The Fever (3 page)

me.

Dylan looked interested. "Maybe someone was in here. The other bed is gone. Maybe someone was taking it out while you were sleeping and that's what you heard."

Duffy shook her head. "No. Smith just came and got the bed a little while ago. Took it to Pediatrics. And Amy said at breakfast that no one's been in that bed the whole time I've been here, so. ..."

Dylan thought for a minute. "One of the nurses told me your temperature was headed for the record books when they brought you in. No wonder you've been hearing things. I'm surprised you're not seeing things, too." He stopped and gave her a quizzical look. "You're not, are you? I mean, did you see anything last night?"

"No. It was too dark. That httle night-light over by the door isn't worth two cents. A jar of fireflies would make a better light."

He laughed. Then he took the wastebasket out into the hall and emptied it into a giant wheeled container.

As he left the room, Duffy sat up straight in bed. There was something . . .

When Dylan returned to put the small basket in its proper place, Duffy commanded, "Do that again."

'What? Do what again?"

"Go out and come back in. Go on\ Quit looking at me like I just sprouted a second head. I have a good reason. Just do it, please."

Frowning, Dylan obeyed. When he came back in, he said, 'What was that all about?"

"It's your shoesl" Duffy leaned forward to peer over the edge of her bed. "That's one of the sounds I heard last night . . . that funny slap-slap on the tile. Rubber-soled shoes!"

Dylan was visibly unimpressed. "Duffy," he said kindly, "this is a hospital. Practically everyone wears rubber-soled shoes, so we won't disturb the patients."

Dufiy struggled to figure out if she'd just learned anything important. **Yes, but if a member of the staff was in my room last night, why didn't they answer when I called out? There was just this weird, creepy silence."

"You said you weren't quite awake. Are you sure it wasn't a dream?"

Disappointed that Dylan had no better answer than that, Duffy flopped back down on the pillow.

"Hey, don't be mad," he said softly, reaching down to take one of her hands in his. Hers felt parched and dry, his strong and comforting. "Maybe it's your fever. High temperatures can do crazy things to people."

Crazy? That wasn't what she wanted to hear.

Seeing the look on her face, Dylan said hastily, "Look, you had to be dreaming, Duffy. If no one was in the other bed, the only reason a nurse would be in this room would be to take care of you. Since you say no one was doing that, it's pretty clear that there wasn't anyone here, right?"

"I don't say that no one was taking care of me,

Dylan ... no one was. Vm not making this up."

But she didn't want to be mad at Dylan. Especially not over something she herself didn't understand. It wasn't fair to expect Dylan to understand it. They'd been friends a long time. She probably would have dated him once upon a time, but he, like everyone else, had thought she and Kit were a couple, and he'd begun dating Amy Severn. They had broken up only a couple of weeks ago. And he'd been so nice to Duffy since she was admitted to the hospital, she was beginning to wonder if he might be interested in more than friendship now.

She was too sick to think about romance. Besides, how could anybody possibly be interested in someone who looked like roadkill? Dylan was only in her room because he had work to do.

But when she was well again . . . maybe . . .

"I guess you're right," she said after a moment or two of silence. 'When my temp spikes, I can't tell the difference between what's real and what isn't. It's like being in another world. A very hot

one."

Satisfied that she wasn't going to stay mad at him, Dylan began sweeping the room, using his considerable bulk to heave the broom sideways in strong, straight strokes.

"Have you seen Jane or Kit?" Duffy asked.

Dylan glanced at his watch. "Too early for visiting hours. You'll have to wait until after lunch. Isn't he working today?"

Dylan said "he" with a noticeable note of resentment in his voice. He and Kit weren't Mends.

Dylan, strong and determined, had been Football. Kit, light and fast, had been Track. Maybe the difference between the two of them was just that simple. Or maybe it went deeper, had something to do with the fact that Dylan was the center of a huge, happy family but had trouble in school, while Kit, who had no family to speak of and lived a lonely, depressing life, had been valedictorian of his graduating class and won scholarships that Dylan would have killed for.

When Dylan talked about Kit, his face suddenly didn't look quite so warm and friendly.

But that only lasted a second. His face cleared quickly as Duffy answered his question.

"I don't know if he's working. I haven't seen him or Jane since I got here. They wouldn't let me have visitors the first day. But it's Saturday. I can't imagine The Grinch Who Stole Kit's Future letting him have a weekend day off. So yeah, he's probably working."

"Kit owed the man," Dylan argued mildly, *^e said so himself. He'll go to college next year."

*They brainwashed him. Dumped guilt on him. He should have gone, anyway." But Kit wasn't like that, and both Duffy and Dylan knew it.

When he had finished his task, Dylan came over to the bed to hold her hand in his briefly. Then he said, "Keep your chin up and do what the doctor says, even when you don't want to, okay? I'll be back later to see how you're doing."

The hushed slap-slap of his rubber-soled shoes echoed in Duffy's ears for a long time after the sound

had faded away. It reminded her . . .

She was being stupid. Of course she'd heard that sound before. As Dylan said, practically everyone in the hospital wore the same kind of shoes.

But if a member of the hospital staff had been in her room last night, why hadn't he or she answered when she called out? Wasn't that what they were there for, to help when help was needed?

What kind of nurse or doctor or orderly or volunteer would ignore a night cry from a patient?

No kind. They wouldn't do that. So Dylan had to be right. She'd been dreaming.

But it had certainly seemed real.

In an effort to clear her mind of the maddening puzzle, Duffy rolled over on her side and tried to doze until lunchtime and then, she hoped, the arrival of Jane and Kit.

Except for an interruption by the nurse Duffy called "Vampira" because she came in only to collect blood from Duffy's already-sore arm, she remained alone, and finally fell asleep.

Chapter 4

When Junior Volunteer Cynthia Boon entered Duffy's room shortly after the dismal lunch tray had blessedly been taken away, the patient was struggling to force a comb through her tangled, cinna-mon-hued waves.

**0h, I give up!" she cried in despair, heaving the comb across the room. It made a sharp, insulted click when it hit the floor tile. Bouncing twice, it landed in a comer.

"Easy, easy," Cynthia cautioned softly. She walked over swiftly and picked up the comb, returning it to Duffy. "You're not supposed to get upset. Your temperature will spike again."

"Oh, what's the difference?" Duffy grumbled. "Fm never going to get out of this awful place, anyway. I'm imprisoned here for Ufe."

Cynthia, her long, straight, sand-colored hair pulled back in a neat but too-severe bun at the back of her neck, smiled. "Oh, Duffy, you've only been here two days. You should be grateful you don't have a chronic illness, like some of the kids in Pe-

diatrics. They're in and out of the hospital all the time and they don't complain."

"Don't lecture me, Cynthia." Dufiy hated the way Cynthia looked: her hair so smooth and neat, her pale blue uniform so clean and crisp, her skin shiny and healthy-looking. The only consolation was those tiny lines of tension around Cjmthia's pale eyes and full mouth. They made her look older than seventeen years.

Cynthia was the most ambitious person Duffy had ever known and the most energetic. She had probably walked home from the hospital immediately after she was bom, unwilling to wait for someone to carry her. Right now, Cynthia was taking her junior and senior years simultaneously because she was so anxious to finish high school and go on to college and medical school. . . which she would probably finish in six weeks or less, Duffy figured.

Duffy glared resentfully at Cynthia. She had almost certainly had a long, beautiful shower and shampoo that very morning. Reason enough to hate her. If she wasn't so nice . . .

**Why can't I have a shower?" Duffy begged. "Cynthia, you could fix it. . . you could sneak me out of here and into the showers down the hall, couldn't you? Please? Smith told me I look like beach garbage, and he's right. He's disgusting, but he's right."

Cynthia shook her neat, narrow head. "Duffy, I know how you feel, but you have to be patient. When Dr. Morgan thinks it's okay for you to have

a shower, you'll have one. Til take you down there myself. But not yet."

'The newer hospitals have showers right in the rooms," Duffy muttered. "But I have to be stuck in this ancient, medieval torture palace where the plumbing screams all day and the elevators creak and — "

"Duffy," Cynthia said gently but firmly as she fluffed Duffy's pillow, "hghten up."

Duffy groaned. "You're right. I'm being a creep. I'm sorry, Cyn. I know I'm a crunmiy patient. It's just. . ."

"I know. You're not the type to be stuck in a bed, Duffy. It must be making you crazy." Cynthia put on what Duffy called **that hospital face," with the fake smile that failed to reach the eyes, and the voice so falsely cheerful. "But you'll be out of here in no time, I promise." All of the nurses said things like that when a patient was giving them a hard time. It was probably something they learned in the first week of nursing school.

Duffy glowered. "Right."

"Hey, what happened to your other bed? It was here yesterday."

"Smith took it to Pediatrics."

Cynthia marched over to the faded flowered curtain hanging limply on a circular metal rod bolted to the ceiling above the second bed's now-empty space. 'Well, then, let's open the window bhnds and pull this curtain all the way back. It's blocking the light. No wonder you're depressed." She went first

to the window to raise the blinds and then returned to the flowered curtain and yanked it backward on its metal rings.

And Duffy's eyes widened as the curtain sliding along the metal rod made a jingle-jangle sound identical to the one she had heard during the night.

She had heard it. She hadn't been dreaming.

She groaned silently. She didn't want to be back on this again. Everyone would think she was crazy.

But if someone had been in her room. . . .

What were they doing there?

"There was someone in here last night," she said aloud.

"Hmm?" Satisfied with the early spring sunshine now flooding the room, Cynthia turned back to Duffy. 'What did you say?"

Duffy leaned back against her pillow. "I thought I heard someone in here last night. Dylan told me I'd probably imagined it, because of the fever. I'd just about decided he was right, until you pulled that curtain. Now I know I heard something. That curtain was pulled back ... or forward . . . last night."

Cynthia returned to Duffy's bedside and looked down at her. "I don't get it," she said. "Of course someone was in here. Taking care of you. Your temperature has to be watched carefully. It was your curtain you heard, not the other one." She smiled. **We don't have time to waste on empty beds."

Duffy shook her head. "No. Whoever was in here didn't answer when I called out. They didn't want

me to know they were here. That's what's weird, Cynthia."

Before the Junior Volunteer could answer, they were interrupted by the arrival of a short, chunky girl in too-tight Bermuda shorts and an oversized hot-pink sweatshirt, her dark, curly hair carelessly fastened with a huge hot-pink bow. Her face was breathtakingly beautiful, heart-shaped around almost-violet eyes with thick, dark lashes and perfectly arched brows. Her skin was ivory and flawless, as smooth and unblemished as a retouched photograph. She was carrying a pile of magazines and was seriously out of breath.

"Elevator . . . broken . . . again ..." Duffy's best Mend, Jane Sabatini, gasped. "Other . . . one . . . crowded. Had to . . . walk. . . stairs . . ." Her lovely cheeks were flushed with exertion and sweat beaded her upper lip.

"Sit!" Cynthia commanded, shoving a chair at Jane. Jane sat. Cynthia hurried to Duffy's bedside table and poured a glass of water from the heavy metal carafe. "Here, drink this," she ordered, thrusting the glass under Jane's nose. "And next time, wait for a working elevator," she added sharply. "Four flights of stairs carrying a load of magazines is not a smart idea for someone ..." She stopped, obviously not wanting to be unkind.

"Go ahead, say it," Jane gasped. "For someone overweight. You don't seriously think I'm not aware of it, do you?" An impish grin crossed her lovely face. **You don't approve of exercise, Cynthia? I

thought all you medical people preached exercise."

"Nobody recommends that you do it all in one day." Cynthia turned to Duffy. "Look, since you've got company now, I'd better get back to work. I'll report that elevator, Jane. We might actually get lucky enough to have someone fix it. Wouldn't that be a kick?"

Smiling with satisfaction at her own little joke, Cynthia marched from the room.

Jane sighed. "So thin, so efficient, so smart. . . couldn't you just smack her?"

Duffy smiled weakly. "It's even worse when you're stuck in this bed with greasy hair, sweaty skin, and no chance of a shower." Then she added more seriously, "She's been a big help, though. I don't know how she finds the time, but she comes in to see me a lot." She shifted uncomfortably in the bed and then asked, "Where's Kit? Didn't he come with you?"

Jane shook her head and slipped her tired feet out of worn black flats. "Uh-uh. Couldn't get off work. That uncle of his, the one who makes Scrooge look like Santa Claus, has been really riding him lately. Maybe Kit'll be over tonight, if the massah lets the slave out of his chains."