Wake Up Missing (2 page)

The kid was Ben, with his aunt Wendy, from Washington State, I learned when Mom started chatting. I moved to a seat away from the boat's giant fan and controls, away from the conversations, and opened my bird book. I could tell Mom wanted me to come over and talk, make friends, but I couldn't. My head hurt, and I was afraid I'd say something grouchy or mean and make Mom cry, and she didn't need that right now.

White-and-black birds on the page blurred to gray, and I had to close my eyes. I didn't want friends here. I wanted Lucy.

We'd been best friends since third grade, but she'd sort of faded away when we started middle school, and especially since my concussion. Too much was different. I never knew when my headaches would come, so I was always on edge, waiting, wondering if I'd be this way forever.

I had to give up soccer a month into the season. I was never good at it anyway. I'd only signed up because Lucy was so excited.
The first day of school, she was my partner for drills, but I kept messing up. I couldn't help watching the girls' cross-country team, laughing together and running into the hills where the trails snaked all through the trees, while we kicked balls back and forth on the same green rectangle. The second day, Lucy was already doing a drill with Mae Kim when I got to practice, and they were partners every day after that. But I still sat near them on the bus, and I cheered for Lucy from the bench until I quit.

Now she never called anymore, and I missed so much school I hardly ever saw her in class. I used to be one of those kids who never got sick, but these last few months had been different. I'd wake up feeling okay and go to class, but by sixth period, my head hurt so bad I felt like throwing up. I did once, all over my math quiz because Mrs. Stillman didn't want me to leave until I finished.

I missed who I used to be, and if this clinic in the middle of nowhere could bring me back, it was worth anything. I forced my eyes open and turned around. Everyone was looking at me.

I tried to smile. “Hi. Sorry, I'm woozy from the boat.”

They all nodded, but only Ben looked as if he really understood. His eyes stayed on me for a second before he turned back toward the water. His aunt started to say something, but Molly started up the airboat and drowned her out. That thing was
loud.

Molly handed out earplugs, then looped the airboat in a circle to turn around. I hadn't slept well the night before, and my head was still throbbing, so I put in the earplugs, lowered my head to my hands, and closed my eyes.

I don't know how far we'd gone—maybe half an hour—when the boat slowed and Molly called out over the idling engine.

“Alligator!” She pointed. “See it? Small one, up on the bank.” It was all stretched out, sunning itself, still as stone. “Soon, we'll come up on One-Eyed Lou. She has babies in the nest, though, so we can't get too close.”

The airboat's fan roared back to life, and we cut through the swamp, pushing through tall grasses that blew in waves. When we rounded a bend in the river's path, Molly slowed the airboat and shouted, “Don't lean, but if you look off to the side there . . . see the trap in the water?” I made out the murky lines of some kind of cage.

“What's that?” Ben asked.

“Blue crab trap.” Molly grinned. “Better known as dinner. I got a few out here, check 'em around sunset. They're great eating.”

She maneuvered the airboat around another snaking curve, then killed the engine. “Keep your eyes open, because up here on the left . . .” She craned her neck. “Yep, see? That's One-Eyed Lou.”

“Whoa!” Ben stood up until Molly's glare set him back in his seat. “He's huge!”

“She. Lou's a she. She's about eight or nine feet, but there are plenty bigger,” Molly said. “You won't find a more aggressive gator, though. You get near those babies, and she'll snap at you like nobody's business. Take you right off your feet with that tail.”

She kept the engine off and paddled the airboat ahead, where the shoreline was cluttered with a mess of tree trunks and roots
all tangled on themselves. “These are mangroves,” she said. “They make islands all over the swamp. Most of the small ones are quiet, a few old plume hunter's camps—I been known to spend a night or two in those when weather comes in fast.”

“You sleep out on some island by yourself?” Ben raised his eyebrows. “Don't people think that's weird?”

His aunt elbowed him, but Molly laughed. “Doesn't much matter what they think. You can't let other people decide who you're going to be.”

She peered into the tangled branches. “Look close in here. You'll see a couple poachers' huts.” Weathered wooden boards showed through the trees.

“There was something about poachers in the newspaper.” Mom's voice wobbled, but Molly didn't seem worried.

“Yep. They go after alligators. Plume birds. Sometimes endangered butterflies. But you stay outta their way and you're okay.” The airboat drifted toward the trees, and we had to duck to keep our heads out of the branches.

Molly started the engine again and brought us through a wide tunnel of mangroves. “Here we are. . . .” She hit the throttle as we pushed out of the trees, onto an open lake. A huge island stretched in front of us. There was a dock, a modern-looking building that looked half hotel and half hospital, and an older building that might have been a garage or airplane hangar.

The airboat drifted up to the dock, where a man with curly brown hair waited in shorts and a faded blue golf shirt. Two kids who looked about my age stood behind him—a boy with dark skin and wire-rimmed glasses and a short, skinny girl with a
bouncy, dark-brown ponytail. She plopped down on the dock and plunked her feet into the murky water, while the curly-haired guy waved us in. “Welcome, welcome, everyone. Good trip, Molly?”

“Just fine.” She looked like she was about to say something else, when an osprey swooped down from a dead tree and dove straight into the water.

The girl jumped up, water dripping down her pale ankles. “That bird's got a fish!”

In its talons, the bird clutched a fish nearly as large as itself. But the fish was fighting back. Its tail slapped the water as the osprey tried to take off with it.

“What kind of fish is that?” Ben asked.

“Looks like a snook,” Molly said, squinting. The sun flashed on the splashing water as the fight continued. “Maybe a bigger one than that bird can handle.”

I'd seen birds catch fish before on the docks at home, but never a fish that size. Molly was right; it was
too
big. No matter how many times the osprey tried, how hard it pumped its wings, it couldn't fly. In fact, the bird looked exhausted, and the fish was starting to pull it down into the water. “Why doesn't the bird let go?”

“Can't,” Molly said. “Has its talons in too deep.”

I could feel the osprey's panic as it struggled. We watched as bird and fish battled in the glittering water, until finally, the osprey went under for the last time and disappeared.

“Whoa,” Ben whispered.

“It truly couldn't let go, and the fish overpowered it.” Molly
shrugged, as if this sort of thing happened all the time here, not just on TV nature shows. “Sometimes the prey wins.”

Finally, we turned our attention back to the man on the dock as he tied the airboat to a post.

Dr. Mark Ames. Back then, I thought he looked a little like my uncle Steve, with dimples and a young face, younger than the rest of him.

“Welcome to the clinic, Ben . . . Cat. I want you to meet Quentin and Sarah.” He gestured toward the two kids who'd been waiting with him. “They arrived two weeks ago, and they're already feeling quite a bit better, so they'll help me out giving you and your parents the grand tour. You can leave your suitcases and backpacks right here on the dock; our orderlies will take them to your rooms. Should we start with the pool?”

“The pool . . . where you're not allowed to dive, splash, or otherwise overexert yourself,” Sarah said, rolling her eyes.

Quentin grinned. “She's still mad they made her get off Trent's shoulders in the shallow end last week.”

“Do you like to swim?” Sarah asked. “Or play Frisbee or shoot baskets?”

“Umm . . .” I couldn't imagine doing any of those things the way my head was throbbing. But she looked so excited. “Maybe when I feel better.”

Mom gave me a tentative smile. I knew what she was thinking.
It's nice here. They have a pool . . . and birds. Remind me that this is the right thing, that you'll be happy and safe, so I can leave you without falling apart.

I smiled back at her and reminded myself this was where I
needed to be to get better. I liked the birds. The kids were friendly, and Dr. Ames seemed nice, too. Like he cared about us, like he wanted to make sure we felt safe and happy. Like we were important to him.

I guess we were, in a way. Just not the way we thought.

“Wow,” Mom said as we walked up the sidewalk to the swimming-pool area. “Are you sure you don't need parents to stay and chaperone? Or do dishes or anything? I could get used to this.”

It was beautiful—a sparkling Olympic-size swimming pool with cushioned deck chairs and tables with shade umbrellas mixed in. There was a paved area with a basketball hoop and a net for badminton or volleyball over on the lawn.

“Even if you're not up for much physical activity yet, you can bring your lunch out,” Dr. Ames said. He frowned and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Excuse me one moment.”

“Watch out for seagulls, though,” Sarah said, kicking off one of her flip-flops and skimming her toes along the water. “One swiped half my turkey wrap yesterday.”

But there were no seagulls around then. And there were no other people. “Where is everybody?” I asked.

“Everybody like who?” Sarah kicked some water at Quentin.
“We're here. You're here. Kaylee never does anything fun, so I bet she's in her room.”

“Probably sleeping. Dr. Ames told us her injury was more severe, so we never see her,” Quentin explained. “She just goes to treatment and sleeps a lot. And Trent—”

“—is a big jerk,” Sarah interrupted. “He was supposed to shoot hoops with me after dinner last night but he never came outside. I haven't seen him today, either.” She turned to Dr. Ames, who was tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Hey, Trent didn't leave or something, did he?”

Dr. Ames chuckled. “Relax, Sarah. Trent's doing great, but I'm sure he would
never
go home without saying good-bye to his basketball buddy.” He turned to Mom and me. “Trent is in the final stages of Phase Three, so he's spending more time in treatment these days. But Cat will meet him soon, I'm sure.”

“Now Phase Three is . . . the gene therapy?” Mom asked, even though she'd read everything on the I-CAN website a zillion times.

“Exactly,” Dr. Ames answered her, and turned to me and Ben. “Do you guys understand how that works?”

“Kind of,” I said.

Ben shrugged like he didn't care how it worked, but Dr. Ames included him in the conversation.

“Well, when you guys got your concussions, it damaged your brain tissue. That's why your heads hurt so often, why your vision gets blurry, and you can't always seem to think and remember stuff the way you used to. In order to fix that for you
permanently, we need to replace the damaged tissue with healthy brain cells.”

“You happen to have some healthy ones sitting around?” Ben sounded skeptical.

His aunt nudged him. “Don't be rude,” she whispered, but Dr. Ames chuckled.

“They're not
that
easy to come by, Ben.” Dr. Ames smiled at him. “I appreciate a man who's not afraid to question things. But I do like to think we work some magic here. We have a process that can actually
make
healthy brain cells.”

“Yeah?” Ben raised his eyebrows.

“Yep. With your own DNA. We insert it into something called a retrovirus. You guys know what a virus is, right?”

“Like cold viruses and flu viruses?” I asked. That didn't sound like something that would make us feel better.

“Similar. Viruses are tiny organisms that infect a host cell and use it to reproduce. Retroviruses get inside a cell and then spread their
own
genetic material.”

“So . . . if you have a retrovirus full of
my
genetic material . . .”

“You got it!” Dr. Ames's eyes lit up, and he nodded. “In that case, when we introduce that retrovirus to your system, we get new, healthy brain cells, reproducing to give you back what you lost. Pretty awesome, huh?” He turned and started toward the big building that I figured must be the clinic. “Now, let's continue our tour.”

“Have you guys started that gene therapy yet?” I asked Sarah, who was hopping over cracks in the sidewalk.

She shook her head. “No—we're still on Phase Two. But I hope it's soon. It's totally boring here with so few kids.”

“So, wait . . .” Mom rushed to catch up with Dr. Ames on the sidewalk. “You have these four, and . . . two others? Only six patients?”

“At the moment, yes. We have six
guests
.” He pulled open the clinic door and held it for her. “Our numbers vary. We get people home quickly once they've recovered.” He pointed down a long white hallway. “Come this way, and I'll show you the rest of the facilities.”

He stopped at a set of glass doors partway down the hall. “Here's our cafeteria, where you'll have your meals unless you're having a rough day and need to eat in your room.” We filed into the big, bright room. Potted plants grew along the windows, and there were four round tables that looked like regular kitchen tables in regular houses.

“Where do those steps go?” Ben asked, pointing to the staircase in the corner of the room.