“It doesn’t matter, Piper.” Conrad pointed out to the world in general. “We are not wanted!” He emphasized every single word quietly and with conviction.
“Or maybe it’s just you who aren’t wanted,” Piper snapped. “When are you going to stop punishing the rest of us ’cause your pa doesn’t want you? Why do you even listen to him or care about him, anyway? What kind of father says his son is dead when he knows well and good that he’s not? He’s bad to the bone and mean and cruel, and you need to get his words out of your head. ’Cause he won’t ever love you or want you back, and he probably never wanted you in the first place.”
No sooner had the words escaped Piper’s lips than she gasped and her hand flew to cover her mouth in horror. Conrad’s eyes darted shamefully and he took a step back.
“I didn’t mean it,” Piper whispered urgently. She’d crossed the line and knew it. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did. And it’s true.”
“I was mad and it slipped out.”
Conrad turned away and Piper was glad she couldn’t see his face. She didn’t want to have to watch the way his pupils were going to have to fight to swim above the rising waterline in his eyes. The silence that fell between them was heavy.
Conrad put a muddy hand on his filthy head. He considered Piper to be his only friend. At his darkest hour, it was Piper McCloud who had helped him escape. But the same relentless optimism and unstoppable fervor that she had applied to that task she was now directing toward him, and it was that very thing that was going to destroy their friendship. She couldn’t stop herself from trying to save him, but this time Conrad did not want to be saved. Conrad cared for Piper too much, and prized their friendship too highly, to allow anything to threaten it.
“I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s time for a change,” Conrad began slowly. “Your parents have been really kind to have me, and I appreciate it, but I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
“What are you saying? My folks love having you. You’re family!”
“Plus it’s so quiet out here in the country, and I think it would be good for me to try the city for a while. It’s easier to get lost and no one knows me there or what I am. It would be better … for me.”
“You want to leave?” All of a sudden Piper felt desperate. “No! I said I’m sorry and I am. You don’t hav’ta—”
“It’s not good for us to fight like this, Piper.”
“I’ll stop. It won’t happen again.” Tears stung Piper’s eyes. “You said this was your home. You said!”
“Things change; I’ve changed.” Conrad shrugged. “Piper, you want to help people and fight, and…” He considered his words carefully and chose them with great thought. “I don’t care the way you care.”
Piper kept her mouth shut and did not ask Conrad if he would allow himself to care if he accepted that he was cared for.
“I’m sorry,” Conrad offered, seeing the disappointment in Piper’s face. “It’s time for me to go.”
CHAPTER
8
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 6:13 A.M.
On that Wednesday in April, Joe got up and went to work at the normal time. Like his father before him and his father before that, and probably a great many fathers before that too, Joe McCloud rose with the sun at five in the morning. Spring planting was serious business when you lived on a farm, and Joe had his head full of chore lists.
By the time the chickens had been fed, the cattle milked and turned out into the pasture, and the sheep moved from the front field over to the north pasture, Joe paused at the barn door to catch his breath. Somewhere between some harvest and the coming of its following spring he had grown old without realizing it. The dusting of gray hairs on his head had turned into a forest of silver, and his thin shoulders, once rigidly straight, had become bent. Holding on to the door, Joe was amazed by how hard it was to draw breath into his lungs. He considered the fact that he might have been walking too quickly, or that the morning wind had pushed too much against him, and waited for his body to right itself.
Absently he wondered where Conrad was. The boy had been with him so much over the last months. Before and after school, Conrad would just fall into step behind him and silently go about helping him with the various tasks of the farm. Not that morning, though, and Joe wondered, as he struggled for breath, where he might be. He knew that Conrad was a good boy, and Joe’s heart was often saddened as he watched the terrible struggles going on inside one so young. There was nothing that the old man could do but stand next to him, as the boy’s mind tossed and turned day after day. A steady man like Joe knew the power of faith and held firm to the knowledge that Conrad would find his own way in his own good time, and left him the space to do so.
From his bedroom window, Conrad had seen Joe walk to the barn that morning but he’d hung back in the shadows of his room with Fido at his side, gathering the last of his things in preparation for his departure. He wanted to leave without saying good-bye, but he couldn’t do it. He knew that Joe would say little to nothing, but that wasn’t what bothered him—it bothered him to not be with Joe, who was more to Conrad than his own father had ever been.
A mist clung to the fields as the heat of the rising sun hit the wet and cold morning air. When Conrad crossed the yard to the barn, he saw the sheep grazing in the pasture and knew the chickens would be sitting on their eggs in the henhouse after their morning breakfast had been pecked away.
It surprised Conrad to see Joe leaning against the barn door, swaying like an autumn leaf clinging to its branch—as though undecided whether or not to fall. Then Joe looked up to see Conrad and a smile touched the corner of his lips. Not more than a whisper later Joe crumpled, as though the earth was sucking him downward, and he fell on his knees and then down onto the ground.
Conrad ran to Joe’s side, his arms scooping at him.
“Mr. McCloud? Where does it hurt?”
Joe’s hand clutched at his chest and his breath came in labored gasps. With shaking fingers, Conrad pulled Joe’s shirt back and quickly loosened the old scarf he kept around his neck. In front of him sacks of grain were stacked against the barn, waiting to be pulled to the feed room, and, just inside the barn, a pitchfork, shovel, and rake were hung. There was nothing within arm’s reach that was going to help Joe at that moment.
Twisting away, Conrad gently laid Joe down on his back and rested his head on the floor. Joe was too heavy to lift and Conrad wouldn’t risk trying it.
“Mr. McCloud, can you hear me?” Conrad held Joe’s face and hovered over him, intently. Fido whined and nudged Joe tentatively with his horn as though to wake him.
Joe nodded, a fish out of water; gasping, gasping.
“Slow your breathing down as much as you can. Focus on relaxing and taking deep breaths.” Taking Joe’s hand, he placed it on his own chest and took a long, slow breath, all the while looking into Joe’s eyes. “Like this. Long and slow. Long and slow.”
Joe nodded again. His gasps became longer in duration but were gasps nonetheless.
“I’ll be right back, right back,” Conrad repeated. “Fido, stay.”
Conrad crossed the yard and before the screen door had closed behind him, yelled, “PIPER!” The volume and pain in his voice startled even himself.
Betty immediately dropped the dish she was washing and turned around from the sink with dripping hands. “Lands’ sakes, child, what’s gotten into you this morning?”
“PIPER!”
Grabbing the wooden stool under the window, Conrad pulled it to the cupboard and climbed atop it, reaching back to where the medicinal powders were kept.
With her hair half braided and no shoes or socks yet on her feet, Piper landed at the bottom of the stairs with confusion and surprise written all over her face.
“Fly now,” Conrad said. “Get Dr. Bell and bring him back here immediately. Go! GO!”
Looking from Conrad to Betty, and back to Conrad, Piper’s confusion was apparent. “But why do we
need Dr. Bell?” Suddenly looking out to the farmyard for her father and not seeing him, Piper answered her own question. “Pa…”
“Use the fastest route possible.”
Piper’s feet left the ground before the screen door bounced shut.
With Betty’s help, Conrad was able to lift Joe onto a small cart and pull him to the house, where they carefully but gently laid him down on the couch. Before they even reached the house, Joe was slipping in and out of consciousness. When he was settled on the couch, Conrad began giving him small doses of aspirin. Joe perked up for a short while and then drifted away again.
Betty ran to gather anything that Conrad might need, but Conrad’s mind was cloudy and rusted; he held his forehead as though trying to crank it into movement faster.
Doc Bell walked through the kitchen door right on Piper’s heels to find Conrad leaning over Joe, with the heels of both hands over his heart. He pumped rhythmically on his chest with all his strength.
“He needs adrenaline,” Conrad said to Doc Bell, who was temporarily rendered motionless by the scene before him. “STAT!”
Doc Bell roused himself to his task and moved in, pushing Conrad out of the way. “Step aside, son. I’ll take over now.”
Conrad followed behind Doc Bell, watching and scrutinizing his every decision. With red eyes, Piper held tightly to Betty’s hand, her lips praying the same word over and over again in a silent chant. “Please,” she said, “please, please, please, please…”
Betty, who had sat at her mother’s and father’s bedsides and at those of many other friends and neighbors in Lowland County at their time of passing, felt a creeping familiarity tickling up from her feet and into her legs. Her normal common-sense manner completely deserted her and she did not do one practical thing, but instead succumbed to every memory and moment that she had spent with Joe over their entire life together: the night of their wedding when he gently held her in his arms and fumbled across the dance floor; the spring when the rains came and the tractor got stuck and Joe spent three days and nights digging it out; the way Joe liked to eat apple pie—real slow, as though he could make it last forever. And the day Joe picked up Piper for the first time and his face lit up as though the sun were rising from inside his head, his hands trembling at her impossible littleness and the whiteness of her skin against his thick, fumbling mitts.
A cool breeze washed over them and Doc Bell said, “There’s nothing more I can do.”
Betty’s hand came to her heart.
“But there has to be something,” Conrad urged.
“He needs to be in a cardiac unit at a major medical facility.”
“What about—” Conrad stuttered, trying to pull thoughts from his head, thoughts that were slow to come.
“He’s been without oxygen for over ten minutes, Conrad. You got his heart started, but it can’t maintain.”
Doc Bell took off his stethoscope and wrapped it around his neck absently. Piper let go of her mother’s hand and stepped between her father and Doc Bell, as though she were brokering a fight between them.
“But … can’t you keep trying?” When Doc Bell looked down at his shoes, Piper looked to Conrad with wild eyes. “Conrad?”
Conrad turned away, grabbing hold of a chunk of his hair and pulling on it as if he could twist the answer out of his brains. “I need to think—think—”
Piper followed him with her eyes, hanging on his every motion, faithfully waiting for him to turn around and give a brilliant plan.
Conrad’s mental tentacles reached and stretched, flailing wildly but finding no purchase.
When Piper witnessed Conrad’s defeat she did the only thing she could think of. Bending down, she took Joe’s hand in hers, and even though she was now eleven her fingers were still impossibly tiny and delicate against his. “Pa? Pa? I’m right here,” Piper whispered to the still and crumpled face. “Don’t go. I’m right here.”
Betty came to Piper’s side and put her hand over Piper’s and the three hands were entwined. Piper’s little hand between Betty’s on one side and Joe’s on the other.
“Shhh,” Betty said.
Piper couldn’t stop her pleas and so Betty repeated over and over again, “Shhh,” until Piper’s sobs prevented her from forming words.
And standing with his back against the wall, Conrad broke. He didn’t sob or cry; indeed he was unable to move. It wasn’t his cells but the atoms in his cells that separated and went riot over the pain of their existence. Conrad knew that if he moved even a fraction of a moment, he would disintegrate, and so he carefully kept from spilling out and shattering against the wood floor.
How, Conrad wondered to himself, could he live in a world that didn’t hold Joe McCloud?
And the answer that Conrad had to that question was that he couldn’t live without Joe. Joe McCloud was essential. Being a logical person, Conrad quickly realized that everyone was essential. And that included himself—he, Conrad, was essential and important and … not dead.
But if everyone was essential, Conrad understood, that changed everything. And suddenly, as though a dark cloud was blown free from the path of bright sunlight, his thoughts became brilliant and true again and then Conrad knew exactly what to do.
* * *
There was no rush now.
Conrad walked slowly to the barn, where his makeshift laboratory was coated in dust. Sitting on wood planks that he had made into a table was TiTI.
In a safe in the floor he’d locked away the eyedropper of plutonium. On the top of the egg was a place for him to insert his finger, and when his finger slid into it and his identity was verified, a compartment on the side opened. He carefully worked through the procedures and watched the plutonium settle into the receiving chamber at the core of the egg.
As he slid everything back into place, a small humming sound vibrated out of TiTI. Conrad programmed a digital timer and then placed his hands on either side of the egg, gripping it lightly and making sure that all ten fingers made contact.
For many miles around, a strobing light could be seen detonating outward from the McCloud barn. That same light then hung suspended for an extended moment, as though time itself suddenly went into slow motion, and then a split second later the light was sucked back to its source, leaving everything in its wake strangely scrambled. The inhabitants of Lowland County were left to rearrange themselves back to their normal state and wonder if what had just happened was real or imagined. Most folks in Lowland County, being sensible people, chose to believe the latter.
CHAPTER
9
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 6:13 A.M.
On that Wednesday in April, Piper woke feeling defeated after a fitful night. Today was the day that Conrad was leaving. She never would have thought that things would end like this and Conrad would just pack up and go away. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t think of a way to persuade him to stay, and all her arguments fell on deaf ears. Once Conrad made a decision there was no swaying him.
Turning over in her bed, Piper almost jumped out of her skin. Sitting pressed up against her bed was Conrad! With shining eyes and a strangely joyful face, he was perched on her small wooden chair, waiting for her to wake up. As soon as he saw that she was awake, he leapt forward and seized her hand.
“Piper, you’re right. You are absolutely right.”
“What the heck, Conrad! You almost scared me half to death.” Piper’s heart was jumping about like a terrified jackrabbit.
“Piper, I’ve got to start doing things differently!”
“What are you talking about?” Piper drew back from Conrad. He was acting weird and his clothes looked strange—as if he’d been wearing them for weeks and weeks. She saw that parts of them were ripped and stained with some strange substance. But last night when she had seen him in them, they were pressed and clean. What had he been up to for the last few hours?
“What I’m talking about is that we have incredible abilities and we’ve been wasting them! Look at you! Yo
u can fly! Fly! And what are you doing with it?” Conrad jumped to his feet and began pacing back and forth in a feverish excitement. “We can’t waste any more time. Not one second!”
“Really?” Even though this was exactly what Piper wanted to hear, and how she felt, she never thought in a million years that she would hear it coming out of Conrad’s mouth. Piper rationally knew that there was no possible way that Conrad could have changed so radically in the course of a few hours.
“What happened to you?” She monitored him closely.
“I can think again,” Conrad said, holding his temples. “I understand and I care. I care like you care. And I know what I have to do.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because, because it’s the only rational thing to do!”
“But you said there was no point. You said—”
“You kept telling me that it was wrong not to use our blessings as a blessing. You said we had to help people in the ways that only we were able. I couldn’t see the point until I could. I see it now.”
Piper watched Conrad’s frantic, excited pace as he went back and forth across her room. He was himself again, the amazing Conrad she knew and loved.
Conrad held up a file and dropped it next to Piper. She immediately recognized it as the one J. had given him on his birthday.
“And I read this,” Conrad said. “My father has been keeping secrets from me for too long. And those secrets are my business, and I’m going to find out once and for all what they are.”
Conrad pulled back the curtains and threw open Piper’s window.
“My father wants me to stop thinking.” He pointed to his head. “When I wouldn’t stop he wanted me dead. But I get to decide what I’m going to do with my thoughts and my life, and he can’t stop me. He thinks he can, but he’s wrong—again. And I’m going to show him exactly how wrong he is.”
The Boy Who Knew Everything Page 5