“Is it?”
“I’ve been using it all year and nothing’s happened yet,” Mark said.
“So she gave you the coffee,” Gregor said. “Then what?”
“Then I took the coffee back to Sheldon’s apartment. And he started in on me practically immediately. I was going to spill it. I was going to ruin his carpet. It isn’t his carpet in the first place. It belongs to the school. I was a big problem to have around. I was invading his privacy. Yada yada yada. So I gulped the coffee down and brought the cup back to Cherie’s apartment because Sheldon didn’t want it in his sink. Ask him why. I’d stopped listening. Then I went to myroom and closed the door and tried to read. I just sort of sat around for a while. Maybe ten minutes. Then Sheldon came barging in on me to tell me to turn the CD player off, except that it wasn’t on. He just needs to think he can hear it even when I have the earphones on. Except this time I didn’t even have the earphones on. It was off. He comes barging into my room, and all of a sudden I felt really sick to my stomach. So I jumped up and pushed him out of the way, and he fell against the door. And he yelled at me. And that’s all I remember. Really. I started throwing up, I remember that. But I don’t remember anything else until I woke up here in the middle of the night and thought I was home because I saw Mom. It was not good.”
“No,” Gregor said. “I can see that it wasn’t good. Do you mind if I ask why it is you want to continue the year in this place? I know you somewhat. I remember you very well from that time in Holman. You’ve got a lot more going for you than anybody here seems to recognize. Why put up with this nonsense?”
“Because,” Mark said, “if I don’t, they win.”
Gregor Demarkian sighed. Mark could tell Gregor had no idea what he was talking about, but in a way that was all right. His own mother didn’t get it exactly either. Sometime during their conversation, Gregor had shrugged off his coat and left it on the bed. Now he stood up, picked it up, and put it on.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “Your mother and stepfather are supposed to be on their way here, but it may take them a little time. The media have discovered Windsor.”
“It must be a zoo,” Mark said.
“Let’s just say that there isn’t any actual moving traffic on Main Street,” Gregor said. “That’s why you’re getting all those wonderful pictures of Hayes House on CNN. Just sit around and rest some more, Mark, will you? It won’t be all that much longer before we get this cleared up. Then you can work things out with your mother any way you want. In the meantime, it isn’t safe for you on that campus, and you should know it.”
“Of course I know it,” Mark said politely; but he was lying, and he knew that if his mother could have heard the sound of his voice, she would have known he was lying.
Gregor went out. Mark waited for a while, hearing his footsteps in the hall. Then he started thinking. He would have to be very careful. His mother was supposed to be on her way here; and even with the mess caused by a full-blown media blitz, it wasn’t impossible that she was already down in the lobby. It would be just his luck to come flying out of the elevators only to come face-to-face with Jimmy, who would sympathize but not be much help. It would be almost as bad, if not worse, if he made it out of the hospital and started hitchhiking back to school, only to be spotted by both Mom and Jimmy as they drove in the other direction on their way to see him. Then he’d be subjected not only to capture, but to capture in full view of the American television public, who’d probably just love the sight of a pampered rich kid being hauled off to purgatory by his very own mother He just wanted to get out, that’s all. He just wanted to be out in the open air, walking around in the real world, instead of cooped up in a place where they treated french fries as lethal weapons.
Besides, he had this terrible feeling that if he didn’t get back to school, he’d end up missing the whole tiling. There he would be, the only living star of this drama, and he wouldn’t know anything about it because he wouldn’t have had a part in it. He didn’t believe what Mr. Demarkian said about the murderer trying to get at him a second time. He knew that somebody must have tried to kill him once—otherwise, he wouldn’t have been full of arsenic—but since it seemed to him to be self-evident that he was both completely harmless and completely clueless about whatever had been going on with Michael Feyre, he had trouble taking it seriously. And he would be careful this time. He wouldn’t eat anything on campus except stuff from vending machines or in secure packaging, and he’d check the seals. He wouldn’t drink coffee at all.