“No!” one of the senior volunteers snapped, rising to his feet.
It was a new fella.
Old, and clearly ornery.
With the nametag FIG.
(That’s right, FIG.)
Next to him a woman wearing the nametag BUNNY (yes, BUNNY) and sporting gray curls (which had the faint pink hue of a recent beauty-parlor treatment) rose alongside her compatriot. “No more visitors for Samantha Keyes,” she said (decoding the thirty-seven-pairs-of-shoes clue). “The ICU is expelling people due to the chaos up there.”
As if on cue, nearly a dozen women (all with heavy makeup, many with cheap extensions, most with Spanxwrapped muffin tops) came from the elevator area and moved toward the exit, sniping at each other about whose fault it was that they’d been evicted (and without getting so much as a glimpse of Darren Cole).
“Barflies,” Bunny grumbled as the women went past.
“They call ’em cougars these days,” Fig informed her.
“Wait,” one of the teens said. “You’re keeping us out because of them?”
Fig frowned. “We’re keeping you out because ICU requested it. They’re overwhelmed with visitors.”
“That’s right.” Bunny sniffed. “This is a hospital, not a zoo.”
And then came a loud chorus of squawking and shrieking, followed by a distinct snort, snort, oiiiiiiiink.
“What is this?” Bunny cried as Penny and Lucinda came in, parting the sea of cougars.
“No!” Fig yelled (in a warbly, old-guy way). “There are no pigs allowed in here!”
“Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Lucinda said.
Fig’s face flushed. “What?”
Lucinda ignored his indignation and clicked open her purse. “Penny has papers.”
“There’s no such thing as a pedigree pig!” Bunny cried. “Get that disgusting swine out of here!”
“She’s a therapy pet,” Lucinda said, unfolding a fancy certificate with blue scrolled lettering and a gold seal. “A class-A therapy pet.”
“I’m warning you, ma’am,” Fig said, coming out from behind the reception desk. “Remove that pig immediately.”
“Let me talk to your supervisor,” Lucinda said.
“First,” Bunny said (also coming forward), “you take that pig and you go outside. Then we’ll get our supervisor.”
Now, while the pig situation was unfolding, the teens (who’d been standing to the side) recognized an unforeseen opportunity.
Sure, the pig standoff was funny (and tempting to watch), but the hallway to the elevator was now wide open. And the minute one of them said, “Pssst!” thirty-seven teens put their stealth moves in action, going past the reception desk, down the hallway, and into the elevator.
It was tight, but the doors did close (and giggles did erupt).
Then up, up, up they went.
Unfortunately, they were cut off at the pass by a sternlooking security guard, who wouldn’t let them off the elevator. “This is not a joke,” he snarled. “Go down, get out, go home.”
“Yes, sir,” they murmured.
But as the big steel box descended, one of them (a boy, of course) jabbed the Floor 2 button and, with a mischievous grin, asked, “Stairs, anyone?”
Now, while thirty-seven teens in high-tops were either getting cold feet or stepping out to hit the stairs, Officer Borsch was coming to grips with the reality that he’d dropped everything for a false alarm. Sammy’s would-be killer was not trapped in the hallway after all.
It was just Dusty Mike.
Darren and Lana and Marko had already beat a speedy exit (courtesy of the double-shiftin’ Six-strings, who showed them a back way out, down another hallway and via a different elevator, and suggested a quiet restaurant where cougars weren’t known to roam). This left Hudson and Rita with Sammy-sitting duties in Room 411 (where Rita had at last relayed to Sammy—in great, excited detail—the trap and capture of the nefarious Nightie-Napper) while the rest of Sammy’s friends (who’d come in just before the ICU visitor embargo was put in place) convened in the waiting room. Jan DeVries had successfully delivered his bag of Dutch treats to his daughter and was now conversing with Yolanda McKenze, while Sergeant Borsch spoke with Janet Keltner and Dusty Mike, asking questions, then answering theirs the best he could.
And while all this oh-so-serious adult stuff was going on, something completely unrelated (and blissfully oblivious) was also taking place.
From the safety of his mother’s side, Mikey McKenze was falling in love.
Likewise (from the safety of her mother’s side), Elyssa Keltner was doing the same.
Holly was the first to notice. “Marissa!” she whispered. “Look at your brother!”
This caused the whole group to turn its attention to Mikey and Elyssa. “That is just adorable!” Dot whispered.
“Dude, she is workin’ him!” Billy said.
Casey grinned. “Batty lashes.”
Billy laughed, “Totally!”
“Maybe it’s true love,” Cricket sighed. “Maybe they’ll grow up together, be best friends, fall in real love, and live happily ever after.”
Which, for some reason, made the whole group go really quiet.
A sad sort of really quiet.
They were old enough to recognize when something was just a fairy tale.
Figments of love-struck imaginations.
Or … were they?
Marissa was the first one to have the thought, and when it came to her, her eyes popped wide open and she gasped.
She didn’t say anything.
She just gasped.
And stared at Casey.
“What’s wrong?” Dot asked.
“Yeah,” Holly whispered, “why are you staring at him like that?”
“Yeah,” Casey said, “why are you staring at me like that?”
And so Marissa just let it out. “You need to kiss her.”
“What?” Casey asked.
Dot and Cricket caught on right away. “Oh my gosh!” they cried, then grabbed Casey’s arm. “You need to kiss her!”
“Kiss her … What?”
“Kiss Sammy!” everyone (even Heather) cried.
Casey edged back. “Oh, that’s … that’s crazy!”
“No, it isn’t!” Marissa said. “It’s perfect! Go in there and kiss her!”
Casey shook his head. “It’s not going to wake her up! She’s not under some magic spell! She hit her head.”
Holly frowned at him. “Well, we’re going to hit you upside the head if you don’t go in there and kiss her.”
Casey stared at her, stunned.
Even Holly wanted him to?
“You’ve got to at least try!” Cricket said. “What’s there to lose?”
Which was a compelling argument, and one Casey had no real answer to.
But what pressure!
This wasn’t Snow White or Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty or … or whatever!
He wasn’t some storybook prince!
A kiss wouldn’t wake Sammy up!
And if he tried (and, of course, failed) everyone would be all … all … weird!
“Dude,” Billy said gently, “you have to do it.”
“You should want to do it,” Marissa said.
Casey gave his friends a round of dumbfounded stares.
“Oh, just go in there and kiss her,” Heather snapped. “It’s not like it’s gonna kill you.”
So Casey let them drag him down to Room 411.
He let them convince Rita and Hudson to take a break and get a bite to eat in the cafeteria.
He let them position him at Sammy’s bedside.
And then he just stood there, staring at Sammy while his friends all hovered around, holding their breath.
Waiting.
“You know what?” Heather said. “He doesn’t need us staring at him. We should go.”
Billy’s eyes grew large. “Don’t you want to see magic happen?”
“Go!” Casey snap
ped at him. “She’s not going to wake up from me kissing her, and I don’t need the pressure of you expecting magic!”
“Sorry, dude, sorry,” Billy said, and Heather grabbed him by the arm and said, “Come on, let’s go.”
Then they all filed out, leaving Casey to make magic happen.
If he could.
24—BANISHED
I wish I could tell you that when Casey kissed Sammy, her eyes fluttered open, her heart leaped at the sight of him, and the two of them lived happily ever after.
Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.
What happened was, Casey kissed Sammy (sweetly, and tenderly, and yes, on the lips), and Sammy just lay there (in the same position, eyes closed, breathing steadily).
And then Casey (poor Casey) sat down and cried.
Inside him, the sliver of hope—that fairy-tale fantasy that fights for survival in all of us—was dashed.
Banished from the Kingdom of Dreams Come True.
Maybe others saw a gauze-wrapped girl, but to him Sammy—even in this condition—was beautiful.
Much more so than Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.
Besides, he didn’t want some perfect storybook character. He wanted his real-life kick-ass princess.
“Please,” he begged her, “wake up.”
And then (when she still didn’t) he started explaining. “There is nobody like you. I know you don’t think so, but it’s true. Remember how we met? Well, how we met officially. It’s not like I hadn’t noticed you at school. Or heard about you from Heather.” He shook his head. “Man, nobody stood up to Heather back then. Not even me. But you were like, Back off, sister, and she didn’t know what to do about you.
“And you were just like that the time we had that big collision in the intersection. You had a bloody knee and a banged-up arm, and you got up and jumped Snake ’cause he had your skateboard. Just flew through the air, whoosh, and latched on to him like a cape.
“I was, like, I love this girl! She’s fearless! And then … then I got to really know you. And started to really love you. Because you’re so much more than just fearless. You’re real. You’re deep. You’re smart and funny, and you care about other people. And you know what? Other people care about you. I don’t think there’s ever been a girl who talks back and hits back and takes no prisoners like you do, and then winds up with legions of fans. The whole town’s after whoever did this to you.
“So it’s not just me. Everyone wants you back. And maybe I’m not Prince Charming with a magic kiss, but would you wake up anyway? Please?”
Now, while Casey was pleading his case inside Room 411, outside the door the rest of the group was fidgeting, waiting for something, anything, to happen.
At last Holly said what they all were thinking. “It didn’t work.”
“Well, of course it didn’t work,” Heather muttered.
Not having a lot of personal experience with Heather, Cricket had no problem saying, “Hey, you thought it might, too. We all did.”
“Yeah, well, we’re all stupid,” Heather snapped.
And Marissa was about to tell her to speak for herself when she noticed Sergeant Borsch approaching. “He’s not looking too happy,” she said, nodding out at the lawman.
“He never looks happy,” Heather said.
Holly shrugged. “He deals with lowlifes and criminals all day.”
“And us, too!” Billy threw in.
When Sergeant Borsch was upon them, Marissa asked, “Any news?”
The lawman sighed, then handed her the list she’d handed him earlier. It was now somewhat rumpled (and stained with coffee and the hydrogenated oils of a blueberry muffin), and it had notes written everywhere.
“Wait a minute,” Marissa said after the teens had huddled around, studying the paper. “Out means they’re out of jail?”
Sergeant Borsch sucked on a tooth. “That’s right.”
She looked at him, dumbfounded. “So it could be any of these?”
The lawman frowned and nodded. “Looks like.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“We were tracking down whereabouts when there was a 911 call that the perp was cornered here in the hallway. I dropped everything and raced over. As I’m sure you heard, it was just Sammy’s mother’s overreaction to that Poe character.”
Billy shook his head. “That dude is so misunderstood.”
Sergeant Borsch tried to be diplomatic. “Well, it’s understandable that he gets misunderstood.”
“No, it’s discrimination!” Billy said.
“Against?” Marissa asked.
Billy squared his shoulders. “Bird guys. Birdman guys. Guys who look like birds.”
Sergeant Borsch pinched his eyes closed and took a deep breath. “It was understandable because it was an unusual person she didn’t know in the room alone with her daughter. We’ll just leave it at that, okay?”
Suddenly Nurse Scrabble was there, saying, “We can’t have you congregating in the hall like this. I know you’re all friends and this is a hard situation, but we’re going to have to enforce the two-person rule. This has just gotten out of hand.”
“You kids go ahead back to the waiting room,” Sergeant Borsch said. “I want to see Sammy for just a minute.”
“No!” Billy cried, grabbing his arm. “You can’t go in there!”
The lawman cocked an eyebrow at him. “Why not?”
“Because …” Billy went a little shifty-eyed, but then blurted out the truth. “We want to give magic a chance.”
“Magic?” Nurse Scrabble said. “What’s going on in there?” But as she moved to enter Room 411, she found herself body-blocked by some very determined teens.
“It’s her boyfriend,” Marissa finally said.
“He’s going to kiss her,” Dot offered.
Nurse Scrabble stared at them a moment.
Then her shoulders slumped.
Her head wagged.
“Oh, you poor things,” she said at last, then added, “As long as he doesn’t turn off the motion sensor and climb in bed with her.”
“What!?” the teens all cried, because on the surface of things it was a rather outrageous statement. Even the Borschman gave her a look.
Nurse Scrabble said, “Well, that’s what the mother did. Twice! So she could get in bed with her.”
Sergeant Borsch gave her a little squint. “Lana was in bed with Sammy?”
“Well, the first time. The second time she denied it.”
“Denied being in bed with her?”
“No! Denied turning it off.”
“Turning what off?”
“The motion sensor!”
“But she admitted it the first time?”
“How else could she have climbed in bed without the alarm going off?” Then she added, “A motion sensor doesn’t just turn off by itself—you have to go over to it and switch it off!”
“But … how would she know where it was?” Holly asked. “Or what it was?”
“Yeah,” Marissa said. “I had no idea there was a motion sensor.”
“Where is it?” Heather asked.
“It’s under the patient,” the nurse said.
“But where’s the switch?” Marissa asked.
“Up by the head of the bed. But the point is—”
The gears in Gil Borsch’s head were visibly turning. He eyed the nurse. “Could it have been turned off beforehand?”
“Each rotation checks. And I reviewed the records when I documented that it had been turned off. It was noted as being on and functioning.”
Still, for Sergeant Borsch a different sort of alarm was going off. From what the nurse was saying … from what he knew about Lana … something wasn’t adding up.
“Come with me,” he suddenly said to the nurse.
Nurse Scrabble clearly had no desire to do so, but Sergeant Borsch was an agent of the law, so she followed him to the waiting room, where the lawman led her to Dusty Mike, who was still ta
lking to Janet Keltner.
“Mike,” Sergeant Borsch began, “do you have any idea why Sammy’s bed’s motion sensor was turned off?”
The gravedigger gave the lawman a blank look. “What’s a motion sensor?”
So (after a nod from Sergeant Borsch) Nurse Scrabble explained the setup and the purpose.
Mike shook his head. “An orderly was there when I went in. Maybe I interrupted him?”
“What was he doing?” Sergeant Borsch asked.
Dusty Mike shrugged. “Rearrangin’ her pillow? That’s what it looked like to me.”
“Rearranging her pillow?” the nurse said.
Sergeant Borsch’s pulse quickened. From the nurse’s demeanor it was clear to him that there was no reason for anyone to be rearranging Sammy’s pillow. “What did this orderly look like?” he asked Mike.
“Gold glasses. Light hair. Average size.” Then he added, “The hair was a mite long.”
Nurse Scrabble gave Mike a curious look. “Are you sure he was an orderly?”
He gave a little shrug. “He was wearin’ scrubs.”
“What color?” Gil Borsch asked.
“Blue,” Dusty Mike replied.
Nurse Scrabble eyed the gravedigger suspiciously. “Hmm.”
But Janet Keltner had a lot of practical experience with both medical procedure and motion sensors from her job in a nursing home and understood the need to get to the bottom of the situation. “Can I ask something?” she asked (already asking something).
“What’s that?” Nurse Scrabble asked back.
“I was down in Sammy’s room for a short visit while Mike was out here with my daughter. Then we switched. So between the time I left and Mike went in, an unknown orderly was in there.”
“And your question is …?”
“Do you have visual profiles on your personnel?”
“We do,” Nurse Scrabble confirmed.
“Can he look at them?” Janet asked, nodding toward Dusty Mike.
Nurse Scrabble nodded. “Sure.”
But while the others went toward the nurses’ station, Sergeant Borsch headed back down the hallway, his stomach churning. He had a hunch the “orderly’s” photo would not be found in the hospital’s files.
“Where are you going?” Marissa asked as he passed by Room 411.
But the lawman hurried forward without a word.