The cramps were starting to feel more intense, and the voices were getting more insistent. The whispering wasn’t a unison murmur anymore. It was more like the garbled hissing of hundreds of voices all muttering at once. He could no longer make out whole phrases, but he caught a word here and there. Stupid was used frequently. He also heard guilty and murderer a few times. Once, he was sure he heard milksop.

  “Did you hear me?” his mom asked.

  “What?” Mott curled up tighter as a new spasm clutched at his belly.

  “I said that if you don’t feel better when you wake up, be sure to call Ron. I’m going to get on the phone with him before I leave and tell him you might be needing him.”

  Ron was Dr. T. That was actually a good idea. Mott said so, and then he closed his mouth on the groan that wanted to erupt into the room.

  In the hallway, Rory shouted, “I’m starving!”

  His mom leaned over and kissed Mott on the forehead. “Sleep, honey. You’ll feel better soon.”

  She crossed to the door, gave him one last look, and left the room. He heard her talking softly to Rory in the hallway. Then he heard Rory’s footsteps pounding down the stairs and his mom’s tapping heels after that.

  Mott closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

  Tried being the operative word.

  * * *

  When Mott looked at his bedside digital clock for the 761st time—okay, maybe he hadn’t looked quite that many times, but close—at 1:37 in the afternoon, precisely, he gave up trying to convince himself he was going to feel better soon. It just wasn’t going to happen.

  At 1:38, he got up and went into the bathroom. He thought maybe if he could use the toilet, he’d feel better.

  Five minutes later, he was back in his bedroom. And he wasn’t feeling better. Moaning, he changed into sweats, a T-shirt, and some athletic shoes. He called Dr. T’s clinic.

  Claudia, Dr. T’s receptionist, answered. Mott could picture her holding the phone as they spoke. Large and cushy with wildly curly hair and kind hazel eyes, Claudia was a caring woman Mott had known as long as he’d known Dr. T. She immediately put Dr. T on the phone.

  “Can you get over here on your own?” Dr. T asked.

  “I think … I can bike … over,” Mott struggled to get out.

  His hesitations weren’t entirely caused by stomach cramps. The whispers were getting louder, and they were as distracting as all get-out. What he was hearing sounded kind of like someone quickly scanning through radio stations; however, he was hearing snatches of words and phrases instead of snatches of songs. None of them were anything he wanted to listen to.

  “… in about fifteen minutes,” Dr. T said.

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  “I said your voice and your hesitations aren’t giving me a lot of confidence in your biking abilities. Claudia’s going on her lunch break, and she said she’ll swing over to get you. She’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to—”

  “Don’t argue with your doctor,” Dr. T said. He chuckled.

  Mott sighed. “Thank you.”

  One of the voices whispered, Sucker.

  * * *

  Dr. T had exam rooms designed to please the various age groups he focused on. He had some for the little kids, the grade-school kids, and the teens. Unfortunately, because Dr. T was squeezing in Mott between other patients, Mott landed in a little-kid room. So, when he lay on his back, he was staring up at a ceiling painted with sparkly rainbows, flying purple pigs, and a blue-tinged Pegasus that at the moment resembled a Sea Bonnie far more than it should have. It must have been the wings, which looked vaguely like bunny ears. And that purplish-blue color. He never really wanted to see that color again.

  Mott quickly looked away from the ceiling, turning his head to gaze at the room’s walls. They were painted yellow and covered with animal stencils. Pretty much every imaginable animal had a spot in the room, including a rabbit, which Mott could have sworn was staring at him with animosity.

  Mott closed his eyes. The paper beneath him crinkled as he shifted to find a semi-comfortable position while Dr. T prodded his belly. Every time Dr. T asked, “Does this hurt?” Mott gasped, “Yes.”

  Dr. T stepped back and sat on his rolling stool. Mott heard the vinyl squeak, and the rollers rattle as Dr. T scooted over to the laptop he’d set up at a small counter next to the exam table.

  Dr. T was kind of a funny-looking guy; this was mostly caused by his big ears and his equally large nose, but a goatee that came to a point under his chin contributed, too. On top of these eye-catching features, he was short and totally bald; when Mott and Nate were ten, Dr. T had shaved what little remained of his light brown hair. He looked a bit like one of the seven dwarfs or maybe a gnome.

  He might have been one of the nicest people Mott had ever met, though, even nicer than Mott’s mom. His mom occasionally lost her temper. Dr. T never did.

  Mott tried to concentrate on how nice Dr. T was, but the whispered voices got louder. He was now hearing more full sentences.

  You don’t know what you’re dealing with, for example, came through clearly.

  Mott tried to keep his breathing steady while he watched Dr. T type. He felt sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades, and he squirmed.

  He was attempting to stay calm, but these cramps and the relentless whispers were terrifying. What was happening inside his body?

  Mott abruptly rose up on an elbow. He glanced at his belly, and he frowned. Did his belly look lumpy? He thought it did.

  “Okay,” Dr. T said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to get Louise in here to draw some blood. The blood tests will tell me if you have an infection. When she’s done with that, Louise will also do an ultrasound. That will tell me if we’re looking at a gallbladder issue, which is a possibility.”

  Mott nodded. He didn’t bother to ask questions about his gallbladder. He pointed at his belly. “Do you think my stomach looks lumpy? I think it looks lumpy.”

  Dr. T stood and looked down at Mott’s stomach. “It looks normal to me, and I didn’t feel any masses.”

  Mott frowned. “Okay.”

  Dr. T patted Mott’s thigh. “When you feel like crap, it’s easy for the mind to start imagining all kinds of worst-case scenarios. So, let’s start your treatment right away, even while we get the tests set up.”

  “What treatment?”

  Dr. T flipped his computer screen, turning it into a tablet. He tapped the screen and handed it to Mott. “Watch this. Louise will be here in a few minutes to draw blood and do the ultrasound.” Dr. T pressed a button, and the upper part of the table Mott lay on raised a little. “That work?”

  Mott nodded. He took the tablet.

  Dr. T patted his leg again. “I’ll be back after I look at your tests. In the meantime”—he pointed at the tablet screen Mott held—“watch that.”

  Dr. T strode from the room, closing the door behind him. Mott, cringing at another round of cramping, looked at the screen. It was frozen on a video of a stand-up comic routine.

  He managed a half smile and shook his head. Leave it to Dr. T to “prescribe” laughter.

  Maybe the laughter helped.

  Mott had been tempted to set aside Dr. T’s tablet and just be miserable while he waited for Louise, but two more intense cramps and a whispered Your time is coming, got him to hit “Play” on the screen.

  He hadn’t heard of the comedian in the video, but he was really funny. Mott managed to chuckle at first, and then he was actually laughing so hard that Louise, a small dark-haired woman in a ponytail, had to pause the video while she took blood. She let him watch again while she did the ultrasound, which she did silently.

  After a few minutes of feeling her pressing her “magic wand,” as she called it, all over his stomach, Mott asked, “Do you see anything?”

  “I don’t, kiddo,” she said. “But we’ll have Dr. T come in and give a look-see to be sure.”

  The look-see came quickly. Dr. T studied the scan and grinned at Mott. “Everything looks normal.”

  “Really?” Mott frowned. “Then why do I feel so bad?”

  “Honestly, I’m not one hundred percent sure, but my guess is you have food poisoning. I’ll know more when I get your bloodwork. But nothing horrible is going on.”

  Mott nodded. “Okay.”

  Dr. T squeezed his shoulder. “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.” He chuckled. “How about this? Why don’t you get dressed and go hang out on the sofa in my office? I have a couple more patients to see. Then I’m heading home. I’ll give you a ride.”

  Mott nodded again.

  When Dr. T and Louise left the room, Mott sat up on the edge of the exam table and took in what Dr. T had said. He tried believing it.

  “You’re fine,” he told himself out loud.

  Liar, liar, pants on fire, the whispers countered.

  Mott shook his head and stood up to get dressed. “You’re not real,” he said to the whispers. “I’m fine.”

  Although he could have sworn that he heard sibilant laughter in his head, Mott ignored it and got dressed. Strangely, the cramping had abated a little. Maybe it was the laughter, but it was more likely the power of suggestion. He was comforted by the results of the ultrasound. If something foreign had been in his belly, the scan would have found it, right?

  Right.

  Mott was able to walk semi-normally down the clinic’s hallway. Behind the purple-and-white-striped door of exam room 2, near Dr. T’s office, a little girl giggled. Mott smiled. It was a nice sound, much nicer than the poisonous murmurs in his head. He pushed open the door of Dr. T’s office and dropped onto Dr. T’s overstuffed blue-and-yellow polka-dot couch. Listening to the continued giggling, he fell asleep.

  He woke only long enough for Dr. T to walk him out to Dr. T’s new SUV and get him home. Then he went up to his bed, and he fell back asleep.

  * * *

  When Mott woke up, it was dark, but the dark wasn’t nighttime dark—it was predawn dark. He sat up. He’d slept for over twelve hours!

  Taking stock, he realized he felt … okay. His stomach was sore, but he wasn’t cramping like before. The whispers were still in his head, but they seemed muted.

  Fumbling for his small bedside lamp, Mott switched it on. As soon as the light poured onto his nightstand, he saw a bottle of water, several crackers in a plastic bag, and a note. He picked up the note.

  Mott, you were sleeping soundly, and Ron said that was the best thing for you, so I didn’t wake you. I’ve left you some crackers in case you wake up hungry. If you need me, come and get me! I love you. Mom

  Mott smiled and reached for the bottled water. He was really thirsty, so he quickly unscrewed the lid. He started to bring the bottle to his lips, but then he stopped. He held the bottle under the glow of his lamp, and he studied it.

  He rolled his eyes. It was just water. Bottled water in a sealed container. It was fine.

  He drank some water, and he reached for the crackers. Leaning back on his pillows, he opened the plastic bag and plucked out a whole wheat cracker. Munching on it, he looked around his semi-dark room—at the nature posters and photos of his favorite baseball stadiums, at the shelves full of video games and math puzzle books, at the closet he knew was stuffed with his clothes and hiking and fishing gear. He took comfort in being reminded of who he was.

  He wasn’t Mott, a boy infested by Sea Bonnies. He was Mott, lover of baseball and video games and math and camping out, best friend to Nate and Lyle, a good brother to Rory … and maybe soon-to-be boyfriend to Theresa. He was a normal teen.

  You’re a freak, the whispers countered.

  “Yeah, and you’re not real,” he told them. In the light of this new day it felt even more true. He shook his head—Sea Bonnies couldn’t even hatch without purified water above seventy-five degrees—how were they going to survive his stomach acid? He chuckled as he kept munching on crackers and looking around his room.

  Over Mott’s desk, opposite his bed, he had a dark green bulletin board covered in photos. The photos represented his favorite things and best memories. The one in the middle was a picture of him and his dad sitting in a rowboat in the middle of the lake where his family had a summer cabin. His dad always got a couple weeks off in July, and they went to the cabin to swim and hike and fish. Mott usually felt disconnected from his dad, but when they fished, he felt close to—

  Fish.

  Mott dropped his half-eaten cracker and sat up.

  His reminiscing had reminded him of Fritz, the fish that was no longer a fish when Mott flushed it down the toilet with the Sea Bonnies. He hadn’t imagined the way Not Fritz had looked when Mott had last seen him.

  He might have been imagining the whispers, but he’d seen what he’d seen. Fritz had been eaten from the inside out and replaced by Sea Bonnies. He was pretty sure fish had stomach acid, too, and yet the Sea Bonnies had still managed to get him.

  Mott looked down at his belly. Setting aside the plate, he raised his shirt with a trembling hand. He put his palm against his skin.

  It was normal. Wasn’t it?

  Mott thought about how horrible he’d felt the day before and how he felt now. He’d assumed the end of his cramps was a good thing. But what if all that meant was that the Sea Bonnies had finished their work on his stomach?

  Maybe he felt better because his belly was no longer being consumed. It was now something else—his not belly.

  Mott gingerly felt all over his stomach. Did it feel different than it used to? More gelatinous?

  Mott groaned and swiped the bag of crackers off his lap. They hit the floor with a muffled crunch, and Mott slid all the way under his covers, pulling them up over his head.

  He wanted to escape, to hide from the world. No, what he wanted was to hide from the Sea Bonnies … and from himself.

  You can’t hide, the whispers told him.

  “Yeah?” Mott said. “Watch me.”

  Mott covered his ears and started humming.

  That’s where his mom found him—under his covers, humming like a little kid—when she came into his room, still in her robe, to check on him.

  “Mott?”

  He threw back the covers and looked at her.

  Apparently, he looked worse than he felt. As soon as her gaze landed on his face, she frowned and said, “You’re staying home again today.”

  He didn’t argue with her.

  After his mom and Rory left the house, Mott dropped back into sleep, but he didn’t stay asleep for long. This was unfortunate … because as soon as he was awake, his mind was inundated by the whispers again.

  The whispers in Mott’s head, however, were no longer whispers. They were full-on shouts.

  If he didn’t drown them out, he was going to lose his mind.

  Mott threw back his covers and dashed to his desk to get his earbuds. Putting them in, he started filling his ears with driving rock music.

  He could still hear the shouts. What could he do? He looked around. His gaze landing on his shelves, he reached out and picked up one of his handheld video games. He got back under the covers, and he turned on the game. Mott spent the better part of the day trying to drown out the shouts, but not even deafening rock music and fast-moving video games could beat them down.

  Then, sometime during the afternoon, maybe a little after 2:00 p.m., Mott started feeling odd. When he stopped his game to figure out why he felt that way, he realized he had a strange vibration in his chest and belly. It was like the very faintest suggestion of movement, as if something was shaking his organs from the inside. He felt like his heart was … quivering. And his lungs felt curiously unstable every time he took a breath, like instead of expanding and contracting they kind of … wiggled, struggling not to collapse.

  He couldn’t stand this anymore. He had to get another scan.

  Mott picked up the phone and called Dr. T’s cell phone. He didn’t want to go through Claudia.

  “Hello? This is Dr. Tabor.”

  Mott gripped the phone. “Dr. T? This is Mott.”

  “Hey, Mott. How are you feeling this morning?”

  “Um, that’s the thing. I still feel weird.”

  “Still cramping?”

  “Not so much cramping as, um, like shaking on the inside, like my organs are, um, trembling.”

  For four seconds—Mott counted—the only thing he heard through the phone was the faintest of hisses in the line. Then Dr. T said, “Let’s do this. I’m on my way over to the hospital to visit a couple patients before I head home for a while. I need to go back in late tonight to work on inventory with Claudia, so I’m leaving the clinic early. Why don’t I stop by and get you? We’ll see if we can squeeze you in for a CAT scan. Shouldn’t be a problem. Given what you’re telling me, I can get insurance approval for it. Do you want me to talk to your mom before I come over?”

  “I’ll do it,” Mott said quickly. He didn’t want to worry his mother.

  Dr. T was quiet for another few seconds. “Okay. I’ll talk to her later. After the scan.”

  “That would be good.”

  As soon as he hung up the phone, Mott scribbled a note for his mom on the back of the note she’d left for him, just in case she got home before he did. The note was filled with lies, but the truth was out of the question. What was he supposed to write? Mom, I’ve gone to get a scan to see if Sea Bonnies are eating me from the inside out. No, that wouldn’t be a good idea.

  He settled with an evasive lie:

  Mom, I’m feeling better. Gone out to get some fresh air. Will call later. Love you. Mott

  * * *

  Mott sat in front of Dr. T’s small oak desk in his clinic’s office. Dr. T was on the phone talking to another doctor, one who had analyzed the CAT scan.

  Mott wasn’t listening to what Dr. T was saying. He didn’t really care at this point. He’d already heard enough from Dr. T himself.

  Now he was just trying to stay calm. So, he was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, and he was staring at his shoes. There was a brown speck on one of his white athletic shoes. He was using it as a focal point, concentrating on it the way a seasoned meditator might stare at a candle. He wondered if he should try a mantra or maybe an om. He needed something to tether him to sanity because the facts were dragging him quickly toward madness.

 

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