Free Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski

I’m not sick. Feel my head.”
    Her mother pressed her palm against Olivia’s forehead. Indeed, she had no fever. “You don’t feel warm. …”
    “Because I’m not. I have a lot of work I shouldn’t miss today,” Olivia rushed to explain. “If I need to, I’ll stop by Nurse Carmichael’s, ’kay?”
    Her mom paused, considering. Then she nodded.
    Sucker.
    *  *  *
    So we went to school.
    By this time there were more of us. Twenty-one, to be exact. The telepathy had kicked in for almost everyone in our homeroom over the course of twenty-four hours.
    Courtney Hunter got it while she was watching TV with her parents. She didn’t have her own TV in her room, which was annoying. Her parents wanted her to bond with them over shows and have family time together. They liked to watch all the trendy shows about murdered teenagers and boys with paranormal powers on the CW and ABC Family. She sat in the middle.
    I wish Stella would wear her hair like that, her dad thought.
    Stella was her mom.
    “What did you say?” Courtney asked.
    Her dad kept his eyes on the TV. “Nothing.”
    I wish Gerry had abs like that, her mom thought.
    “What did you say?” Courtney asked her mom.
    “Nothing,” her mom said.
    Courtney started feeling sick. “Stop being weird!” she cried. But the thoughts kept coming.
    Eventually she started screaming that she could hear what they were thinking, and they gave each other a look.
    Is she on drugs? they both thought at the same time.
    “I am not on drugs!” she yelled.
    Her parents looked at each other in alarm.
    “I think we need to check your room,” her dad said.
    “I am not on drugs!” she yelled again. Not at that moment. Even though she’d never had ADD she occasionally popped an Adderall. Just to help her concentrate when she had an exam. She took maybe one a week. Two, max. Luckily she was out, so her parents wouldn’t find any.
    They went to check her room while she watched the end of the show.
    *  *  *
    Isabelle Griffin got it during dinner. She was alone and had ordered pizza from Dean’s, and when the food showed up, she could hear the delivery guy’s thoughts. When her parents and brother came home, she could hear their thoughts too, and she freaked out. She started hyperventilating. Her mom didn’t understand what was wrong—“What do you mean you can hear my thoughts?” And she called their pediatrician’s office, which paged Dr. Coven, who called back seven minutes later.
    “She’s hearing voices,” Isabelle’s mom told her, her voice trembling.
    Dr. Coven thought Isabelle was either on drugs or having a psychotic episode, and instructed her mother to take her to the ER immediately. The two of them took a taxi to St. Luke’s emergency room. While her mom was filling out paperwork, Isabelle texted her friend Jordana:
    At hospital. Losing my mind.
    Isabelle’s phone rang two seconds later.
    “You’re not crazy,” Jordana said, and explained.
    Isabelle wasn’t sure she believed Jordana but then Jordana conferenced in Pi and Pi explained how it all worked and about the eye closing and everything and ordered Isabelle to hightail it out of the ER.
    Isabelle told her mom that she was feeling better, that the voices were gone, that all she needed was a good night’s sleep, but the ER nurse was already calling her name and so she had no choice but to get checked out.
    Isabelle peed in a cup and got her blood drawn so they could run a toxicology report and do drug tests. Meanwhile, Jordana and Pi kept texting her.
    Don’t tell them anything.
    Did they figure it out?
    What’s happening over there?
    The tests all came back clean. The nurse couldn’t find anything wrong with her.
    *  *  *
    Anojah Kolar got it over breakfast. She told her dad that she could hear his thoughts, but he didn’t believe her. He asked her if she needed a new glasses prescription. LensCrafters was having a sale.
    Dave and Daniel Zacow, the twins, both got it in the