The Phantom Limb by William Sleator & Ann Monticone

Author:William Sleator & Ann Monticone
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Amulet Books
Published: 2011-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

SAAC GOT TO THE HOSPITAL EARLIER THAN ever the next day, at six. He felt shaky about going there at all, afraid of what they might do to him this time, but he knew he had to force himself to go. He was getting more and more worried about Vera.

He brought the spiral aftereffect with him, carefully wrapped and taped in its box, the box itself wrapped in a towel. He fitted it snugly into his bicycle basket. His schoolbooks and unfinished homework weighed down his backpack as he rode.

Nurse Vicky was at the station. “Is the doctor here yet?” Isaac asked her.

Vicky checked a chart on the wall behind her. “The doctor doesn’t get here this early.”

“Is Candi here?” Isaac asked.

“Candi changed shifts today. She’s in the ER and won’t be up on this floor at all,” she said, smiling pleasantly.

Did Vicky know what was happening to Vera? Could Isaac trust her? He wasn’t sure, so he continued on to room 638 without saying anything more.

Isaac found Vera awake, staring at the ceiling. She was looking worried and vulnerable. She seemed more alert than she had been in the last few days. Was it because Dr. Ciano wasn’t there to dope her into submission? When she saw Isaac in the doorway, her pale, shrunken face broke into a big smile. “Ize! Where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been here. But you’ve just been asleep—drugged out,” he said as he washed his hands.

“I want to go home, Ize.”

“I’m working on it, Mom. We’ll get you home. Grandpa’s even been helping me around the house, can you believe it?”

He walked over to the bed. He felt a chill when he saw that there was a bigger, thicker bandage on her arm where the bruise was. Was the bruise larger and deeper now? His mind flashed back to the little girl and her doll. Was someone purposefully enlarging the bruise while Vera was knocked out?

Isaac sat down in a chair next to the bed. He tried to sound as calm as possible. “I got the password for the hospital computer, and I went on to look up your records. I saw … something bad. Do you think you can handle it?”

Vera sat up straight. “Yes, I have to know.” She took a deep breath. “What did you see?”

“Somebody’s written a bogus report. It says that you have bone cancer. They want to amputate your arm—the one with the bandage on it.”

Vera’s face froze. “But that’s … that’s … How can they do that?” Her voice rose almost to a wail.

“It’s what happened to the kid who had the mirror box, and now they’ve got you. Have you seen the doctor at all since that day when I was here?”

“Candi said that Dr. Ciano’s been in to check on me, but I’ve always been asleep.”

“Don’t trust anyone, Mom,” Isaac said. “I’m going to stop them, and you’ll be safe.”

“I think they took something out of my arm, where the bruise is,” Vera went on shakily. “I must have been asleep when they did it.

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