Things Not Seen Read online

  chapter 26

  NIGHT SHIFT

  When I wake up, my alarm clock tells me it’s 11:37 P.M., so from the time I lay down on my bed to now is almost four hours. All I meant to do was think a little. Instead, I’ve had four hours of freedom. Four hours of not being furious with my parents and Alicia’s dad for trying to tell me how they’ve planned out the rest of my life. Four hours of not beating my brains against a wall trying to figure out what to do next. Four hours of not worrying about being this way forever. Sleep is the great escape.

  Mom must have been here, because someone has taken off my shoes, and the down comforter is tucked around me. Mom and Dad looked in to make sure their little baby Bobby was all right.

  My eyes are wide open. Streetlamp light sneaks around the edges of the window shades. The night-light in the bathroom paints a thin yellow stripe at the bottom of my bedroom door. The furnace blower comes on, runs about three minutes, then stops. The whole house is quiet, and I hear a bus making its last run on the street out front.

  Lying still in the dark, I try to imagine that everything is normal again. I’m just a high school kid. Soon it’ll be a regular Thursday morning, and I’ll get up and eat breakfast and catch the bus for school. I’ll doze through math, avoid speaking in French, try to look smart in English, eat lunch with Kenny and Phil, play my trumpet in the jazz band during sixth period, and after school I’ll go to the library and listen to some rare Miles Davis cuts.

  But I know all that’s a lie. Nothing is normal.

  I replay Dr. Van Dorn’s visit to our dinner table. Two things stand out. First, that ACE spacecraft. It’s what collects the data he found about the two dates. I’ve never heard of that before. I’ve never heard of billions of things. Truth is, I know practically nothing. Except how to take almost anything that happens and make myself feel stupid because of it. Which is what I’m doing right now.

  The other thing I recall is the quick look Dr. Van Dorn and Dad passed between them. It was a secret look, the kind people exchange when what they’re thinking is too terrible for words. They exchanged the look when Mom asked about reversing the process. Dr. Van Dorn doesn’t believe it’s possible. He thinks there’s no going back. Move over, Sheila. Make some room in the lifeboat for Bobby.

  Rolling off the bed, I land softly on my feet. The hallway is faintly lit, and I can tell Mom and Dad are asleep. Their turn for some freedom.

  I tiptoe down the back stairs, go through the kitchen and dining room to the den. The computer sounds like a diesel truck starting up, but I know it’s not really that loud.

  The browser opens up, and I get to a search page, and I punch in “ACE spacecraft.” And there it is, pictures and everything. ACE stands for Advanced Composition Explorer. This thing is out 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, feeding a constant stream of data to a bunch of ground tracking stations all over the world. Scientists in Japan, England, India, the U.S., they’re all looking at information from ten different instruments on board. I click on the Real Time Solar Wind Data, and I’m plugged in. I’ve got graphs and tables and news from outer space, and the thing is updated every fifteen minutes—like the reports about traffic on the Dan Ryan Expressway.

  Then I click on a link for SOHO—the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory—and it’s another satellite up there in the sunlight. And there’s a blinking “ALERT” on the screen next to a block of text:

  The Earth’s environment is currently bombarded by high-energy particles accelerated by a powerful solar eruption last night. A strong flare (M9) and coronal mass ejection were observed by the SOHO instruments. The flux of high-energy protons near Earth now is 100,000 times greater than normal. This is the fourth largest proton event in the past three years, and will likely continue at or above the current level for the next several weeks as we approach the solar maximum.

  And the date on the news release is 11:45 P.M. February 24—and there’s been an update every twenty-four hours right up to yesterday. The bombardment has slowed during the last month, but not by much. So what I’m reading about here on the screen, this is still going on. Now.

  And it makes me smile. I wish I had a cat or something. I’d wrap it up in my magic blanket, and poof—invisible kitty. Which would be tough on the neighborhood birds.

  I close the browser, open up an Instant Messenger window, and click on Alicia’s screen name.

  bobby7272: hey alicia--you awake?

  In about thirty seconds, the program chimes back at me.

  aleeshaone: hey yourself--too loud--stop til i turn down the sound…

  aleeshaone: ok--how r u?

  bobby7272: been better. how come you’re still awake?

  aleeshaone: duh--your message woke up my computer, and the thing starts talking to me. but i wasn’t sleeping anyway. my sleep patterns are all screwy cuz it’s always nighttime on planet alicia. i sleep when i’m tired. been chatting with nancy till about fifteen minutes ago.

  bobby7272: bout what?

  aleeshaone: you

  bobby7272: what about me?

  aleeshaone: none of your business

  bobby7272: my imagination runs wild.

  aleeshaone: that’s your problem

  bobby7272: so did you talk to your dad tonite?

  aleeshaone: yup. said he stopped and saw you and your parents. said he’s made some progress with the information, the dates--stuff about solar particles, right? so that’s good.

  bobby7272: is it? sounded bad to me. sounds like years of research to me. years.

  aleeshaone: years don’t scare me much anymore.

  bobby7272: all hail the great philosopher

  aleeshaone: i’m ignoring that. why so grim?

  bobby7272: because i’m back where i was, only worse cuz there’s no hope.

  aleeshaone: no hope? how do you figure?

  bobby7272: you heard your dad. he thinks maybe we know the cause, but that’s not the cure. if he’s right about the cause we could zap a cat or a dog or something right now. or you--wanna get invisible? i’ll bring my blankie over, turn on the juice, and let er rip.

  aleeshaone: --what are you talking about?

  bobby7272: right now there’s a big solar event--just checked the website. big hi energy particle shower. so we grab a black lab, put him in the blanket, turn on the power, and ZAP, you could be the first blind kid on your block to have an invisible seeing eye dog! cool, huh?

  aleeshaone: more like sick. how about you wrap yourself up and disappear completely for a while--do us all a favor

  bobby7272: naughty, naughty--don’t fight sarcasm with sarcasm--two wrongs don’t make a right

  aleeshaone: but do three rights make a left?

  bobby7272: very deep. i hear the sound of one hand clapping.

  bobby7272: you still there?

  bobby7272: alicia?

  aleeshaone: still here. i’m thinking. two wrongs don’t make a right. but two negatives make a positive, right? like in english. i’m not not going means i’m going, right?

  bobby7272:…and your point is?

  aleeshaone: in math you multiply a negative number by a negative, you get a positive, right?

  bobby7272: still waiting for the point…

  aleeshaone: go turn on the blanket and take a particle bath--you can’t get more invisible--maybe it’ll be like two negatives make a positive--that’s the point, smarty pants!

  bobby7272: right, like i’m just going to turn it on and see what happens.

  aleeshaone: you’re the one whining about being so hopeless. here’s some hope. what do you have to lose????

  aleeshaone: bobby?

  aleeshaone: bobby, answer me.

  bobby7272: i’ll get back to you.

  aleeshaone: bobby--wait. don’t. i’m sorry. really, don’t. something could happen.

  bobby7272: you mean something bad? something worse than this? i don’t think so. i’ll call you in the am.

  And I shut the whole thing down. The trouble with screen talking is it keep
s going on and on until someone finally decides to get back to real life. And that’s what I’m doing.

  I walk up to the front parlor, open the French doors slowly so they won’t squeak and wake up Dad. He’s got my blanket carefully folded into a suit box with the controller all reassembled, set to take to the lab in the morning. Because my blanket is a scientific artifact now. I pick up the box and wind my way through the dark house again, up the back stairs and into my room.

  I plug the blanket into the controller and put the controller right where it always sits on my bedside table. After I toss the feather comforter onto the floor, I spread the blanket out over the bed. Then I plug the control unit into the wall, right where it was plugged in on that Monday night. And before I have a chance to chicken out, I close my door, shut off the light, peel down to my boxers, and climb under the covers. And with my right hand, I feel around in the dark until I find the controller, then the dial, and then the little switch. But I don’t flip it. I can’t. Because what will happen? Will I die? Those angry words I typed down in the den, are those the last words I’ll ever say to Alicia? But I have to do something. I have to. And I do. I flip it on.

  A faint orange glow lights the dial, and I squint and set it to five, right in the middle, just like always. Then I lie back on my pillow and pull the covers up so only my nose is sticking out into the chilly air. Just like always. Except my mouth is dry and my chest is heaving.

  And I imagine the solar wind blowing the stardust around, trillions of energized particles bombarding the earth, radiation I can’t see or feel. And then I imagine I can feel the X rays and the gamma rays, feel them pinging on my eyelids, shooting through my skull, making the palms of my hands tingle like they’ve fallen asleep.

  And I’m under my blanket, and it’s warm and toasty, and my heart is thumping and my mind is racing, and I’m watching to see if the room starts to shimmer or glow.

  And I feel like an idiot. Like maybe I should start chanting some magic words. Because this whole thing is so ridiculous. I’m trying to recreate something that was probably a one-in-a-billion event. I mean, it could have been a certain cloud above our house with some weird mix of pollution and chemicals in it from some power plant in Joliet. Maybe that cloud messed with the solar-wind junk before it got to me sleeping in my bed. Or Dr. Van Dorn could have just gotten the whole thing wrong. Maybe the two dates relate to some phenomenon no one has even discovered yet. Who says he and Dad know so much anyway? Their machines are big and shiny and they whir and hum, but do they really know more than some Stone Age witch doctor with a rattle and a gourd full of ground-up frog bones?

  Years don’t scare me much anymore. That’s what Alicia just said. She’s not wishing her life was different. She’s dealing with the life she has. She’s not trying to get back to how things used to be.

  How things used to be. I don’t want that. Not exactly. I’ll never be exactly like I was. I just want some choices back. Even Alicia’s got choices to make. Not me. I have only two. Stay hidden, or go public. And if I go public, instantly I’m a scientific oddity, front-page news. Two choices, and they both stink.

  Fifteen minutes by the clock, and there’s nothing. No unearthly glowing, no strange crackling sounds, no arcing electrical charges. Nothing. I feel like I should get up and go message Alicia. She probably thinks I’m turning myself into a gob of protoplasm or something. But it’s 12:07 now. The digital thermostat has cut the temperature in the house back to 55. And I’ve been missing my good old blanket. It’s too comfortable to get up and go downstairs again. Besides, that might mess up the big experiment. Right.

  So I roll over onto my side and think about the things I’d like to say to Alicia. And after another five minutes or so, the sandman’s got me.

  chapter 27

  SEARCH AND SEIZURE

  Loud voices.

  It’s still dark, 4:30 A.M. by my alarm clock.

  Loud voices. Mom’s is the loudest.

  “How dare you! This is outrageous!”

  A man’s voice, deep, and a woman’s, both too soft to hear. But I know that woman. It’s Ms. Pagett.

  Footsteps up the front staircase. And fragments from an angry Miss Pagett: “…repeated warnings…new information…search is fully warranted.”

  Mom splutters something, and it’s the man who answers. “…reports of lights on late at night…the missing boy’s room.”

  The voices are coming down the hall, and it’s the deep voice again. “This is his room.”

  Dad: “Are we charged with some crime? This is harassment!”

  The deep voice: “Step aside, sir.”

  I’m out of bed now, and I’ve pulled off my boxers and tossed them into the open closet.

  This is bad. Too many people in a small room. Someone’s going to bump me or step on me. And what if someone stays in the doorway? No escape.

  The door opens, and a shape fills the opening, and an arm reaches for the light switch.

  I’m next to my desk, standing still. The overhead light blinds me, and I take a deep breath and hold it.

  A bulky police officer comes into my room, steps quickly to the bed, and puts his hand palm down onto the mattress. He turns to Ms. Pagett in the doorway and says, “Still warm.” Then he turns and looks at the papers and the cell phone on my desk, and he says, “What the!…”

  He’s looking at my desk. The list from Sears! And the cell phone—with all those numbers in its memory.

  But there’s nothing I can do, so I just stand still. He comes toward the desk, right toward me, and I’m ready to duck and roll, maybe get under the bed. And he looks me right in the eyes and says, “Who are you?”

  I stand stock-still.

  He’s still looking into my eyes. “I said, who are you?”

  Ms. Pagett is in the doorway. She’s looking at me too. And behind her, Mom and Dad.

  I look down, and there I am. My body. Me.

  “I—I’m Bobby Phillips.” And I’m naked, and I grab up a sweatshirt from the floor and use it to cover up. And I’m dazed, and I must look like an idiot because I can’t stop grinning.

  Ms. Pagett has turned to face my mom, furious. “What is going on here!”

  Mom knows she has to say something to Ms. Pagett, but she keeps looking past her to smile at me. Then she focuses, takes a deep breath, and says, “What’s going on? You want to know what’s going on? You’ve just burst into my home and terrified my son, that’s what. He got home from Florida late last night after a long train ride, and the last thing he expected was to have armed storm troopers crashing into his room at four in the morning!”

  “Well…why wasn’t I notified of his return?” Ms. Pagett is still trying to sound tough, but she’s already retreating, and Mom is on the attack.

  “Why?” Mom takes a step toward Ms. Pagett, and the lady flinches. Mom’s voice is shrill. “Why weren’t you notified? Because this problem you’ve been trying to solve has never been any of your business, that’s why. There’s never been a real problem. You’ve tried to make our family’s activities into the state’s business, and you assumed Bobby was lost or missing or who-knows-what. But we have never been uncertain about his safety or his whereabouts for one moment. And did you expect me to call you at home last night so you could meet him at the train for us?”

  Ms. Pagett doesn’t know what to say. “We were only able to work with the information we had—”

  “And we appreciate that.” Dad’s turn. “We know that you’ve been doing your job, and by your standards you had reasonable cause for concern. And when my wife has had the rest of her sleep, I’m sure she’ll be less angry than she is at the moment. Now, is there anything else we can do for you?” Then, turning to the cop, Dad says, “Officer, is there something else you need to search for?”

  The cop looks at Ms. Pagett, and he’s embarrassed. He says, “No. I think that does it, right?”

  Ms. Pagett nods. Mom steps back, and Dad moves aside, and the policeman and Ms. Pagett
walk out of my room, down the stairs, and out of our house.

  Here’s the summary of what happens next: hugs, kisses, some tears, some hot chocolate, more hugs, and a lot of talk. First, I explain about the ACE and the SOHO websites, then about messaging Alicia and her double-negative idea. And then how I just got the blanket, plugged it in, and got into bed. I don’t tell them how my last thoughts were about Alicia.

  Dad almost flips out because he’s never performed a big experiment without thinking about it for at least a year or two. The physicist is angry about me taking this step with “such an incomplete assessment of the variables and the risk factors.” But the father is proud about me being so bold. And both the physicist and the father are blown away with the results.

  But as I talk with Dad, I can see the wheels spinning in his head, and I know that the scientist is just itching to take that blanket and try it out on something else—maybe a little white mouse.

  Mom won’t let go of my hand. We’re downstairs on the couch in the living room, and she keeps reaching over to push my hair up off my forehead. My hair’s a lot longer than it was a month ago. And she keeps tilting her head and smiling this goofy smile at me. I feel like her eyes are devouring my face.

  But you can only take so much of this kind of stuff, and after about half an hour, I start yawning. And Mom can see me yawn. She can see I look tired. And she can see me smile when she says I ought to go back to bed.

  And Dad says, “But not under that blanket—please!”

  And we all laugh, and that sets off another round of hugs.

  Mom comes upstairs with me. She takes the blanket off my bed, folds it carefully, and puts it on my desk chair. Then she picks the comforter up off the floor, spreads it over me, and tucks me in. And she bends down, runs a hand through my hair, and gives me a kiss on the cheek. And I’m glad.

  Alone in the darkness before dawn, though, I can’t sleep. Much too excited.

  Today will be Thursday. I could get up at 6:45, shower, eat at 7:15, catch the bus at 7:37, go to school, and have a regular day. Regular Bobby having a regular day.