Wake Up Missing (6 page)

Ben was reading another magazine and wolfing down a turkey sandwich as if he'd never had a meal so good, and Sarah was blabbing away at Quentin. I ate my chicken salad and watched a great blue heron hunting in the pond out the window. It spent forever stalking a frog before it finally jabbed its beak into the water and caught it. I tried to imagine how I'd shape the heron in clay, but all I could see in my mind was another frustrated lump.

We all looked up when the door opened and Dr. Gunther shuffled into the dining room, looking even older than he had at his desk that first day.

Ben whispered what I was thinking. “This is the miracle neurologist who's supposed to cure us?”

“Hi, Dr. Gunther.” Quentin gave a wave as Dr. Gunther stepped up to our table.

“Hello, indeed. I came by to see how our newest guests are doing.” His smile, all thin lips and yellow teeth, didn't make me feel good about being his patient. But he was looking right at me.

“I'm doing . . . okay, I guess. Nothing's really started yet.”

He nodded. “We'll get things moving for you soon, though, and then you'll see real improvement. Sarah and Quentin have only been with us a couple of weeks and are already doing better, isn't that right?”

Sarah nodded reluctantly. “I guess.”

“My headaches are gone,” Quentin said, “and I'm thinking more clearly. But it still takes me too long to process math problems.”

Sarah stole a carrot stick off his plate. “Those of us who don't do math problems for fun aren't having that issue.”

Dr. Gunther laughed and turned to Quentin. “You'll notice a big change when we start Phase Three.”

I still didn't get how the gene therapy worked. “Is that like a pill or . . .”

“An injection,” Dr. Gunther answered.

The look on my face must have given away how I felt about needles.

“Relax,” Dr. Gunther said. “It's not happening today, my dear. And besides, it's a piece of cake. You can ask our friend Trent.”

That's when I noticed the other kid, sitting two tables over, half-hidden behind a potted plant. Maybe he snuck in while Dr. Gunther was talking, or maybe he'd been there all along, eyes cast down at his hands, studying something—was it colored yarn? Wires?—wrapped around his fingers. His blond hair was short on the sides but shaggy on top and brushed to one side. He had a bandage on the back of his head, and it looked like the hair around that spot had been shaved. I wondered if that was part of his treatment.

“Hey!” Sarah jumped right up and ran to his table. “Where have you been?”

Trent looked up. “I'm sorry?” He looked as if he'd just realized he wasn't in the room alone and seemed completely unraveled.

I felt bad for him. “Hi. I'm Cat,” I said, holding out my hand. “I'm new here, but Sarah's told me a lot about you. It's nice to meet you.” Trent looked at my hand without shaking it, then looked back at Sarah.

“Sarah?” he said as if he couldn't quite place her. “I'm sorry. I was working on reversing this current. What did you say before?”

Sarah looked at him, bewildered. “I
said
where have you been? You totally blew me off when we were supposed to shoot hoops.”

“Hoops?”

“Hoops. Basketball. You were going to meet me the other night so we could play on the court outside after dinner? Where'd you go?”

Trent's eyes brightened for a second, as if he remembered, but just as quickly, the light went out and he just looked confused. “I've been taking most of my meals in the workshop lately.” He shrugged. “I apologize if I neglected an appointment, but I'm quite close to understanding an important theory of alternating currents.”

“What?” Sarah looked as if she might punch him, but Dr. Gunther stepped between them.

“If I might answer for Trent,” he said, “Phase Three of treatment is effective because it's intense. He's been extremely busy not only with treatments but also with returning to his old passions. He wasn't quite himself when he arrived with his injury. Isn't that right?” Dr. Gunther put a shaky hand on Trent's shoulder.

Trent nodded briskly, then looked longingly back to the wires in his hands.

“I see you're focused on your experiment.” Dr. Gunther smiled down at Trent. “Feel free to take the rest of your lunch down to the workshop if you'd like.”

“I think I'll do that, yes.”

“What workshop?” Sarah squinted at them. “We never saw any workshop.”

Dr. Gunther brushed off her question. “Just a small space we've set up so Trent can pursue his projects.”

Sarah turned to Trent. “Since when are you Mr. Science Geek? You never talked about any projects before.” Trent frowned at her for a second, then picked up his sandwich and headed for the door.

Dr. Gunther watched him leave, then turned toward the rest of us. “Trent has always loved engineering but lost the mental capacity for it when he was injured. We're making sure he has plenty of opportunities to tinker now that he's getting back to his old self.”

“His old self?” Sarah's voice rose, challenging Dr. Gunther. “He never said anything about that to me.”

Dr. Gunther ignored her and turned to Quentin. “Like you, Trent was having trouble with problem solving after his accident, but ever since Phase Three of his treatment, he's doing much better. We're so pleased with his progress.” Dr. Gunther glanced down at his watch. His hand shook. “I'd best get back to work.”

He shuffled across the room and out the doors, headed toward his office.

We all watched him, and finally, Sarah said, “He wasn't like that before.”

“Dr. Gunther?” I asked.

“No. Trent.” She turned to Quentin. “Don't you think he's different?”

Quentin shrugged. “I never talked with him that much.” He grinned at Sarah. “You kind of monopolized the guy's time.”

“But he wasn't like that.” She stared at the door as if the real Trent might come walking back through any second. “Trent was . . . goofy and fun. He liked the New York Knicks and those silly, stupid horror movies and . . . and
bacon
. Not all this
science
stuff.” She shook her head. “He always had a ton of energy. Even when he hadn't gone through much treatment and he still had headaches and stuff, we shot baskets and played H-O-R-S-E, and he used to tease me about being so skinny, even though I always beat him.”

“Sounds like he got tired of you,” Ben said.

“That's not it. Trent was . . . he was
nice
before. And funny. He'd make these volcanoes out of his mashed potatoes and gravy at dinner. One time we got laughing so hard, milk came right out his nose, and—”

“So, he used to act like a five-year-old?” Ben scoffed. “Sounds like his treatment's working, and he's not a doofus now.” He looked at Sarah. “No wonder he can't relate to you.”

The words stung
me
, so I could only imagine how Sarah felt. I couldn't find the right words in my head to fix it, though, so I didn't say anything.

But Quentin did. “Come on, man.” He put a hand on Ben's arm. “Ease up.” He turned to Sarah. “Trent's probably tired. You spend a lot more hours in the lab with Phrase Three; I bet he's wiped out.”

“Then why does he have the energy to go off to some lab and do experiments? He never told me
anything
about wanting to be an engineer. I'm telling you, he's
different.
”

“Because he's not into you anymore?” Ben said, giving her a pointed look.

“Come on, you guys,” Quentin said, standing. “It's nice out. Let's hang by the pool or something.”

We all followed him out there. Sarah flopped down and kicked her feet in the water, while Ben and Quentin chose chairs in the shade of a table umbrella. I stood near the trunk of a big white pine next to the clinic. I'd noticed an osprey nest, a mess of sticks and grass way up at the top.

The nest was quiet, but my insides were fluttering all over the place. What if Sarah's crazy ideas weren't so crazy? What if Trent's treatment really had changed him somehow? He didn't seem like a normal kid.

When I looked over the pool, the sun flickered through palm trees, throwing diamond sparkles all over the water's surface.

Another perfect day. A state-of-the-art research facility and clinic with top-notch care.

The best in the world, the brochure promised. And no waiting list to get in? When Lucy's grandmother had cancer, she waited months to get into some elite clinic in New York City. If this place was the best of the best for head injuries, why were we the only ones here?

My schedule wasn't much of a schedule while I waited for the next phase of treatment to begin. The rest of my day was empty, but I felt too muddled to work on a clay bird, and I didn't feel like reading.

Sarah had gone out kayaking with Quentin, and Ben had another MRI, so before dinner, I took my binoculars and headed for that narrow staircase off the dining room that led up to the roof.

I was a little worried about the height, but Dr. Ames had promised on the first day it was all fenced in and safe, and I really wanted to know if there were babies in that nest. Maybe a mom or a dad would come to feed them. And maybe seeing another osprey would make it easier when I picked up my clay again.

I clutched the railing and focused on each step, one at a time, all the way up.

It wasn't even noon yet, but a wave of hot-tar smell blasted my face as soon as I opened the door at the top of the stairs. Heat
waves rose from the rooftop and blurred the scrubby pine trees in the distance.

The surface burned through my flip-flop soles as I started toward the far railing near the nest. It was high, and my heart was beating in my throat.
Keep walking; it's perfectly safe.

If I was ever going to do anything fun again without being scared of falling, I had to start sometime. And the small tastes of life-without-headaches that I was getting with my new meds made me want my old life back more than ever.

I watched my feet—one step at a time, slowly, one foot in front of the other—and didn't look up until I reached the railing.

My knees wobbled, but I took a deep breath and willed myself to look up.

Up at the nest. Not down.

It was higher than the roof, higher than I could really see, but I held on to the railing, my heart shivering in my chest, and watched. I could hear the mother osprey rustling around. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, but the heat and the tar smell got to be too much. My head was starting to hurt, and my breakfast felt sour in my stomach. I'd have to look for hatchlings some other time, when I felt better, when the sun wasn't so hot.

As I was turning for the door, there was a high-pitched “
Eep! Eep! Eeeep!
” The mama bird was standing right up in that nest, yelling.
At me?

I turned back and watched her watch me, and somehow, that slowed my heart, soothed my stomach and my nerves. After a few minutes, two little heads popped up at the side of the nest.

Slowly—I didn't want to upset her again—I raised my binoculars to see the babies more clearly. I was expecting soft and cuddly,
but what I saw through the lenses were hooked-beak, yellow-eyed, yeeping creatures that looked more like scrawny baby dinosaurs than birds. Their feathers weren't fluffy; they were matted and stuck to their heads, and the babies were shrieking, “
Eep! Eeep!
”

I stepped forward to the railing and glanced down for a second.

I shouldn't have. The ground was so far away it made my stomach twist and my head spin. The air felt so hot, so smothering, I thought I might pass out.

I held the railing tight and looked for a place to get out of the sun. There was only a tiny column of shade cast by one of the exhaust pipes rising up from the kitchen, so I shuffled over to it and crouched down in the relative cool.

The birds were still screaming at me, but I tried to block everything out.
Breathe. Breathe. You're okay. Just breathe.

It's a wonder I could hear it over the osprey chorus, but I did. The door to the roof creaked, and then came a man's voice. “Yeah . . . I'm here. Hang on.” It was Dr. Ames. The door slammed. “Okay, now what?”

I peeked around the edge of the exhaust pipe and saw the back of Dr. Ames's head, cell phone pressed to his ear as he tipped back and forth from his heels to his toes, looking out over the swamp. They told us our cell phones wouldn't work here; we had to make all our calls from the offices. But
his
phone seemed fine—he'd used it out by the pool, too, on the day we arrived. Did he have some kind of special satellite connection?

I knew I should come out from the shadows and say hi, let him know I was there, but it already felt weird . . . like he'd think I was hiding. Spying on him. So I stayed where I was and listened.

“I don't know how long we can keep it quiet. I talked to Gunther, and he . . . yeah. I know.”

A breeze ruffled the pine tree, and the mama osprey flew off.

“I told him what we decided a long time ago. This project gets finished. No matter what.”

Pause.

“Exactly.”

Pause.

“So what's the plan if she dies here?”

I was leaning against a sun-warmed pipe, but his question made me shiver. If
who
dies here? Was one of us in such bad shape that might happen? It couldn't be me or Sarah—but we hadn't seen that Kaylee girl around. Quentin said her injury was more serious.

All the anxiety that had lifted from me watching the birds came back, twisting my stomach, pounding on my head from the inside. Now I
had
to stay hidden; somehow, I knew I was hearing something I shouldn't.

A wave of nausea hit me. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes.
No. Don't get sick. He'll hear you. Don't get sick.