The Thought Pushers (Mind Dimensions #2)(24)

It’s Sara, my more panicky mom.

“Guys, I need a favor,” I say. “One of my moms is approaching, and I kind of want to have a private conversation when she gets here. Why don’t you go look for that doctor together? Or just walk around?”

Bert chuckles. He knows my real concern. He knows Sara’s tendency to say embarrassing stuff. I can picture a whole diatribe about her ‘baby’ in the hospital, or something even worse, like a nervous fit.

With a curse, Mira slams closed the Gameboy, signifying her defeat, and glances in the direction Sara is coming from.

“Hello, Mrs. Goldberg,” Bert says, getting ready to leave.

“Hi Bert,” my mom says. “And you must be Mira?”

“Hi, Mrs. Goldberg,” Mira says uncomfortably.

“Please call me Sara,” she says. “You too, Bert, how many times do I need to ask you?”

“Sorry, Sara,” Bert says sheepishly.

“Nice to meet you, Sara.” Mira attempts to smile at my mom. “Bert and I were just about to go look for a doctor, to see when Darren is getting his X-ray results.”

“Thank you.” Sara gives Mira an approving look. “That’s very thoughtful. Let me know if they give you any attitude.”

Great. I picture a scenario where Mira is arguing with my doctor, and then, after sufficiently pissing him off, she unleashes my mom on the poor guy. If disgruntled restaurant workers spit in your food, can you imagine what an upset doctor might do to you?

“If they give us any attitude, I will crush their servers,” Bert says.

“Albert, you will do no such thing,” my mom says sternly. “People could die.”

“I’m sure Bert was kidding,” I say, giving my friend a warning glare. He probably wasn’t.

“I will keep him in line, no worries, Sara,” Mira says with a smile.

“Good, thank you,” Sara says, apparently satisfied.

As my friends give me the Gameboys and walk away, I realize with amazement how calmly my mom has been behaving. Was it Mira’s attitude that calmed her so?

“Sweetie, what happened? You were shot. Does it hurt?” The barrage of questions begins as soon as Mira and Bert are out of the room, and I curse myself for the jinx. My amazement was clearly premature.

I go into a new variation of the story. In this one, Mira is a new friend who happens to live in a bad neighborhood. The shot was just a fluke, the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“I like Mira. She’s smart and very pretty,” my mom says when she stops her verbal version of hyperventilating. “And she clearly cares about you. But you should have her visit you in the city instead of the other way around. It’ll be safer that way.”

I now understand why the freak-out is not as bad as I expected. I think the fact that my mom found me with a girl—something she’s been nagging me about for ages—trumps my getting shot in her twisted version of reality.

“Sure, Mom. It actually just so happens that Mira and her brother will be moving anyway,” I say.

“Good.” She pats my knee. “Let me know if you need suggestions for safe neighborhoods.”

“Okay, Mom. Where’s Lucy?” I say, trying to change the subject.

“Your mother will be here soon. She just texted me. Kyle dropped her off at the hospital entrance and is parking. She’ll be here in a moment.”

I’m actually a tiny bit worried about Lucy coming here. I hope she doesn’t play detective with me. She sometimes can’t help it.

I keep those concerns to myself, though, and say instead, “Okay. In the meantime, there’s something I want to ask you . . .” I pause, thinking about it, and then I decide to just blurt it out. “What were the last names of my biological parents?”

Sara looks taken aback for a moment, but recovers quickly. “They were the Robinsons, and your biological mother’s maiden name was Taylor,” she answers readily.

The Robinsons. So Jacob was indeed asking about my father, Mark Robinson. Does that mean my father was a Reader? Maybe even part of that specific community? I make a mental note to try to learn more about this. Maybe I can find a reason to chat with Jacob again, or ask his daughter Julia about it when she recovers. Perhaps I can even talk to Caleb, as scary as that option sounds. Also, Mark worked with my mom Lucy and Uncle Kyle. I can try to pump them for information—though, of course, they don’t know anything about Readers and Pushers.

I see Sara wave her hand at someone, and it takes me out of my thoughts.

Following her gaze, I see Lucy approaching.

“How are you, kiddo?” Lucy says when she gets to my bed. “What happened?”

I tell her the same story that I told Sara and how I don’t yet know the details but that my friends are trying to get a doctor, or someone, to pay attention to us. As I talk, I can’t tell if she’s buying it. Lucy is like that; you don’t know what’s on her mind when she doesn’t want you to. Must be a detective thing. However, as I learned over the years, the mere fact that she’s hiding her expression signifies trouble.

“You guys catch up, and I’m going to go try to find Mira and Bert,” Sara says and walks off without giving me a chance to respond. Did she pick up on Lucy’s lack of expression also? The idea of her joining the doctor search is the very definition of overkill. If someone is not back here in a few minutes, I will be extremely surprised. Images of lionesses killing gazelles and bringing the bloody carcasses to their fluffy cubs spring to mind for some reason.