The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [67]
19
“Dead?” me and Barbie echoed. The owl hooted on the other side of the curtain. Eerie!
Jed nodded grimly. “When only part of the body is affected, you can usually live with it. Like me. And Stan—he lived half his life with an adrified hand.”
“So that’s why he has amazing bionic fingers!”
“It’s not something he advertises on his billboards, but, yes, Seb. Anyway, different animals have different levels of tolerance. Birds are tough. That owl’s been here longer than I have. Humans aren’t tough. Last week there was a . . . well, an industrial accident. Three guys got soaked. All dead in twenty-four hours. Pa’s not going to make it much longer without some sort of miracle cure.”
“But—how can ORC get away with that?” I said. “Three guys dead? There wasn’t anything on the news. Grum would have been gabbing our ears off about something like that.”
Jed checked outside the curtain again. He was getting really nervous, I could tell by the twitching around his eyes. In a low voice I could barely hear, he said, “Look, half the people who work here never go anywhere. Nobody even knows they’re here. It’s as if they don’t exist.”
Barbie was pacing in arcs around Pa’s bed, biting off her beloved fingernails. “Jed, I know you don’t want Boots Odum to find out about our adrium vein, but this is a matter of life and death! We should tell him about how Sebby lost his dough so he can help us save Pa! And all those poor animals . . .”
“No way!” I waved my hands across her face. “We can tell him how I lost my raisins instead. On his property.”
She hit her hand on her head, looking a lot like me for once. Except for the hair. “I knew that,” she said. “That’s a way better idea.” She patted my arm admiringly, for the first time ever. My face got warm and probably had a silly smile on it.
Jed looked as confused as his explanation had made me. “Raisins . . . huh? What’s this idea?”
“There’s another place where the miracle cure happens,” I told him. “The Hole in the Wall, where you rescued us tonight. That’s why we went there in the first place, to save Ma’s chickens.”
“The paint flew out of Sebby’s back there, too,” Barbie added excitedly.
“Paint out of Sebby’s back . . . ? Oh, never mind. Tell me later. There’s no time to waste. We’re not waiting for Stan.” And Jed started yanking Pa’s cords and tubes out of the wall. This was a job I could get into. I leaped to his aid.
“What about Ma?” Barbie said, looking out the curtain toward the scanning room door. “We can’t leave without her.”
Jed said, “Yes, we can. When Ma comes out here, so will Dr. Mills, and Dr. Mills works for Stan. She is not going to let us take Pa out of here without security clearance. There’s no time for that. If we want to save Pa, we’re going to have to leave Ma to take care of herself. Let’s go!”
“I’m not leaving Ma.” Barbie crossed her arms.
“Suit yourself,” Jed said, and gestured for me to help him roll Pa’s bed.
We were almost at the door when a buzzer started ringing from somewhere that sounded like everywhere. A red light blinked overhead, and a voice came over the intercom, “Security Protocol Aegis Shield in effect. Repeat, Security Protocol Aegis Shield.” Man, oh man, was I scared.
The door to the scanning room flew open, and Dr. Mills ran out with Ma close behind, looking confused. They practically fell into Pa’s lap.
“Craig!” cried Ma in a voice that no words could describe. She looked like the shock would have exploded her head if she wasn’t holding her face together with her hands.
“Busted,” I said, thinking this would be the end of life as I knew it. No more homework, no more church, no more of Ma’s hockey puckburgers—we were all going to disappear in the guts of ORC forever and ever. But Dr. Mills surprised me.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here to help, Jed. Get your father and the rest of your family out, and I’ll take care of Miss