The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel Read online

  1. Aurora?

  2. Code Red

  3. On the Other Side

  4. Lights, Camera, Detention

  5. A Promise Is a Promise

  6. Nobody Home

  7. Wait, What?

  8. Middle School Blues

  9. The Plan, Stan

  10. Gale Island

  11. Where Is It?

  12. What the Blazes?

  13. The Wings of Science

  14. Poking the Tiger

  15. Viral

  16. The Gift

  17. The Warehouse

  18. Worth Fighting For

  19. Dance Break

  20. Lost and Found

  21. The White Suits Are Here

  22. Close

  23. Welcome to Pruitt Prep (Not Really)

  24. Left Right

  25. Eighty Miles a Second

  26. Escape Hatch

  27. Too Valuable to Lose

  28. Decisions, Decisions

  Mars

  guys I got 5 more days of detention from Baker

  Caddie

  rly??

  Mars

  she’s mad cuz I set her desk on fire

  JP

  oof

  Mars

  potassium ignites with hydrogen who knew

  Toothpick

  it’s called an exothermic reaction

  Mars

  now you tell me

  Aurora

  detention is the WORSTTTT

  Toothpick

  actually global warming is — more bodily harm

  Caddie

  ugh Mr. Q is bringing cookies AGAIN

  Jonas

  dude detention’s bad enough

  my stomach can’t take another one of his cookies

  Aurora

  I’m so done with this school

  Mars

  Lol is that why u missed English today

  Aurora

  time for action

  Mars

  like what

  Mars

  Aurora?

  Mars

  anyone see Aurora

  Jonas

  prob skipped

  JP

  I lost my math homework someone helpppp

  Caddie

  u can copy off me

  JP

  thx owe u

  Mars

  where’s Aurora

  Toothpick

  Maybe she’s sick

  Jonas

  or out of town

  Mars

  r u there

  Mars

  pls write back

  Mars

  Aurora??

  On his way to school Monday morning, Mars kept checking his phone for messages.

  So far, nothing. Where was Aurora? Why hadn’t she written back? As he reached the front entrance of the school, a voice called from behind.

  “Mars! Wait up!”

  He turned and saw Caddie coming up the sidewalk. Her hair was tucked inside her flannel jacket, and her glasses were foggy from the early-morning mist.

  She saw his headphones. “Podcast?”

  Mars slipped them off and hung them around his neck. “Yeah,” he said.

  Every morning he listened to Oliver Pruitt’s podcast on his way to school. It helped him think. Sometimes it gave him ideas, and he could use a good one now.

  “Did you hear from Aurora?” he asked.

  Caddie shook her head, watching him carefully. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”

  Mars grimaced. “You’re not doing that thing where you’re in my head? ’Cause you know I hate that.” For as long as he could remember, Caddie had the ability to sense what he was feeling. She could do it with all their friends except Aurora. Aurora was different. She was good at blocking out the world. But apparently Mars was an open book.

  “I’m not doing anything, honest,” Caddie said quickly.

  “Well, it sure feels like you’re in my head.”

  “I don’t need to be,” she said. “It’s right there on your face.”

  “She hasn’t responded to any of my texts.”

  “Don’t worry,” Caddie said. “You know how she is. She’s probably caught up in some Aurora thing.” They continued walking as kids jostled past from the school bus parked behind them. “So what’s he saying now?”

  “Who?”

  “Oliver Pruitt. You know, the podcast. You were listening to it just now.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Mars hesitated. It was always hard to explain Oliver Pruitt to anyone, even Caddie. Like, how did he describe that strange feeling he got in his throat every time he heard this man he’d never met in his life speak? “Um, he says something BIG is going to happen,” he said.

  “Really? Like what?”

  Mars thought about what Oliver had said this morning. Something BIG is happening soon. It wasn’t the words but how he’d said them, like Oliver had been bursting at the seams. Was it a good big thing? Mars didn’t know. “Not sure,” he said. “Just something big.”

  Caddie had stopped talking because they’d entered the school. All the students together in the hall had a way of overwhelming her. Mars called it system overload. Whatever it was, it always took Caddie a minute to adjust to everyone’s thoughts crowding around her. By the time they got to their lockers, Caddie was better. But Mars wasn’t. He was still thinking about Aurora.

  “Five days,” he announced, throwing his coat and backpack into his locker, where it hit a small poster of Oliver Pruitt taped to the back.

  Jonas was standing at his locker already, wearing his Mariners baseball cap.

  “Five what?” he asked distractedly. He was playing Astro Surf on his phone.

  “Five days since Aurora disappeared,” Mars said impatiently. “Don’t you remember?”

  Caddie nodded. “Five days is kinda long, even for Aurora.”

  “What does that mean?” Mars asked.

  “Dude, Aurora skips all the time,” Jonas said.

  But not without telling me, Mars thought. Aurora might be secretive with other people, but she’d always trusted him.

  “Out of my way, Martian Patel,” said Clyde Boofsky, barreling through the hall. As H. G. Wells’s only sixth grader to bench-press a hundred pounds, the Boof was made of steel.

  “Watch where you’re going, Boof,” Mars said. “Though you probably need GPS to find your turd-size brain.”

  Clyde flipped his finger at Mars and kept walking.

  “Why does he never bother you?” Mars asked Jonas.

  Jonas shrugged. “Because he knows I’d kick his butt.”

  It was true. Clyde might have been strong, but Jonas towered a good three inches over him.

  Mars sighed — he hated being the shortest boy in sixth grade.

  Meanwhile, Caddie was frowning and holding two fingertips to her temple.

  “What’s the matter, Caddie? Are you OK?” Mars asked.

  She shook her head, wincing. “Ow. I’m getting one of those headaches.”

  Lately, Caddie’s headaches had turned into warning signs. They used to come for small things, like the one she’d got right before Mars slipped in the cafeteria, or Toothpick got hit in the head with a flying sandwich. But then they’d come for more serious stuff. Like before her brother twisted his ankle in gym, or when her dad lost his job. Each time, there was a quick throb at her temples.

  Suddenly a siren blared through the school, echoing down the halls.

  “Attention, attention, students and faculty. This is a Code Red. Please remain calm and proceed with lockdown protocol.” The announcement came over the PA.

  They all looked at one another. Was it a d
rill? The first-period bell hadn’t even rung.

  The PA repeated. “This a Code Red. Please proceed with lockdown protocol.”

  Around them students started running while teachers called out. Everyone knew what a Code Red was. Every month they had to do the drills. They hid under desks or inside classroom closets, and kids would whisper until it was over. Jonas always managed to sneak in his phone and would zone out on his games.

  Not Mars. Each time there was a drill, he’d wonder if the dangerous thing he always expected to happen was finally happening, and life would never be the same. His life had changed on a dime before. It could happen again.

  “We repeat. This is a Code Red. Please proceed with lockdown protocol.”

  “Is this for real?” Jonas asked them.

  For a moment Mars remembered the podcast. Was this the big thing Oliver Pruitt had said was going to happen? “Caddie would know,” he said. He whirled around. “Right, Caddie?”

  Caddie’s face was awash in pain. The siren continued to blare.

  “Ow!” She clutched her head. “This is real, guys. This is real!”

  Hurry,” Mars told them. “You know where.”

  Caddie didn’t need to be reminded. While the rest of the students at H. G. Wells were sheltering in classrooms, they were heading someplace else. Most of the time the janitor closet was a storage room for mops and cleaning supplies. But it was also their secret meeting place. Aurora was the one who’d figured out that the janitor closet was the only place inside the school without a camera.

  Caddie always worried they’d get caught. It was bad enough she kept getting sent to detention. Her mom would tell her how she never got into trouble when she was young — what was Caddie doing that was different? Was it because she was hanging out with Mars Patel?

  But Aurora never seemed to care. In fact, she was always looking for ways to break the rules. Aurora said they should call themselves the MOPS: Mars’s Opposition Party against School.

  “Why do we need a name?” JP wanted to know. “And why against the school?”

  “’Cause Mars is cool,” Aurora said. “And this place sucks.”

  The MOPS idea didn’t stick, but the closet did. It became the place they hid out during Hot Dog Field Day, pep rallies, or any time they didn’t want to be seen in school. Aurora went whenever she felt like it (which was a lot). Sometimes she would drag Mars with her so they could plot their next prank. Once Caddie went to the closet on her own without telling Aurora. Epica Hernandez and her friends kept spiking the volleyball at Caddie in gym class until she had to skip, just to get away from Epica. She’d never admit it to Aurora, but it had felt good to escape that day.

  When they reached the janitor closet, Caddie closed the door behind them. Then it was the three of them alone with the mops. In the dark.

  “Ow!”

  “Your headache, Caddie?”

  “No, Jonas, your elbow!”

  “Well, watch where you’re sitting, Cads.”

  Caddie could hear the siren still going outside. Jonas’s long limbs seemed to get in everyone’s way, but finally he settled down, and so did Mars, though Caddie could feel him tense up next to her. It made her tense up, too.

  “Ugh, my headache won’t stop,” she whispered.

  “What are you seeing in your head?” Mars whispered back. “Is it about Aurora?”

  “There he goes again about his girlfriend, Aurora,” Jonas muttered.

  “She isn’t my girlfriend!”

  “Right, you just talk about her all the time!”

  “Jonas, you have to admit there’s something weird about Aurora going dark for five days. No texts, nothing on Instagram. Nobody at home, nobody answering the phone.”

  Caddie sighed. Mars always got so defensive about Aurora. As far as he was concerned, Aurora could do no wrong. Not even when she forgot to call him or she teased him about Oliver Pruitt. That’s how she was.

  And that’s how Mars was, too.

  “Sometimes people go on vacation,” Jonas said. “Like, remember when Aurora went to Vancouver without telling anyone?”

  “That was just one weekend,” Mars said. “And her great-aunt died.”

  “My family’s tight, but we wouldn’t go to a great-aunt’s funeral,” Jonas said. “I mean, what the heck is a great-aunt?”

  “Look, Aurora’s been missing for five days,” Mars said, “and now there’s a Code Red in school. And Oliver Pruitt said —”

  “Oh my god,” Jonas said. “Why’s it always about Aurora or Oliver Pruitt? Get a grip.”

  “I’m not making this stuff up,” Mars said. “Oliver said on his podcast that something big was going to happen. And look — Code Red. Aurora gone. Something is happening, Jonas. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I don’t think it’s all a coincidence.”

  “Mars is right.” Caddie rubbed her temples. The worst part about her headaches wasn’t the pain but the feelings that came with them. Right now it felt like a great big blanket of worry was smothering her. “I’m scared, too. Like something bad is going to happen. But I can’t see anything in my head, Mars. I feel it in my gut.”

  Jonas suddenly bent over. “Oh man, speaking of gut,” he moaned. “I gotta go.”

  “You got to go where?” Mars asked.

  “You know, like I gotta go!” Jonas stood up, almost knocking over a mop.

  “Now?” Mars exclaimed. “You can’t go out there. It’s a Code Red. You heard what Caddie said. Something bad is going on.”

  “Yeah, but I gotta use the bathroom or it’s going to be a Code Brown in my pants. I forgot to take my pills this morning.” He reached for the doorknob.

  “Jonas, don’t!” Mars pleaded. “What if someone is out there?”

  “I’m a big guy. I can handle it,” Jonas said as he clutched his stomach. Jonas had been having digestive problems ever since he could remember. He’d probably visited every public bathroom in the Puget Sound area.

  Caddie could sense Jonas’s feelings bunching up inside him like they did whenever he felt sick. “He’s right, Mars. He’s, um, gotta go.”

  “And Caddie’s never wrong,” Jonas said. He opened the closet door and stepped out. “See you on the other side,” he said, and shut the door behind him.

  Then it was Mars and Caddie alone in the dark closet.

  “I don’t believe it,” Mars whispered.

  “I know. I hope he’ll be OK.” They sat in silence. “And I know you can’t help worrying, Mars,” she said. “You’re worried about everyone. Even your dad.”

  He groaned. “Can you stop? Like, I’m not even aware of what I’m thinking, and there you are telling me all that.” He paused. “And I’m not worrying about my dad, all right?”

  “OK,” Caddie said.

  No one knew where Mars’s dad was: not his mom, and certainly not Mars. The two of them had come to Port Elizabeth from India when Mars was little, and by then his dad was gone. Sometimes Mars got packages in the mail from him, like cookies or a book. Once he got a toy rocket on his birthday. Caddie knew Mars sometimes slept with it next to him, though he’d never told anyone. It was one of those things she sensed.

  Outside the closet, it had grown strangely quiet. Was it just a drill? It was hard to tell.

  “Do you think it’s over?” Mars whispered.

  Caddie wasn’t sure. “My headache is getting better. Maybe it was just nerves.”

  “Let’s wait a few more minutes, just in case,” Mars said.

  Caddie could feel him trying to sit quietly and not think any thoughts in case she sensed them. “It will be OK, Mars,” she said gently.

  He sighed. “Doing it again.”

  She cleared her throat. “Right, sorry.” She shifted her weight, trying to pull her thoughts away from him. It’s not that she tried to read his mind.

  Caddie remembered the first time it had happened. They were in first grade, and she was crying (as usual). She cried a lot then. Most kids did when they fell down and scrape
d their knee. But Caddie cried because she could feel the teacher in class having mean thoughts. Genna couldn’t do her addition tables. Gavin couldn’t sit still. Lucy still wet her pants when she forgot to visit the bathroom after lunch. And Toothpick, he always knew the answers, and somehow that was a problem, too, for Mrs. Welt. Mrs. Welt never said a word about how much she hated everyone for just being first graders, but Caddie felt it.

  So she cried. She cried in class. She cried at recess. She cried at snacktime and lunch. Everyone called her a crybaby. Everyone but Mars. He would draw smiley faces on Post-it notes and leave them on her desk. He would save a swing for her on the playground. And one day when he sat next to Caddie during recess, she felt it. She felt his thoughts, which were Caddie is a lot like me except I’m sad on the inside. And then Caddie stopped crying.

  Now Caddie never cried. She knew how to get along. But something had happened from that day in first grade when Mars stopped by at recess. She had always been good at telling what others were feeling, but with Mars it was different. It was like by feeling his thoughts, she’d become connected to him in some mysterious way that even she couldn’t explain. And lately, there was something else, too, that confused her. Her feelings, which she’d never shared with him. But how often did you get stuck in a closet during a Code Red?

  “So Mars, I know you might like Aurora and all,” Caddie started slowly, “and I’m not reading your mind! I’m just saying that. But if you don’t like like her, and since, well . . . the school dance is coming up, I thought . . .”

  Just then an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

  “Attention, students and faculty. Our lockdown is over. We have lifted the Code Red. Repeat: the lockdown is over. Please return to your classes.”

  Mars jumped up. “Code Red is over!”

  Caddie got up, too. They blinked and stepped out from the dark closet into the brightly lit hall. Students were already passing them by on their way to class. Kids looked confused but relieved, too, and were already forgetting about the siren blaring a few minutes before. Now people were saying it had been a drill. Now teachers were telling students to get to class. Lockers were opening and shutting all around as the school lurched back to normal.

  “I’m sorry, what were you saying, Caddie?” Mars asked. His curly hair was falling over his eyebrows in waves.