Treasure Box Page 0,2

there's a twig and there's a car and they're going to intersect and if there's a head in the way, well ain't that too bad."

"Kate shouldn't have been driving without her license."

"Well, aren't you the genius, you think I haven't figured that out by now? What do you imagine I'm doing, lying here in this bed, except going over and over all the moments when I could have said no to Kate? So let me tell you right now, don't you dare blame her, because I could have said no, and she wouldn't have done it. We went joyriding because I wanted to as much as she did and you can bet she feels lousy enough so don't you ever throw it up in her face, do you understand me, you tin-headed quintuplet?"

Quentin didn't want her to tell him off right now. He was in the middle of a war trying to save her life and the last thing he was worried about was Kate. "I'm never going to see her again anyway."

"Well, you should, because if you don't, she's going to think you blame her."

"I don't care what she thinks, Lizzy! All I want is you back, don't you get that?"

"Hey, Tin, there's no way. I'm brain dead. The lights are out. The body's empty. I'm gone. Toast. Wasted."

He didn't want to hear this. "You... are... alive."

"Yeah, well, right, and it's a lot of fun."

"They're trying to kill you, Lizzy. Mom and Dad, just like the doctors. Grammy and Grandpa and Nanny Say, too. They want to unhook you from everything and then cut out your kidneys and your eyes and your heart and your lungs."

"My chitlins, you mean."

"Shut up!"

"My giblets."

"Shut up!" Didn't she know that this wasn't a joke? This was life and death going on here and she was still joking like it didn't matter.

"It does matter," she said. "I'm just trying to cheer you up. Just trying to show you I'm not really gone."

"Well don't tell me, tell them. If I try to tell them you talked to me, they'll put me in the loony bin."

"They're coming to take me away, ha ha, hee hee, ho ho - "

"Stop it!"

"Tin, I'm here, not there, not in that body. Here."

But he wouldn't look up. Didn't want to see whatever she wanted him to see.

"All right, be that way. Stubbornest kid ever spawned of man and woman. You're driving Mom and Dad crazy, you dig, you dig, you dig?"

He did the next step in the ritual. "I dig, I dig, I dig."

"Well, well, well," she said, and giggled.

"They're trying to kill you."

"My body's no good to me anymore, Tin. You know that. And even when it's gone and buried or whatever, I'll still be here."

"Yeah, right, like you're going to come talk to me every day."

"Is that what this is about, then, Tin? What you want? I'm supposed to stay around so you can cuddle me like a stuffed animal or something?"

"Mom and Dad should have been the ones trying to save you!" That was the crux of it, wasn't it? Mom and Dad shouldn't have believed the doctors so easily. Too easily.

"Tin, listen to me. Sometimes your Mom and Dad are the only ones who know when it's time for you to die."

"That's the sickest lousiest most evil thing I ever heard anybody say! Parents don't ever want their children to die!"

"They didn't put the tree there. They didn't put the car there. They didn't put me in the car. They didn't put me in this bed. I did all that myself, Tin, or chance did, or fate or maybe God, he hasn't said. The only choice I left for them was whether my death was going to be completely meaningless or not. Give them a break."

"I'll never forgive them."

"Then I'll never forgive you."

"For what!"

"For keeping me tied down like this, Tin."

He couldn't help it then. He opened his eyes. And she wasn't there. Nobody was there except that still body lying on the bed, breathing into and out of a mask. Her voice was silent.

Quentin got up on rubbery legs and walked to the door. Was it still trembling from his father slamming it? He pulled it open and stepped outside. They were all there, looking at him in surprise: Dad, Mom, Grammy and Grandpa, Nanny Say, and the three main doctors. One of the doctors was holding a hypodermic syringe. Quentin knew what it was for - to tranquilize him so they could get him