Code Orange (14 page)

“G
auess what Mitty has agreed to write about!”

Mrs. Abrams said to the class. “Monsters—

mythical and biological. Isn't that brilliant?”

Actually it seemed weird and maybe even meaningless. But nobody said anything. They all knew Mitty had not agreed; he had been railroaded.

“Building on your biology project is so wise of you, Mitty,” Mrs. Abrams told him.

Mitty smiled politely. He could hardly hear her. His thoughts were thundering in his head, like the bass on the stereo turned all the way up.

It would be easy enough to die.

He'd just get up in the night and leave the apartment building by the back door and nobody would see him go,
because there was nobody on duty at the back during the night; you could always get out of a building, because of fire laws; but you couldn't always get in, because of safety laws. Walk a few blocks up, a few blocks over, and there was the Hudson River.

Step in, start swimming, and soon enough, the cold and the current would win.

But could he do that to his parents?

Mitty believed suicide was the most vicious thing a child could do to his mother and father. It was saying “You don't matter enough to me to stay alive.” It was saying “I hate you so much I'm going to make you think about my dead body every day of your life.”

But Mitty would be doing this for the opposite reason. He'd be saying “You and the world matter so much I can't let you be exposed to disease.”

But did that justify it?

“Mitty?”

Mitty roused himself. They were in the library again, he could tell by all those rows of books. “Hi, Mr. Lynch. How are you?”

“Worrying about you. Come on, Mitty, make an effort.”

“I'm all efforted out.”

“You were off to such a great start. How about an interview? Have you tried to get one yet?”

“Yes …,” Mitty said slowly.

“And?”

Mitty felt disconnected. Eventually he said, “Nobody wrote back.”

“You just don't know the right people, Mitty,” said Nate.

“My father knows everyone. I can help you.”

Mitty would rather get smallpox.

The principal did not call Mitty to his office.

The secretary did not summon him to the phone.

The FBI did not spring into the classroom.

The choice was still Mitty's.

Mitty had not frequently observed acts of personal physical courage. Sure, in action films or on TV But in real life, in America, who exhibited physical courage?

Only in extreme circumstances, or faked ones on TV, did the need for courage arise. Nobody in the city had to face the wilderness or a panther. Your problems were a full parking lot or final exams. Even if true danger was coming, like a hurricane, you just bought your extra quart of milk and watched it on television.

In fact, Mitty could think of only two current examples of people walking into true danger and fighting back: the firefighters and police officers of 9/11 and the soldiers sent to Afghanistan and Iraq.

How vividly Mitty remembered a video of firefighters running into one of the towers. Young men trained to rescue the innocent, regardless of danger to themselves. The nation and Mitty stood in awe.

But in everyday life, physical challenge consisted of in-line skating on a paved path in a civilized park. Mental challenge consisted of counting carbohydrates. Moral challenge consisted of deciding whether to cheat on a quiz.

I still have time, he reminded himself. I can delete my letter to my parents. I can call the hotline. Or shrug and tell myself nothing could happen.

When school was out, he headed straight home. He had things to do. But Olivia caught up to him. She had an odd, fragile smile on her face.“Mitty?” she said, as if he might be somebody else entirely.

He stopped walking. He hadn't wanted his parents near him. He didn't want Olivia near him either.

“Let's walk in the park,” she said.

Mitty hesitated, thinking about it, and her face fell. It wasn't how he wanted to say good-bye. “Okay,” he said finally. “It's pretty nice out.”Although it wasn't.

Central Park: magnificent trees and awesome views, unexpected sculptures and stunning skylines. What if he never saw Central Park again?

For Olivia, more than anything, Central Park meant dogs. Everybody on the Upper West Side had babies in strollers or dogs on leashes or both. Olivia greeted every dog walker, knelt to rub every dog's ears and told every dog how beautiful he was. Then she had to ask the dog's name and verify the dog's breed and of course discuss her own dogs. Olivia cuddled a Rhodesian ridge-back and then a pair of blind white Labs, a brace of bouncing long-haired dachshunds and finally a tall, proud shepherd.

Through the leafless trees he could see the stone tower of the American Museum of Natural History. Infectious disease was natural history. God, don't let me be a chapter in that kind of history he thought.

Olivia took his hand before he could stop her. They walked on together. Olivia swung his hand slightly. “Saturday is Valentine's Day.”

Mitty thought of what his Valentine's Day gift to New York City might be. He extricated his hand.

Olivia's cheeks stained red and she blinked hard, looking away from him.

He knew what it meant for a girl to mention Valentine's Day. He and Olivia were at the right stage for Valentine's Day. Ready to be together, not for study and not for school, but for love.

He did not want to touch her, even though that was the only thing he wanted.

He looked at the bare trees. They would leaf out in spring. Would he be there to see them?

Olivia waited for him to speak.

He knew what she was really asking.
How much do we like each other?

A lot, thought Mitty.

But he didn't say anything.

She took a step back from him and he ignored it. She turned and took one step in the opposite direction. He said nothing. Her shoulders slumped. He knew she was crying. She walked away.

He let her go.

O
n Wednesday, February 11, Mitty Blake did not show up for school.

Neither did Olivia Clark. Since Olivia had nearly perfect attendance and never skipped homework, never mind class, this was an interesting pair of absences.

“She has to be with Mitty,” said Emma excitedly.

“Maybe not,” said Constance.“She could be sick.”

“She's never sick,” said Zorah, who had first dibs on Olivia, because the Clarks had stayed in her apartment right after September 11. Zorah whipped out her cell phone and called Olivia. Olivia did not answer.

“I bet she told somebody,” insisted Madelyn. “Who knows what's happening?”

But Olivia had not called anybody.

Derek found himself surrounded.

“Well?” demanded Zorah. “What's Mitty doing? Is he with Olivia?”

Way to go, Mitty, thought Derek. He checked his phone for messages from Mitty, but there weren't any. This was not surprising. You didn't notify people when you skipped school.

Derek headed to English, where Mrs. Abrams took attendance. The attendance secretary would now telephone the home of every student who hadn't shown up. If the parents had already called to say their kid was sick (or they were taking him skiing), the parent didn't get a call. But now and then, the parent waved good-bye to the kid and left for work, while the kid sauntered right back into the apartment for a happy day of television. Such a parent wanted to know the score.

Checking was done by phone because any kid could compose and send an e-mail that sounded as if it were from a parent.

Derek figured the school would cut Mitty a little slack, because just the other day, when Mitty was late, his mother telephoned the office twice more during the day, as if Mitty might slither out a crack in the wall and skip afternoon classes too. The office would dread phoning the Blakes only a few days later, because the thing about private school was, even something that was completely the kid's fault, the parents would say was the school's fault.

Mrs. Abrams had left
Beowulf
behind and was forging on to a British poet named John Milton, who had written something called
Paradise Lost
. Derek's initial take on
Paradise Lost
was that he and Mitty wouldn't be reading this one either.

When her classroom phone rang, Mrs. Abrams yelled irritably toward the speaker,“Yes?”

“Is Derek Skorvanek there?”

The class looked up. That was not the attendance secretary's voice. Not the upper school secretary's voice. It was the headmaster. Dr. Larkin was interested in parents, not students, so this call was extraordinary.

“Yes, he is,” said Mrs. Abrams, regarding Derek with curiosity.

“Send him to my office immediately, please.”

The class was delighted. Somebody was in serious trouble, and who better than Derek? Derek tried to look bored, but he left the room with his heart pounding. In spite of a reputation for stuff like hacking into corporate computers, Derek was all talk. He'd never done much of anything. He could think of no reason for Dr. Larkin's summons except that something was wrong at home. Derek found his parents massively annoying and tried never to associate with them, but still, he didn't want them having heart attacks.

He walked slowly down the hall, as if the bad news might have worn off by the time he got there. But when he was ushered into the headmaster's office, two men Derek did not recognize wanted to know where Mitty was.

“Mitty?” said Derek, as if these two syllables were unknown to him.

“Your best friend,” Dr. Larkin reminded him.

Derek stared at the two guys. They stared back.

Were these guys Olivia's uncles or something? Was she connected, and these guys were going to put cement around Mitty's feet and throw him into the Hudson? Derek tried to think of a way to protect Mitty.