The Headmaster's Wife(88)

Jimmy sat down in the plastic-upholstered chair near the window. “Well, I only got in about two and a half hours ago, and I’ve only heard all this secondhand from your mother, so take whatever I say with a certain amount of caution, okay? The best guess this morning seems to be caffeine poisoning.”

“Ah,” Mark said, “that’s why no coffee.”

“Right. Also why no chocolate, which is apparently full of caffeine, too. No caffeine at all of any kind for at least thirty days.”

“So what happened? Did I pass out?”

“You started by vomiting on some guy’s ceiling—”

“On his ceiling? What guy? Where?”

“At your dorm. Then you had convulsions. Then you passed out. Demarkian showed up in the middle of the convulsions and got them to call nine-one-one, which they were apparently not thinking of doing. Nine-one-one brought you here. Your mother got in about an hour or so later because she’d already started up because Gregor had called to say that you looked like you were dying—”

“He called from the inn while I was there,” Mark said dismissively. “I know. Wait. Mom’s here, right? I saw her last night, but I was still out of it and I thought I was home.”

“She’s got meetings over at the school.”

“Whoo boy. Is she suing everybody on the planet, or has she skipped that part and gone directly to homicide?”

“She’s got a meeting this afternoon with the Boston contact firm for Shelby, Dredson and Cranch.”

“Right,” Mark said. “You’ve been in Hayes House, haven’t you? The ceilings are twenty feet high. How did I vomit on the ceiling?”

“Don’t ask me,” Jimmy said. “I told you; I’ve just wandered in. I wasn’t even coming originally before you endedup here. Liz was going to come down, assess the situation, and decide if you needed to be pulled out of school and brought back home.”

“She decided that before she’d left, did she?”

“Pretty much,” Jimmy said.

“She’s always hated this place,” Mark said. “Not this place. The Windsor Academy. Crap, I don’t know. I asked Mr. Demarkian down here, did you know that?”

“Yes, he told Liz and Liz told me.”

“I don’t think Michael was murdered or anything. It’s not that. It’s just that this place is so odd, and I wasn’t thinking straight and I couldn’t figure it out. Except that I am thinking straight today. I mean, I’m a little fuzzy, but mostly I’m okay. And I was mostly okay over at the inn last night with Gregor. Except I’m more all right now. I can’t read anymore, did I tell you that?”

“No,” Jimmy said, “how can you not be able to read anymore?”

“I don’t know,” Mark said. “I try to read but nothing makes sense. So I just sort of make myself, but when I finish the page I don’t understand what the hell I’ve read. It’s been going on for months. It was going on at Christmas—”

“You were pretty damned strange at Christmas. Your mother and I thought you were—”

on drugs,” Mark said, “but I’m not. I’m—”

“Relax,” Jimmy said, “that much I know. They did tests. You’re clean. Except for the caffeine. That’s something I know about, too. I mean, for Christ’s sake, Mark. Drink a little coffee to keep yourself awake, but those caffeine tablets are murder. I know, I used to do that to myself when I still thought I was going to get a college education, pop a couple of those and stay up all night trying to study, but the tiling is—”

“What are caffeine tablets?”

“NoDoz. Vivarin. That kind of thing. They’ve got generic ones. I’ve seen them in the drugstores. They’re a stupid way to go. They’ve got as much caffeine in one of them as in a cup of strong black coffee, and everybody takes five or six. You apparently took about thirty.”

“I did not,” Mark said. “I’ve never taken a caffeine tablet in my life.”

“Well, there were pieces of the damned things in your stomach when they pumped it, kid. And in the vomit on your clothes. Your mother, speaking of homicide, is ready to kill you.”

“I’ve never taken a caffeine tablet in my life,” Mark repeated. “And if this gets to be like the drug thing, where nobody believes me, I’ll scream. Or break something. I’m big enough to break something serious these days. I mean, for Christ’s sake, Jimmy, what do you take me for? I know I’ve been behaving like an irresponsible jerk this year, but I’m not an idiot. I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee, yes, okay, maybe too much, maybe about ten cups a day. I shouldn’t have done that, thinking about it sounds pretty stupid itself. But I don’t pop pills. I won’t even take Tylenol for a headache most of the time.”