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“Awesome. Lay it on me.”
“Well …” I tell him everything Dulcie said about Dr. X and his time traveling and the cure and the end of the world approaching if we don’t locate him and get him to close the wormhole.
Gonzo stares at me. “Dude, you sound like those geezers who hang around the bus station wearing tinfoil hats and pissing into empty soda cups.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you the truth. I swear. She was here. She ate my pudding snack.” The spoon. Her lipstick. I run for the trash. “I can prove she was here. Hold on.”
The linoleum’s bitter cold against my feet. The postal workers in my brain finally come off break and send the message to my legs that it’s okay to walk, and I stumble over to the trash can. Nothing’s in there but my mom’s half-finished crossword puzzle.
“They must’ve taken it with the tray,” I say.
“Sure they did.” Gonzo holds up some fingers. “Let’s do a quick sanity check. How many fingers?”
I flip him the bird. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Harsh.”
“I’m not crazy, okay?” I say, even though what I’m saying has every hallmark of a stadium-sized crazy concert.
“Okay. So how do we find this miracle guy, this Dr. X?”
“She said we have to look for signs—billboards, tabloids, personals.”
Gonzo stares at me. “Seriously, what are they putting in your IV? Wack on tap? Even if we entertain the idea that a winged being in combat boots gave you a secret mission to find a doctor with a magical cure, how are you gonna go anywhere, dude? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re in a hospital bed at St. Jude’s and sometimes you have trouble just getting to the bathroom. Did 1-800-Punk-Angel give you some pointers there?”
“She gave me this.” I show him the laminated wristband. Gonzo puts his face near and reads.
“An E-ticket?”
“It’s got some cosmic, stabilizing mojo to combat the prions.”
“Cool! Punker Angel gave you more health.”
“Yeah, exactly. But it’s only good for two weeks.”
Gonzo whistles. “Man. Bummer. Well, good luck, dude.”
“I’m supposed to take you with me,” I say very fast.
His hand flies up. “Oh, hell to the no.”
“Gonzo—”
“No, no, no, and no with a side of no.”
Gonzo plops down on his bed and makes a big show of opening his video game manual, turning pages way too quickly to read them.
“I told her you were too chickenshit to go.” It’s a low blow, but I’m pissed that Gonzo is such a chickenshit and that Dulcie set the bar so high right away.
“I’m not a chickenshit,” Gonzo says, sounding hurt. “I’m not an unnecessary risk taker.”
“Gonzo,” I say, playing my final card. “She said this dark energy Dr. X brought back is bringing about the end of the world. You. Me. This. Everything will be gone if we don’t find him.”
He sits up and dangles his legs over the side of the bed, swinging them so that his heels bang softly against the metal railings like a chime. “Everything everything?”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “Dulcie said you’re part of this, too. That you’d find your purpose on this trip, and that’s why we were put in the same room together. No accidents. Everything’s connected. In a random sort of way.”
Gonzo’s eyebrows crease into furry caterpillars of concentration. “So, like, when’s this big mission supposed to go down?”
