"I don"t think you understand the situation you"re in," said Mrs. Rafferty-and the way she said it made Tom feel that her hair was going to catch fire for real. "You are facing suspension here."
Tom"s mouth went dry. Suspension! That was not good. That was bad, in fact. It would go on his record. It would hurt his chances of getting into a top college. Worse than that: he didn"t know how he would tell his mom.
But he knew he had no choice about this. He licked his lips. He said, "The people who talked to me wouldn"t have talked if they thought they were going to be named-they were afraid of being punished and attacked for telling the truth." The way I"m being punished and attacked for telling the truth, he didn"t add. "But they proved what they said beyond a doubt, and I printed the proof. The story is fair and it"s true. Even if you suspend me-even if you expel me-it"ll still be true."
Mr. Kramer leaned forward, his expression as serious as Tom had ever seen it, his eyes as transparent as gla.s.s. "I hope you understand," he said tersely. "Mrs. Rafferty is quite right about this. You are facing very serious consequences here."
Tom took a deep, unsteady breath. "I do understand," he said softly. "But I stand by the story. I stand by the story."
Tom had to say it twice to get the words out clearly-and even though he meant them, he quailed inside as he saw the anger flash in Mr. Kramer"s colorless eyes.
Mrs. Rafferty started to say, "You do not know the beginning of how much trouble you are getting yourself-"
But she stopped as there was a quick knock on the door. Before anyone could say anything else, the door opened and Lisa came in.
She was wearing jeans and a striped pullover and tennis shoes. Her red hair tumbled messily down the sides of her pale face, and she blinked rapidly behind her gla.s.ses. She looked very small and skinny and much younger than she was.
"Hi, everyone!" she said in a chirpy little-girl voice. "I heard you guys were talking to Tom and I thought, since I"m the newspaper editor, maybe I should be here, too."
"We"ll speak to you separately," said Mr. Kramer tersely.
"And you"re not the editor anymore," growled Mrs. Rafferty.
"Oh!" said Lisa, as if she were startled. "Really? Is this about the Tigers story?"
"It sure is!" said Coach Petrie.
"Okay," said Lisa in that same high, bright voice. "I"m sort of surprised to hear that, because I did send the story to you for approval, Mrs. Rafferty."
"Well, I didn"t approve it," she snapped.
"Well, yes, I know, but you haven"t approved any of our stories since I"ve been on the paper. We always send them to you, but you never get back to us. So, you know, I didn"t think this was any different. Anyway . . . ," she went on chirpily, "let me know when you"re done with Tom. Because when USA Today interviews me, they"ll probably want him there, too."
Mr. Kramer, Coach Petrie, and Mrs. Rafferty all sat up straight at the same time and said exactly the same thing: "What?!"
"USA Today," Lisa repeated with the same cheery tone. "You know, for their story about us and the Tigers and how a school paper got a big scoop and how the school reacted to it and all that."
Mr. Kramer"s eyes flashed again. He seemed as if he was about to slap the table himself. "I absolutely forbid you to talk to USA Today or anyone else about this until we"ve fully ascertained the facts!" he said.
And suddenly, Lisa"s chirpy, little-girl demeanor vanished-just like that. Her face became very serious, and the eyes behind the round lenses were unblinking and bright as flashing steel. Her voice became flat and hard. "With respect, Mr. Kramer," she said, "I"ll be speaking to them after school and with my mother"s permission. You don"t have the power to forbid me. You have the power to take me and Tom off the paper. You have the power to suspend us. You have the power to close the paper down. But we told the truth and we"re going to go on telling it, in USA Today and on Facebook and Twitter and wherever else we can to whoever will listen. And I know that"ll be okay with you," she said, turning her steady gaze from one adult to another. "Because as long as you do what"s right, you won"t mind if everyone knows."
With that, she turned and walked out of the room.
A few minutes later Tom found her in the Sentinel"s office.
"You saved my life in there, Leese," he said with a lopsided smile. "After they heard about USA Today, everyone suddenly got a lot more friendly. I guess they didn"t want the whole country to find out they were trying to cover up for the team."
Lisa shrugged but blushed at the same time. "That"s what friends are for, Tommy. I knew you could stand up for yourself, but I figured, I"m the editor, it"s my responsibility to protect the story."
Weary with relief, Tom dropped into his chair and put his feet up on the mess on his desk. "So when do we talk to USA Today?" he asked her.
Lisa shrugged her narrow shoulders. "I don"t know. They haven"t asked us yet."
Tom"s feet dropped off the desk with a thud as he came rocketing upright in his chair. "What?"
"Well, I had to say something, right? They looked like they were about to hang you."
"So you lied?"
"I didn"t lie. I said when USA Today interviews me, they"ll probably want to interview you, too. I"m sure that"s true."
"Lisa!"
"Well, let"s call it a bluff," she said.
Tom fell back against his chair, staring at her with his mouth open. After another moment, he laughed.
"What"s so funny?" she asked him.
"Nothing," said Tom. "Just remind me never to play poker with you!"
Lisa"s cheeks turned so red her freckles all but disappeared. A moment later she was giggling helplessly.
Hurry!" Tom said to her now. "We don"t have much time."
He took ahold of Lisa"s elbow as she stepped into the house. Before he shut the door behind her, he cast one last look outside, across the front lawn. Sheets and tendrils of mist were coiling up the drive and over the gra.s.s, casting a ghostly pall over everything. At the bottom of the driveway, the fog was gathering quickly. As Tom stood staring through the cloudy air, he thought he saw a shadow move in that thicker whiteness. A malevolent. Waiting for the moment when it could reach the house; reach him. Soon.
Tom shut the door.
"Come on," he said.
He drew Lisa down the hallway to the kitchen. They sat face-to-face at the round table in the nook, just as he"d sat with Marie. Outside, through the windows, a faint mist had begun to gather over the backyard as well. Tom knew it would get thicker quickly. The malevolents were on their way.
Still gripping her elbow, Tom leaned toward Lisa. She had opened her raincoat now. Beneath it, she was wearing the pink blouse he knew was her favorite. The top b.u.t.ton was undone, and a gold necklace with a little gold cross shone against the white skin of her throat. Tom could not believe how good it was to see that quirky, freckled, pug-nosed face of hers. He felt certain she would be able to help him find the truth. She always had.
"I was shot, wasn"t I?" he asked her. "That"s why I"m here. Someone shot me in the chest."
Lisa nodded quickly. She wasn"t smiling anymore. She looked serious, pale, worried. "That"s right."
"Who was it? Who did it, Leese?"
"I don"t know. No one knows. The police are still trying to find out."
"But it must"ve been someone who was angry at me about our story, right? Someone who was angry because of what I wrote about the Tigers."
"Probably. That"s what everyone thinks, anyway."
"I should know who it is!" he said. "But I don"t remember."
"Well, you"re hurt."
"Right. I"m in a coma, aren"t I?"
"Yes."
"I"m lying unconscious in the hospital, and the doctors can"t wake me up."
Lisa frowned, her eyes growing damp. "Yes, that"s right. It"s awful. We"re all so frightened."
Tom tried to take this in, to think it through. He was still holding loosely on to Lisa"s arm. Lisa moved her hand to his. Her cool touch was comforting.
"And so all this," he said, gesturing at the kitchen. "All this is happening in my mind, in my imagination."
Lisa tilted her head, her expression uncertain. "Well . . . yes . . . but . . ."
"But what?" said Tom. He could feel the time pa.s.sing, could feel the fog moving in. He knew that every second counted. "Tell me. Don"t hold anything back."
"Well . . . just because something is in your imagination doesn"t mean it"s imaginary."
Tom shook his head. "I don"t get it."
"Your imagination isn"t just some kind of fantasyland or something. It"s a way of seeing things that your rational mind can"t see or doesn"t want to see. It"s a way of knowing things you can"t know any other way. The things you see with your imagination may not look like the things you see in ordinary life, but they"re just as real in their own way. And all this-everything that"s happening here, Tom-it"s all real. And it"s serious. It"s like . . . It"s like your imagination is the battleground on which you"re fighting for your life."
"Right," said Tom, trying to stay with her, trying to understand. "The fog, the monsters, the malevolents . . ."
"They can kill you-really kill you. They already have killed you. Twice! Your heart has already stopped beating two times."
Tom nodded. "Yes. I know. I died. I even saw heaven, I think."
"Well," said Lisa, looking uncertain again, "I don"t think it could have been heaven. Not exactly. Not the real heaven. This is your imagination, remember-and I think heaven is probably beyond anything you could imagine."
"But if I died, maybe I saw it for a second . . . ," Tom started to say. His voice trailed away as he remembered the things he had seen in the park, the strangely unhappy-looking people.
"Maybe," said Lisa. "It"s possible." She smiled. "But, like I said, I don"t think so. The road to heaven isn"t death, Tom. It"s life."
Tom went on thinking about it. He went on thinking about the beautiful parkland with the Greek temples and about the people he"d seen there-the people who weren"t serene and happy the way you"d think they would be if they were in paradise.
"There was a guy there," he murmured. "A thin guy with long blond hair. I think he"s in the hospital with me. I think he"s the guy lying unconscious in the bed next to mine."
"Yeah," said Lisa. "The doctor said he was some kind of drug addict, hooked on meth or something. He couldn"t take it anymore. He tried to slash his wrists, to kill himself. They don"t know whether he"s going to make it."
Tom thought about the long-haired guy standing in front of the temple, how he looked lost, like he was trying to find someone who could give him directions. So Lisa was right. The parkland wasn"t heaven. Even though Tom"s heart had stopped, the place he had seen was still some part of his living mind. If he really died, then there would be something else, something more. Something, as Lisa said, beyond his imagination.
Tom glanced away from the anxious expression on Lisa"s face. He glanced out the window into the backyard. Already the mist was noticeably thicker out there. He could see it wafting in, blowing in, more and more of it every second. Soon it would be thick enough to bring the malevolents. Very soon.
He faced Lisa again. "What about you?" he said. "Are you real?"
"You know I am, Tommy."
He smiled, in spite of his worry and fear. Tommy. Lisa was the only one who ever called him that. And she only did it when she was emotional, when she forgot to control herself and call him Tom like everyone else did. "But I mean . . . are you really here now?" he asked her. "Really here with me?"
"I"m sitting beside your hospital bed. I"m holding your hand just like this. I"m talking to you. The doctors said that if I talked to you, you might be able to hear me."
"I do hear you," he said. "I mean . . . I don"t think . . . I don"t think this is what you"re really saying exactly. I think a lot of this conversation is me talking to myself in my own mind. But I hear the sound of your voice and . . . I can feel you"re there. And I"m glad you"re there, Lisa. You"ve always been a good friend."
Lisa tried to smile, but her mouth trembled down quickly in a deep frown. The lenses of her gla.s.ses grew misty. And a thought flashed through Tom"s mind, a new thought, one he"d never had before. It was a thought he could barely believe, but there it was anyway. He thought that maybe Lisa liked him-really liked him, not just as a friend, but as more than that. Funny, all that time they"d spent together in the Sentinel"s office, and he"d never noticed it before. Until this moment, he"d been thinking about Marie so much, yearning for Marie so much, that it never crossed his mind.
Lisa"s grip tightened on his hand. "Tom," she said softly. "Listen to me. The doctors say . . ."
She faltered. He answered her grip with his own. "Go on."
"The doctors say if they lose you again, if your heart stops beating again, they doubt they"ll be able to revive you. They doubt you"ll be strong enough to make it back. And you"ve got to make it back, Tommy! You"ve got to. I don"t think I could . . . I don"t think your mother could survive if she lost you like she lost Burt."
"Right. Right." Tom took a deep breath, braced himself. "What are my chances?" he asked her. "Did the doctors say? What are the chances I"ll come out of this coma alive?"
"They said . . ." Lisa"s voice broke. A single tear spilled from behind her misted lenses, rolled down her freckled cheek. "They said they didn"t know. They said it was fifty-fifty. It could go either way."
Tom made a noise: whew. "Fifty-fifty," he repeated. "And if I die again, I"m done for. So I only have one more chance, and if the malevolents get me this time . . ."
Lisa only nodded, unable to speak.
Tom swallowed hard. "Fifty-fifty. One chance. Live or die. Man, that"s scary. I"m scared, Lisa. I"m seventeen. I"m not ready to die. But I don"t know if I"ve got the courage to . . ."
"Shh! Shh!" She put a finger to his lips, silencing him. Then she pulled her hand away to wipe her cheek dry. "You have plenty of courage. All you need. More."
"I don"t know, I don"t know," said Tom. "I was never the hero type. Not like Burt."
"Yes, you are," Lisa told him, crying harder. "You"re just as brave as Burt ever was. Just in a different way, that"s all. That"s . . ." She couldn"t finish. She bowed her head.
Tom looked at her, looked at the top of her head, the part in her hair where a line of white scalp peeked through the wavy red. He didn"t know why, but the sight of it made her seem fragile to him somehow. Which was funny, seeing as he was the one in the coma, on the brink of death! But he was sorry now that he"d shown her his fear, sorry he"d made her cry. Even if she couldn"t really see it sitting there in the hospital next to his bed, he wanted to give her strength, to send his strength to her, his courage to her.
"Okay," he said. "Okay. Fifty-fifty. It"s better than nothing, right? I"ll take my chances. But what do I do? How do I find my way out of here? How do I get out of this coma and get back to you?"
It was a long moment before Lisa could lift her head, could speak again. Then she said, "I"m not sure, but I can tell you what I think."
Tom knew that the information she was giving him was really information coming from the depths of his own mind. But he needed to hear it. He needed to hear it spoken out loud. He said, "Go on."
"I think there"s something holding you here, something that won"t let you leave."
"Okay. Like what?"