Chapter Two:
And Jason Also Visits

Rob blearily opened his eyes as he heard his alarm clock ringing. The repetitive sound was just plainly annoying . . . He kind of wished that he had a buzz one that shook the mattress, like his brother Jason. He slowly got up out of bed-

And nearly fell on the floor.

Rob groaned ever so slightly, hanging onto the wooden part of the top bunk, trying to battle some vertigo overtop of sheer exhaustion. Why was it back again?

Who knew. However, alarms did not turn off themselves, as least not the type that he had, for a very long while. Holding on to the bed for as long as he could, he made his way shakily over to his desk where his alarm clock rested. He fumbled with the switch on the side before the annoyed beeping stopped.

Rob looked around the slightly spinning room. Hopefully the vertigo would clear up soon. There was no way that he could even walk to school with the way he felt currently, let alone ride a skateboard.

His desk chair was closer to him than his bed. Perhaps he could wait there for a few minutes or however long it would take for the dizziness to subside.

For a brief moment, he wished that his mother was home. His mother had taken up an art gallery job soon after his family had moved to Brooklyn, though; he knew that it was yet another thing that was due to (well, Rob had sometimes hoped instead) where they were staying being permanent. He was not living in yet another military base, and therefore, they would not have to move yet again within less than a year, when Rob's father was transferred.

Rob shook his head, trying to quell the thoughts of wishing for his mother currently. He was definitely not in elementary school, and his mother liked having a job. He should be able to take care of himself.

Rob slowly pulled out his desk chair while heavily leaning on the edge of his desk with his other hand. He managed to pull the chair out a sufficient amount for him to sit on it; he plopped right down, and let his head rest on his arms. Rob then raised his head, a bit confused. Why was his right wrist, where he had been laying his head, slightly wet?

He put a hand on his forehead, and was surprised to feel moisture there. For some odd reason, he was sweating. He put his hand on his forehead again, still slightly dizzy. Did he have a fever? It was not a cheering thought. He was supposed to be better, not still sick. Maybe he had caught something else?

Rob sighed. He definitely did not want his mother to have to stay home from her work again just to be with him, or worse, for her to call someone else.

Perhaps if he rested just a little bit, he could go to school after the vertigo abated enough. Sighing, Rob rested his sweaty head on his arms again . . .


The doorbell was ringing. Rob wearily lifted his head. Thankfully, his dizziness had disappeared, though he felt quite exhausted. He wondered if he could even make it to the doorbell if he even wanted to. Then again, he did not particularly want to do that currently since he still happened to be in his pajamas.

Whoever was ringing the doorbell would not stop. Actually, they were pressing it twice as fast now. Rob rolled his eyes slightly. Maybe it was some random younger kid in the neighborhood that was pulling some prank, though the double-time ringing rather ruined the surprise.

Rob tried to ignore the bell and looked at his alarm clock. Four-fifteen.

He blanched. How could he have slept for so long, and at his desk, even?

Rob groaned a bit. Yet another day that he had missed school. Hopefully the homework was not too hard.

The ringing doorbell stopped, only to be replaced with someone tapping at the window. Actually, it was multiple people tapping- no actually, they were zombies as they came through the walls, reaching for him with long, curled black fingers, trying to touch him with their ice-cold touch to bring them to their practically deadened world of gnarled roots, thick mists, and endless thorns and fear . . .

Rob gasped as he sat upright. He was still at his desk, and weirdly, like his dream, he was still exhausted. He looked at his room. At least there were no zombies around him.

He rubbed his aching head- great, another headache- and looked around the room. Since he did not feel any vertigo, maybe he could even go to school now. Hopefully he would not be too late.

Rob looked at his alarm clock, and his heart instantly sank as he saw the time. Three-thirty two.

He sighed, sinking back down onto the desk chair.

Just great. He had actually missed school again. At least there were no tests today, though.

After visiting the bathroom quickly, he sank down onto his bed, which was definitely better than a desk chair. Maybe tomorrow he would not be so exhausted.

He then heard a familiar sound of a slowly moving vehicle outside. Without looking out his window, he knew that it was the mail truck.

Rob suddenly remembered that his mother had mentioned to him that he should get the mail after coming home from school. His father was expecting some important mail, and had specifically stated that he did not want it left in the mailbox until he got home, which would be much later today.

Feeling rather sullen toward mailboxes that were all the way outside by the curb instead of helpfully near the front door, he slowly got dressed and trudged outside. Once back in the house, he plopped the mail on the kitchen counter.

Rob sighed and walked back toward his room. Before he had reached the open doorway, he had to steady himself against the wall against a short dizzy spell. He managed to flop on his bed again, planning on not moving for at least another hour.

A few seconds later- or maybe it was minutes, or even hours- he fuzzily opened his eyes in time to see some letters as they flew one at a time in front of him to spell out a message, formed from various books and other things in his room.

RALLY J

Rob groaned. Of course the team would call a meeting when he was sick. Even if they had guessed that since he had not been at school today, he supposed that he could still write a quick note stating that he could not come, though, just in case.

He slowly got up from his bed, and started to make his way to his desk-


Voices.

There were voices around him. His parents, maybe?

Rob realized that his eyes were closed. Maybe his parents were home, and had found him asleep on his bed, though that did not quite seem right. He had been on his bed, though he had gotten up from it, and had been doing something else. But what?

He considered going back to sleep, but for some reason, things were not quite right.

For some reason, his bed was moving. He could feel it underneath him, rocking ever so slightly like someone was carrying it. Actually, it was not rocking anymore, but was buzzing a little bit, with slight vibrations underneath him, like someone had put the bed on a cart.

. . . What? Maybe he was just dizzy again, though. No way someone could put the bunk bed on a cart. It would be way too large for that. Actually, the beds would have to be dismantled before even being able to get them outside of the bedroom.

Rob managed to open his eyes to see a spinning blue and white sky above him. He was blinking in confusion- ceilings did not usually change into skies- when he heard a familiar voice call out.

"Rob!"

He blinked again as he heard Gaby, sounding concerned. What was she doing near his house? Then again, what was he doing outside in the first place?

Another voice spoke up, this time of an unfamiliar grown-up. "Just be calm, little girl. We've got him."

Rob tried to look at the speaker, but they were not in his range of vision. He could see his front yard, though, and nearly out of the corner of his vision, he could see Gaby, as well as a shaken-looking Alex and someone else's blue jacket.

What was going on? The bed he was on only kept on buzzing underneath him, and he could see the driveway.

The bed was then lifted again. Rob could barely keep his eyes open, and the vertigo was extremely disorienting. He wanted to know what in the world had happened, though.

The sky turned into a white ceiling, and the bed was now resting on a floor of some type, in a small room with white walls, medical instruments, and someone in a uniform telling him to rest . . .

As yet someone else checked his pulse ("A little rapid. Less than it was in the house. Currently faster right now probably due to fever and stress") he realized that he was in an ambulance.

As the vehicle started moving, he tried to not groan, even though he was rather confused and more than a bit frightened.

Why was he so sick again, and this time enough to actually need an ambulance? He now knew that he had to have fainted (again . . .) sometime right after he had seen Jamal's rally message. Maybe Ghostwriter could tell when one of the team became unconscious somehow, and had alerted the team? Perhaps he could tell that it was different than people going to sleep.

The small room in the ambulance was still spinning. He closed his eyes, wondering what his parents were going to say . . .


Rob opened his eyes to see his mother worriedly looking at him. From her lowered position nearby him, he could tell that she was sitting down.

"Rob, are you all right?" she asked.

Rob sighed, but nodded. He still (still? How annoying) felt tired, but at least the room, probably some hospital room somewhere, was not spinning at all.

"Yeah," he mumbled.

His mother still did not look fully appeased, though that made sense. Rob just wished that he was out of the hospital.

"Were you feeling sick again this morning?" she asked. "I was told that you weren't at school today."

Rob nodded tiredly. "Yeah," he responded again.

He saw his mother's concerned look deepen as she asked another question. "When did you collapse?" she asked softly. "Do you remember?"

Rob tried not to frown as he suddenly noticed some doctor nearby writing on a clipboard. Trying to ignore his annoyance, he replied. "Well, I saw my alarm clock after waking up again later. It was after three."

At the moment, he could not remember what time it had been exactly, but frustratingly enough, recalled with clarity the stupid dream that he had had before then. He sighed, a bit irritated as he tried to shove the dream out of his mind.

"I saw Alex and Gaby outside the house," he said. "After the ambulance came."

His mother actually smiled some. "It was all five of your friends, actually, and it was a good thing they did come," she said. "They said that came with your homework. No one answered the doorbell, so they went in the house." She then frowned. "Apparently the front door was somehow unlocked."

Rob nodded again. "Yeah, I got the mail earlier," he explained.

His mother's face looked a bit relieved as she smiled a bit. "At least it was not your father or I, or even someone else that had left it unlocked, then." She then became more concerned again. "Your friends had found you unconscious in your room. I wasn't told the exact time, but right now it is" –she checked her watch- "five thirty."

The male doctor spoke up, looking up from his clipboard. "The 9-1-1 call was made at four-twenty pm today at your address," he stated.

Rob saw his mother look at the doctor. "Thank you. Yes, I was told that one of his friends had called."

Another doctor came in, and did some routine hospital and doctor things, like checking his pulse (normal speed) and temperature (102°, lower than 104°, as it had been earlier).

Rob sighed some as his mother and the doctor talked some. At least he was not to stay in the hospital, but yet again, he would have to stay home from school. How annoying. Why was his stupid cold lasting so long? At least the doctor (and other doctors, with more tests) had said that he did not have bronchitis, or anything more serious. Maybe he should never even attempt to get the mail during a cold anymore, to avoid an unplanned hospital visit? How weird.

A few hours later, he was flat on his stomach on his bed again as the room spun around him with yet another utterly throbbing headache. He had seen his father earlier, who had merely ordered him to rest after making sure that he had taken his medicine.

Rob groaned as he shut his eyes tight. He sure hoped that he would actually be better soon.


Rob frowned at a particular difficult Science question. After checking at the textbook again, he once more leafed through the copy of Jamal's handwritten notes, and found something that looked like it would help. His friends were quite helpful in lending their school notes, though he had noticed that Jamal's tended to be the best. Finally, he finished the answer.

A few more questions later, he was done with the subject and with his homework- for today, anyway. Then there was be the next day, and the next day . . . until whenever he would be allowed to go back to school. At some point.

Rob heard the doorbell ring again, as it had earlier with Jamal and Lenni with his homework. They had not stayed, since of course they had had their own homework to finish, though.

He had just put away his books and other things in his back in his backpack when his mother knocked on the door of his bedroom.

"Come in," Rob called.

The door opened, and his mother walked in through the doorway. She smiled briefly before talking.

"Your friends are at the door," she said.

Rob started a bit. "They are?" he asked. He had already gotten his homework. Why did they want to visit again?

Then again, maybe it was kind of like him wanting to visit Gaby when she had become sick from the poison in the community garden- except that was a whole lot different. For one thing, a whole bunch of people had been getting sick there. This time, it was just him.

"Are you feeling up to them visiting?" his mother asked.

Rob blinked a bit. His friends had never come into his house . . . Oh right, at least one of them had, when he had been found unconscious (it was still a creepy thought) three days ago.

"Uh, sure," he said.

His mother nodded, and bent down some to put a hand to his forehead before he could pull away.

"I'm fine," he said, irritably jerking from her just after she pulled her hand away. He quickly latched the buckle on the front flap of his backpack and slung it over the back of his chair.

Rob saw his mother nod again. "I know you're better, but not completely," she said. "At least you still don't have a fever, the same as earlier today." She then smiled some. "You friends can visit, but I would prefer you did not go outside, all right? And don't overexert yourself."

Rob nodded, feeling a little sullen due to being sick in the first place. His mother smiled and left the room, leaving the door open.

He quickly looked around his room, but nothing needed to be picked up. Rob stood and walked to his bed- he supposed that one of his friends could use the desk chair- and waited anxiously. He heard footsteps in the house from multiple people, as well as his friends voices, including Lenni thanking his mother for letting them come in.

"Yo, Rob," he heard Jamal say.

Rob looked up to see Jamal, Gaby and Lenni looking at him. He could spot Alex and Tina behind them.

"Can we come in?" Lenni asked friendlily.

He nodded. "Yeah, sure."

All of his friends came into his room, and Lenni closed the door closed the door behind them. Gaby was looking at the various things on the walls, while Tina was looking at the books on the shelves near his bed.

"That's a lot of books," she said.

He shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "I like to read," he said.

Jamal came up to him and grinned, putting him more at ease. "Well, the first thing that I want to say is that I'm definitely glad that you're feeling better."

"Yeah," Lenni agreed, nodding wholeheartedly.

Tina nodded. "That was pretty scary," she stated, wincing a bit.

Rob blanched. The whole incident to him was still pretty hazy, and he wished it had not occurred in the first place.

"So do you actually remember fainting at all?" Gaby asked, looking interested.

Her brother instantly turned on her. "Gaby!" he stated furiously, frowning intensely. "You don't need to ask that!"

Rob shrugged. "It's fine," he said, attempting to still sound casual. "I don't really remember most of what happened, I think," he said.

Gaby put a hand on one leg of the top bunk. "So Ghostwriter said that you had gotten Jamal's rally message."

Rob nodded. "Yeah, I saw it."

Alex then recounted what happened next. "You wouldn't believe it," he said. "Ghostwriter sent the rally message, and then came back quick telling me and Jamal- I was with him near the bodega- and that something was wrong with you."

Jamal nodded darkly. "He said that you were unconscious, and to come quick," he relayed. "And once we got there, you were on the floor of your room, with a fever and your pulse going crazy."

"Definitely not good," Alex added.

Rob flinched a bit, then spoke. "So it was because of Ghostwriter that you guys were at my house then," he stated quietly. He had been correct in his suspicions after all.

Alex nodded. "Yeah. I didn't even know that he could do that."

Lenni then nodded from where she standing near Jamal. "It was a good thing," she said.

Tina spoke up again. "But why was the front door unlocked?" she asked, her face concerned.

Rob answered. "Oh, I had gotten the mail," he said. It had been a good thing that he had heard the mail truck. That way, his friends did not have to break a window pane to unlock a door somewhere.

Alex actually grinned. "Oh, so you didn't fall from your skateboard trying to get to school, then, before going back inside."

Rob huffed in frustration at the Latino boy. "No, I didn't," he answered curtly. He then turned to the rest of the team. "Anyway, thanks for coming and helping," he said a bit awkwardly, yet grateful at the same time.

His friends all grinned in varying degrees. "Thank Ghostwriter," Gaby suggested. "He was the reason why we came."

He shrugged. "I guess I should," he said.

Rob had stood, ready to retrieve some paper from a desk drawer, when a bit of vertigo suddenly hit him and he started to sway. Instantly, multiple pairs of willing hands stopped him from falling to the floor. Jamal and Alex helped him sit back down on the bed.

"Are you okay?" Lenni asked, her eyes slightly wide in fright.

Rob nodded, trying to blink away the dizziness. "Yeah," he said. Thankfully the vertigo vanished after a few seconds.

"I guess it's safe to say that you're not completely better yet," Jamal stated, raising an eyebrow.

Rob shrugged. "Yeah, well."

"We could get some paper for you," Tina suggested.

"I guess," he consented, suppressing a sigh.

Apparently his friend did not know that he had had many random dizzy spells after coming back home from the hospital. Even though some had lasted a lot longer, he had always been fine afterward at some point. At least he had not actually fainted again since then, though.

"So where is the paper?" Gaby asked, looking around the room.

"In the bottom desk drawer," Rob answered, pointing. He kind of wished that he had stayed at the desk now. He could have gotten the paper just fine, without all of the extra fuss.

The Latino girl nodded and ran and retrieved a sheet, coming back to him. Rob nodded his thanks and grabbed a random book to write on from a shelf behind him. He briefly saw the cover of The Forgotten Door before covering it with the paper and uncapping his pen from the cord around his neck.

Rob wrote a brief note of thanks to Ghostwriter. He then watched as letters flew upward from both the note and the book underneath it to form a simple message.

Friends will always help

He saw Jamal was grinning as he nodded. "He has that right," the dark-skinned boy stated firmly. The rest of the team also nodded in agreement.

Rob smiled some. Even though he was still not completely used to having a group of steady friends, he was glad that he could count on them- including Ghostwriter.

The message soon faded. Rob spotted Gaby looking curiously at the beds. "So why do you have a bunk bed?" she asked.

Alex suddenly stared at the beds also, as if just realizing that they were there. "Oh yeah," he said. "I remember that I saw them when I was in your room the other day. Before the ambulance came."

Rob winced a tiny bit at the reminder yet again, but shrugged. "It's for my brother Jason," he informed them. He was not really sure if he was quite ready to tell his friends about his older brother, though it was unfortunately a "bit" too late for that.

Jamal looked interested. "Does he go to college, like Danitra?" he asked, naming his older sister that Rob had seen a couple of times.

Rob shook his head. "No, Jason's deaf," he explained. "He goes to a special school in Washington D.C."

He saw his friends' eyes widen at the mention of his brother's disability. What did they think about it?

"So does he use sign language?" Tina asked.

Rob nodded. "Yeah, he does," he responded. "He also reads lips."

Even as he said that- though he was proud of Jason for mastering the difficult skill- it might lead to another one that was much harder, and which his brother could not do . . . Perhaps his friends would not think to ask about it, anyway. A whole lot of hearing people did not really associate- or think it possible- that deaf people could learn to talk. (That was, of course, if they did not know about Helen Keller.)

"Is lip reading hard?" Gaby asked.

"Yeah, it is. Not every deaf person can do it as well as he can."

Alex grinned. "That sounds pretty neat."

Rob smiled some at the compliment. "Yeah."

Lenni was looking concerned. "So do you ever get to see him?" she asked.

Rob winced a bit as Lenni's question hit spot on many past arguments with his father, all of which had ended in Jason staying away from home.

Jason was deaf, and therefore would receive a better education from people better equipped for handling hearing impaired students. It took too much time and effort to find yet another service or tutor for Jason each time they moved to a different military base. Jason would benefit much more from an environment of deaf people surrounding him, instead of only a hearing brother and mother (and his father when he was not deployed), as well the rest of the hearing military community, most of which did not know sign language . . .

He huffed inwardly, trying to hide years' worth of frustration from his friends. He had no idea if Jason himself even wanted to live at home again, even though their father was retired now. After all, unlike Rob, Jason had stayed in one place for years, and even had made friends there. He had also learned more skills, such as lip-reading, that he had never even been began to be taught while in various military bases around the country.

. . . And plus, it would still remain the same if he stayed where he was- part of a culture where he was not considered weird due to being deaf. Was it simply stupid for Rob to want Jason back at home with him again, someone that was only a hearing brother, even if he knew sign language? Even though he did know it well, he did not sign as fluently, as fast, as proficiently as a native would . . .

Meanwhile, oblivious to Rob's internal arguments with himself, Gaby was frowning at the taller brown-haired girl. "If Rob didn't ever see him, he wouldn't have a bunk bed in his room in the first place," she pointed out.

Rob nodded. "Yeah, I see him sometimes, like for vacations, and also during the summer," he stated, trying to sound nonchalant enough.

However, Lenni was not looking convinced. "You miss him, right?" she asked.

Rob sighed. "Well, yeah," he admitted.

"That must be pretty rough," Jamal said. He was looking rather concerned.

"But he always comes back, though," Rob said.

Tina nodded. "That's a good thing," the Vietnamese girl stated, smiling some.

"When's he coming back next?" Lenni asked.

"In about two months," he responded, inwardly scowling a little bit. It was "just" two months. "His school has three days of conferences then."

"Could I see a picture of him?" Gaby asked.

Rob blinked, his rage subsiding. He had not been anticipating that question, though he shrugged. "Sure, I guess," he replied. He stood, even as Lenni gasped little bit.

"I'm fine," he told her sternly.

He winced a bit as the brunette girl frowned, looking a bit put out, but tried to ignore it as he went to his closet and pulled out a small box.

Rob opened it and pulled out a small photo album. This one held some of the various pictures that Jason had sent him through the mail in the years after he had been sent away. They had all been copied and put in the family photo albums, but he liked to have some pictures of his older brother just for himself, though.

He went back to the bed, and opened the album to the last page. Jason was grinning with his roommate, as well as two elementary age boys. The rest of the team crowded around him, eyeing the pictures curiously.

"That's him right there," he said, pointing to the older dark-haired boy to the far left in the top left photo.

Lenni was smiling some. "Hey, he looks a lot like you," she stated.

Rob shrugged. He got that a lot when Jason was around. And then of course, some nastier people would then raise their eyebrows and stride on past them- or make stupid comments- when they found out that Jason was deaf . . .

"Who's he with?" Tina asked.

Rob explained. "That's one of his friends from his school. They're both in a program where they're helping newer younger students adjust to being away from home. That's his student," –he pointed to an eight-year-old Japanese-American boy- "and the other one is the kid that his friend is helping with."

"That sounds pretty neat," Jamal commented.

Rob nodded. "Yeah, Jason said in a letter that he likes doing it."

He grinned inwardly, as he also remembered what else Jason said to him in some of his most recent letters. The boy he was helping, though fine in the picture, had a definite knack for getting into trouble without even trying. Jason once even had to crawl through a small basement doorway that had not been used in years to find the smaller kid, who had somehow gotten himself stuck there after (seriously) falling through a one-way trap door . . . And that was just one of many weird incidents.

It seemed a bit too weird to tell a bunch about his older brother, though, including those type of exploits. He soon put away the album in the closet again. Thankfully, Gaby then changed the subject to something funny that had happened in her family's store.

After chatting a while longer, even Alex could tell that he was getting pretty tired after yet another failed attempt to hide a yawn.

His friends soon left after that. Rob smiled a bit. He was quite glad that his friends accepted Jason, unlike many people that he had met. It was just another good thing about finally having a permanent home in the first place.