Don't Even Think About It (20 page)

“Cooper,” said a woman behind him. He turned.

She had her red hair pulled back and was wearing black pants and a black blouse. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t figure out from where.

Yup. His eyes are purplish.
“I heard what you said up there,” she said. “About hearing other people’s thoughts. I want to talk to you.”

Cooper took a step toward her. At least she wanted to listen.

*  *  *

“What a freak,” Lazar said, shaking his head.

Olivia, who, like the rest of us, had witnessed the whole scene, felt her heart break for Cooper. “He’s not a freak. He’s just overwhelmed.”

“He’s a loser,” Lazar said. “Can we go now?”

Suddenly, Olivia realized that Lazar
wasn’t
like her. He wasn’t shy. He was antisocial. She had always liked being around people—but she just didn’t know how to talk to them. He didn’t like people. He liked judging them.

“Go without me,” she said.

“What do you mean?” He took a step back.
I must have heard that wrong.

“You didn’t hear that wrong. I want to stay. If you want to go home so badly, go home.”

He shook his head.
I don’t need this attitude.
“We came together. We should leave together.”

“But I’m not ready to leave yet. And you’re clearly miserable, so go.”

“You want me to leave by myself?” He looked incredulous.

“Yes. Goodbye! No one’s keeping you here!” She wanted to forcibly shove him out the door.

Bitch,
he thought. Then he stormed out.

For the first time all night, Olivia breathed a huge sigh of relief.

She spotted Tess, Sadie, Mackenzie, Jordana, and Levi in the corner and hurried over to find out what was going on.

Mackenzie was shaking.

“What happened to Cooper?” Olivia asked.

“He just blurted everything out,” Mackenzie said. “And then he ran off.”

“It’s not like anyone believed him,” Jordana added.

“Has anyone seen Pi?” Sadie asked. “She’ll know what to do.”

“I think she left,” Levi said.

“I’ll text her and see where she is,” Tess said.
Stupid jerk.

“Who’s a stupid jerk?” Jordana asked her. “Cooper?”

“Not Cooper.” Tess shot a look at Sadie. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I saw you and Teddy making out,” Levi said to her. “What’s up with that?”

“Nothing’s up with that,” Tess muttered.
Don’t wanna talk about it.

Mackenzie was still shaking. “I think I want to go home.”

“You can’t leave,” Tess told her. “It’s your party.”

“I don’t care,” Mackenzie said. Her face was bright red. “I can’t breathe. I need to get out of here.”

Olivia put her arm around her. “Take deep breaths, okay? Let’s just step outside and get some air. Someone tell her parents where we are. Someone get us some water.”

Olivia led Mackenzie out the door and into the stairwell, leaving the rest of us behind.

“That was some Sweet,” Jordana said.

Levi shook his head.
It was more of a sour.

We couldn’t help but groan.

They called us early the next morning.

7:02 a.m.
Ring!

Mackenzie woke up immediately.

“Who the hell is calling so early?” barked her dad,
We did it three times last night! I am loving my Viagra prescription!

Cooper’s house line rang at 7:11 a.m.. He was already awake and pouring his sister a bowl of cereal. He had barely slept all night.

“Nobody get that!” Cooper’s mom yelled, storming into the kitchen and glaring at the phone. It went to voice mail.
No way I’m getting that. It’s definitely Harry calling from his hotel.
She listened to the voice mail two minutes later.

It was not Cooper’s dad. It was Nathan Michaels, the school’s principal.

The message requested Cooper’s family to please call back immediately. They would be having an emergency meeting in the BHS auditorium at seven p.m. regarding their son’s homeroom, and it was imperative that he and his parents go.

7:22 a.m.
Ring!

Olivia heard her mom pick up and wondered who it could be.
What happened? Who died?
In Olivia’s mind, all middle-of-the-night or early-morning calls were to report heart attacks, brain aneurysms, or plane crashes.

“But why?” she heard her mother ask. “What’s this about? Is my daughter sick?”

Pause.

“Is she in any kind of danger?”

Pause.

“What about the flu shot?” Olivia’s mom shrieked.

Pause.

“Unusual neurological symptoms? Are you kidding me?”

Of course, Olivia’s mom ran right into Olivia’s room.

“Wake up!” she yelled, throwing open the door. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Olivia was already sitting up in her bed and waiting.

“What’s going on?” Her mom continued. “What happened with the flu shots? What aren’t you telling me?”
Principal Michaels called! I thought someone died! You have complications from a tainted flu shot! They told us not to tell anyone!
Her face was red and she was out of breath.

At first all Olivia could think was,
I can’t deal with her now,
but when she saw the panic in her mom’s eyes and heard her think,
If something bad happens to my daughter, I’ll kill myself,
Olivia reached out her arms to hug her.

“I’m fine,” Olivia began. “Sit down. I’ll tell you everything. I’ll show you what I can do.”

And she did.

We all did.

*  *  *

We texted back and forth like crazy.

Levi: What happened? How did Michaels find out?

Jordana: Does the whole school know?

Nick: School admin knows, teachers don’t. Except my mom.

Isaac: That new nurse was at the Sweet. Maybe she told Michaels? Pi?

Daniel: We saw Cooper talking to her in the lobby.

Courtney: Cooper, did you talk to her?

Jordana: Cooper?

Levi: Cooper???

Tess: Pi, what do we do?

Pi: We go to the meeting and hear what they have to say.

What choice did we have?

*  *  *

We were all early.

Even Cooper. He showed up with both his parents, which was a bit awkward, considering his father had moved into the Conrad hotel the night before. Cooper sat on the opposite side of the room from Mackenzie. He gave her a sad smile when he saw her, but quickly looked away.

“Thank you for coming,” said the man on the stage. He’d introduced himself as Hank Soporic, executive director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He was tall and wore a blue suit and traumatized expression.
I can’t believe this is happening. This makes no sense. This is impossible.

No kidding.

Suzanna sat by his side.

Hank coughed. “As I’m sure your children have informed you, they seem to have developed some, um, complications from their flu shot.”

Complications! Ha!

A sore arm is a complication. We’ve become mutants.

It’s true. We’re like the X-Men.

You know, the Espies would make an awesome comic book series.

We hear thoughts and fight crime!

I am so not wearing a leather catsuit.

Hank rubbed his forehead and continued. “It appears that the flu vaccine has caused your children to develop …” His voice trailed off and his face flushed with embarrassment.
I can’t believe I’m saying these things out loud. They make no scientific sense.
“To develop headaches. Headaches and … a form of telepathy.” He shook his head.
This is insanity.
“It appears that they can read other people’s thoughts.”

Our parents:

She wasn’t kidding?

Impossible!

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

“They’ve really been hearing everything we’ve been thinking?” Levi’s mom asked.

“Yes,” Hank said, still shaking his head. “That seems to be the case.”

Everything?

Even the swearing?

Oh shit.

“How many people have been affected?” Isaac’s dad asked.

“We can’t share that information with you at the moment”—
because we have no idea
—“but we can tell you that we’ve traced at least three contaminated batches.”

Contaminated?

Batches, plural?

There are others with telepathy?

Oh God. I hope it’s not my French tutor. She’s so hot.

“Were all the batches given to New York City students?” asked Courtney’s mom.

“No. One of the contaminated batches was delivered to a nursing home in Jacksonville, Florida. One was delivered to a family clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and one was delivered here, to Manhattan. To Bloomberg High School.”

At least no one else at school is reading my thoughts secretly.

At least it’s not my French tutor. She’s so hot.

Olivia’s mom thought she might hyperventilate.
What if this causes brain tumors?
“Are those the only complications? Telepathy and headaches?”

“No.” Hank rubbed his forehead again.
It gets scarier.

Scarier?

Now I’m nervous.

You’re only nervous now?

“We’ve also noticed a slight pigment change in the subjects’ irises. You might notice that your children have a purplish tint to their eyes.”

Our parents all stared into our eyes.

I did notice that.

I thought she looked good.

I thought he was tired.

I thought he was on drugs.

“We’re not sure what’s causing the pigment change but we believe it’s related to the telepathy. We believe headaches may be another side effect. Symptoms tend to be severe immediately following the vaccine and tend to clear up. The risk of pigment change seems to increase as time goes on.”
As does the risk of death.

Huh?

“Death?” Olivia repeated.

“Are you kidding me?” Jordana called out. “We’re going to die?”

A startled Hank nearly jumped off the stage. “Oh! I forgot you could … hear me.”

Our parents started panicking.

“Death?”

“Who said anything about dying?”

We should have moved to Canada. This would never happen in Canada!

Hank cleared his throat again. “One patient who received the contaminated vaccination suffered a stroke and … er … expired.”

Our parents:

Expired? As in died?

The vaccination killed someone?

My poor baby!

Us:

My mom’s a lawyer!

We should sue!

We can’t sue if we’re dead!

I can’t believe I’m going to die a virgin!

“But,” Hank continued, his voice shaky, “he was also eighty-one. The stroke may have been unrelated. The autopsy was inconclusive.”

“Why weren’t we notified about this situation immediately?” Cooper’s dad barked. “Did you know that contamination was a possibility when our kids were vaccinated?”

“Absolutely not,” he said.
It’s not like we believed the complaints. Telepathy? Gimme a break.

“So there were reports of telepathy,” Nick called out. “You just didn’t listen to them.”

Hank reddened. “Er, right. There were reports. Three weeks ago a clinic in Ohio contacted us. They’d had complaints from patients who’d received their flu shots and seemed to have developed … unusual neurological symptoms.”

“You mean telepathy,” Olivia’s mom said.

“Right,” he squeaked. “Telepathy. Patients claimed to have developed telepathy. We were, um, doubtful at first.”
That’s the understatement of the year. We joked about it over cappuccinos. Oops. They can hear that. Just kidding! We didn’t joke about it! We don’t drink cappuccinos! We work in a government building! We can’t afford a cappuccino maker! I should just keep talking. Yes. Continue talking.
“In addition to the, um, unusual neurological symptoms, the patients in Ohio complained of headaches and changing eye color. We instructed them to monitor their symptoms. …”
How were we supposed to know that they weren’t crazies? They sounded like crazies. This whole thing makes no sense. I miss SARS.
“Then we received some calls from a retirement home in Florida with reports of similar symptoms. By the time we followed up, the death had already occurred. The retirement home patients had in fact received their vaccinations before those in Ohio, but the nurses believed the patients were suffering from age-related dementia. It wasn’t until there was a cluster of symptoms that the health practitioners took them seriously and informed us. Now we’re tracing the batches we believe to have been contaminated. We thought one might have been sent to Bloomberg High School but we didn’t know which students had received the infected batch. Unfortunately Nurse Carmichael improperly tracked them.”
Idiot.

“Why didn’t you ask everyone who’d gotten flu shots if they had telepathy?” Jordana asked.

He flushed again. “It just … well, it seemed like a loony thing to ask. And we didn’t want to cause a panic. We thought surveillance was a better idea. We removed Nurse Carmichael and installed one of our own agents—Dr. Dail—at Bloomberg, and hoping that she would be able to find the affected parties.”

Agents?

Suzanna!

Suzanna is CIA?

Who said anything about CIA?

This is so cool.

No it’s not! We’re going to die! Dying is not cool!

“Didn’t the school have a responsibility to tell us?” Isaac’s dad asked.

Hank shook his head. “The school didn’t know. We didn’t know. We suspected that an infected batch had been sent here but we didn’t have confirmation until last night.”

Well, duh. If the school had known, we’d know they knew.

You’re missing the point. Someone gave us up!

It was so Cooper!

We saw him with Suzanna!

It wasn’t me.

Liar!

“But somebody died,” Olivia’s mom said. “You should have been overly cautious and called us immediately.”

“There’s no proof that the death was a direct result of the vaccination. It was likely just old age.”
Although we can’t say for sure.
“But! We have good news,” he rushed to add. “We’ve been able to isolate the compound in the vaccination that has been causing the, um, irregular neurological condition. It’s a reaction to a new preservative we’ve been using to stabilize the vaccine, called NFG. And now that we know what caused it, we’ve developed an antidote.”

A what?

A reversal vaccine.

We can make it stop?

“It’s one hundred percent effective. We’ve used it on the group in Jacksonville and in Ohio, and both groups’ symptoms have disappeared. The telepathy, the purple eyes, everything.”

Our parents all heaved sighs of relief.

We weren’t sure how we felt.

We didn’t want strokes, obviously.

But were we ready to give up our telepathy for good?

“Can our children get the antidote today?” Olivia’s mother asked.

“The next batch will be ready on Thursday.” Hank said. “One last thing to discuss is discretion. I’m sure you can all understand the need to keep this quiet. We want to avoid public panic. We don’t know how many other batches have been affected. We’d like to steer clear of mass paranoia and conspiracy theories. The vaccination manufacturer is requiring everyone who receives the antidote to sign a confidentiality agreement.”

“Why would we sign anything?” Tess’s dad asked. “They have to give our kids the antidote, since they’re responsible for this mess in the first place. We’ll sue if we have to.”

“You could,” Hank said.
Please don’t sue. What a pain in the ass that would be.
“The problem is that legal action takes years. And we don’t know what the short- or long-term effects of the reaction to the NFG will be. Symptoms might progress. We’re concerned about the potential for stroke. One of the Ohio patients also reported vision problems. We’re apprehensive that eventual blindness might be a complication. We don’t know what our time frame is here. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. We don’t want you—a group of minors—to be our guinea pigs. Also, we can only imagine the media frenzy that would take place if this went public. We would not be able to shield your children from that. The pharmaceutical company has agreed to settle with you all now, with an immediate check for fifty thousand dollars to every affected person.”

We all took a collective breath. That was a lot of money.