M.I.N.D. (6 page)

The corners of my mother's mouth decide to take a dive. “What bothers me most is her attitude. She just won't buckle down. Junior year is coming up fast. She should be thinking about her future, particularly about college. How about you? What colleges do have in mind?”

I snort mentally. Like Leanne would ever leave Josh aka the Dominator.

“I'm thinking Yale,” she says. “It's a long shot, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Education is very important to me.”

What? Since when? Another mental snort.

“That's wonderful,” my mother says. “I wish some of your enthusiasm would rub off on Cassie.” She smiles. “I can see why your mother trusts you to drive.”

Give. Me. A. Break.

Enough of this BS. Time to vacate. I want out NOW.

Nothing happens.

I still have wrinkly hands and I'm still smiling at Leanne.

Hello? Universe, are you listening? I really would like to vamoose.

Please?

I probably should have thought this through. Getting stuck in Stephanie was one thing, but I'm living every daughter's nightmare: I've become my own mother.

She picks up the laundry basket and heads upstairs to my room. Leanne follows like an obedient puppy. “She's all tuckered out,” my mother says, glancing down at the bed. “I knew I shouldn't have let her go back to school so soon.” She leans over and nudges my shoulder. It feels like her whole body is frowning. “Cassie, wake up. Are you all right?”

If I'm so tuckered out, why doesn't she let me sleep? Does this make sense?

My eyes stay closed, like I'm trapped in a dream and can't get out.

She taps me on my face and I feel her heart thumping. “Cassie! Cassie, wake up!” She taps me again, a little too hard, I might add, though I can honestly say it hurts her more than it does me. “Oh my God, she's unconscious! Leanne, call 9-1-1!”

“Oh, gross,” Leanne says.

My mother turns to look at her. Leanne is staring at Oreo and she's a putrid shade of green. Any normal cat would be scared away by all the commotion, but not my Oreo, who's on the carpet next to my bed, producing an enormous fur ball.

And then it happens. I'm thinking I really, really need to split 'cause there's no effing way I'm going back to that hospital—when
phffft!
I'm back in me.

“What's all the fuss about?” I say, faking surprise. “Can't a girl get her beauty sleep?”

***

My mother mumbles something about detergent and hurries downstairs. My guess is that she's calling every doctor in her HMO. Sitting at my desk, Leanne is staring at me like I'm glowing neon. “So?” she asks the moment we're alone.

“Your mom is going through the change and I value your opinion.”

“Holy crap, it really works. You
can
read minds.”

“There was no telepathy, Leeny. No leakage, no signals, not even an inkling. I heard what my mother said. I heard what she heard. Like I said, I jump into bodies. My software, their hardware. It's like falling down the rabbit hole, except I
become
the white rabbit. I get to experience everything it does. But only physically.”

“You're saying you're a hacker.” She mulls this over. “You know, it kind of makes sense. We're all basically computers. Biological computers. It's like virtual reality, except it's organic. And now we know it's not random. You choose the rabbit—it doesn't choose you.”

I have to admit, it has possibilities. If I can jump from my bedroom to the laundry room, maybe I can do it long distance. Today my mother, tomorrow the world! “So who's my next rabbit? How about the President? Just think, I get to fight with Congress and go to state dinners—all this without ever leaving my room.” Providing that the President is thinking of me, which could be problematic.

“Actually, I was thinking Brendan.”

“Please. I can't think of anyone I'd rather be less.” I look at her earnest face. “You're serious. Why Brendan?”

“Because Amanda is presently out of commission.”

“Well, that explains it. Not.”

She picks at an imaginary thread on her jeans. “Brendan keeps asking about your memory leak. You don't find that strange? At the hospital, he asked you what Amanda said to you on the bus. What if it's something he doesn't want anyone to know? What if he's worried?”

“It's like you said. They fought, he feels guilty. Why is that strange?”

“Brendan wouldn't feel guilty if he offed his own mother.”

“Fine. So he's just being his annoying self. He thinks my brain is funny. What are you getting at?”

She draws in a breath. “I've been thinking about that locket. You're going to think this is crazy, but I think they had something to do with that hit-and-run. It was just two days before the bus accident. That's why Amanda was so flipped out.”

“You're right,” I say. “It's crazy.”

“Think about it, Cass. You said she was trying to tell you something. Then she goes ballistic. Next thing you know, you're dreaming about a girl who's around the same age as that kid who died. It's like your subconscious is trying to make sense of what Amanda was babbling about. Then you find out that the dead girl's name was Rose, and ta-da! There's a picture of a rose in that locket Amanda was wearing on the bus. Don't you see? The locket belongs to that dead kid's mother.”

“Whoa. Now
there's
a reach. First of all, what makes you so sure Amanda was even wearing it? And how did she get it? Did she rip it off that poor woman's neck? And how did it end up in my backpack? Please don't tell me she gave it to me and I blanked it out—it makes no sense.” The giving part, obviously. Not the blanking out part.

“She sat down next to you, right? Later, when they were clearing stuff off the bus, someone saw it lying there and put it in your backpack. Some people are honest, you know.”

“Since you're so sure she was wearing it, why would you assume it's not hers?”

“It would have a picture of Brendan, not a rose,” Leanne argues.

“If it belonged to that little girl's mother, there'd be a picture of her daughter, not some dumb flower,” I argue right back.

“Come on, Cass. It makes sense. The car was stolen from the country club parking lot, and what a surprise, Brendan's a member.”

“Josh works there, and you don't see
me
accusing
him
, do you?” I shake my head. “I don't get it, Leeny. Why is this such a big deal to you?”

“It's not a big deal,” she retorts. “I just think it's your moral duty.”

Moral duty? This from the girl who said “life goes on” when I disapproved of her going to the concert? “I know you're mad that Amanda dumped us, but if this is your way of getting back at her, it's really sick.”

“I'm going to ignore that, but only because you're upset.” She sighs. “Look, all I'm saying is that you could find out for sure. You have a power, Cass.”

“I already told you, I can't read minds. And even if I could, then what? Go to the police? And tell them what? I found a locket so I decided to hack into Brendan's brain?”

We hear my mother on the stairs and we both fall silent.

Toting a bucket of cleaning supplies, she charges into my room. “Leanne, honey, I think you should go now.” She snaps on her rubber gloves. “Cassie needs some quiet time. And sweetie? Talk to your mother. It's not good to keep your feelings bottled up inside.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Stewart. You're a great listener. Cassie's a lucky girl.”

Not only is my best friend delusionally suspicious—at least I'm not the only schizo around here—she's a total suck.

After she leaves, my mother starts in on the fur ball. “I'll keep you company until dinner,” she says as she scoops up the mess. “You can listen to your music if you want. Don't mind me. Just pretend I'm not here. When I'm done with the carpet, how about I tidy your drawers?”

I groan. She's going to be gawking at me for the next several hours.

In spite of my post-jump headache, I stick in my earbuds and crank up the volume, hoping to drown out the thoughts swimming in my head.

Amanda was stoned on the bus. Was that the
only
reason she was flipping out?

Could
Brendan have been the driver in that hit-and-run?

Brendan drives a BMW convertible. Why would he be joyriding?

Last year he was suspended for posting fake snow-day notices on the school's website; the year before, back in junior high, it was for tripping the fire alarm just for the hell of it.

They never did find the guy who shot out the principal's window. They think it was a disgruntled kid. A kid with a gun. Also for the hell of it.

You have to turn around! We have to go back!

Poor little Rose
.

Is it really so crazy?

The pain in my head is worse. The light from the window feels like a needle, right through my eyelids. I curl up in a ball, squeeze my eyes tight.

“Cassie!” my mother warns. “Stay with me!”

I groan again. A few minutes ago we were sharing a body. How much togetherness can I take in a day?

Six

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

“Twenty minutes!” my mother yells up from the kitchen.

It's Thursday morning and I'm sitting on my bed, still in my bathrobe, fiddling with the locket. “Okay!” I yell back down. “I heard you a minute ago!” And five minutes ago. And ten minutes ago.

Just because I wouldn't wake at the snap of her fingers on Tuesday, on Wednesday she took me to the doctor and today I'm having an MRI. Is this rational? Given a choice—which I wasn't, thank you very much—I'd rather be in biology, studying the entrails of frogs. But no, in approximately one hour, I'll be in that metal coffin, clenching my teeth to keep from screaming.

Fine. I'm exaggerating. Getting your brain scanned isn't painful, like having dental work without lidocaine, for instance. Basically, you lie perfectly still in a long tube while this grating noise buzzes all around you. No problem, right? Wrong. It's not that I'm claustrophobic; I just don't like being restrained and squished in small places. (Funny, it's not a problem when I get stuck in other people, though who knows what would happen if
they
got squished?) Even lying under my very pink canopy, I've been known to have palpitations. Hey, you try sleeping in a wad of bubblegum.

“Nineteen minutes!”

The woman isn't normal.

I drop the locket onto my nightstand, lie down on top of my comforter, and ponder the meaning of “normal.” Average? Typical? Ordinary? Which makes me think about me. What's normal, anyway? I used to have seizures, but now I plug myself into other people's bodies. Forget Spassie Cassie—I'm Cassie the Human Appliance. Did I mention sane?

Staring up at the canopy, I consider this further. Sane or not, using someone else's body could definitely have its perks, since a) I'm not allowed to do practically anything, and b) they don't call me Spassie Cassie for nothing. Imagine skydiving, or hang gliding, or racing down a mountain on a bike with no brakes. Or bungee jumping, or scaling Mount Everest, or snowboarding from the top of a glacier—I'd get to live the danger without taking the risk. Never mind that, imagine having hair that doesn't balloon in humidity. How great would that be?

Or not. Actually, there
is
a risk. Why did I have trouble getting out of Stephanie? Even scarier, what about my mother? What if I can't get back to myself? Just how does the escape routine work?

I think back to Vardina, specifically to what she was doing just before I made my exit. She was slicing her thigh with a safety pin. Then I think about Leanne and my embarrassing near-confrontation with her tampon. She was probably obsessing over dresses. And Stephanie? She'd stopped gaping at me and was putting on lipstick. As for my hysterical mother, her attention was diverted by Oreo's oversized fur ball. The one thing they all had in common was that they no longer had me on their minds.

Could that be it? Is that how it works? If so, the whole thing is really elementary. To get into their bodies, I have to want to be them in the instant they're thinking of me. To get out, it's the opposite. I have to want to separate and they
can't
be thinking of me.

Ha. Did I just say elementary? How am I even conscious without my own brain? Does that mean that brains are merely mixing bowls for our senses? Biological batteries that get recharged when we sleep? Generators for the soul? Definitely a brain-teaser.

“Fifteen minutes!”

Oreo jumps up on my bed and flops down beside me.

“Poor Oreo,” I say, stroking his matted fur. This is what pain does to cats. It stresses them out and turns their fur into steel wool.

To Oreo, I'm not just this overgrown strange feline who was put on this earth to pet him, feed him, and clean his litter box; I'm also his mommy. I'm supposed to make the hurt go away. But how can I help him if I don't know what's wrong?

Are there MRIs for cats? Or would he be better off with a CAT scan? Either way, he'd have to be catatonic to get through it. Okay, must stop with the cat puns.

He looks so miserable, I want to cry.

I wonder…

Nah, it's too crazy.

Not any crazier than being my own mother.

Except for one detail: Oreo's not human. It would be like playing a Blu-ray on one of those ancient VCRs. Totally incompatible. Though maybe not. Fact is, I get along better with my cat than I do with my mother.

“So Oreo,” I say, stroking his ears. “Been thinking of me lately?”

He purrs. Aw. He loves me.

He blinks at me with affection; ergo, he's thinking of me, right? I close my eyes and concentrate.
Oreo, Oreo, I want to be Oreo.
No homework, no chores. Not that I have any chores to speak of. My mother loves cleaning, and what kind of daughter would I be if I deprived her of her joy?
Oreo, Oreo, I want to be Oreo.
Basking in the sun on the windowsill, watching the world go by…no worries about where my next meal is coming from (a can)…not caring about my poofy hair…

I'm still me, which means one or more of three things:

1. 1.
   It doesn't work trans-species.
   
2. 2.
   It doesn't work on males.
   
3. 3.
   He's not as enamored with me as I thought.
   

Even though I'm a little offended, I choose Door #3, since it's something I can change. At least, I hope so. Maybe get him to associate me with food? But don't cats associate
everything
with food?

I reach over to my nightstand, grab the jar of kitty treats, take out a fish-shaped cookie. Ugh. It even smells like fish. I hold it under his nose, wish I were him…

He bats it, sniffs it, gobbles it down.

Lets out a yowl.

Clearly not today's flavor of choice. From his reaction, you'd think I'd stroked his fur the wrong way. Cats. You love them to pieces, but you'll never understand them. They meow to be let out, and as soon as they go, they meow to come in. They sit in absurd positions and fall asleep in strange places. They bite the hand that feeds them and make nice to anyone who ignores them. And why drink from a bowl when there's a toilet?

And that gives me an idea. Did I say crazy? I'll show him crazy. Certifiably crazy. Maybe that's what it'll take to get me on his mind.

I climb out of bed and start jumping up and down. I stick out my tongue and cross my eyes. I twirl around and around, a ballerina on crack. “Hey, Oreo,” I say, “what do you think of Cassie Cat now?”

He looks bored and I'm getting dizzy, so I stop.

Feeling helpless, I climb back into bed. Yeah, I know. He's old. Sixteen years old, precisely. But does that mean he has to suffer? I stroke him gently behind his ears, thinking that if I could change places with him and absorb his pain, I'd do it in a flash.

His eyes are half closed, signifying trust. He blinks at me slowly, deliberately, as if to say, “My guard is down. I'll allow you to keep petting me.”

And in that instant the scent of lilac wafts through my room.

***

I'm fast asleep on my bed, except my body looks distorted, like a Picasso painting. Also, what's up with my bathrobe? The green in the terry cloth has faded to gray, and the stripes have completely dissolved. And talk about a bad hair day! Is that wool growing out of my head or what? I could definitely use a grooming. And a new flat iron.

While I'm on the subject, I should mention that the hair on my new body isn't doing much better. It's everywhere. I feel like I'm a wall-to-wall carpet.

Swish.

Swish?

I don't even want to think about that furry thing sticking out of my butt.

This. Is. The. Weirdest. Thing. In. The. Known. Universe.

I'm a cat.

I'm Oreo.

Okay, maybe not the
weirdest
thing. I once dreamed I was a ferret. But it was a dream, for cripes' sake. It wasn't real, for cripes' sake.

I feel so…slinky. And short.

I swear, I'll never complain about being five-foot two again.

“Tehen-meeenudz!” a voice booms up from downstairs.

Tehen-meeenudz?

“Kazeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

It sounds like my mother's voice, except it's amplified about a hundred times, as if she's standing by my bed with a bullhorn.

Oreo looks up and I notice my canopy. It's no longer pink but a shade of muted mud. Though I have to admit, it's a definite improvement. I used to wonder why he never tried to climb it, since it practically begs, “Jump up, paw this, scratch that, claw here!” Now I know. It looks like something that could squash him.

My desk, too, is humongous, like I'm looking at it in the convex mirror of an eighteen-wheeler. Narrowing his eyes into slits, Oreo zeroes in on the structure looming down from across the room. It's my dresser, all angles and bumps, drawers sticking out everywhere. My bed is another story. It looks like a huge mound of white cotton candy, all soft and fluffy, and like the canopy, a whole lot nicer without all that pink.

I hear a creaking, like someone is running through the house. Oreo widens his eyes. He scampers off the bed and crouches on the carpet, like he's getting ready to pounce on a mouse. (Oh God, I hope not.) His tail swings like a pendulum and a surge rushes through him. Danger! Excitement! Raw meat! It's the thrill of the hunt, which I recognize from the pre-prom dress sale at Amersham Mall. He lets out a growl. The creaking gets louder. I feel all prickly.

He starts doing that crazy circle thing, running around and around as if chasing his tail. I feel like I've been infused with a triple shot of espresso. And then suddenly he stops, but he's still on alert. His ears swivel forward and his whiskers twitch. I feel like I'm about to sneeze. He clambers onto my windowsill, scratches at the glass. Outside, a neighbor is taking out the garbage. The mystery of the creaking is solved.

Well, that was fun. Except now I feel like a wound-down toy. Seriously, Oreo is no spring kitten. He scrambles back onto the bed, probably thinking he could use a nap. But something grabs his attention. Next to the jar of kitty treats on my nightstand is the heart-shaped locket. He paws at it playfully, patterns of light and shadow shifting in his view.

A mist, as white and shapeless as a blizzard, rises from the surface.

Startled, he knocks over the jar and it tumbles to the bed, fish-cookies spilling all over my comforter. He hisses, and his fur stands on end. Tingling shocks ricochet up and down his spine.

The locket is pulsing.

Like a beating heart.

Calm down, I tell myself. Breathe deeply. But obviously I can't.

He bats at the mist. To the human eye, it must look like he's swatting at air. Except at the moment I'm not human, so I really can't be sure.

I'm trying not to freak. I tell myself that cats see things differently. Plus, we don't see everything they see, the way teachers can't hear those mosquito ringtones. But it doesn't mean that cats see supernatural things. Doesn't mean that dead people are running amok in my room. The mist is perfectly normal. So is the beating heart. To a cat. Which I am. Temporarily.

He eyes one of the fish-cookies that spilled onto the bed. Apparently he's forgotten all about the mist. See? Nothing extraordinary about it. Cats see mists all the time. He swats the cookie as if trying to decide if it's dead or alive. Yuck. I hope he doesn't eat it. I hate fish, seafood too. Seawater, freshwater, I hate anything to do with water. He sniffs it gingerly, and to my surprise it smells crisp and fresh. Sweet too, like…watermelon? Suddenly I have a yen for sushi.

He bites into it and howls. From deep inside his mouth, underneath his gums, a sharp ache shoots through his body, searing like a laser.

The guilt I feel is as wrenching as the pain. I'd assumed his poor appetite was due to some mysterious feline disorder, not a toothache. After all, even the vet couldn't find the cause. But I should have figured it out. To Oreo, I might be Crazy Cassie the Colossal Cat, but I'm the only mother he knows. He curls up next to my motionless body and holds his head in his paws.

Strange how the feline mind works, like last week when he was scratching at the back door, meowing for me to let him out. I opened it and he stuck out his head. When he saw the rain, he ran to the front door as if hoping it wasn't raining there too. It was probably the same with the kitty treats. The second cookie came from the bed, not from the jar, so he assumed it was different. He didn't think it would cause him pain.

It's time to pay the vet another visit. Correction: time to find a new one.

“Fuhyve-meeenudz!” my mother shouts in her bullhorn voice.

I pop back into myself. I give poor Oreo a few comforting pats, along with a promise that he'll feel better soon.

Instead of a toothache, I have a headache. I gather the fishcookies and replace them in the jar. My craving for slimy raw fish is gone, along with the mist.

***

“Oh my God, that's her,” my mother whispers as we enter the hospital. “Little Rose's mother. I recognize her from the news. She must be leaving today—her husband was discharged last week. The reporter called them lucky.
Lucky
,” she repeats like it's a four-letter word. “For God's sake, they lost their daughter. Children are supposed to outlive their parents. That poor woman. I just can't imagine losing a child.”

I don't reply. I know she's remembering back to when she lost my father, and nearly lost me too. I don't want to look at Rose's mother, so as we pass through the lobby, I avert my eyes. I tell myself it's because I respect her privacy, but deep down I know that's not it. It's because I'm afraid, though I can't get a handle on what it is that scares me. I just know that if I don't look at her, if I don't see her, I can pretend she's not there.

“No one's been arrested,” my mother continues, sounding all indignant. “Living with grief is hard enough, believe me, I know. But if they don't find out who's responsible, it's going to eat away at them for the rest of their lives.”