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—A. A. Milne

Too soon, I’m
sitting in a van driving to Harmony. Although I don’t really like ISTJ, it has become familiar, and there’s safety in what you know. On the way the van stops a few times at other Home Schools to pick up other kids who need to go through the intervention protocol in Temporary. I ignore each one and stare out the window, trying to calm myself.
How could my father let me be sent to this place? Why didn’t he stick up for me? What kind of person is he
?

At some point I fall asleep because suddenly the van stops and parks for good. I open my eyes and look out the window. Harmony doesn’t look as frightening as I’d expected. More like a Primary school than a prison for the damned. There are three long one-story buildings in a sort of semi-circle, as well as a few portables.

“That must be Full,” a boy says, pointing at the farthest building. It’s only then I notice there are bars across all of its windows. The scared feeling returns.

We are taken single file into a nurse’s office where we each go through a basic medical exam, and nothing I haven’t experienced before. The only thing I find strange is the nurse takes vial after vial of my blood.

“Um, I’m not sick or anything,” I say as she sticks labels onto the full vials. “I’m not here for any disease or illness.”

The nurse doesn’t answer me, just keeps sticking on the labels until she’s done. She then leaves the room briefly and comes back with what looks like an armful of jogging suits. “These will be yours to wear in the day. You’ll get night clothes as well. We find that having our patients comfortable during their stay aids in self-development.”

“Patient?” I repeat.

Again the nurse doesn’t say anything, just hands me the grey jogging suits and leaves the room so I can change. The size is a bit big, which I know must make me look even younger than I am.

Once I’m dressed, another woman enters the room, introduces herself as Ms. Winston, and tells me to follow her to the dormitory. I walk down the hallway into a huge room filled with row after row of bunk beds. A sudden image of my one and only summer at sleep-away camp enters my mind and I feel more relaxed.

“Whatever empty bunk you find may be yours,” the woman says. “There are shelves next to each bunk bed. If you pick the top bunk, you get the top shelf. If you pick the bottom, you get the bottom shelf. Your shelf is meant for clothing and toiletries. We do not put up pictures of loved ones or posters of any kind. Keep your living space neat and clean and you’ll earn more privileges during your stay here.” She smiles at me, but it doesn’t seem to go further than her lips. Her eyes are cold, the kind that could freeze you if you stared at her long enough.

After dumping my stuff on the first available bunk, I start walking the perimeter of the large room, hoping to find Taylor. While I know she might not be in Temporary any longer, part of me keeps hoping.
Where could she be?
After walking from one side of the dorm to another, I go up to the first girl I see.

“Have you seen Taylor? Taylor Irving?” I ask.

The girl looks at her lap and shakes her head.

“Did you just ask about Taylor?” asks a slightly older girl who’s sitting on a lower bunk two beds down.

“Yeah,” I say. My heart starts to race. “Do you know her?”

“Sort of. She’s not here, though.” The girl gets off her bed and walks over to me. “I’m Meg,” she says. She’s a serious-looking girl who is at least three years older than me. In my over-sized jogging suit I feel even younger.

“She’s not here? Where is she?”

“She was here for about two days after I got here, but then she was moved to either Intermediate or Full.”

“Moved? Why?”

“Can’t help you there,” Meg says. “If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Sophie,” I say. “Sophie Jenkins.”

At the sound of my last name I notice several heads turn my way, but I ignore them. I’m so used to being my father’s daughter that the attention no longer bothers me. I walk around the room a few more times, as if Taylor might suddenly appear if I just look hard enough. Taylor, possibly in Full, to stay at Harmony forever? Images of my friend enter my mind. Taylor and I building a fort at the back of Primary, Taylor and I staying up after everyone else at another friend’s slumber party, Taylor and I lying on our backs in my yard, staring up at the clouds.
Why would someone so wonderful be in Full
?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Then he heard it again! Just a very faint yelp. As if some tiny person were calling for help.

—Dr. Seuss

After a day
at Harmony, I soon learn life there isn’t so much different than ISTJ, after all. Just like my Home School, there’s a strict daily schedule to follow. Get up at a certain time, have Morning Walk, then breakfast, before heading for your specific therapy group. This is followed by individual psychotherapy, then lunch, then Reflection Time or Journaling, followed by group relaxation training, then supper, chores, Evening Walk, and bed. The only difference I can see is there’s a lack of schoolwork, which I take to be a good thing. Any more lessons about the strengths and weaknesses of ISTJ and I may have needed to actually stay in Full.

My therapist is a man I instantly don’t trust, given his job is to report everything I say back to Dr. Anders, the Association Psychologist in charge of deciding who gets to end their stay after the compulsory five weeks in Temporary at Harmony , and who would be better served moving on to Intermediate, or worse yet, Full. I spend my therapy time responding to all questions as if I was a repentant Aaron.
Yes, Dr. Sir, I should never have drunk that alcohol. It was a bad, bad thing and clearly against Regulations. I was stressed about starting Secondary, but I now know that’s no excuse. I’ve learned my lesson, Dr. Sir, please believe I have.

I’m shocked and almost disappointed at how easy it is to fool these so-called professionals. Besides, can’t he see by the way I go on and on there’s no way I could be an Intro? Talk about not seeing the forest through the trees!

During Morning Walk on my third day, I spot what looks like a group of old people, sitting hunched over on some old lawn chairs.
Maybe they’re some patients from Serenity coming for a visit
? I’m about to pass by them, when something about one woman seems familiar. I leave the Morning Walkers and take a few quick steps towards the lawn chairs.

“Taylor?”

The twelve-year-old in an old woman’s body turns her head slowly towards me. Her eyes look at me blindly, like I’m something she just can’t see.

“Taylor?” I walk over to her and give her a hug. Her body feels heavy, warm, and limp. “Taylor! It’s me, Sophie! Your best friend from Primary!”

She keeps staring at me in her strange, blind way, and lets out a moan.

“Taylor? Are you trying to tell me something? Taylor?”

“I wouldn’t bother with her,” says Meg, walking by. “She’s on those zombie pills. She probably doesn’t even know you’re here.”

Taylor makes another moan. This time it sounds almost like a word, if you took away all of the consonants and the vowels.

I give Taylor another hug and whisper in her ear. “What did you say, Taylor? What did you want to tell me?”

I lean even closer and wait for another moan.

“Sophie? Come along, now!” says Ms. Winston, blowing her whistle at me. “You only have ten minutes to finish Morning Walk!”

I give Taylor one more hug and whisper, “I will”. I join the slower Temporaries as they finish their walk, the words that I think I heard from my friend turning over and over in my head:
Help me
.

gh

“It’s like it’s her but not, you know?” I tell Meg as we stack cans in the pantry for our Chore before supper. “Like Taylor my friend has been replaced by some weird zombie Taylor. She doesn’t even look the same.”

“Bigger?”

“Yeah, like at least fifteen pounds.”

“Both the problem and the solution are the same,” Meg whispers, straightening a line of cans perfectly. “Pills.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, the pills they’re giving her are turning her into a zombie, right?”

“I guess so.”

“So, all you’ve got to do is tell her to cheek the pills.”

“To what?”

“You know, cheek them.” She pokes her tongue against the inside of her cheek so that it looks like she’s sucking on a gobstopper. “If you want your friend to be herself again, then she’s got to stop taking the meds. Tell her to cheek them and then to spit them out when no one’s looking.”

“But will it work?”

Meg shrugs. “It worked for me, didn’t it?”

gh

I don’t get the chance to talk to Taylor for over a week. It’s rainy every day, so the Fulls don’t get to spend any time outside. At Temporary we’re not so lucky. Rain or shine we take our Morning and Evening Walks, the overly perky Ms. Winston leading the way. Finally it’s sunny again one morning and sure enough, there’s Taylor sitting propped up in a lawn chair, her Full interventionist standing nearby. I break from the walkers to quickly go over to Taylor. The interventionist smiles at me and I smile back.
Nothing wrong with an old friend saying hello, after all.

I kneel down next to the lawn chair like I did before and take Taylor’s hand.

“Hi Taylor,” I say. “It’s me.” When the interventionist has looked the other way, I bend closer to my friend until my lips are against her ear. “Next time you get your pills, don’t swallow them. Keep them in your cheek and then spit them out in your hand when you can. Do
not
take your pills, okay? They’re like poison for you!”

I then pat her hand and stand up. I smile at the boy sitting in a chair next to her, but he ignores me and stares at the string in his hand. On his head is a helmet, like the kind kids wear to play hockey.

The interventionist turns to look at me. “Thomas has Autism,” she says sadly, shaking her head. “The helmet is to keep him safe when he bangs his head.”

“He bangs his head? Why?”

“Who knows? Probably for stimulation, I suppose.”

“Is he getting any help?”

The intervention shakes her head. I can tell that she’s a kind woman, so I want to keep talking to her. “A few decades ago parents would have spent thousands upon thousands to try and get through to him. Professionals would try occupational therapy, speech therapy, applied behaviour analysis, dietary measures. So much time and money spent, with so few results.” She sighs. “I think he’s most content with a string in his hand, lost in his own world.”

“Will he be like that forever? Like even when he’s really old?”

“He won’t get really old, dear.”

“Why not? Is he sick?” I ask, looking at him. He pulls the string between each finger, as if trying to make a cat’s cradle.

“Yes and no,” she says. She pauses and then moves slightly away from me, as if aware that she may have spoken out of turn. “Now I think it’s time you went back to your Morning Walk, don’t you?”

I nod, then walk away, suddenly feeling sad for this lost boy who no one seems to care about anymore. How could things go from endless treatment to nothing in just a few decades? Thinking about Thomas and his piece of string makes my stomach tighten.
I never knew. I just never knew
.

gh

For the next few days it’s raining again. It isn’t until three mornings later I see Taylor again and am able to quickly have another visit, the same interventionist again smiling blandly at me. Taylor seems the same as ever, there but not really there.
Oh crap
. Just as I’m about to go, she grabs my hand and puts something in it.
Stones
?

“Hide them,” she whispers, her face still slack and dead-like.

“Yes,” I whisper back. It is only when I’m back in my room after Morning Walk I dare to open my hand and look at what’s inside. Three blue pills. My heart races and I smile to myself. “I will, Taylor,” I say aloud. “I will!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

While he slept, he dreamed that the sun had melted all the snow away.

—Ezra Jack Keats

I talk to
Meg as we set tables for supper in the Great Hall, filling her in on what just happened with Taylor. “You were right about those pills making her into a zombie. You were so right!”

“There’s more of us here than you know,” Meg suddenly says, putting a stack of cups in the centre of each table.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, kids who are at Harmony for trying to shake things up. The ones that The Association wants to teach a lesson by sending them here. Those kids.”

I look at Meg and nod. I’d never thought of there being more kids like me anywhere, except for Noah.

Meg gestures for me to follow her to the back of the room and I do. “Some of the others think you’re too young and a few of them don’t trust you yet because of who you are,” she whispers. “They think because of your father you can’t be loyal to the rest of us.” She pauses. “I told them I trust you.”

I look at her, confused. “What are you talking about? What others? I don’t know what you mean!”

Meg lowers her voice. “I’m talking about the fact there are other kids who want things to change. Kids who don’t think The Association is so perfect and want to do something about it.”

I can feel my heart start to pound in my chest.
Can she hear it?

“I don’t see what that has to do with me,” I whisper.

Meg stares at me. “I see what you’re doing for Taylor, and I know what you did to get in here.”

“What do you even know? I haven’t said anything!”

“Look, just trust me that I know. I know about Noah and about pretending to be something you’re not. I know about your brother, too.”

“James?” His name comes out clumsy and stiff, as if it’s a forbidden word I’m not allowed to mention. “What do you know about him?”

Meg looks at me for a moment, but says nothing.

My heart pounds faster and I can feel my cheeks fill with heat. “Have you been to Full? Did you see him?”