Chapter 10

Sarah

So we found ourselves at the downtown pet shop. It was difficult to keep our cool, even for me. Every time someone spoke or made any kind of noise I jumped mentally.

To my outside appearance, however, I forced indifference. I knew full well that nobody was about to attack a few teenagers, yet in the back of my mind I suspected everyone. All the people around us might have been hosts to a disgusting creature. I searched for eye contact with everyone, looking for a tell-tale sign that they were with the enemy.

"The mice," Danielle announced quietly. Again, my heart skipped a beat in reaction. I forced myself to breathe normally and glanced at Cassidy. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't hide the fear that was on her face. Good, I would not be outdone by her.

I glanced at each cage tentatively, pretending to be making a serious decision. Really, I suppose it was a serious decision. A slip-up could get me killed. "That one is nice, black and sleek" I said, then pointed to a black mouse.

We had decided it best to act natural. I'm not that good of an actress, but I faked that I knew what I was doing anyway. How hard could it be? I was deciding on a pet mouse.

"I think we should get a brown mouse," Danielle said.

When I told Jennifer this, she nodded. 'I'm sure brown is very nice. It's the color of most floors.'

Okay, so it wasn't the subtlest hint ever, but it got the point across without sparking any suspicion in anyone who might have been around that understood sign language. We wanted a mouse that blended in with the floor to reduce our chances of being discovered.

Jennifer was wearing these ridiculously huge sunglasses and had her eyes closed behind them, to be sure that she could keep up the act that she was still blind. I still had to sign into her hands. The realization had dawned on us that this would be a very difficult miracle to explain. So, instead of basically blurting out to the whole world that Jennifer could see and draw attention to her, we decided to pretend that nothing had changed.

I searched for the most athletic brown mouse I could find. It was a difficult search, considering that they all had been raised in captivity and therefore got almost none of the exercise that a normal mouse would get. "This one might work."

Danielle called the saleslady over. "Can we see this mouse closer?"

"We don't let people handle the mice outside of their cages," she said.

"Please, miss, our friend would really like to pet the mouse before we buy it. She wants to know how it feels," Cassidy said politely, batting her eyelashes ever so slightly. It was an effective speech. The lady had obvious sympathy for our blind friend.

"All right, but you have to be careful. If you let it escape, you either have to catch it or buy it."

"Of course," Cassidy said sweetly. Danielle could hardly hide her bewilderment, but she managed to hold her tongue. Seriously, Cassidy had some amazing acting skills. I was pretty close to laughing out loud myself.

"Here," the saleslady said, handing Cassidy the mouse. It wiggled and crawled along her hands and she allowed it to move freely, moving one hand in front of the other so it had a never-ending walkway. Jennifer held out her hand at my command and received the creature gracefully. She too, used the hand-over hand gesture, but the mouse slowed its pace and eventually stood very still on her hand. She stroked it carefully and then moved her top hand away to let me touch it. I rubbed its head gently with one finger, feeling its essence travel into me. When I was finished, Danielle touched it and the mouse stayed in the same trance. I picked it up and handed it back to the saleslady.

"We'll have to think on it," I translated from Jennifer's signs. The lady smiled and put the mouse back in the cage.

"You're very good with animals," she observed before walking off to find another customer in need.

"Do you think she was one of them?" Cassidy whispered.

I looked back in the direction she had gone. "She seems normal."

"So does Paula," Danielle said so quietly that I was surprised that I had heard her. We walked out of the store in silence.

That silence carried on as we made our way out of the mall. I still felt jumpy, and if I wasn't mistaken, Danielle shuddered every time someone walked past. I'll have to admit that we must have seemed very suspicious, despite our desperate attempts to hide it.

At that point, something in my pocket moved, and I must have leapt three feet into the air. Danielle let out a small yelp of surprise as a loud noise joined in the movement and I landed on her foot. It took a second for me to realize what had happened.

"Rescue me! Oh take me in your arms, rescue me!" The nearly incomprehensible song was blurted out over the two-bit speaker on my cell phone. I dug into my pocket and retrieved the little monstrosity, only to have Cassidy erupt into huge fits of laughter. She doubled over, looking like that was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. I'd deal with her later.

I flipped open the cell phone. "Hello?" I asked of the caller, my hand still shaking a bit from being startled.

"Hello Sarah? Is Jennifer with you?" said a concerned voice on the other side. It was Heather, a girl who worked at the hospital. She sounded on edge.

"Yeah," I said, glad to know that it was only her and not some psycho trying to track us down.

"Good. Look, I don't have much time, but…hey! Let me go! AHHHH!" There was a click, and the line went dead. I think my eyes were popping out of their sockets right then, because Cassidy's laughing screeched to a halt and Danielle was staring at me. I closed the phone slowly, trying to figure out exactly what had happened.

After about ten seconds of more silence, Danielle pressed me to explain. "Who was it?"

I told all three about the call, and immediately Danielle said, "Star sixty-nine. Now."

"What?" Cassidy asked.

I flipped open the phone and pressed the three magical numbers that let me call back the last person that called me. "Hello?" a voice said. I didn't know who it was. I plugged my other ear as Danielle explained the star sixty-nine function to Cassidy.

"Hello, may I please talk to Heather?" I asked, voice still shaky.

"One moment."

I waited about twenty seconds filled with rustling sounds that only added to my anxiety before Heather's voice finally came through the speaker. "Hello?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Heather, what happened?"

"Oh, hey Sarah. Happy April fools! Um… three months late!"

"What?" I asked incredulously.

"I was bored and figured I'd make a little prank call. Did I scare you?" Her voice was confident, not at all like there had actually been anything wrong. If she had been scared into saying that as a cover story, it would have shown in her voice.

"A little bit," I said, tension releasing everywhere in my body. "Please, never do that again."

"Oh come on Sarah, it was just a joke," Heather said, laughing lightly. "Next time let us know when you kidnap Jennifer for the night okay?"

"I will," I said. "Bye."

"See you later."

I hung up with a sigh of relief. Danielle immediately inquired about the conversation and I told her what had happened.

"A rude joke to play when someone's on edge," Danielle said.

"She didn't know that," I said defensively.

Cassidy shook her head with an amused look on her face.

"What's your problem?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing."

"It wasn't that funny, you know. If your cell had gone off like that, you would freak too."

"Whatever you say Barbie."

"Don't call me Barbie!" I said angrily.

"Okay Barbie," she replied with a smirk. I swear, I was inches from beating her smug little face in when Danielle intervened.

"Okay, time to go home. Rest up, finish homework, that kind of stuff. I'll see you guys tomorrow at school."

Reluctantly, I grabbed Jennifer's wrist and led her away. She waved goodbye to everyone, but waited until we were safely outside to ask for the whole story in detail. I gave it to her, and she told me once again how I shouldn't have reacted to Cassidy's taunts.

'She's trying to make you mad. Don't let her.'

'Harder than it sounds.'

'Then it sucks to be you. You know, she doesn't tease Danielle.'

'What are you, my mother?'

'Think of me as your conscience,' she said with a huge grin on her face.

'Shut up! I have a conscience of my own!'

'Sure you do.'

"Hey!" I said aloud. Jennifer broke away and ran. I chased her playfully, and it wasn't long before she tripped off the sidewalk and onto the grass beside it, successfully staining her jeans. I laughed as she stood up and brushed herself off, pretending to be dignified.

'Don't even talk to me,' she signed. I laughed again.

'Stay at my place tonight so you don't have to come running over in the middle of the night.'

'And Keri?'

'Heather will feed her. I can't believe that girl! She scared me half to death. Prank calls should be illegal.'

'You know what's scarier?' Jennifer asked.

'What's scarier?'

'It could have been real. It is real. It's happening, and it could have been happening to her.'

A thought struck me. 'Oh God! What if it is?'

Jennifer nodded solemnly, as if she had already known.

'Well, we have to do something!' I signed angrily. Heather had been taken! How had I not known? Of course she wasn't joking, she never played pranks on anyone. 'We have to go to the hospital right now and save her!'

Jennifer grabbed my wrist firmly and yanked me back before I could even move. She opened her eyes behind the sunglasses and looked straight into mine. It was creepy, having never seen her do that before. 'No,' she signed. 'Don't even think about it.'

'What the hell is wrong with you?' I asked. 'We have to save her!'

'Sarah, open your eyes! There is nothing we can do! That thing is in her head, and I doubt it's leaving any time soon. Even if you do manage to get that thing out, what happens then? If you think these things are stupid, you're sadly mistaken. They have spaceships. They'll put another one in her head.'

'Then we'll take her away so they can't.' It couldn't have been hopeless. Couldn't have.

'Then they'll take her family, your family, me, you, anyone they can. If this is a secret, they're really good at keeping it that way.'

I narrowed my eyes. 'How do you know that?' Was the person I'd trusted so long something else?

'Don't be stupid Sarah.'

'I'm not being stupid,' I said truthfully.

'It's called rational thinking. You should try it some time. It's all very obvious. Not like I couldn't just figure that out. It's called thinking like the enemy. You have to know what they'll do.'

I was about to retort, but something stopped me. I looked at Jennifer curiously, watching the way she stood, the way she moved and the way she waited for my response with patience. I thought about what would happen if she were one of them. I remembered those raptors and the way Paula had acted. Suddenly, the realization dawned on me. Jennifer couldn't have been one of them. Danielle and Cassidy weren't either. They were the only people in the world that I knew for sure about, the only ones I could trust. I then realized that out of all the billions of people in the world, how truly alone we were.