The Orphan of Awkward Falls (24 page)

Thaddeus was frozen with fear, as well as from the freezing cold room. He tried again to speak, but still could not. He was helpless.

“Open the skull and insert the microwave heat probes into the frontal lobe, Dr. Smoot,” Thaddeus heard the head surgeon say.

“I can’t seem to locate the skull seam, Dr. Penrose,” answered another.

“Don’t be silly, Smoot. We’ve opened this patient’s head more times than I can count.”

“See for yourself, sir. There isn’t even a scalp flap.”

Thaddeus could feel their gloved fingers searching the perimeter of his head. Did they really intend to open his skull and insert probes? Adrenaline shot through his body at the thought. He strained mightily against the restraints, but could not loosen them even the slightest bit.

The head surgeon sighed with irritation. “How inconvenient! The seams must have grown back somehow while he was at large. Get the skull saw, we’ll have to recut.”

Thaddeus’s heart pounded, and his breathing became a desperate pant. The familiar whizzing noise of the saw came next, and though Thaddeus could not see it, he could picture its round diamond-toothed blade whizzing. It was a tool he had used himself many times in his work on damaged pets, and now it was about to be used on his own head. He knew that once his brain had been altered, he might never be the same again. He could lose his memories, his knowledge, everything that made Thaddeus Thaddeus.

This is what it must feel like to be buried alive,
thought Josephine as she and her parents followed Dr. Herringbone deeper and deeper into the heart of the Asylum for the Dangerously Insane. They took an elevator down an unknown number of floors, then descended several flights of stairs. Josephine had no idea how far underground they were, but it felt like a mile. She shivered to think of Thaddeus locked up in this place.

After the attack and escape of the other Thaddeus, who was really Fetid Stenchley, Josephine had put two and two together. If the person who looked like Thaddeus was really Stenchley, that meant that the hunchback who had been moose-darted and taken away by the police was actually Thaddeus. And since the police thought he was Stenchley, they would have taken him…back to the Asylum for the Dangerously Insane.

Once she arrived at this horrifying conclusion, she had alerted her parents and Felix, and they had come straight to the asylum. She
was angry with herself for not recognizing Thaddeus in spite of the physical differences. She realized now that he had been trying to call to her just as he was shot with the dart. This whole thing felt like her fault.

She hoped they were not too late.

Convincing the security staff to allow them inside the asylum had taken some very insistent explaining mixed with sympathetic begging. It also didn’t hurt that Howard was a scientist with university credentials and Barbara was a licensed nurse. In the end, the gates had opened and they had been shown to Dr. Herringbone’s office. The man was appalled. He, of all people, was most unlikely to misidentify Stenchley, having been brutally attacked by the madman only days before during his escape. The doctor still wore bandages on his arms, head, and leg from the bites and scratches Stenchley had inflicted. He assured the Cravitzes their outlandish claim could only be incorrect, but they were adamant. Finally, the doctor was persuaded that they should at least be allowed to see the patient very briefly for themselves.

The cold stone floor in the surgical block slanted downward, its center grooved from years of dangerous inmates being marched to and from the Treatment Chamber. Josephine’s pulse quickened when they turned into a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor where the air was sour with the smell of chemicals. Machines hummed and buzzed behind the locked steel doors, and muffled sounds that might have been screams leaked out into the hall.

Dr. Herringbone unlocked a door marked with a red lightning bolt and strode in. “This is all highly irregular, not to mention dangerous,” he protested as he reluctantly led the Cravitzes into the Treatment Chamber. “The administering of the Treatment is a delicate business. Interrupting the process could cause both the patient and the equipment irreparable harm!”

As the group entered, the surgeon operating the skull saw paused and turned to see what the ruckus was about, the spinning blade only inches from the flesh and bone of the person on the table.

The director squinted at the chart on the clipboard at the foot of the operating table where the patient lay surrounded by surgeons. “As I expected, there has been no mistake,” he said, over the whine of the saw. He pointed emphatically to the name on the sheet. “The official chart states very clearly that the patient’s name is Mr. Fetid Stenchley. You can see for yourself.”

Josephine was not interested in what was on the clipboard. She looked over the table’s steel side rail at the person strapped to the table. A small sheet covered most of his face.

“May I uncover his face, please?” she asked.

Herringbone nodded, and she lifted the veil.

Josephine was confused by what she saw. The patient looked like a bald version of Thaddeus.

“This isn’t right,” she murmured. “ He should look like Stenchley.”

“He looks just like the guy who was in our hotel room, Jo,” said Howard. “Can you tell the difference?”

Josephine moved closer, gnawing her pinkie nail. She could see that the boy, if that was what he was, looked mostly like Thaddeus, but a little like Stenchley as well. This made things even harder to figure out. A pair of jagged teeth stuck ominously out of his mouth. His skin was weird, too, as if it were part leather.

“Is that him, dear?” asked Barbara.

Josephine did not know. She had been fooled before and did not completely trust what her eyes were telling her.

“Thaddeus?” she whispered, leaning in close to his ear. But not too close. “Is that you?”

The person on the table turned his head slightly toward her. His eyes, which were blue like Thaddeus’s, yet tainted yellow like Stenchley’s jaundiced orbs, lolled in her direction.

Thaddeus had given up all hope of escape. His head was about to be sliced open like a coconut and his brain barbecued, and there was nothing he could do about it. He wondered if it really mattered in the end. Who was he, anyway? An experiment gone wrong, a creature that had no right to exist in the first place, discarded and soon to be forgotten. Even orphans were better than he was. At least they had had families once.

As he waited for the saw to begin its work, he let his mind conjure up his favorite fantasy. It was a scene Thaddeus had pictured
many times before. He was sitting at the table of the dining room at Hibble Manor between his parents, who were finally home from their travels. The long-planned homecoming celebration was under way. Everyone, even Norman and Felix, was wearing party hats and laughing while playing a game of Candyland. Overflowing tureens of exotic candies, platters of fried pies, and a large pot of cocoa were set out within easy reach.

His mother was winning the game, and her laugh filled the room. In his dreams, Thaddeus had envisioned many different faces for his mother, and he kept them in a kind of portrait gallery in his mind. He chose the most angelic one of all for her now as she moved her plastic gingerbread man down the rainbow path of the game board.

The surgeons could not hurt him now.

Suddenly his imaginary mother’s perfect face began to change into the much plainer one of Josephine Cravitz.

“Thaddeus, is that you?” she asked. “Thaddeus?”

The entire fantasy faded. Just like that, his parents were gone again, and he was back in the Asylum for the Dangerously Insane. Once again Josephine had intruded into his world, uninvited, and shattered his dreams.

This would normally have been an undesirable development, resulting in a major tantrum, a dangerous spike in blood pressure, and yells for Norman to do something. But this time Thaddeus was thrilled. He had never been so happy to see anyone in his life. Josephine,
who was real flesh and blood, not just a misty dream, had not forgotten him.

The girl’s large ears, one slightly lower than the other, were as beautiful as the sails on a rescue ship to Thaddeus. Even her oblong, hairless nostrils, which the boy had found curiously irritating at their first meeting, filled him with happiness.

Thaddeus was so overjoyed to see her, so overcome with emotions, he was actually glad he was strapped down. Otherwise, he suspected he might have leapt up and hugged her, or heaven forbid, done something even more repugnant.

Josephine pulled the thick-lensed eyeglasses from her sweater pocket and took a deep breath. Either she would prove that the person was Thaddeus, or she would get a finger bitten off, verifying that the patient was Fetid Stenchley. She dug deep inside herself for courage and quickly slid the glasses onto his face.

The person’s mouth snapped open, displaying the two large teeth in their ugly, jagged entirety. Josephine recoiled instinctively, but the mouth did not try to bite her. Instead, it spoke two words.

“Mizz…Cravitz.” The voice was barely loud enough to be heard. “I mean…Josephine.”

A relieved smile spread across Josephine’s face. “Thaddeus!” she exclaimed. “It’s you!”

“Are you sure it’s really him, dear? It could be a trick of some kind,” warned Barbara.

“No doubt about it,” Josephine said confidently. “Dr. Herring- bone, this is my friend Thaddeus, not Fetid Stenchley! Please set him free!”

“But the official chart is very clear on this matter,” the doc- tor began.

“Then the official chart is wrong!” said Josephine. “Don’t you see? He’s a boy. He couldn’t possibly be Stenchley!”

“The chart is never wrong, young lady,” he said. “This is a preeminent institution, not some backwater outpost.”

“Can’t you forget about the dumb chart and just look at him?” she insisted.

With a sigh, the director leaned over the operating table and looked carefully at the patient.

Dr. Herringbone raised his eyebrows. “I…I don’t understand. This is not Fetid Stenchley at all!”

Even with a couple of yellow overgrown teeth here and a leathery patch of hide there, the doctor could not deny that the person on the table was obviously a boy and not the grizzled murderer he remembered.

He turned to the head surgeon and fumed, “I demand a new official chart on my desk this afternoon, Dr. Penrose! And turn that saw off!” He snapped his fingers at the orderlies by the door. “Have this boy discharged immediately!”

While technicians disconnected the wires and leads from Thaddeus’s head and chest, Howard took off his coat and covered the shivering boy. Josephine could see that he was still cold, however. Thaddeus’s head, without its full topping of white hair, seemed naked. She immediately knew what she should do and was surprised to find she had no qualms about it. Josephine pulled Eggplant off her own head and put it on Thaddeus’s, tugging it down snugly over his ears.

The boy looked goofy, but grateful. Josephine smiled. Somehow it felt good to give away her prized possession. She told herself it was no big deal, just the right thing to do for someone with a cold head.