Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(4)

“Fifteen dollars?” That got Terry’s attention. “For what?”

“That psych experiment I signed up for,” Stacey said, easing down into the middle of the floor, facing Terry. “I know. It seems cool, but then…” She paused to shudder.

“Then what?” Terry leaned forward, finally cracking her beer and taking a sip. Andrew looped his arms around her waist to keep her from falling.

“This is where it gets weird,” Stacey said. She reached back to smooth her ponytail and ended up accidentally taking it the rest of the way down. In the flicker of the black-and-white TV, her face seemed suddenly haunted as she talked, curly hair in wild lumps. “He leads me into this dark room where there’s a gurney, and has me lay down there.”

“Uh-oh, I think I know what the fifteen bucks was for,” Dave said.

Both Stacey and Terry shot him a look, but Andrew laughed. Boys being boys, thinking they were absolutely hilarious.

“Go on,” Terry said with an eye roll. “What happened?”

“He takes all my vitals, pulse, listens to my heart, has this big notebook he’s writing it all down in. And then…” Stacey shook her head. “This is going to sound nutso, but he gave me an injection and then put a tab of something that dissolved under my tongue. After a while, he started asking me all these weird questions…”

“What kind of questions?” Terry was gripped. Why on earth would someone give Stacey fifteen dollars for this? In a lab?

“I can’t remember. Just answering them, it’s all foggy. Whatever he gave me. It was like taking a hit from the worst batch of acid in history. I…didn’t feel right afterward.”

“This was Friday?” Terry asked. “Why didn’t you say anything before now?”

Stacey turned her head to look at Walter Cronkite, then back. “It took me a day or two to wrap my head around it, I guess.” She shrugged. “I’m not going back.”

“Wait.” Andrew put his head next to Terry’s, propping it on her shoulder. “They wanted you to come back?”

“Fifteen bucks per session,” she said. “And it’s still not worth it.”

“What did they tell you it was for?” Terry asked.

“They didn’t,” Stacey said. “And now I’ll never know.”

Andrew’s incredulity radiated. “I’ll do it—I don’t mind taking bad acid for that kind of money. That would cover our rent for a month! Sounds easy.”

Stacey made a face at him. “Your parents cover your rent and they only want women.”

“I told you what the fifteen dollars was for,” Dave said.

Stacey picked up a pillow and flung it at him. He dodged.

“I’ll do it,” Terry said.

“Uh-oh,” Andrew said. “The Girl Most Likely to Change the World is reporting for duty.”

“I’m just curious,” Terry said and made a face at him. “And that’s not what this is.”

She’d never live down that yearbook caption…or the way she always had a million questions to ask about everything. Her dad had taught her to always pay attention—she didn’t want to miss a chance to do something that mattered. It was frustrating enough to live so far from San Francisco or Berkeley, where the seismic shifts in culture were taking place…where challenging the government’s policies on the war was a daily part of life, not something half the people around still looked at you weird for even if they privately agreed.

So what if none of her questions had ever panned out into anything? Maybe this time would be different. And she’d get an extra fifteen dollars. With that kind of payoff, Becky wouldn’t make a peep of protest.

“Huh?” Stacey blinked.

Terry committed. “I’ll go in your place and do the experiment…If you’re really not going back.”

“I’m really not,” Stacey said, and shrugged. “But if you think pot makes you paranoid…”

“I don’t care. We could use the money. That’s why I’m doing it.” So what if it was a lie? Becky nodded to her, approving, just as Terry had known she would.

And then Dave bellowed, “Everyone, quiet! Turn off the music! Something’s happening!”

Andrew spoke in her ear as the music died. “You sure you want to go see the lab-rat guy? I know you like to have the answers to everything, but…”

“You’re just jealous you can’t go,” she said, tilting her beer to her lips for another thin dirt-and-fuel-flavored sip.

“True, babe, true,” he said.

The volume got cranked louder and everyone watched as Neil Armstrong emerged and made his way, halting step by halting step, down the ladder.

Dave looked over his shoulder for a second. “We can put a man on the moon, but they still haven’t figured out how to get out of ’Nam.”

“You said it,” Andrew said.

Grumbles of agreement sounded around the room until Dave shushed them, despite the fact he’d been the one who talked in the first place.

There was a pause on-screen, and then Armstrong said: “Okay, I’m going to step off the LEM now.”

No one breathed. The room was as quiet as space supposedly was, an absence of sound; but in this absence, nervous hope.