I sat up again, and Dr. Price pushed my shoulders back down on the bed as she said, “Calm down, Mark, it’s only twenty forty-five, and everything will be all right.”
2045, I thought! I’d been in a coma for years. I’d missed my entire high school and college years. I was old! It wasn’t fair. I didn’t want to be old, and I started to cry. I finally got up the nerve to raise my wrinkly old-person hands to take a look and sat up again in surprise. They looked the same as when I went to bed. “How is this possible?” I asked.
“We’re not sure, Mark. You wouldn’t wake up this morning, and your parents brought you here. We’ve run a full set of tests on you, but we still aren’t sure what caused it,” said Dr. Price. “But I’m so glad that you’re awake now, and if you’ll lie back down and relax, I’ll go tell your father. He’s in the reception area.”
“Wait! What to do you mean, this morning?” I asked as she turned to leave. “I thought you said it was 2045.”
Dr. Price laughed and replied, “No, Mark, it is 20:45, which is military time for a quarter to nine at night. You’ve been in a coma for hours, not decades.” Then her face turned serious, and she added, “But why did you think that?”
“Oh, no reason,” I answered, but I had an excellent reason indeed.
The next few hours were a blur. Dad came running in and gave me the biggest hug of my life. We called Mom and my sister, and couldn’t understand a word they said, but Dad told them that everything was OK. The doctors were keeping me overnight for observation and would release me in the morning.
Dr. Price returned after Dad left and everything had calmed down. I’d been sleeping for nearly twenty-four hours, so I wasn’t at all tired. Instead, I was on the phone telling Malik all about it in hushed tones when the door opened. I hastily whispered, “Call you back tomorrow,” and hung up.
“You had better not have been talking to Tyler, young man,” warned Dr. Price, although she was smiling. “It is way past his bedtime.”
Dr. Price asked me how I was feeling and then asked the same questions I’d been answering all night. I repeated that no, I hadn’t bumped my head. No, I hadn’t taken any drugs. No, I didn’t feel sick. And yes, I had been sleeping well over the past few weeks. Then she asked a question she hadn’t asked before, and I was suddenly even more awake.
“Have you had any strange dreams lately? Perhaps something more intense than usual?”
“Um, no, nothing special,” I lied. “I don’t usually remember my dreams though, why?”
“Oh, no particular reason,” she answered. “Your brain scans came back normal. I was just trying to see if you might have been having any unusual brain activity while you slept. I want to be sure nothing is going on. We were all anxious about you today.”
“No, nothing like that,” I assured her. “Why is everyone so freaked out about this? All I did was sleep a little longer and a little more soundly than usual. What’s the big deal?”
Tyler’s mom suddenly looked very tired and pulled up a chair.
“Mark, it’s probably nothing, but there’s a mystery I’ve been puzzling over for years, and I was apprehensive that it might be happening to you. It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” she smiled.
“Is it about kids going to sleep and not waking up?” I asked.
“How do you know?” she asked, suddenly sitting up straight as though she had been zapped by electricity.
“Um, because we’re talking about me not waking up. Why? Has this happened before?” I asked, as my stomach tightened.
“Listen, Mark, it’s probably nothing, but there is a statistical anomaly which some of us call the Cincinnati Childhood Curse.” She laughed a little and added, “It sounds pretty silly when I say it out loud; especially as a medical professional. You see, for some reason, there appears to be a pattern of young people dying in their sleep around this time of the year.”
“Wait! Did you say dying?” I asked in a panic.
“I’m sorry, Mark,” she quickly answered. “It’s nothing, and I shouldn’t have said anything but it’s late, and I’ve been thinking about this all day long. I’m sorry. Never mind.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Price, but I can’t just pretend you didn’t say that. You’ve got to tell me more, or I’ll never be able to go to sleep again!” I said.
She sighed and drew her chair a little closer to tell me a story. Well, first she hemmed and hawed about how what she was going to say probably wasn’t anything, but she eventually got to the point. I learned that people die in their sleep all the time. It even, occasionally, happens to kids, which is pretty creepy. Usually, however, the doctors figure out the reason. Maybe they did drugs, or perhaps they had a heart condition or a brain aneurysm, or maybe they were sick, or something. But sometimes people go to bed and don’t wake up, and nobody can figure out why.
Years ago, somebody had noticed a pattern of young kids dying every year in the summer or fall. It wasn’t a huge number, only three or four, and it didn’t happen every year, but these cases were always classified as unexplained. Dr. Price had heard this rumor early in her career and decided to put it to rest. She went back through all the obituaries and hospital records for fifty years expecting to prove that there was nothing special about this time of the year, but the more she looked, the more a pattern began to emerge.
She then explained how the pattern became more evident after she went through all the other hospitals’ records in the area and I understood where Tyler got his obsessive-compulsive behavior. Then she went through similar records for the cities of Columbus, Cleveland, and even Chicago and found no similar pattern in any of those cities.
By this time, I was feeling prickly goosebumps all over and was truly scared. Somehow lapsing into a coma was terrible enough but dying was terrifying. I didn’t want Dr. Price to stop, though, so I tried to act relaxed and say that it sounded like a great ghost story. She chuckled and said that it probably was, but she agreed to finish.
She said that she had been chasing this ghost story in her spare time for the past twenty years and that the pattern seemed to have been going on as far back as she could go, although the older records became pretty unreliable. I asked if the entire pattern was limited to more kids dying in the fall than any other time of the year and she looked at me suspiciously once again and said, “No, there’s more.”
I didn’t want to press and have her suspect that I knew more than I was letting on, but I had to know and gave her my most imploring look. “Dr. Price, you know Tyler, Malik, Ethan and I love mysteries and conspiracy theories. You can’t tease me like this. Now I have to know the rest!” I pleaded.
“OK,” she laughed as she relented. “I’ll tell you the rest of my crazy theory if you promise to go to sleep and to never tell anyone about this. I don’t want to start a panic.”
“I promise,” I said, knowing full well that I’d be sharing everything with the guys tomorrow.
“All right, well you see not only are these deaths unexplained sleep expirations, but they all happened between June and October, almost all involved children thirteen years old, and they were almost all in clusters of three or four children.”
“What do you mean by clusters?” I asked although I knew what her answer would be.
“I mean, that almost every year, three or four children your age die in their sleep on the same night,” she said.
“Whoa,” I said. “All these kids were my age and died on August twenty-sixth? That is spooky!”
“No, not on the same date. Remember how I said, between June and October? The dates vary, but they all die on the same night in that particular year. And, yes spooky is a good word for it,” she answered. “But now it is time for you to go to sleep, young man. You’re going to be fine. You’ve proven that you are not a part of the Cincinnati Childhood Curse simply by not dying.”
“Um, so what does this have to do with me?” I asked. “I didn’t die and have to be brought back to life, did I?”
&nb
sp; “No, Mark, you’re right. It has nothing to do with you,” Dr. Price assured me, with a weak smile.
“But you think it does, right?” I asked. This was important. I couldn’t let her go now because I knew she’d never tell me anything more about the curse once she left the room. It was apparent that she didn’t want to tell me her suspicions, but it was also clear that she had to let them out. Looking back on it, I bet she had never told anyone most of this and keeping it inside was probably driving her nuts.
“Almost precisely six years ago, four, thirteen-year-old children went to sleep and never woke up. They didn’t die, though. They’ve been resting in comas ever since with no apparent medical reason for their state. They have normal brain activity for someone dreaming in a deep sleep, but nothing we’ve tried has been able to awaken them. You were in the same condition today, and it terrified me,” she said in almost a whisper.
I’ve never seen a grownup look scared in the way Dr. Price looked at that moment. I’ve certainly never seen a doctor appear that terrified. I didn’t know what to say or do, but she continued talking before I could blurt anything out.
“I asked you about your dreams because one of their parents had said that their child had been having intense dreams of another world for a month or two before the incident and I remember Tyler saying that you have some unusually vivid dreams,” she added.
“Nothing like that, Dr. Price,” I quickly assured her. “I’ve had dreams about fantasy worlds for years, but that’s because Tyler and I read fantasy books and play fantasy games every chance we get. Some part of my brain is thinking about magic, wizards, and dragons all day long. It would be weird if I didn’t dream about it.”
I hoped my answer was believable. It made sense to me, but who knows what grownups think.
Dr. Price laughed and stood to leave. “I imagine that my Tyler has similar dreams. Sometimes I think the only topic he talks about is fantasy. Have a good night, Mark.”
Before she could leave, I quickly said, “One more question, if you don’t mind. Are the kids in the comas all boys like Tyler, Ethan, Malik and me?”
“No, in fact, they are three girls and a boy, just like every other incident I’ve come across,” answered Dr. Price. I had to ask that, but perhaps I shouldn’t have. Tyler’s mom had been looking like she had convinced herself that this was all a coincidence, but now she was back to appearing worried.
“Good night, Mark. I’ll check on you in the morning,” Dr. Price said as she softly closed the door.
I spent hours lying in bed staring at the ceiling that night. I knew why those kids were still asleep. They were conjoined and somehow trapped on Mearth. I also knew that Stavius now had another quest: To find and rescue them. Great, I thought. Now we have to rescue six girls and a boy, and we still have to save a planet. Eighth grade is going to be a piece of cake by comparison.
I smiled at that thought and finally drifted off to sleep. Yeah, maybe the stakes were just raised, but at least I knew that Stavius was still OK on Mearth. I wouldn’t be awake here if Stavius were not all right. I was more eager to find out how we managed to avoid dying in a forest fire than worried about what will happen next. At that moment in time, I truly believed that Stavius could fulfill the prophecy with a little help from Team Stavius, Earth Division and it felt good. In fact, I felt great.
ONE WEEK LATER, EARTH
It’s a week later, and I wish I felt that positive again. Everything seems to be going sideways, and everybody is freaking out. I, of course, haven’t had the dream, and I am desperate to know what happened to Stavius. I thought that most people were supposed to switch back and forth almost nightly, but not me. I’m there for a week, then here for two, then there for a month. The dates don’t even line up. It’s early September here, but I think it’s still August on Mearth. It’s enough to drive me nuts.
The guys were all scared by my sleep problem, and we’re guessing that Stavius’ magic was drained so low that I couldn’t jump back. If that’s true, then we agree that the last bunch of heroes are still alive but stuck somewhere like in a dungeon with barely enough magic to stay alive. We have no idea how to find them, but we all agree that Stavius has to try.
Mom and Dr. Price want me to see more doctors about my sleep problem, but I’m insisting that I’m fine and that’s working for now. Ethan is worried that they might hypnotize me and I’d spill the beans about Mearth. Malik thinks that if that happens, it will alert the Mearth Agents, but I think people will believe I’m nuts. By the way, the other guys came up with the term “Mearth Agents” and, even though I don’t like it, it stuck.
Malik commented that the Mearth Agents might be alerted if word gets out about my sleep attack and Tyler freaked out. He’s worried that his mom is making waves in her research on the Cincinnati Children’s Curse and that the Mearth Agents will find out and go after her. His overactive imagination began thinking of how they were going to torture her for information, and he wouldn’t calm down until we promised to find a way to get her to back off.
I am trying to make friends with Jarius but am beginning to understand Mr. Satish’s warning about the dangers of knowing who our counterparts are on Earth. Jarius is a total jerk, and he hangs out with other jerks. I can’t stand the guy but feel like I need to keep his math skills up to help Janus.
And that’s just my social life!
I failed a quiz in Mr. Narwani’s history class. He hates me, I hate history, and I have to get him to do some research he doesn’t want to do. I am managing to get “meets expectations” marks in math and science, but I don’t have any idea of what I’m doing. I go through the motions and get the answers they are looking for, but I have no idea what it all means. Even worse, the girl who sits behind us in class, Shontelle Jackson, overheard me trying to convince Jarius to join our Math and Science Club and now she wants to be a part of it. We don’t need outsiders in our group, and she’s kind of weird, but how could I say no?
The only good thing that happened so far is that Mr. Narwani did ask his wife if she would host our club and she agreed. She used to run the school math team until she quit, and she likes the idea of an out-of-school math and science club. We have our first meeting at their house on Friday, but I couldn’t get Jarius to come. I’ll try again next week, but for now, I can’t wait for this week to be over.
THURSDAY, EARTH
Thursday is officially the worst day of my life. I’m not kidding. It all started when I was having lunch with Jarius and his friends out on the front steps at school. Let me explain something first. There are all kinds of cliques at school. There are the cool kids, the normal kids, the geeky kids, the popular kids, the dangerous kids, and, well, you get the idea. Jarius falls into the dangerous category, and I don’t. But I need to make friends with him, right?
Well, the dangerous kids all eat lunch out on the front steps, and I decided to join in. I say that I joined in because I certainly didn’t fit in. I might have been able to make it work except that Shontelle, the girl from math class, decided that she wanted to hang with the dangerous kids too. Now, I might not be a part of their crowd, but Shontelle is never going to cut it.
I have no idea why she even wants to be a part of this group. You see, Shontelle is one of those freaky smart kids. She’s only eleven years old and should be in sixth grade, but she’s here in eighth grade instead, and now she’s trying to fit in with the wrong crowd. To be honest, I have more in common with her than with Jarius and the people he hangs with and wound up mostly talking to her instead of him by the end of lunch, which is where the trouble came in. Who do you think walked by just before the bell rang? Right, Nancy Wellington, who chose that opportunity to speak to me for the very first time in my life.
“Hey, Mark,” she said with a smile, which I will never forget. “You’re looking good. You’re taller than I remember.”
Now, it is true that I’ve grown an inch or so over the summer, but I’ve also been working out like crazy and doing martia
l arts. So, I said, “Thanks, you’re looking fine too.”
OK, I probably didn’t say that but I did say something. At least I hope I said something and didn’t just stand there with my mouth open. I really can’t recall, but I do remember what happened next.
She said, “Why did you bail on soccer this summer?”
I was going to say something cool, but instead, I just told the truth, “Because I hate soccer. I’m doing mixed martial arts instead and having a lot more fun.”
“Yeah, I get that,” she agreed, “I used to be great at baseball but stopped because I didn’t like it. It’s important to focus on what you enjoy.”
I felt no need to point out that, unlike her, I stunk at soccer. Nancy Wellington was stopping to talk to me. She knew who I was and she was agreeing with me on something. This was the best day of my life, and I thought that nothing could ruin it.
She then said, “OK, I’d better let you get back to your little girlfriend. Good seeing you, Mark.”
And she smiled a kind of look-at-the-geeky-guy-with-an-eleven-year-old-girlfriend condescending smile and walked off with her friends. I wanted to run after her to explain that Shontelle Jackson was not my girlfriend and that I barely even knew her, but even I understood how pathetic that would look. So, I just stood there watching the most perfect girl in the world walk off.
“She seems nice,” said Shontelle.
“Arrgghh!” I exclaimed. “I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe I did that. I can’t believe she did that.”
Then I noticed that Shontelle was staring at me like I was a lunatic and that all the dangerous kids were staring as well. Trust me; you don’t ever want the dangerous kids looking at you like that. So, I did what every normal human being in fear for his life would do. I grabbed the remains of my brown-bag lunch and headed back into the school.
I don’t remember much about the rest of Thursday or most of Friday, other than neither Jarius nor Shontelle spoke to me in math class. Oh, and I will never venture out onto the front steps at lunch again. I was in hiding and was convinced that the entire school had heard what had happened.
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