Free Kingdom Keepers: The Syndrome by Ridley Pearson

I trailed off, fingering invisible figures onto the faux-suede car interior. My stupid eyes released tears at the same time, making my feelings impossible to hide.
    “Hang in there. We know this is bigger than Finn. We can assume by the fact they aren’t answering that it involves them all. We’re doing the right thing. One at a time.”
Wanda pulled me toward her, battling the seat belt. We did an awkward hug, me with my head on her shoulder.
    “I’m so scared for him,” I said. “For them all! It’s been days!”
    “Go on. Talk to her. I’ll wait here. I’m right here.”
    “Thank you!” I gathered the plastic bag from the car floor. I was off.
    Knowingly repeating a mistake is one definition of insanity and was not something I felt comfortable doing. Maybe it was because of my different (think: lost) childhood, my
being forced to grow up so quickly, but I’d also learned mistakes were a useful, even necessary, part of figuring things out. Approaching the Whitmans’ front door for the third time was
no cakewalk for me.
    It was up to me to negotiate a truce with the Whitmans.
    I had stopped trusting
all
adults a long time ago. Wayne and Wanda weren’t exactly exceptions, but I trusted them more than I would admit.
    Finn’s parents were
not
exceptions. For me, knocking on this door was asking for trouble. The question wasn’t
if
, but
how much
.
    “Please, Amanda!” Mrs. Whitman greeted me with a look of disdain. “We’ve had enough.”
    “He might drink from a straw if you offer it. Gatorade is best.” I handed her the bag. It contained two bottles of red Gatorade and a box of flex-straws. “He needs a damp
sponge, water; you run it around his lips and over his tongue every hour. It’s best if you put bright bulbs in all the lamps of his room, maybe bring in extras and leave them on at all times.
It helps stimulate rapid eye movement.”
    Tears sprang to Mrs. Whitman’s eyes. She showed me inside.
    I whispered to Mrs. Whitman in order to keep Mr. Whitman from overhearing. “Which floor?” Finn had moved to the ground level the year before, but I didn’t want to seem
presumptuous to know that.
    “Upstairs.”
    “Your daughter?”
    “She’s terribly upset. Her room is also upstairs.”
    “She needs to leave the house tonight. Can you have her stay with a friend?”
    Mrs. Whitman turned sharply. “What’s that mean?”
    “I think you know. I think it happened before.”
    “That beast of a boy, force-feeding…” She half sat, half collapsed onto the living room couch. She sank her head into her hands, her back shaking with the force of her sobs. Maybe
she’d been waiting to get that out, because she continued for several long minutes.
    “Why is this happening to us?” She lifted her head.
    I took her literally. A mistake. “There’s some evidence that the boy, Greg Luowski, is under a spell again.”
    She glared at me. An affront. It felt like she’d punched me.
    “Sorry,” I said.
    “I do not need all the voodoo-hoodoo you kids are so obsessed with.”
    “I understand.”
    “No. You have no idea.
None
.” She took a moment. Gathered herself. “Amanda, I’m sorry. That was unfair and uncalled for on my part. I apologize. I know you
care.”
    “Very much,” I said.
    “But at your age…never mind.”
    “All I want…
all I want
, is to help Finn. To help him get better. To protect him. To keep him out of the hospital.”
    Her eyes brimmed with more tears. “That won’t be good for him, will it?”
    “If your husband could talk to Philby’s mother, his parents, I think he might believe them more than me.”
    “I’m not sure he’ll do that.”
    “He has to!”
    “That’s a matter of opinion, young lady. He’s Finn’s father. You can’t understand the agony of sitting, waiting. It gets worse, too. There are…unspeakable things.
But you need to earn my trust if you hope to be included in any of that. Believe me, we are terrified of what’s