Chapter 51

EVEN SCARIER STUFF

I can’t sleep. I can’t get the sound of the ringing phone out of my head. Even after I hang up, it just rings on and on.

I feel this desperate need to talk to Katie. I really need to know she’s okay. When she said that the Yale lady saw what the Haters posted, she sounded hollow. It was the sound a dead leaf makes when it rattles on a tree just before it falls.

I really want to go over to Brainzilla’s house, but she lives all the way across town. Still—maybe I could get there on my bike. Except that it’s already past nine. And it’s January.

A ringing phone wakes me up. I don’t know when I fell asleep, but a quick glance at the clock tells me it’s almost midnight.

Here is a basic life rule: Good things never happen in the middle of the night. Well, unless you order pizza really late.

My hand hesitates over the receiver for just a moment. But the phone rings again. It almost seems louder, as if it’s demanding to be answered.

Flatso starts shrieking the moment I answer. “Ohmygod, Kooks! Kooks! We have to get over to Tuality right away—I don’t even know if they’ll let us in, but we’ve got to try.” She sounds like she’s struggling to speak, like she’s crying. “Katie’s there! She’s stable, but—ohmygod, Kooks—just wait there, and Zitsy will be right over—”

“What? Wait—Bev—slow down, okay? What’s happening in Tuality?”

“Katie! Katie’s in Tuality!”

“What’s she doing in Tuality?”

“She’s been admitted!” Flatso’s voice rises to a scream. “Mrs. Sloane told Aunt Joan to call Mom—”

The cogs in my brain click and whir, reorganizing everything Flatso has said, trying to force it to make sense. Aunt Joan. Flatso’s aunt Joan is a nurse at Tuality Community Hospital. Mrs. Sloane told her to call Flatso’s mom. Katie has been admitted. I sit bolt upright, suddenly understanding everything. “What happened?” Oh my god, it’s Bloom. He went after her. He hurt her—

Marjorie pokes her head into my room. In the darkness, her eyes are shadowed, and her pale skin is almost gray. She looks like a ghost, and I’m suddenly covered in the same creepy spiderweb feeling I had the night I found Mrs. Morris in the garage.

“Oh, Kooks,” Flatso wails. She’s sobbing now, crying so hard that her tears have traveled through the wires, wetting the receiver in my hand. No—wait. That doesn’t make sense. Those must be my tears, I realize as I wait for the answer I think I already know.

“Kooks—Katie tried to kill herself.”