Mixed Up, page 12
We finally found Nancy Turnbull in the newspaper wedding announcements. She got married five years ago and changed her name to Nancy Giamatti. We looked up her address, and she lives in a suburb called Whitfield, about seven miles outside of town. That’s our destination. If anybody can tell us what was going on at Memorial Hospital the day we were born, it’s her.
“Hope she’s home,” Reef comments nervously as our bus exits the city limits and tools along the wide boulevards and tree-shaded neighborhoods of Whitfield. “We should have called ahead.”
“I would have,” I tell him, “if I could have figured out a way to tell her what we want to know. At least when we’re standing on her doorstep, she’ll be able to see that we’re not a couple of scammers or something.”
“If she’s there at all. We’re going to look pretty ridiculous if she’s away in Australia for the next three months.”
We’re both tracking the bus’s progress on our phones, and when we get close to the Giamattis’ address, I pull the cord to request a stop. The driver lets us out and we continue on foot, still navigating by GPS. Finally, we’re standing in front of a low, rambling ranch house about a quarter mile in from the main road.
“Car in the driveway,” Reef notes optimistically. “Good sign.”
As I ring the doorbell, my guts are churning like a storm at sea. We’ve done it—we’ve found the neonatal nurse who was on duty when Reef and I were born. But is she going to be able to help us? Who knows if she’ll remember what was going on in a busy maternity ward over twelve years ago? And even if she does, will it do us any good? The Phenomenon is so unnatural, so bizarre, so impossible—how can we ask anyone to reach back in their memory and identify a cause for it? What explanation could there possibly be for something that shouldn’t be happening in the first place?
First we hear a dog barking, followed by a woman’s voice: “Quiet, Hector!” A moment later, the door opens and there she is: Nancy Turnbull Giamatti. I expected her to be kind of grandmotherly, since she was a working nurse back when Reef and I were born. Still, that was only twelve years ago, which isn’t super long in adult time. This lady is probably fiftyish, older than my parents, but not by much. She’s hanging on with both hands to the collar of a golden retriever.
We stand there, staring at her like dopes.
Enough silence goes by that she laughs. “Well, you rang the bell, so I assume you want something.”
Reef finally finds his voice. “Nancy Turnbull?”
“I used to be,” she replies. “Who wants to know?”
“The nurse?” I persist.
“That’s me. What’s all this about?”
“We’re your babies. I mean, we used to be babies. And you were our nurse. You know—back when we first got born.”
She frowns. “Now, how would you know that—and don’t say it’s because you remember my movie-star good looks and nimble-fingered diapering.”
I stammer out a short version of our visit to Memorial Hospital and our journey through the wedding announcements in the Gazette.
She takes all this in, giving us a thorough once-over with her eyes to determine whether we’re dangerous stalkers. At last, she says, “I guess you really are my babies. What dates were you born?”
“Just one date,” Reef supplies. “March twenty-third, twelve years ago.”
She nods. “That makes sense. I worked in the nursery back then. So you tracked me down. Now what?”
I take a deep breath. Reef and I both agree that there’s no sense trying to tell Nancy Giamatti about the Phenomenon. That’s a surefire way to get the door slammed in our faces. But we have to give her just enough that she’ll want to help us.
“The two of us never met until a few weeks ago,” I begin carefully. “We grew up on opposite sides of town and went to different schools. But we have a lot of things in common. Weird things—things there’s no explanation for. We know stuff about each other, almost like there’s a connection between us. And as far as we can tell, the only time we were ever together was as newborns at Memorial Hospital.”
“You boys have certainly done your homework,” she tells us. “But what is it you think I can do for you?”
Reef takes over. “We’re trying to figure out what this connection is and how it got started. And we were wondering if maybe something unusual happened at the hospital when we were there.”
She doesn’t answer right away, so I put in, “I know that sounds a little science-fiction-y. But anything you remember about that day could be a clue for us.”
“You boys are probably reading too much into this,” she says at last. “A lot of what we see as hugely important turns out to be nothing more than coincidence.”
Reef and I exchange an agonized glance. If this nice lady sends us away with a nurse-like pat on the head, we’ll be right back where we started—nowhere. Nancy Giamatti is our only lead. Without her, we’re sunk.
She goes on. “I’ll tell you what. I used to keep a journal when I was a young nurse at Memorial. Come inside, have a cookie, and I’ll see if it says anything about that day. But don’t get your hopes up. Most shifts at maternity are pretty boring, if you don’t count the crying.”
She invites us into her shiny white kitchen, sits us down with a plate of homemade cookies, and heads upstairs to get her diary.
I reach for a cookie, which brings a low growl from Hector, who’s seated at attention on the kitchen floor like a guard dog, ready to pounce. I withdraw my hand like it’s been burned.
Reef helps himself to a cookie and munches it down. Hector makes no complaint. I think of Jaws, my rabbit nemesis who curls up on Reef with something approaching love. What is it about Reef and the four-legged? Does he have some special aura or something?
“Good cookies,” Reef comments. “Chocolate chip, my favorite.” He reaches down to scratch Hector behind one ear.
Nurse Giamatti comes into the kitchen, flipping through an overstuffed leather-bound diary. “March twenty-third,” she says with a strange look on her face. “You boys may be onto something after all.”
“What is it?” I ask anxiously.
“We had a lot of births that day,” she explains. “I remember because we had to use incubators as extra cribs. We even doubled up in one of them—two little boys.”
“Us?” Reef breathes.
“Could be. But that’s not all. That night, we had a tremendous thunderstorm and the hospital was struck by lightning. When I came in for my shift the next day, the nursery was running on backup generator power. The electrical system was fried. It’s a miracle no one was hurt.”
“Except us,” Reef says in an awed tone.
“Don’t you read anything into that,” she cautions. “No matter what happened, there were no ill effects suffered by any of our babies. Of course we checked everyone out—we’re a hospital, after all. It’s just what I said before: coincidence. Right?”
Reef and I lock eyes. Two babies, isolated together. A lightning strike. Electricity pulsing through the confined space of an incubator. A pathway opened between two unformed minds.
It’s impossible. It defies medical science.
But what other answer could there be?
Why do I always get stuck with people I can’t stand?
Like Declan, obviously. But at least all I have to share with him is a room. With Theo, it’s getting to the point where we almost share the same brain. I’ll have a memory—good, bad, whatever—and then it’ll take me half the day to puzzle out whether it comes from my life or his. If the Phenomenon keeps getting worse, it’s going to be impossible to keep track of where he stops and I start.
Not that Theo is as bad as Declan. But he’s such a know-it-all and so pushy. Look at the way he took over the whole conversation with Nancy Giamatti. And for a know-it-all, he can’t seem to understand that I just want to be left alone. I haven’t got space in my life for an un-best friend who’s roaming free inside my head. I’m already saddled with an un-family; I don’t need an un-BFF. Fact is, the only person I’d do anything to be saddled with is out of reach, both in real life and in my memory.
But I’m stuck with Theo just as surely as I’m stuck with Declan and the other Helmers. More, even. If I blow off Theo, I won’t be rid of him. His memories will still be swirling around my head and mine will be swirling around his. I’ve even picked up a couple of his memories that involve me. That’s a trip—remembering meeting yourself, but from somebody else’s point of view.
The only way to break free of Theo would be to undo what brought us together in the first place—the Phenomenon. And who knows if that’s even possible?
“Well, at least we sort of understand how it might have happened,” Theo muses. “We took a lightning strike together when we were babies.”
After our meeting with Nurse Giamatti, we go back to the Helmer house, since I live close to the bus station where Theo left his bike. I’m perched on my bed, and Theo is at the desk. The two of us are on our phones, googling like crazy, desperate to follow up on what we just learned. All we can confirm so far is that Memorial Hospital really was struck by lightning when the two of us were a few hours old. And we both looked up what an incubator is—a sealed Plexiglas bassinet with temperature and oxygen controls.
“In other words, we know nothing,” I tell him. “We can’t even be sure that those two babies were us.”
“It had to be,” Theo decides in his know-it-all way. “Something must have happened to both of us at the same time to cause the Phenomenon. That hospital was the only time we were together before a few weeks ago. Throw two kids in an incubator and add a lightning strike—it’s us, all right.”
I nod reluctantly. “Nurse Giamatti talked about coincidences, but it doesn’t seem like this could be one.” I peer at my phone screen, which shows a diagram of how an incubator works. It’s easy to picture the lightning creating a power surge that travels through the wires to the bassinet, where two helpless babies are surrounded by electricity. “But is that even a thing? Minds connected by lightning? How come it isn’t on the internet or in the news?”
“Maybe it never happened before,” Theo suggests. “Maybe we’re the only ones.”
In kindergarten, when they tell you that you’re special and unique, I bet they don’t mean this. Lucky us.
I have another question. “And why is it just starting now? If lightning linked our minds when we were babies, shouldn’t the Phenomenon have been going on our whole lives?”
“It could be the kind of thing that gets triggered by puberty—or at least that’s when the effect gets too big to ignore.” He shrugs. “We might never know for sure. What we have to decide is this: So far, we’ve been keeping everything to ourselves. But maybe there are people who could help us. Doctors. Scientists. Brainiacs.”
I shake my head vehemently. “I’m never letting a bunch of adults invade my life again. Been there, done that when Mom died.”
He nods his understanding. “Best case, nobody would believe us. Worst, we’d both end up connected to electrodes or something.”
Gloomy silence. We agree on what we can’t do. That doesn’t get us a millimeter closer to figuring out what we can.
The door is kicked open hard enough to slam the knob against the wall. Declan storms into the room, already scowling. “Don’t talk to me, Reek! I don’t want to hear—” He stops dead, staring at Theo. “What’s he doing here?”
It hits me: Declan knows Theo from Neighborhood Harvest. He’s never seen the two of us together before. “Theo and I are friends,” I supply.
“You’re so dumb! This kid isn’t your friend—he’s from the food bank! He’s here to spy on me!”
“I’m not spying,” Theo defends himself. “But maybe I should be.”
Declan grabs Theo by the wrist and hauls him to his feet. “Get out of here, man! Get out of my house!”
I jump up and separate them. “It’s my house too, you know!”
Declan’s so agitated that he misses the opportunity to point out whose house this is and whose it isn’t. “He’s playing you, Reek! He’s only hanging around you to get to me—to rat me out to the cops!”
“The cops?” I echo. “Is this about Sikorsky?”
Declan droops like a birthday candle that melts too fast. “It’s no use. They know,” he moans, glaring at Theo. “I can’t go through with it and I can’t get out of it!”
“You can get out of it,” I tell him. “We’ll help you.”
“You?” He points at Theo. “He’s one of them!”
“I’m not,” Theo insists. “I volunteer at the food bank and I’m Reef’s friend. That’s it—honest.”
Declan’s eyes widen, and I wonder if he’s going to try to weasel out of what he already said. Then his face crumples like a toddler about to bawl. “No one can help me. I can’t even help myself.”
“You could go to the police,” I suggest. “Warn them about what’s going to happen.”
He shakes his head miserably. “They can’t arrest Konrad for what he hasn’t done yet. He’ll come after me—and, believe me, he’s worse than the cops.”
Theo looks thoughtful. “So what we need is a way to protect Neighborhood Harvest and also to protect you from Konrad.”
“Dream on.” Declan sighs. “I’m supposed to hide when the food bank closes so I can let Konrad in after dark. When he shows up, I’d better be there, or I’ve got a target on my head.”
Theo and I exchange a look. Declan can easily stop the robbery. All he has to do is not show up. But then he’d be making an enemy of the most dangerous kid in town.
“When’s all this supposed to happen?” I ask.
Declan swallows hard. “Tomorrow night.”
I’m always happy to see Portia, but this is different—like I’m surprised and thrilled that she noticed me. She seems different too. Long straight hair, bangs. Maybe a little shorter …
When the classroom eases into focus around her, it comes to me: I’ve never gone to school with Portia. This isn’t my memory.
“I’m having some people over for my birthday next Saturday,” she says with a dazzling smile. “I hope you can make it.”
It may be from a long time ago, but it’s classic Portia—friendly, open, and a hundred percent confident: You’re going to be ecstatic to get this invitation and of course you’re going to say yes.
“Thanks, Portia,” I reply in Reef’s voice. “I’ll be there.”
“Six o’clock,” she adds. “Don’t be late.”
I can feel Reef’s excitement. It’s all he can do to keep himself from dancing as she walks away. He must have really liked her. What happened? I get slapped down if I even mention her.
“Theo.” It’s Portia’s voice—not from the memory. Portia today.
I startle and bang my knee on the underside of the front desk at Neighborhood Harvest. “Ow!”
She laughs. “You’re daydreaming again, Basket Case. Time to go. We’re closing up.”
All around the warehouse, volunteers are restocking unclaimed groceries and finishing last-minute tasks. I look around for Declan, but there’s no sign of him. To be honest, I’m not sure if he’s already hiding, or if he’s lost his nerve.
Dmitri already has his jacket on. “Okay, everybody, let’s move. I want to make it home on time for a change, since I’ll be here early tomorrow. We’re finally getting the truck fixed.”
I think of all that money sitting in the lockbox and know that, somewhere, Konrad Sikorsky is thinking about it too.
When Dmitri closes the heavy door and clicks the dead bolt, the snap echoes up and down the street. Or maybe it just sounds that way to me because I know what’s coming.
Portia suggests that we go for fro-yo, but I make up an excuse about rushing home to study. I’m glad to get her out of the way. She doesn’t need to be involved in this.
I bike over to Reef’s and we sweat out the next hour up in his room.
The waiting is nerve-wracking, so conversation between us is pretty limited. My eyes are drawn to a framed photograph on his nightstand. His mom, distorted by a spiderweb of cracked glass, damage courtesy of Declan.
“Why are you helping him?” I ask honestly. “I’m doing it for Neighborhood Harvest. What’s your excuse?”
“You tell me,” he shoots back irritably. “I forgot, so you must know.”
“Because his family adopted you,” I suggest.
“Nobody adopted me. I’m just allowed to live here, that’s all.”
“Fine. They took you in,” I amend.
He’s silent for a moment. Then he says, “You want to hear something messed up? The minute I heard Declan was in trouble, I knew I had to help him. I didn’t think about all the lousy things he does to me. How’s that for pathetic?”
I don’t answer, but to me, it’s not pathetic at all. It’s the kind of thing that shows you’re basically good, even though bad things have happened you. It might not make you popular or help you rule the school or anything like that. But maybe it explains why a rabbit or somebody’s little sister is drawn to you. There are definitely worse people to be trapped in a phenomenon with.
Reef checks his phone. “Seven fifteen. We should go.”
We make our way through the dark streets to Neighborhood Harvest and sneak around the back to the loading dock. The truck is parked there, waiting for its new engine … which is going to be paid for by money that may or may not still be in the lockbox tomorrow, depending on our actions tonight.
I tap lightly against the metal bay door, three raps followed by two—the secret knock. Declan already told us that he and Konrad don’t have a secret knock. “That kind of thing is only for goofballs like you two,” he assured us. Thanks, Dec. We love you too.
We wait in the gloom, still not certain that Declan is going to be there. Then we hear the rattle of the mechanism, and the door lifts about a foot and a half. We roll underneath into the light of Declan’s phone. He brings the door back down again.
“What took you so long?” he hisses angrily. “I’ve been going out of my tree!”
