Chapter One:
Beginning

Rob Baker felt a hand shaking his shoulder. He blearily looked up from his chin resting on his right hand to see his friend Jamal looking at him.

"Hey, class ended already," the dark-skinned boy said.

"What?" Rob asked in confusion. He glanced around the Science classroom. The room was half-empty, with most of the kids that were still there ready to leave. One student was talking up to the teacher, Mr. Jorkins.

He then frowned. Somehow, he must have slept through even the ending bell, which was kind of strange, since it was pretty loud. Then again, he had not really been feeling the best lately- for the past two weeks, actually. It was probably some random lingering cold he had gotten from who-knew-where.

A few students were out with the flu, and he sure hoped that he did not have it. Maybe he even had some low-grade version where only some tiredness- and some random dizziness here and there, but not too bad- was the only indicator.

He was pretty lucky the teacher had not caught him napping.

"You okay there?" Jamal asked him, looking concerned. "You look pretty beat."

Rob shrugged. "I'm fine," he said, attempting to sound a whole lot less tired than he actually was. He picked up his things from his desk and stood up. Hopefully he would be better soon- there was a science test coming up next week, as well as a math test. Making up those after school at some point did not seem like fun.

Jamal spoke up again as they headed out of the science room into the hallway, passing the same student still chatting with the teacher. "Hey, since I'm not needed in school tutoring today, so I'm free to go home now. We could walk home together."

Rob sighed at the obvious opinion that he should get home, even though he just plainly felt tired. Maybe he should skip going to the computer lab today. For all he knew, he would fall asleep at the computer, with some random teacher finding him well after the after school activities had ended.

Rob shrugged again. "Yeah, I guess so," he answered.

He hoped that Jamal would not insist on walking him to his house- he was only a block away from where Jamal lived, but still. That would be kind of annoying.

"So why are you not needed for tutoring today?" he asked as they passed into another hallway.

Jamal looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Wow, you must be pretty out of it," he said. Rob cringed a bit, wondering what he had missed. His friend continued. "I had told you yesterday that the person I was tutoring was going to help Alex and Lenni today for helping some fifth graders at one of the elementary schools. They were going today and tomorrow, and some of next week, too."

Rob shook his head, frowning slightly. When had Jamal told him that? Maybe he had forgotten in it his practically half-asleep state. So Alex and Lenni were also somewhere else, and he had missed that also. Had they told also him about it? Who knew. Maybe they did not, though, since unlike Jamal, they usually left school way before the time that he did.

He reached his locker, while Jamal went passed him to one about ten lockers down. Rob quickly spun the dial on the combination lock hanging from the door, and swung the locker open. He shoved his school things into his backpack, reached for his skateboard leaning against the left side. After closing the locker and pushing the lock closed, he met Jamal waiting for him, his bag already on his back.

They walked out the school front doors, passing other kids practically hurtling passed them out of the building. Rob wondered if the kids were actually going that fast, or if he was going slower. If he was, though, Jamal had not complained yet.

Once off the steps, he placed his board onto the ground and stepped onto it. He half listened to Jamal talk about his new sports bike that had been recently fixed, and also how he had almost crashed into a car that had stalled in the middle of a biking trail. It was then that Rob felt yet another random bout of dizziness engulf him.

He teetered heavily on his skateboard, accidently causing it to swerve in to the left and hit a couple of metal trashcans. Rob toppled off, his head hitting the brick wall of a random store nearby.

"Rob!" he heard Jamal shout.

He tried to get up, but the area around him still was moving, and he sank back downward onto the hard cement sidewalk. There was a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, Rob, you okay?"

Rob blinked, trying to get the cracks on the sidewalk to stay put. "Uh-"

After a couple more seconds, he was able to slowly raise his head. He sat up, and rubbed a sore spot where his head had made contact with the brick side of the building. The world was not spinning anymore, at least.

He turned to Jamal, who was looking at him concernedly. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said.

His headache was bearable, and nothing else hurt. Rob turned to find his skateboard, and spotted it next to one of the trashcans. Jamal walked beside him.

"Hey, when I had said that I had almost crashed, I didn't mean that you had to actually crash," he kidded.

Rob shrugged, glad that his friend was joking about his fall. "Yeah, yeah," he responded nonchalantly.

He flipped his skateboard the right direction with one foot and stepped on again, steering away from random pedestrians nearby. A while later, Jamal left for his house, one of many white townhouses with a lot of cement steps. A block later, Rob came to his own- a one story brick house that was a bit small, but not so much that his small family that included him, his parents and sometimes his deaf older brother, Jason, would feel extraordinarily crowded.

Only he was home at the moment, which was common for this time of day. He let himself in with his key and practically sleepwalked to his room. Thank goodness he was not supposed make supper today. There was practically no way that he could even think enough to make even the simplest casserole at the moment.

He was pretty lucky that he did not have any homework- all of the larger assignments had been completed a week before, including one for Social Studies that was due in two days, and that was already in the classroom. It was not even one that he had to show a presentation on in front of the class. There were the tests next week, though thankfully they were just that- next week.

Rob slung his backpack over his chair and flopped on the lower part of a bunk bed. The top bunk actually belonged to his brother Jason, who was currently attending a deaf school in Washington D.C.

He sighed. Jason being stuck there instead of with the family was yet another frustration that he would almost wanted to yell at his father for sometimes- but of course, that would not do anything, just like he had never been able to do anything able their family moving to different military bases across the country.

Even though his father had retired after being a colonel for three years and they were actually in a civilian house now, he was not sure if Jason would be ever able to live at home again. His older brother had been at the deaf school for years. Maybe even he would not even want to come back for good, anyway.

Rob shut his eyes tight against as his head began to throb more painfully. At least he was at home, and still would be there whenever Jason happened to visit again.


Rob tiredly walked through the lunchroom holding his lunch box with one hand, following two of his friends, Jamal and Alex. In the morning he had felt a little less exhausted. That had quickly dissipated as the day droned on, though.

He would have loved to skip lunch, as he was not really hungry, but the computer lab was being used for something else currently. There was some sort of presentation going on in the room, which meant that he could not type instead of sitting in front of a lunch he did not want. At least he would be with his friends, though, as strange as that concept still was.

"So, did you see Dennis Coleman's three pointer in the last basketball game?" Alex chatted excited to Jamal. He carried a lunch tray, laden with two burritos, Mexican rice and an apple.

Jamal nodded. "Yeah, that was really neat," he responded as they reached a small table that would seat four.

"Awesome, you mean," Alex corrected his friend. He set his tray down on the table and sat opposite of Jamal. Rob plunked tiredly down next to Jamal and watched him pull out a ham sandwich out of a brown paper bag.

Jamal then glanced at Rob's lunch box, still unzipped on the table. "Are you going to eat something?" he asked him.

Rob only shrugged. As he knew would happen earlier, eating just did not seem interesting at the moment. He looked up to see Lenni hurrying toward them with another brown bag in her hand. She sat down in the empty seat next to Alex.

"Guess what?" she said, grinning as she pulled out a container and a fork. "My dad taught Sally how to make his pineapple cookies yesterday, and they turned out really great."

Sally was the friendly woman to whom Lenni's father, Max Frazier, was currently dating. She seemed nice, and had helped the Ghostwriter team with the case against finding out about the poison in the community garden nearby where they all lived. Rob had learned from Lenni that Sally could not really cook, though Max was slowly teaching her.

Alex grinned. "So they're actually edible?" he asked jokingly.

Lenni made a small face at the Latino boy as she opened her container to reveal a tuna casserole. She dug her fork into the heap of noodles and vegetable sauce, mixed with flakes of tuna. "Yes, they are," she said, taking a bit of the casserole. "I had two yesterday. So did my dad."

"Hey, they must be pretty good then," Jamal stated.

Lenni nodded. "I brought some with me, actually," she said.

Rob had to grin a bit at Jamal's and Alex's reaction of wide-eyed surprise, especially the former.

"You did?" Jamal asked excitedly.

Lenni nodded. "But technically, cookies are for dessert . . ." She stopped at her attentive audience of two's practically pleading looks. "Okay," she relented, reaching into her bag, and pulled out a clear plastic bag with the lightly browned cookies with yellow centers.

She handed one to Jamal and Alex, who grabbed them eagerly. "Awesome," Jamal said, taking a huge bite.

Alex nodded. "I guess Sally really learned how to make them."

"My dad's a good teacher," Lenni said. She pulled out a third cookie and offered it to Rob. "You want one?" she asked a bit hesitantly.

Rob shook his head. Obviously, from the unsure look on her face, he knew that he must even look really tired. He almost did not really care at the moment, though.

Alex looked his direction. "Hey, if you don't want it, maybe I could have it," he said. He had already finished his, Rob noticed.

Rob saw Jamal kind of frown at him for a tiny bit, then look at the Latino boy. "Maybe we could split it," the dark-skinned boy suggested.

Alex frowned a bit, then shrugged. "Okay, then."

Lenni handed the cookie to Jamal, who broke it in two and handed a part to Alex. "Awesome," Jamal said again after devouring half his part in one bite.

"You say that about all of my dad's desserts," Lenni commented, smiling a little above her half-finished casserole. The bag with the cookies still had one left in it, obviously for her.

Jamal grinned. "It's because they're that good," he responded. "Your dad could be a world famous chef."

"You know he's a musician," Lenni remarked, but she was grinning. "He just likes to cook at home."

She then looked at Rob again, her face worried. "Are you feeling okay?" she asked.

Rob shrugged. "Eh, I've felt better," he admitted.

Alex raised an eyebrow at him from across the table, his second burrito in one hand. "Hey, just don't give whatever you've got to me," he kidded.

Rob half-listened as his friends chatted about other random things, including something about foul shots in basketball. Finally, the ending bell rang, and they got up from the table. Rob also stood, picking up his unopened lunch box.

As he reached the side of the table, a sudden wave of dizziness overcame him. He sagged, reaching for the table with his left hand. Rob managed to unsteadily grab the side, but the swaying room did not help his loosening grip. The room then seemed to spin even more, and the noise of the many people in the room dimmed as the room faded to blackness.


Rob opened his eyes to see a spinning white ceiling above him. He winced a bit at a dull headache, but more annoying was the small ceiling light at the right of his vision that kept on moving back and forth. He closed his eyes against the dizziness.

"Are you all right?" an older male voice asked to his right.

Rob opened his eyes again, and through his vertigo saw a male medical assistant that he had seen in the school office before.

"What happened?" he mumbled. He tried not to wince as his head began to throb some.

The person slightly turned around before answering, perhaps to jot something down. "You collapsed in the cafeteria," he answered.

Rob started, surprised. "What?" he asked.

How had that happened? There was no way, yet he did remember some dizziness after he had stood, and ever so slightly of falling . . .

. . . Weird.

He cringed. Not to mention, it was just plain embarrassing. The medical assistant's answer made sense, actually, to explain why he was suddenly somewhere else, but that did not lessen the sheer awkwardness of the situation. Apparently the whole cafeteria- those who had been in there, anyway; he remembered that he and his friends had been about to leave- had seen him go down. He hoped that his friends weren't too worried.

The medical person spoke again. "We've contacted your mother, and she should be here some point soon," he said.

Rob winced a bit at that. Of course someone would come to get him, though.

He then answered some questions about how he felt, and the medical assistant was satisfied that the cause of the collapsing was no more than a bad cold. Rob felt slightly annoyed. Of course it was just a cold. What else would it be, anyway?

. . . Besides just very annoying.

The dizziness would not go away, and neither did the headache. Rob knew that it made sense people actually collapsing would not feel completely fine afterward, especially if it was from sickness. It was embarrassing enough that his mother was coming. He was glad that it was not his father, who was usually a whole lot less empathetic. No doubt his father would find out later, though.

Thankfully, the vertigo began to lessen and was almost gone by the time his mother came, though he still had a dull headache. Rob sat up, with the assistant's help. He then listened to his mother and the medical person spoke for a bit before he moved blearily to get his things from his locker, and into his mother's small blue car.

Through a blur of tiredness, he went to some random doctor, who found nothing wrong than his more than obvious symptoms, to practically falling onto his bed for the second day in a row.

By then, the dizziness had returned nearly three times as strong and he had an utterly throbbing headache, as if earlier was only a small wave before returning with much more force. Rob groaned ever so slightly. Hopefully the medicine he had taken would take effect soon, not only for the headache, but the vertigo that was practically driving him crazy. Even with his eyes shut tight, it was as if the bed itself would not stay still and he would fall off with the rocking motions.

He sighed, trying to keep steady as he turned onto his stomach and clenched the bottom sheet with his hands. Colds were definitely very aggravating, to say the least.


Rob later woke with his room practically in shadow. Thankfully, the dizziness had abated some, though his head still ached. He lifted his head slightly off of the pillow and glanced toward the curtained window. The only light that came through the sides of the curtains was from a street post near the house.

He craned his head, but could not see his alarm clock from his position on his bed. Rob let his head fall back down onto the pillow and sighed, shutting his eyes. A few minutes later, he heard a soft knocking on the door.

"Come in," he mumbled, feeling that it definitely would not have been the first time that his mother had come in his room to check on him. Maybe even his father came in at some point, but that almost seemed kind of strange.

He opened his eyes again as he heard the door open. Some light from the hallway spilled into the room, and he saw the figure of his mother come toward his bed. He was glad that his mother kept the light off, though.

"Rob, how are you feeling?" she asked once she reached his bed.

Rob shrugged as best as he could while lying down, and tried hard not to wince at the slight reminder of his fainting earlier. It was still just plain embarrassing.

"I'm glad that you're actually awake to see me this time," his mother added, smiling some. "You were completely out all afternoon. So do you feel any better?" she added, looking him concernedly.

"Yeah," he mumbled, feeling a bit cross. Obviously she could see that he was not completely better. He huffed as he held back a sharp retort.

"Are you hungry at all?" his mother asked. "I could make some rice, or toast. Or maybe I could make something later, if you don't feel up to it now?"

Rob sighed inwardly at the mention of him still being unwell. He could feel some frustration rising in him. He really did not want his mother in here currently. He knew was fine already, besides obviously being sick. It was his room, and his mother did not need to barge in here at any time whenever she felt like it!

"No, and I'm fine," he stated sharply.

His head throbbed some more, and he shut his eyes tight. He felt his mother put a gentle hand on his right shoulder. Rob felt his frustration abate some, then practically evaporate, leaving him a bit confused at his sudden sharpness.

He wondered why he had gotten so angrily so quickly like that. It did not particularly make sense, but maybe it was something else that went along with the cold, for whatever weird reason. Sure, he was rather annoyed at him still being sick, but not with anyone, and definitely not angry. Rob opened his eyes to see his mother thankfully not looked irritated at his outburst.

Instead, she nodded understandingly. "All right, then," she answered calmly. His mother then straightened, taking her hand off of him. "Some of your friends came by earlier with your homework," she added. "They did not actually come in, since you were still asleep. I put it on your desk."

Rob nodded, then wished he hadn't as his headache pulsed a bit more strongly for a bit. It was kind of interesting that they had come over in the first place. He was not quite used to that sort of thing. All of their group meetings had always taken place at someone else's house. What a reason for coming to his home for the first time, though.

"I'll come back to check on you a little bit later," his mother said. "I'll actually be taking off work tomorrow, so you won't have to stay here by yourself."

"Fine," he answered dully, half to his pillow.

His mother nodded. She left the room, quietly closing the door, leaving the room shrouded in shadows again.

He sighed and closed his eyes. Hopefully he would be better by the next day.


Rob whizzed on his skateboard around a corner in his neighborhood, on his way to school. Finally, his mother had allowed him to leave the house, though he knew that he had been still a little dizzy the day before. He was fine now, though. Despite one tiny random dizzy spell when opening his closet earlier, he felt completely back to usual.

He felt absolutely no tiredness whatever, and was completely caught up with his homework. Three days of being cooped up in his house due to sickness was way more than enough. Plus, he would actually be able to see the teacher's lectures instead of just having his friend's notes, as helpful as they had been. He would be able to take his own notes in class now.

Rob reached a familiar row of white townhouses, and grinned a bit as he saw the front door open of the one that Jamal lived in. Pushing harder with his left foot, he zoomed closer to his friend.

Jamal turned at what had to be the sound of the skateboard and grinned. "Hey, you're back to feeling better, huh?"

Rob nodded as they went down the sidewalk together. "Yeah, being sick is no fun," he answered back.

Jamal nodded. "Yeah, I know that one," he said. He then laughed, shaking his head. "There was one time that I was in class in third grade, and actually threw up on my desk."

Rob made a face. "Gross," he said, though he could not help but laugh some.

"Yeah, no kidding," Jamal responded. "That was embarrassing enough for me to stay away from the classroom for one day, but then I went back. It's kind of hard to stay away when the teacher makes you go to class."

Rob looked at his friend as they stopped at a corner where a brown station wagon was passing in front of them. "Wait, are you saying that you had actually skipped class?" he asked, surprised.

Jamal shrugged. "Yeah, but that was just that one time," he responded. "I hid in the janitor's closet. After a while, something fell on me and seemed to move. I thought that in there with this huge rat. I finally got it off me, and threw things at it, and when someone opened the door, I hid behind some buckets. The person didn't see me, but I saw what I had been fighting, which was a part of a string mop that was half molded together."

"Seriously?" Rob asked, laughing some as they began to cross the street.

Jamal chuckled. "Yeah, I guess mops can be pretty dangerous."

Rob shook his head in amusement. "I guess so. They actually let something get so moldy like that?" he asked.

"Well, most things in school closets aren't- that I've seen, anyway- but I guess they just forgot about that one," Jamal replied, shrugging good-naturedly. "Either that, or there are always random things that people just forget about in closets like that."

"Well, I sure don't want to go into any janitor's closets any time soon," Rob stated.

His friend laughed again. "Yeah, I still always try to watch out in any closet at school now."

"That sounds like a good idea."

A car horn honked for several seconds nearby. Rob quickly turned to the direction of the sound, but saw nothing unusual.

He was about to turn back around, when suddenly, a strange jolt of fear coursed through him. Rob stopped, staring in horror at a large van waiting at the crosswalk. For some odd reason, he was sure that it would bolt and run over him . . .

The feeling quickly passed, leaving Rob blinking in confusion as he stared at the very un-peculiar scene of a brown van stopped at the red light nearby. Inside it was just a middle school kid reading a book, with the driver leaning on one hand, looking rather bored.

He then quickly turned around and started back to Jamal, who had apparently not noticed him lagging behind. Rob tried to shove down his anxiety as he pushed his foot against the ground for more speed. It was probably nothing to worry about, anyway.


Rob passed a throng of students moving different directions for classes, with Jamal beside him. Both had just come from a music theory class that both of them had been somehow placed in.

"I wonder if I'll actually get those notes and stuff," Jamal wondered as they turned around a corner. "I mean, I get that the staffs- or, what did they teacher call them again?"

"Staves," Rob answered. He had been a bit surprised at the plural of the word, also, but he supposed that it really did not matter that much, as long as he got it correct.

Jamal nodded. "Yeah, those," he said. "I get that the staffs- staves- have the notes on them, but I can never seem to get the clefs right. Even in whichever grade I played the recorder, or whatever it was, I really didn't get it, and that was just one staff. Then again, I don't plan on playing a musical instrument, either. I guess I'll just have to study harder for this class." He grinned. "I like math a whole lot better, really."

Rob shrugged. "Yeah, I don't plan on playing an instrument either."

"I notice that you seem get music theory stuff, though," Jamal said. "Maybe you could help me with it."

"I think Lenni would be better at that," Rob said a bit awkwardly.

Jamal thought for a second, then shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so."

Rob knew Lenni had much more of a musical background. She also played piano, or at least the keyboard he had seen in her loft, and therefore probably already knew about both clefs as well as many more things that had not even been mentioned in the class yet.

He was doing at least somewhat well in the music class, though Lenni would probably truly understand it much better. Unlike Jamal, the notes made sense to him and he could recognize them easily. It was almost kind of pointless, though, since he did not know what the sounds were once they were on a staff. He kind of wished that the teacher played a note for the ones on the staves. Maybe she thought that the class was beyond that already, since apparently at least most of the class would have played at least the recorder, though.

"So what do recorders look like, anyway?" Rob asked his friend, attempting to change the subject.

Jamal looked at him, surprised. "You never played one?" he asked.

"No."

Jamal shrugged. "Well, recorders are these instrument things that are long and thin with lots of holes, and you blow into it to play it. I guess it's kind of like a flute, except that it was plastic and you play it straight up and down, instead of sideways."

"It must be a wind instrument, then." Rob could slightly picture it, though he wondered if all recorders were actually plastic, or if it was that since the class had learned to play them.

"I guess," Jamal responded. "Was it an air force thing that you didn't have to learn to play it?"

Rob shrugged as they went up some stairs to eventually get to Social Studies. "I don't think so," he replied. "Maybe all schools don't have that class, or I just somehow missed it since I moved around so much."

Jamal grinned a bit. "Hey, I wouldn't have minded skipping that class," he said. He laughed. "I mean, it was cool that I got an instrument, but I couldn't really play it. The only thing that I used the recorder for- when I wasn't actually practicing, anyway- was to scare my older sister Danitra by blasting the thing when she wasn't expecting it."

Rob raised his eyebrows. "I'm sure she didn't like that."

His friend laughed again. "No kidding," he said. "She could yell pretty loud, though I had to watch out if she threw something at me."

"Sounds painful."

Jamal grimaced. "Yeah, she throws hard," he replied. "I had to learn to duck if she hurled pencils at me. Wow, throw them at the right angle, and they can really hurt. Especially if they're really sharp."

Rob was about to respond, when startlingly, a sudden bout of vertigo came over him. Unbalanced, he toppled onto his knees, dropping his school things onto the floor.

"Hey, what-?" he heard Jamal say, surprised. "Rob, you okay?"

Rob rubbed his suddenly aching head with one hand, with the other palm down on the spinning cold tile flooring. For whatever reason, he was also suddenly exhausted.

"Hey, Rob," Jamal said worriedly.

Rob gazed at the whirling tiles, wishing that he could say that he was fine already, but the floor did not stop moving. Why did some oddball dizziness have to come now? Surely he was better from the cold he had had- though he remembered the slight bout from earlier in the morning in his house. For whatever reason, it worse now than it had been earlier. He was supposed to be better, though. Rob closed his eyes shut tight, hoping that would help with the vertigo.

"What's going on?"

He heard what that sounded like a male teacher before some quick footsteps came nearby, and cringed. He really did not also need some random teacher worrying about him.

"I don't know," Rob heard Jamal respond worriedly. "He was fine, and then suddenly he was like this."

His headache was thankfully rapidly dimming, and he lowered his hand to his lap. Rob opened his eyes. Thankfully, the tiles were not spinning as much. After blinking hard a few times to attempt to settle the rest of the vertigo, he raised his head and saw Jamal's concerned face, as well as an unfamiliar teacher. Maybe it was even one from eighth grade.

"I'm fine," he said, hoping that it was true.

"Are you sure?" the teacher asked, concern etched on his face.

Rob nodded. The dizziness had fully subsided now, as well as his headache. His queer exhaustion was also gone.

"Yeah," he replied. Hopefully he was completely fine. He definitely did not need more awkward incidents to occur, like in the lunch room.

Rob started to gather his school things that had fallen to the floor as the teacher stood up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the teacher still standing there, hovering over him as if he was concerned something else might happen. He grabbed his last notebook, some embarrassment coursing through him, and stacked it onto the small pile.

"Hey, here's this," he heard Jamal say.

Rob looked up and saw the dark-skinned boy holding out his pencil pouch. Feeling slightly irritated, Rob grabbed the blue case and stashed it on top of his Social Studies notebook.

"I could've gotten it myself," he said, frowning a little bit at his friend.

Jamal raised an eyebrow. "Hey, I was just trying to help," he responded.

Rob huffed slightly and stood up, holding his school things. "I know."

"Are you sure you're all right?" he heard the teacher ask from behind him.

Rob turned around. "Yeah," he quickly said. Beside him, Jamal had also stood, holding his own school things again.

He also noticed, with much more than a slight bit of awkwardness, that a small crowd of students had gathered around them. Some of them were staring at Rob with a mixture of curiosity and distaste, including a few that were actually in his Social Studies class, like Jamal. Perhaps there were even some there that had watched him collapse in the cafeteria several days ago. Maybe they even thought that he was contagious.

He avoided their staring eyes and quickly walked away, Jamal beside him. Behind them, he heard the teacher attempting to convince the students to go to their classes.

"So you're really okay, then?" Jamal asked as they neared the Social Studies classroom.

Rob inwardly groaned. "I'm fine," he practically spat. If one more person asked him that question . . .

He and Jamal went into the classroom with no more incidents, and he averted his attention to the teacher after the bell rang. Surely nothing else would happen, anyway.