his mother's book room. A nice enough place if you liked books, but Mitty didn't. From across the room, he spotted Principles of Contagious Disease, Conditions of Infectious Disease, Infectious Illness: Treatment and Containment and A History of Immunology.
The books were thick and dusty. Mitty picked up Principles of Contagious Disease because the leather was soft and gold, like melted butter. He opened to the title page and, remembering he had to have a bibliography, turned one more. The book had been printed in Boston in 1899.
What had anybody known about biology in 1899? Nothing. Every word in this book would be meaningless. Science-wise, 1899 was a joke. He'd be better off to hit the Barnes & Noble when they got back to the city, buy up everything they carried about infectious disease, pull an all-nighter and fulfill Mr. Lynch's requirements by dawn.
Or not fulfill them. Whatever.
Mitty began to shrug about the paper, as he had shrugged about everything academic this year. But if he failed out of advanced biology his father would go berserk and his mother would throw things. He might even get calls from his sister in grad school. (“Do you realize how you're hurting Mother?”)
Plus there was Olivia's comment a few weeks ago, when he admitted he'd lost the technique of even hearing school; he'd glance around and find that the whole school day was over and he couldn't remember what he'd been thinking about all day, or even if he'd been thinking.
Olivia said without joking, “Maybe it's very early Alzheimer's.”
Mitty didn't expect to be loved for his brain, but he didn't want to be discarded for his total lack of brain either, so he did not put Principles of Contagious Disease back.
He sat cross-legged on the bare wood floor and leafed through the book. (Flipping pages prior to reading took away some of the sting.) First, choose a disease, he told himself.
Faintly he heard the sound of television and knew that his parents were watching something together. Since they had no television tastes in common, one of them was sacrificing for the other. Mitty would rather watch anything, even figure skating, than research an infectious disease he hadn't chosen yet in a book with no useful facts, so he considered heading for the media room. His fingers felt a raised place in the book. Not a lump, just a thicker area. Mitty turned pages, expecting a folded chart.
It was an envelope.
The envelope was rectangular, an odd size, maybe six inches long and two inches wide. It was mustard yellow, its color preserved by the darkness inside the book. It was labeled on one side. With a fo
untain pen, someone had written Scabs—VM epidemic, 1902, Boston.
The envelope was not and never had been sealed. It was closed with a thin string wound around a stiff paper button. Mitty undid the string and peered in, but the opening was narrow and he couldn't see exactly what was down there. He inverted the envelope over his hand and tapped. The contents slid into his palm.
The stuff really was scabs.
When he was learning to rollerblade and skateboard (New York City, being sidewalk heaven, was perfect for these skills), he was always falling and scraping open his elbows and knees. His mother was always begging him to wear safety pads or else stop dangerous activities altogether, and he was always paying no attention. He never used Band-Aids. It was not until his cuts scabbed over that he could be bothered to notice them at all. There was something about a scab that demanded picking. When he was about eight, Mitty had had almost a full-time hobby of ripping scabs off before the cuts healed so they had to scab over again.
Mitty rubbed one dark crust of old blood between his fingers. It crumbled. Mitty sneezed. The energy of his sneeze made his fingers tighten around the remaining crusts. When he released his grip, only one scab remained intact. It was darker than the rest, almost black. He dropped the crumbles back in the envelope, dusted his hands briskly and held the dark scab between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. His nose itched. Mitty rubbed his nose with the back of his hand to prevent a second sneeze.
The pages of the book began to turn of their own accord, wanting to close. Mitty had not read the page where the envelope had been resting.
He sniffed the scab. It seemed to have a slight odor, but perhaps that was just the scent of age.
It was truly weird to save your scabs. Even Mitty, who rather prided himself on being weird, had never saved a scab. But probably it wasn't the wounded person saving his own scabs; probably it was some doctor who had once owned this textbook, saving scabs off somebody else's body. Talk about sick.
It was also puzzling. What infectious disease bled? What wound would this scab be from?
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