But all Lionel would say was, "I am not crying."
I was sick of it. I really was. All I wanted to do was read my magazine and go to bed, so I could find Taylor Monroe. Was that so much to ask, after such a long day?
"Fine," I said, sitting down on the floor, my flashlight shining against the ceiling.
Arthur went, "Uh, Jess? What are you doing?"
"I am going to sit here," I said, "until you all fall asleep."
This caused some excited giggling. Don't ask me why.
There was silence for maybe ten seconds. Then Doo Sun went, "Jess? Do you have any brothers?"
Guardedly, I replied in the affirmative.
"I thought so," Doo Sun said.
Instantly suspicious, I asked, "Why?"
"You're wearing boys' underpants," Paul pointed out.
I looked down. I'd forgotten about Douglas's boxers.
"So I am," I said.
"Jess," Shane said, in a voice so sugary, I knew he was up to no good.
"What," I said flatly.
"Are you a lesbian?"
I closed my eyes. I counted to ten. I tried to ignore the giggling from the other beds.
I opened my eyes and said, "No, I am not a lesbian. As a matter of fact, I have a boyfriend."
"Who?" Arthur wanted to know. "One of those guys I saw you with on the path? One of those other counselors?"
This caused a certain amount of suggestive hooting. I said, "No. My boyfriend would never do anything as geeky as be a camp counselor. My boyfriend rides a Harley and is a car mechanic."
This caused some appreciative murmuring. Eleven-year-old boys are much more impressed by car mechanics than people like … well, my best friend, Ruth, for instance.
Then … don't ask me why—maybe I was still thinking about Karen Sue over there in Frangipani Cottage. But suddenly, I launched into this story about Rob, and about how once this guy had brought a car into Wilkins's Auto that turned out to have a skeleton in the trunk.
It was, of course, a complete fabrication. As I went on about Rob and this car, which turned out to be haunted, on account of the woman who'd been left to suffocate in its trunk, I borrowed liberally from Stephen King, incorporating aspects from both Maximum Overdrive and Christine. These kids were too young, of course, to have read the books, and I doubted their parents had ever let them see the movies.
And I was right. I held them enthralled all the way until the fiery cataclysm at the end, in which Rob saved our entire town by bravely pointing a grenade launcher at the renegade automobile and blowing it into a thousand pieces.
Stunned silence followed this pronouncement. I had, I could tell, greatly disturbed them. But I was not done.
"And sometimes," I whispered, "on nights like this, when a storm somewhere far away douses the power, blanketing us in darkness, you can still see the headlights of that killer car, way off on the horizon"—I flicked off the flashlight—"way off in the distance … coming closer … and closer … and closer …"
Not a sound. They were hardly breathing.
"Good night," I said, and went back into my room.
Where I fell asleep a few minutes later, after finishing the box of Fiddle Faddle.
And I didn't hear another peep out of my fellow residents of Birch Tree Cottage until after reveille the next morning. . . .
By which time, of course, I knew precisely where Taylor Monroe was.
C H A P T E R
5
"I was so scared, I almost wet the bed," said John.
"Yeah? Well, I was so scared, I couldn't get out of bed, not even to go to the bathroom." Sam had a towel slung around his neck. His chest was so thin, it was practically concave. "I just held it," he said. "I didn't want to run the risk, you know, of seeing those headlights out the window."
"I saw them," Tony declared.
There were general noises of derision at this.
"No, really," Tony said. "Through the window. I swear. It looked like they were floating over the lake."
A heated discussion followed about whether or not Rob's killer car could float, or if it had merely hovered over the lake.
Standing in line for the Polar Bear swim, I began to feel that things were not nearly so bleak as they'd seemed yesterday. For one thing, I'd had a good night's sleep.
Really. I know that sounds surprising, considering that while I'd slept, my brain waves had apparently been bombarded with all this information about a five-year-old kid I had never met. On TV and in books and stuff, psychics always get this tortured look on their faces when they get a vision, like someone is jabbing them with a toothpick, or whatever. But that's never happened to me. Maybe it's because I only get my psychic visions while I sleep, but none of them have ever hurt.
The way I see it, it's exactly like all those times you've been sitting there thinking to yourself, Gee, So-and-So hasn't called in a while, and all of a sudden the phone rings, and it's So-and-So. And you're all, "Dude, I was just thinking about you," and you laugh because it's a big coincidence.
Only it's not. It's not a coincidence. That was the psychic part of your brain working, the part hardly any of us ever listens to, the part people call "intuition" or "gut feeling" or "instinct." That's the part of my brain that the lightning, when it struck me, sent all haywire. And that's why I'm a receiver now for all sorts of information I shouldn't have—like the fact that Taylor Monroe, who'd disappeared from a shopping center in Des Moines two years ago, was now living in Gainesville, Florida, with some people to whom he wasn't even remotely related.
See, ordinary people—most everyone, really, even smart people, like Einstein and Madonna—use only three percent of their brain. Three percent! That's all it takes to learn to walk and talk and make change and parallel park and decide which flavor of yogurt is your favorite.
But some people—people like me, who've been hit by lightning, or put into a sensory deprivation tank, or whatever—use more than their three percent. For whatever reason, we've tapped into the other ninety-seven percent of our brain.
And that's the part, apparently, where all the good stuff is. . . .
Except that the only stuff I seem to have access to is the current address of just about every missing person in the universe.
Well, it was better than nothing, I guess.
But yeah, okay? In spite of the psychic vision thing, I'd slept great.
I don't think the same could be said for my fellow campers—and their counselors. Ruth in particular looked bleary-eyed.
"My God," she said. "They kept me up all night. They just kept yakking. . . ." Her blue eyes widened behind her glasses as she got a better look at me. I was in my bathing suit, just like my boys, with a towel slung around my own neck. "God, you're not actually going in, are you?"
I shrugged. "Sure." What else was I supposed to do? I was going to have to call Rosemary, as soon as I could get my hands on a phone. But that, I was pretty sure, wasn't going to be for hours.
"You don't have to," Ruth said. "I mean, it's just for the kids. . . ."
"Well, it's not like I could take a shower this morning," I reminded her. "Not with eight budding little sex maniacs around."
Ruth looked from me to the bright blue water, sparkling in the morning sun. "Suit yourself," she said. "But you're going to smell like chlorine all day."
"Yeah," I said. "And who's going to get close enough to smell me?"
We both looked over at Todd. He, too, was in a bathing suit. And looking very impressive in it, as well, I might add.
"Not him," I said.
Ruth sighed. "No, I guess not."
I noticed that while Todd might be ignoring us, Scott and Dave definitely weren't. They both looked away when I glanced in their direction, but there was no question about it: they'd been scoping.
Ruth, however, only had eyes for Todd.
"And you have your tutorial today," she was pointing out. "I thought that flute guy was pretty hot. You don't want to smell chlorine-y for him, do you?"