When Lightning Strikes

by Jenny Carroll

  "You have a really special gift, Jess," she said. She was practically ignoring Sean. "And it would be a shame to waste it. We need your help so desperately. Don't you want to make this world a safer, better place for kids like yourself?"

  "Sure," I said, swallowing. "But I don't want to be a dolphin, either."

  Special Agent Smith knit her pretty brow. "A what?"

  I told her about the dolphins, while Sean looked on, silently chewing. I'd given him one of my cheeseburgers, but even after three of them, he didn't seem satisfied. He could put away an alarming amount of food for such a small boy.

  Special Agent Smith shook her head, still looking perplexed. "I never heard that one before. I know they used German shepherds for similar missions in World War I—"

  "German shepherds, dolphins, whatever." I stuck out my chin. "I don't want to be used."

  "Jess," Special Agent Smith said. "Your gift—"

  "Don't," I said, holding up a single hand. "Seriously. Don't say it. I don't want to hear 'about it anymore. This 'gift' you keep talking about has caused me nothing but trouble. It sent my brother over the edge, when he'd been doing really well, and it put this little boy's mother in jail—"

  "Hey," Sean said indignantly. I'd forgotten about his objections to my use of the word "little" as it related to him.

  "Jess." Special Agent Smith balled up the empty bags from my meal. "Be reasonable. It's very sad about Sean's mother, but the fact is, she broke the law. And as for your brother, you can't drop the ball just because of one little setback. Try to keep things in perspective—"

  "'Keep things in perspective'?" I leaned forward and enunciated very carefully so she would be sure to understand me. "Excuse me, Special Agent Smith, but I got struck by lightning. Now, when I go to sleep, I dream about missing people, and it just so happens that when I wake up, I know where those missing people are. Suddenly, the U.S. Government wants to use me as some sort of secret weapon against fugitives from justice, and you think I should keep things in perspective?"

  Special Agent Smith looked annoyed. "I think you should try to remember," she said, "that what you call a dolphin, most Americans would call a hero."

  She turned to throw my empty McDonald's wrappers in the garbage.

  "I really didn't come in here," she said, when she turned around again, "to argue with you, Jess. I just thought you might like this back."

  She handed me my backpack. The book of photos was gone from it, of course, but my flute was there. I grasped it tightly to my chest.

  "Thanks," I said. I was oddly touched by the gesture. Don't ask me why. I mean, it was my flute, after all. I hoped I wasn't beginning to suffer from that thing hostages get, when they start sympathizing with their captors.

  "I like you, Jess," Special Agent Smith said. "I really hope that while you're in here tonight, you'll think about what I said. Because you know, I think you'd make a fine federal agent someday."

  "Really?" I asked, like I thought this was an enormous compliment.

  "I do." She went to the door. "I'll see you two later," she said.

  Sean, over on his bed, just grunted. I said, "Sure. Later."

  She left. I heard the door lock behind her. The lock on the infirmary door was one that even I, with my extensive knowledge of such things, could not penetrate.

  But that didn't matter. Because Special Agent Smith had been right when she'd said I'd make a fine federal agent:

  While she'd been throwing out the trash from my meal, I'd reached over and swiped her cell phone from her purse.

  I held it up for Sean to see.

  "Oh, yeah," I said. "I'm good. Real good."

  C H A P T E R

  18

  It took us a while to figure out how Special Agent Smith's cell phone worked. Of course there was a password you had to use to get a dial tone. That's what took the longest, figuring out her password. But most passwords, I knew from Michael—who gets his thrills figuring out this kind of thing—are four to six digits or numbers long. Special Agent Smith's first name was Jill. I pressed 5455, and, voilà, as my mom would say: we were in.

  Sean wanted me to call Channel 11 News.

  "Seriously," he said. "They're right outside the gates. I saw them as we drove in. Tell them what's going on."

  I said, "Calm down, squirt. I'm not calling Channel 11 News."

  He quit bouncing and said, "You know, I'm getting sick of you calling me squirt and talking about how little I am. I'm almost as tall as you are. And I'll be thirteen in nine months."

  "Quiet," I said as I dialed. "We don't have much time before she notices it's gone."

  I called my house. My mom picked up. They were eating dinner, Douglas's first since he'd gotten out of the hospital. My mom went, "Honey, how are you? Are they treating you all right?"

  I said, "Uh, not exactly. Can I talk to Dad?"

  My mom said, "What do you mean, not exactly? Daddy said they had a lovely room for you, with a big TV and your own bathroom. You don't like it?"

  "It's okay," I said. "Look, is Dad there?"

  "Of course he's here. Where else would he be? And he's as proud of you as I am."

  I had been gone only forty-eight hours, but apparently, during the interim, my mother had lost her mind.

  "Proud of me?" I said. "What for?"

  "The reward money!" my mom cried. "It came today! A check in the amount of ten thousand dollars, made out to you, honey. And that's just the beginning, sweetie."

  Man, she had really gone round the bend. "Beginning of what?"

  "The kind of income you'll be generating from all of this," my mom said. "Honey, Pepsi called. They want to know if you'd be willing to endorse a new brand of soda they've come up with. It has gingko biloba in it, you know, for brain power."

  "You have got," I said, my throat suddenly dry, "to be kidding me."

  "No. It's quite good; they left a case here. Jessie, they're offering you a hundred thousand dollars just to stand in front of a camera and say that there are easier ways to expand your brain power than getting struck by lightning—"

  In the background I heard my dad say, "Toni." He sounded stern. "She's not doing it."

  "Let her make up her own mind, Joe," my mother said. "She might like it. And I think she'll be good at it. Jess is certainly prettier than a lot of those girls I see on the TV—"

  My throat was starting to hurt, but there was nothing I could do about it, because all the drugs in the infirmary, even the mouthwash, were locked up.

  "Mom," I said. "Can I please talk to Dad?"

  "In a minute, honey. I just want to tell you how well Dougie is doing. You're not the only hero in the family, you know. Dougie's doing great, just great. But, of course, he misses his Jess."

  "That's great, Mom." I swallowed hard. "That's … So, he isn't hearing voices?"

  "Not a one. Not since you left and took all those nasty reporters with you. We miss you, sweetie, but we sure don't miss all those news vans. The neighbors were starting to complain. Well, you know the Abramowitzes. They're so fussy about their yard."

  I didn't say anything. I don't think I could have spoken if I'd wanted to.

  "Do you want to say hi to Dougie, honey? He wants to say hi to you. We're having Dougie's favorite, on account of his being home. Manicotti.

  I feel bad making it when you aren't here. I know it's your favorite, too. You want me to save you some? Are they feeding you all right up there? I mean, is it just army food?"

  "Yeah," I said. "Mom, can I please talk to—"

  But my mother had passed the phone to my brother. Douglas's voice, deep but shaky as ever, came on.

  "Hey," he said. "How you doing?"

  I turned so that I was sitting with my back to Sean, so he wouldn't see me wipe my eyes. "Fine," I said.

  "Yeah? You sure? You don't sound fine."

  I held the phone away from my face and cleared my throat. "I'm sure," I said, when I thought I could speak without sounding like I'd been crying. "How are
you doing?"

  "Okay," he said. "They upped my meds again.

  "I've got dry mouth like you wouldn't believe."

  "I'm sorry," I said. "Doug, I'm really sorry."

  He sounded kind of surprised. "What are you sorry about? It's not your fault."

  I said, "Well, yeah. It kind of is. I mean, all those people in our front yard were there on account of me. It stressed you out, having all those people there. And that was my fault."

  "That's bull," Douglas said.

  But it wasn't. I knew it wasn't. I liked to think that Douglas was a lot saner than my mom gave him credit for being, but the truth was, he was still pretty fragile. Accidentally dumping a tray of plates in a restaurant wasn't going to set off one of his episodes. But waking up to find a whole bunch of strangers with film equipment in his front yard definitely was.

  And that's when I knew that, much as I wanted to, I couldn't go home. Not yet. Not if I wanted Douglas to be okay.

  "So, are they treating you all right?" Douglas wanted to know.

  I stared out between the bars across the windows. Outside, the sun was setting, the last rays of the day slanting across the neatly trimmed lawn. In the distance, I could see a small runway, with a helicopter sitting near it. No helicopters had taken off or landed since I'd been watching. There were no UFOs at Crane. There was no nothing at Crane.

  "Sure," I said.

  "Really? Because you sound kind of upset."

  "No," I said. "I'm okay."

  "So. How are you going to spend that reward money?"

  "Oh, I don't know. How do you think I should spend it?"

  Douglas thought about it. He said, "Well, Dad could use a new set of clubs. Not that he ever gets a chance to play."

  "I don't want golf clubs," I heard my dad yelling. "We're putting that money away for Jess's college."

  "I want a car!" I heard Michael yell.

  I laughed a little. I said, "He just wants a car so he can drive Claire Lippman to the quarries."

  Doug said, "You know that's true. And I think Mom would love a new sewing machine."

  "So she can make us some more matching outfits." I smiled. "Of course. What about you?"

  "Me?" Douglas was beginning to sound even farther away than ever. "I just want you home, and everything back to normal."

  I coughed. I had to, in order to cover up the fact that I was crying again.

  "Well," I said. "I'll be home soon. And then you'll wish I wasn't, since I'll be barging in on you all the time again."

  "I miss you barging in on me," Douglas said.

  This was more than I could take. I said, "I … I have to go."

  Douglas said, "Wait a minute. Dad wants to say—"

  But I had hung up. Suddenly, I knew. I couldn't talk to my dad. What was he going to do for me anyway? He couldn't get me out of this.

  And even if he could, where was I going to go? I couldn't go home. Not with reporters and Pepsi representatives following me everywhere I went. Douglas would completely lose whatever fragile grip he had on sanity at the moment.

  "Jess?"

  I started. I had almost forgotten Sean was in the room with me. I threw him a startled glance.

  "What?" I said.

  "Are you …" He raised his eyebrows. "You are."

  "I'm what?"

  "Crying," he said. Then his eyebrows met in a rush over the bridge of his freckled nose. He scowled at me. "What are you crying for?"

  "Nothing," I said. I reached up and wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist. "I'm not crying."

  "You're a damned liar," he said.

  "Hey. Don't swear." I began hitting buttons on the phone again.

  "Why not? You do it. Who are you calling now?"

  "Someone who's going to get us the hell out of here," I said.

  C H A P T E R

  19

  It was a little after midnight when I heard it: the same motorcycle engine that I'd been straining my ears to hear on and off for the past couple of weeks. Only this time, it wasn't roaring down Lumley Lane, the way it had in my dreams.

  No, it was roaring through the empty parking lots of Crane Military Base.

  I leapt up off the bed where I'd been dozing and rushed to the window. I had to cup my fingers over my eyes in order to make out what was going on outside. In a circle of light thrown by one of the security lamps, I saw Rob. He was riding around, his face—hidden by the shield of his motorcycle helmet—turning right and left, trying to figure out which building I was in.

  I pounded on the windowpane, and called his name.

  Sean, curled up on the bed beside mine, sat bolt upright, as fully awake as he'd been soundly asleep just a second before.

  "It's my dad," he said in a choked voice.

  "No, it's not your dad," I said. "Stand back while I break this window. He can't hear me."

  I knew I only had a few seconds before he thundered past the infirmary. I had to act fast. I grabbed the nearest thing I could find—a metal trash can—and heaved it at the window.

  It did the trick. Glass went flying everywhere, including back over me, since a lot of the shards ricocheted off the metal grate. I could feel tiny slivers of glass in my hair and on my shirt.

  I didn't care. I yelled, "Rob!"

  He threw out a foot and skidded to a halt. A second later, his foot was up again, and he was tearing through the grass toward me. It was only then that I noticed that behind him were about a half dozen other bikers, big guys on Harleys.

  "Hey," Rob said when he'd thrown down his kickstand and yanked his helmet off. He got off the bike and came toward me. "You okay?"

  I nodded. I can't even tell you how good it felt to see him. It felt even better when he reached through the metal grate, wrapped his fingers around the front of my shirt, dragged me forward, and kissed me through the bars.

  When he let go of me, it was so abrupt that I knew he hadn't meant to kiss me at all. It had just sort of happened.

  "Sorry," he said—only not looking too sorry, if you know what I mean.

  "That's okay," I said. Okay? It was the best kiss I'd ever had—even better than the first one. "Are you sure you don't mind doing this?"

  "Piece of cake."

  Then he went to work.

  Sean, who'd observed the whole thing, said in a very indignant voice, "Who's that?"

  "Rob Wilkins," I said.

  I must have said it a little too happily, however, since Sean asked, suspiciously, "Is he your boyfriend?"

  "No," I said. I wish.

  Sean was appalled. "And you're just going to let him get away with kissing you like that?"

  "He was just glad to see me," I said.

  A particularly hairy face had replaced Rob's in the window. I recognized his friend from Chick's, the one with the Tet Offensive tattoo. He snaked a chain through the grate, then secured the other end to the back of one of the bikes.

  "Stand back, y'all," he said to us. "This here's gonna make a helluva racket."

  The face disappeared. Sean looked up at me.

  "These are friends of yours?" he asked, in a disapproving voice.

  "Sort of," I said. "Now stand back, will you? I don't want you to get hurt."

  "Jesus," Sean muttered. "I am not a baby, all right?"

  But when the biker gunned his engine, and the chain rattled, theh went taut, Sean clapped his hands over his ears. "We are so busted," he moaned with his eyes closed.

  I had a bad feeling Sean was right. The grate was making ominous groaning noises, but not budging so much as an inch. Meanwhile, the motorcycle engine was whining shrilly, its wheels kicking up a ton of dirt, throwing it and bits of grass back through the grate and into the room, already carpeted with glass.

  For a minute, I didn't think it was going to work—or that, if it did, the noise would rouse Colonel Jenkins and his men, and they'd be after us in a heartbeat. The grate was simply too deeply embedded into the concrete window frame. I didn't want to say anything, of course—Rob was tryi
ng as best he could—but it looked like a hopeless cause. Especially when Sean dug his fingers into my arm and hissed, "Listen. . . ."

  Then I heard it. Above the shriek of the motorcycle's engine, the sound of keys rattling outside the infirmary door.

  That was it. We were busted.

  What was worse, I'd probably gotten our rescuers busted, too. How long would Rob end up in jail because of me? What was the mandatory sentence for trying to break a psychic free from a military compound?

  And then, with a sound like a thousand fingernails on a mile-wide chalkboard, the entire grate popped out from the sill and was dragged a few feet until the biker slammed on the brakes.

  "Come on," Rob said, reaching for me over the crumbling sill.

  I shoved Sean forward. "Him first," I said.

  "No, you." Sean, in an effort to be chivalrous, tried to force me through the window first, but Rob got hold of him and hauled him through.

  Which gave me a chance to grab my backpack—which Special Agent Smith had so graciously brought me—then vault over the window sill behind them, just as the dead bolt on the infirmary door slid back.

  Outside, it was a humid spring night, silent and still … except for the thunder of motorcycle engines. I was astonished to see that, in addition to Rob's friends from Chick's, Greg Wylie and Hank Wendell, from the back row of detention, were also there, on majorly cherried-out hogs. I have to admit, I got a little teary-eyed at the sight of them: I had no idea I was so well-liked by my fellow juvenile delinquents.

  Sean, however, was not so impressed.

  "You have got to be kidding me," he said when he got his first good look at his rescuers.

  "Look," I said to him as I pulled on the helmet Rob handed to me. "It's these guys or your dad. Take your pick."

  "Boy," Sean said, shaking his head. "You drive a hard bargain."

  Hank Wendell shoved a helmet at him. "Here ya go, kid," he said. He made room on his seat for Sean's eighty-pound frame, then gave his engine a rev. "Hop on."

  I don't know if Sean would have gotten on if, at that moment, an eardrum-piercing siren hadn't begun to wail.