Max looks like she might hug me but instead she points a finger at me. The sadness in her eyes has been replaced by the glimmer of mischief.
“That’s for sure. Without my badge-swiping skills, you’d be hiding from the police under your hospital bed.”
“Max.”
“Yeah?”
“I promise to write to you while you’re in prison.”
“Very funny, Jason D,” Max says drily, but her face is beaming with pride. “Very funny.”
Bodies of all different colors, shapes, and ages are running. The stream of people continues as far as my eyes can see. The rhythmic swing of their arms and legs is hypnotizing as they float by. Long-sleeved tees and green paper cups lie crumpled on the side of the running path.
Max and I lean farther over the barrier and wave at the runners approaching, their knees and elbows pumping like the parts of an engine. People jog in our neighborhood, sometimes two together, but they never draw a crowd. What is it about this race that makes everyone want to drop what they’re doing and watch?
But I’m not as interested as Max. I’m wondering if my mother’s found a way to call her best friend yet and if I’ll ever hear her voice again.
“Jason D—”
“Yeah?”
“Jay, I think—”
The people around us start cheering louder again. It’s like everyone’s got a best friend or brother in the pool of runners.
“Jason D!”
Just as Max shouts my name, her voice thick with worry, I lock eyes with a runner whose face I recognize.
Oh no, I think, and my heart starts to pound.
Just when I was starting to feel like we were invisible in this teeming city, I realize how wrong I am.
Sixteen
Max yanks me by the arm, and we disappear into the folds of people and their poster boards.
“Did you just see—”
By the way Max is ducking and squeezing through the crowd, I can tell that she saw Dr. Shabani. I almost didn’t recognize her at first. She isn’t wearing her white coat or her doctor’s scrubs. In running pants and hot-pink sneakers, she doesn’t look much like a doctor.
She definitely saw me too. We were staring right at each other until Max yanked my arm. Max backs us out through the crowd so that we’ve moved a full block in the opposite direction from the runners. Dr. Shabani had paused for a second when she spotted me, but maybe she rejoined the race. I’m hoping there are at least two or three blocks between us now. I crane my neck to see if, by any chance, she might have backtracked to find us.
“Jason, we’d better get away from this race. She probably heard that we snuck out of the hospital. And this race is really crowded. There are a lot of eyeballs here.”
“Yeah, but there are also lots of kids,” I say. “If we start walking around on our own, we’re going to stick out more. At least here, people will think we’re with one of these families. We can try to blend in with them. We just have to act normal.”
Max bites her lip, flinching.
“Are you saying I’m not normal?” she asks, her voice tight.
“I didn’t say that.”
“If you’re telling me to act normal, then that means . . .”
We really need to move, and she’s getting picky about my words. I’m not sure what’s bothering her.
“Max, you know what I mean. I’m the one who’s not normal, so don’t be so sensitive. If you’re not normal, it’s only because you’re smarter than everyone else. I wish I had your problems.”
Max’s eyes turn pink. Her mouth is closed tightly like she’s worried something’s going to slip out. I don’t know what I said that’s upset her so much. Max looks tired, more tired than she did when she was hangry. It’s after eleven o’clock. We’ve only been away from the hospital for a few hours, but it’s been the kind of few hours that feel like a month.
“Max?”
Max takes a deep breath. She lifts her hat an inch off her head and runs her fingers through her hair. She turns her palm up and flakes of glue fall between her fingers, disappearing onto the sidewalk.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says quietly.
There it is again. How can I get Max to trust me with whatever it is she’s hiding?
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Max is tucking stray hairs behind her ears. She blinks rapidly and clears her throat.
“Let’s get moving,” she says brightly, but I can hear that her voice is a pretending voice.
“Hey, if there’s something that—”
“Max? M.D.? I thought that was you two!”
Max and I both freeze.
Dr. Shabani’s out-of-breath voice is unmistakable. We slowly turn around to face her. Max’s face is blank. There are no brilliant ideas exploding behind those brown eyes. She’s not talking us out of this mess.
“Oh, hey, Dr. Shabani,” I say as casually as I can. “What . . . what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? What are you two doing here? There wasn’t any plan to send you home today, Max. And, you, were they able to locate your parents? Who brought you here?”
These are all very good questions. I wish I had some good answers.
“My mom brought us here to watch the race,” Max says. Her nervousness is barely hidden. “I got discharged this morning.”
Dr. Shabani has both hands on her hips. Beads of sweat glisten on her furrowed brow. “Discharged? That wasn’t even being discussed yesterday.” She turns to face me. She’s moved in closer, the only runner outside of the barricades. She’s getting a few looks for that. “And you? How are you feeling?”
“Awesome,” I reply cheerfully. “My head’s barely hurting!”
She wipes at her forehead with the back of her hand and shakes her head.
“I’ve got to be honest with you both. I don’t know how it is that the two of you fast friends are out here instead of in the hospital. I’m going to make a quick call.” She touches the pouch strapped around her bicep. “Shoot! My friend’s got my phone.”
Max’s eyes are wide as she looks at me and then points her eyeballs off to the right. I press my lips together in silent communication. No, I’m telling her in my head. We’re not going to outrun a marathon runner!
“I’ve got to borrow a phone.” She turns to the people around us, trying to figure out who to ask.
“Last chance,” Max whispers to me.
The city is not as big and busy as I hoped.
“Excuse me,” our doctor calls out. “Does anyone have a phone I could use?”
The people around her pretend not to hear or shake their heads and smile politely. She shoots us a serious look, a warning not to move. She asks again, her hands cupped around her mouth to amplify her voice.
“Excuse me. This is actually pretty urgent. I’m a—”
“Doctor!” There’s a shout. It sounds like it’s coming from the sea of runners. “Doctor! We need a doctor!”
Dr. Shabani looks back over her shoulder.
“We’ve got a runner down! Is there a doctor or a paramedic anywhere around here? This man needs help!”
“Oh man, that leg is definitely broken!”
“You two—come with me.” Dr. Shabani pushes her way through the gathering crowd. We follow her with dragging feet.
“Poor guy! Tripped over a water bottle!”
People are craning their necks for a closer look at the injured runner. Max and I make eye contact. We are not thinking. We are only doing, moving as quickly as we can. We take three big steps backward and the crowd fills in the space between us and Dr. Shabani. Max and I are shoulder to shoulder, making our way behind the barricades. I think of how we can best disappear.
“Let’s stay behind the barricades and try to blend in. We’ll move in the same direction as the runners and head uptown to catch the subway train. Dr. Shabani’s probably still back there.”
We weave through, keeping our heads low and mov
ing slowly enough that it just looks like we’re trying to find a better viewing position. There’s no sign of the doctor, but we keep looking over our shoulders as if she might just pop up.
We’ve moved about two blocks uptown when we hear a chorus of beeps and buzzes. A handful of people reach into their pockets or bags and tap on the screen of a cell phone.
“Did you get a text message?” the woman in front of us says to the man next to her. He swipes his thumb across the phone, and I can spot a blue text message box on the screen.
“Amber Alert,” I hear the man grumble. He slips his phone back into his jacket pocket.
“How awful,” she replies as she shakes her head.
A handful of other people have looked at their phones. They purse their lips or shake their heads or say something to the person next to them.
“Max, what’s an Amber Alert?”
Max gives me a look that tells me she doesn’t know. I see a father put his arm around the little girl next to him and pull her closer. She looks up at him and smiles. There’s a rock in my stomach.
“Maybe it’s got something to do with the runner that got injured,” Max offers.
It’s a good theory. I nudge Max and we keep dodging elbows and backpacks, moving from one crosswalk to the next. I hear bits and pieces of conversations. Together, they shape a story.
“You got the message too?”
“Amber Alert? Yup. I hate seeing these.”
“Yeah, it’s two. How awful is that!”
“Where from?”
“Not sure. Just says it’s a boy and a girl.”
Max gasps softly. Our ears prickle at that last comment. Our eyes meet but we don’t dare speak.
The Amber Alert has nothing to do with the marathon runners. The Amber Alert, it’s dawning on me, is a missing child notice.
“Those poor parents.”
“Makes you want to hug your kid a little tighter, doesn’t it?”
“And put tracking devices on them. Gosh, I don’t know what I’d do.”
I cringe, ready for the second when these people will turn around and see my face flaming red. Max is staring into the cracks of the concrete sidewalk.
Did Dr. Shabani report us already? Did the alert give a description or include our pictures? Are our faces going to be on the news?
Max’s head is hanging so low it looks like she wants to disappear into the ground.
“Max, maybe we should . . .”
She nods in the direction we were headed, a signal we should keep going. I walk beside her in silence.
Max really looks beat now, and I’m sure she’s going to be in huge trouble with her parents. I don’t want Max to go any farther. I don’t like that this is my fault, but I also don’t want to be one more person telling her what she can’t do.
With another block behind us, the cell phones have once again disappeared into pockets and handbags. No one’s reading about the missing kids, though they’re probably thinking about us.
Max ducks into an alley. She leads us behind a dumpster. The smell of rotten food fills my nostrils and turns my stomach. I see a rat’s tail disappear behind a stack of cardboard boxes. Max pokes her head out to see if anyone from the street has followed us here.
“Max?”
It’s a bright and brilliant day, and here we are, two kids who barely know each other and have nothing in common, hiding in an alley.
“Max. I didn’t think it would be like this.”
She gives me a weak smile.
“Do you think there’s a reward out for finding us?”
“That would be cool,” I say, cocking my head to the side. “Maybe I should turn you in.”
Max bends down to retie her laces. She says something but I can’t make it out since she’s talking to the pavement.
“What did you say?”
She stands up and smooths out her purple sweatshirt with two hands as she repeats herself, just loud enough for me to hear this time.
“I’m supposed to have surgery tomorrow.”
It is not what I expected to hear.
“I have . . .” I have epilepsy, and I’m supposed to have surgery tomorrow.”
“Surgery?”
Max nods. She’s not pretending anymore.
“I’m not a genius. I’m an epileptic. That’s all I am.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I quietly admit.
“It means I have seizures. I get them a lot. My brain gets way too excited and then it goes out of control and it takes over my body. Sometimes my mouth twitches or my hands do weird things. Sometimes it’s my whole body. I have to take a bunch of pills that make me feel like I’m moving in slow motion. My parents don’t let me do anything because they’re always afraid that I’ll have another seizure, and they’re right. Of course I will. That’s what epileptics do. And people think that’s all we do.”
“I’ve never met anyone with seizures, but you can do lots of stuff.”
Max’s eyes are pink with a sadness I don’t understand.
“Do you know what I hate?” Max asks.
I look at her.
“I really hate that people think I’m dumb or that I’m going to bite my tongue off in front of them.”
“People can be pretty dumb,” I say, thinking of the people who have asked my mother why she doesn’t dress like an Afghan. She says she wears the same clothes people in Afghanistan wear, but people always look shocked.
“Actually, lots of famous people have had seizures.”
“Like who?” I ask, curious.
“Like one of the popes, Julius Caesar, Tiki Barber, Lil Wayne . . .”
“Lil Wayne and Tiki Barber have had seizures?”
Max nods. I would have thought Tiki Barber wouldn’t have ever had anything more than a sprained ankle.
“Max, how do you make the seizures stop?”
“Medicines. Or they stop on their own. But not everyone knows that. My grandfather thought he was supposed to put a spoon or a stick in my mouth so I wouldn’t bite my tongue off. My mom had to tell him that was even more dangerous.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do if I saw someone having a seizure,” I admit.
“There’s not much to do. Clear a space around the person and roll her onto her side. Call for help. Don’t put anything in her mouth. That’s it.”
“So, what’s the surgery for?”
Max exhales loudly and buries her face in her hands.
“They want to take out the part of my brain that’s not working right—the part that’s causing seizures.”
Surgery on her brain? I feel my own head ache at the thought of that. No wonder Max is so nervous. I wish there were someone else here, someone who would know what to say. How can I tell her not to be scared when I’d be terrified? And if I tell her I’d be scared too, won’t that make things worse? I don’t have what she needs right now, but I have to say something.
“But that’ll help you, right? That will fix the . . . problem, I guess.” I am really out of my league in this conversation.
Max wipes a tear away from her cheek with the back of her hand.
“I’m afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“What if . . . what if they don’t just take out the part that causes seizures? What if I wake up and I’m not that smart? Or what if I forget all the things that are important to me? What if I never have another seizure again, and what if I don’t like that? What if I wake up and they’ve taken out the part of me that makes me me?”
“Is that possible? If that part of your brain isn’t working, then that can’t be the part that makes you . . . you.”
Max is not convinced.
“They think the seizures are all bad,” Max says, and I’m guessing she’s talking about her parents. “But sometimes the seizures give me things.”
“Like what?”
“Sometimes I remember things that happened a really long time ago. Like the pictures on the wall of my grandmoth
er’s kitchen before her house burned down. Or the blanket my mother used to wrap around me when we did campfire stories in our backyard. I don’t remember everything from when I was four years old, but I remember that stuff. And more.”
“That’s the treasure box you were telling me about,” I say as I start to understand. “So would you rather keep the seizures?”
Max scratches at the back of her head.
“I’d rather keep the good parts. Sometimes I don’t take all my medicine because I want to have those memories. My parents think all my memories are bad ones because I was in the hospital so much, but I don’t want to forget all of those either.”
“Do your parents know you don’t take all your medicine?”
“Nope,” Max says, and there’s a hint of triumph in her voice. “I’ve been stuffing the extra pills under my mom’s geraniums. And I’m happy to report those geraniums haven’t had a single seizure since I started doing that.”
I laugh. It feels like forever since I last laughed, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to really laugh again. Max smiles. But after a moment, the air between us gets serious again.
“I would be scared too,” I tell her.
“You would?”
“Out of my mind scared.”
Max lets out a long breath through pursed lips and puffed cheeks. I can see her face relax a little. I guess it’s okay that I just told her the truth. The dark shadows beneath her eyes tell me that she probably didn’t sleep much last night with the rattling carts and beeping machines on our hospital floor.
“I’d be scared if I were you too,” Max says. “I really hope your mom gets to come back.”
It’s my turn to stare at the ground. I’ve been trying really hard not to think about how afraid I am that I won’t see my mom again or that I won’t find Auntie Seema.
That’s when a rat pokes his pointy head out from behind the boxes then ducks back in. We both jump and take a quick step backward, laughing at our reactions. A passing dog lets out a small yelp and tugs his leash in our direction. His owner doesn’t notice and walks by the alley without seeing us. Two pigeons are perched on the fire escape over our heads, cooing softly. They remind me of home. I can feel my nerves settle a little. There’s a rise in the cheering; a new wave of runners must be moving through the hall of people.