Free The Juvie Three by Gordon Korman Page B

keyboard. “I don’t see anything. Are you sure you’ve got the right hospital? Metropolitan and Mount Sinai aren’t too far away.”
    â€œNo, definitely here.” Gecko struggles to appear calm. “He—uh—arrived at Emergency around one a.m.”
    The nails are just a blur. “It’s unlikely he’d still be in the ER. What was the nature of the complaint?”
    Gecko hesitates. “He was—bleeding.”
    She tries to be kind. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that, honey.”
    â€œHis head was bleeding. He fell.”
    The clicking accelerates. “Our head trauma unit is on Seven East. I don’t see your uncle listed, but they could have entered his name wrong—or not at all, if he just transferred up there.”
    â€œThanks.”
    Gecko’s imagination runs wild all the way to the seventh floor. Does this mean Healy’s dead? Is that why he isn’t in the computer?
    Nightmare scenarios roil his thoughts as he stands in a crowded waiting area between the two banks of elevators. Hospital personnel in scrubs bustle by, waving ID badges in front of door scanners. There are intercoms for visitors, but Gecko doesn’t feel much like explaining his reason for being there. What can he tell them—that he’s come to see a nonexistent patient?
    He ponders his options for a few precious minutes. Back at school, study hall has already begun. He’s due in English in half an hour, and he still owes freshman chemistry a box of mothballs.
    If I’m going to do this, it has to be now….
    An entire extended family pours out of the elevator, jabbering excitedly in a language Gecko doesn’t recognize. The mom gets on the intercom, struggling to communicate in broken English.
    â€œSlow down, ma’am,” comes the voice of the duty nurse. “Who exactly are you trying to see?”
    The question only stokes the woman’s agitation, accelerating her speech pattern.
    â€œSlower, ma’am, I can’t understand you—ma’am?” Finally, the door buzzes open.
    Gecko knows he’ll never get a better chance than this. He darts over and joins the swarming family members. The door closes behind him.
    I’m in!
    He sticks close to the family partway down the corridor and then breaks away, peering into patient rooms.
    He rushes from door to door along the hall, taking a quick inventory of the occupants. Twenty-five minutes to English. Even sprinting, school is a good ten minutes away.
    Come on, Mr. Healy, where are you?
    Dozens of rooms, four beds a pop. No sign of the group leader. There’s a parallel hall on the opposite end, but the only way to get there crosses right in front of the nurses’ station. Locking his eyes straight ahead, he marches past the desk and starts his reconnaissance on the other side. These rooms are smaller, with two beds in each. All are occupied, none by Healy. He works his way methodically onward, avoiding the eyes of an orderly picking up laundry.
    Only four more doors. What if Healy isn’t here?
    Room 706. One guy is at least eighty. His roommate is Chinese.
    Come on…
    704. At first glance, Gecko almost doesn’t recognize Douglas Healy’s unfeatures. His mane of sandy reddish hair is entirely concealed under thick bandages, and his face is pale gray, the pallor of death.
    He’s not dead, though. He’s wearing an oxygen mask, there’s an IV running into his arm, and a heart monitor measures his vital signs.
    Dead people don’t have vital signs.
    Yet he’s still deeply unconscious.
    Gecko slips into the room, noting that the other bed is empty. Good. That makes it easier to sneak a peek at the chart that hangs on a clipboard at the footboard. Maybe that will supply a clue about when the patient might wake up and return home.
    He never gets that far. The name on the folder catches his attention and erases every