Free Remember Me by Christopher Pike Page A

back against the counter. My father grabbed her at the waist, steadying her.

    "What's happened?" he demanded, anxious now.

    "Yeah, what's going on?" I asked, coming over to them.

    "Shari," my mother whispered, closing her eyes and shaking her head.

    'What?" I asked. "What's wrong?"

    Still holding on to my mother, my father snapped up the phone. "This is Mr.

    Cooper," he said. "Who is this?"

    His face paled as he listened. "Will she be all right?" he asked after a minute.

    "What do you mean?" He paused, listened some more, biting his lower lip all the while, something I had never seen him do before in my life. "You don't know?" he asked finally. "Why don't you know? I see, I see. Yes, I know where that is. Yes, we'll be there shortly."

    My father didn't thank whoever had called. He just hung up the phone and hugged my mother, who was close to collapsing in his arms.

    "Hey," I said, beginning to get emotional. "Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

    They ignored me. Yet that was not it. They didn't hear me.

    Something terrible must have happened, I thought, that they could get into such a state that they blocked me out altogether. I reached out for my father's arm.

    "Dad, please," I said. "I need to know, too."

    I might as well have not been in the room. My father helped my mother over to the table, sat her in the chair, and took her hands in his. "We don't know yet, Christine," he said.

    My mother kept shaking her head, her eyes closed. "It's no good," she whispered. "It was too far. Oh, God. Shari."

    "I have to go get Jim," he said, letting go of her.

    "Yeah, go get Jimmy," I said, nodding vigorously. But my mother suddenly opened her eyes and grabbed my father's arm.

    "No, we can't tell him," she said. "Leave him alone."

    My father shook his head. "I have to get him." He leaned over and kissed her on the top of the head as she squeezed her eyes shut again. "The three of us should be together."

    "Aren't there four of us?" I asked. Obviously, something dreadful had happened, but there was a note of bitterness in my question. Jimmy had always been their favorite. I had never been jealous of him, but I had never felt that parents should have favorites, especially my own.

    My father left. My mother cradled her head in her arms on the table. She wasn't crying, but she was having a hard time breathing. I sat beside her and put my hand on top of her head, my resentment of a moment ago disappearing.

    "It'll be all right, Mom," I said.

    She sat up suddenly and stared right at me, her mouth hanging open slightly, and I was mildly relieved that I had at last made some impression on her. But when she kept staring at me and didn't speak, my relief quickly changed to something quite different. A splinter of fear began to form deep inside me—a faint fear, true, but a cold one.

    Something was not right, I told myself. Not right by a million miles. I prayed Jimmy would come quick and make it all right.

    My brother appeared a minute later. He was suffering,

    however, from the same problem as my parents. He was so shook up that he had totally blotted me out of his awareness.

    He was not as pale as my father, nor was he trembling as my mother was. His symptoms were more subtle, worse in a way. His eyes—those warm, friendly blue eyes—were vacant. Even as he crossed the kitchen and hugged my mother, they remained blank.

    "Jimmy!" I cried. But he didn't hear me. I thought he couldn't even see me.

    They were all going to a hospital of some kind. I had gotten that much from my father's remarks. They were hardly dressed for it. My father had on a wrinkled black tux, my mother a tired evening gown. Jimmy had pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a white sweatshirt, but he had forgotten his shoes and socks. As I followed him out to the car, I said something about it being chilly. I could have been talking to myself.

    So far the night had abounded with extraordinary events.

    Yet nothing had prepared me