"For tomorrow's assignment, I want you to read through five of the ten sonnets of Shakespeare starting on page 138 of the book, select the one you like the best, and write an 80 word summary on its imagery and word usage.  Be sure to mention which one it is you picked, because you'll be writing more about it later.  Class dismissed!"

Adrian Seidelman began to tidy up his desk in preparation for the next class the period after this one, ignoring the various groans and cries coming from different parts of the room.  He pointedly worked on reassembling his notebook in order to ignore the red-headed girl who stood near his desk.

"Let's go, Lori!" a voice called from the classroom door.

*sigh* "Okay."

Adrian waited an extra few seconds before throwing a glance at the door, to make sure Lori didn't see the look and misconstrue the gesture as an invitation.  A young girl with raven black hair and gold eyes grinned at the red-head, "So, what did you think of that CD I lent you?" she said to Lori.

"It was great!  I mean-"

Frowning mightily at the two girls as they walked down the hall, he stepped to the door and glanced around, "Lucas!"

Lucas Amato glanced up from his watch, "I'm in a hurry, Adrian.  Chemistry class this period.  What's up?"

"Who's that girl there?" he pointed.

"Lori Anderson." he deadpanned.

"No!  No!  The brunette walking WITH her!"

Lucas grinned, knowing he had been successful in getting Adrian's goat, "Jacinta Velasquez.  Good kid.  Fair grades.  Nothing special."

"Except her eyes."

"Remarkable, aren't they?"

"How long have she and Lori been friends?"

"About a year, I think."

"Um hmm." Adrian nodded, "Thanks Lucas.  That's all I wanted to know."
----
"Aha!  I *knew* it had to be here!" Adrian stood up, flipped the policy book around, and dropped it on the secretary's desk, "I want a home visitation report form."

"What's this?" Henry Tilman waddled out of his office, "Visiting a student at home?"

"Yes." Adrian said, pointedly ignoring the knives implied in the look that the secretary gave him as she started looking through the forms file.

"And may I ask who?"  Tilman asked, grinning, "Lori Anderson?"

"Here it is." the secretary said, taking the form and rolling it into the ancient typewriter, "To Lori?"  she asked, also glancing up at Adrian.

"No.  Jacinta Velasquez."

They both stopped and looked at him, "Whatever for?" the secretary said, "I know all the kids on academic probation, and she isn't on the list."

"She will be if she continues to be friends with Lori and her gang!"

"Now now." Tilman said soothingly, "I heard about the little incident in the alley a few days back, but really..."

"Lori-is-trouble!" Adrian stated patiently, "It's only a matter of time before she pulls Jacinta down with her.  She needs to be warned.  Seriously."

"Ah!" Tilman said knowingly, "Do I hear the 'get them early' stragety of Police Chief Ryan?  We're the city school, Adrian, not the police force!  They've got their jurisdiction, and we have ours."

"Lori and her gang are walking on both sides of the border.  Look Henry," Adrian said patiently, grabbing the policy book and pointing at a sentence, "It says here we can do a home visit if we have a serious concern.  *I* have a serious concern, so I can do a home visit."

Henry "by-the-book" Tilman sighed mightily and nodded at the secretary.  She pulled out the student information notebook and began paging through the sheets.

"I'll stop you in your tracks, you little-" Cybersix thought privately as she waited for the form to be filled out.
---
"WRECKLESS DRIVING!?!?" Police Chief William Ryan shouted at the hapless assistant from the Public Prosecutor's office, "Judge Vallartas let those guys go on a charge of WRECKLESS DRIVING?"

"And the charge of illegal possession of a weapon." the assistant added hopefully.

"Yeah," Ryan said grumpily, "60 days, suspended."

The assistant shrugged his shoulders, "There were only witnesses to them crashing into the lamp post, and the police did find a gun with Iglesas's fingerprints, so those charges could be made to stick.  But not kidnapping.  Witnesses say they did see a youngster fleeing the scene, but given the condition of the van, the judge doesn't believe that they were involved," He sighed, then got up, "We can't do anything until the one who phoned in the report or the child that was purportedly being kidnapped step forward.  Any chance of that?"

Ryan shook his head, "No.  Not likely.  And you're right," he sighed, "We can't hold them if we don't have proof."

The assistant smiled, "You have only yourself to blame."

Ryan shot a quizzical glance at the man, "What?"

"You raised the bar on public honesty, and every other department is trying to catch up.  And for once, it feels good to be working for a respected public institution.  We did the best we could, and went as far as we did based solely on your word."

"Well, tell Juan thanks for me.  When we get these guys next time, we'll have the goods on them."

"I'll do that."

After the man left, Type 37 leaned back in his chair, pulled out a cigar, and lit it.  Smoking helped him to think, and he usually got some very good ideas during times like these.  He puffed and thought, thought and puffed.

Then a big grin crossed his face, and he nodded, "That'll work." he said.
---
"WHEE!" Bethany yelled happily as she and a boy with reddish blonde hair rode the teeter totter furiously, "This is great!"

"I'm getting off, Bethany!" the boy warned.

Smiling, Janelle walked over and grabbed the teeter totter to keep it steady as the two hopped off.

"Got any new tricks, Julian?" Bethany asked.

Julian grinned, pulled out a deck of cards, and began to expertly shuffle them.  He then made a large "fan" of the deck, all the cards face down, "Pick one.  Any one.  Look at it, but don't show it to me.  Then put it back into the deck."

Bethany picked one, looked at it, and pushed it back into a different part of the deck.  Julian collapsed the deck, shuffled some more, then reached out behind Bethany's ear, "What's this?" he asked, grinning, as he pulled a card out from behind her ear and showed it to her.

"IT'S MY CARD!" Bethany squealed, "Julian, you are so good!"

"Aww, thanks!  And here's another one!" he put the cards away and pulled out a large loop of string.

He started to thread the string into a cat's cradle, only to be interrupted by a nasal, "JULIAN!"

"Uh ohhhh." Julian said, "Ahh, I gotta go, Bethany!  Bye!"

Bethany smiled and waved, but her smile disappeared when Julian's back was turned.  She watched as the boy ran up to the heavy man, and the two spoke to each other.  The older man grabbed Julian by the ear, making the boy yelp in pain, "He's a bad man." she remarked.

"Ah wouldn't doubt that, hunnah." Janelle drawled. "That's a snake thar if ah ever saw one, and ah've seen a lot of'em."

"Uncle 37 should arrest him." Bethany said, watching the two leave the park, one very reluctantly and under obvious physical duress.

"Cain't without evidence." Janelle pointed out, drawing out the "v".

"Maybe if I asked nicely?"  Bethany asked, grinning.

"Hunnah,  y'all need a few moah years before battin' them baby blues at a man'll make him hop through hoops."  Janelle grinned back.

"So maybe I should ask a woman?" Bethany mused,   She thought for a moment, then asked suddenly "Can I talk to my daddy?"

"Ah suppose so." Janelle said, mystified, as she pulled the cellphone assigned to her out of her purse, selected the number for Techno 53's personal cellphone, and handed it to Bethany, "Lordy, what's gotten into that chile's head?" she wondered.
------
"Reba!  Can I have-"

"No."

"But its only for-"

"No."

"But I gave you night before yesterday!"

"Thanks, but you still owe me a week."

"REBA! I've got this hot date all lined up-"

The Resident at the hospital nearly plowed into the shortest MD in the Western Hemisphere as she stopped, whirled around, and glared up at him, "And I've got a 10 hour date with a mattress and sheets!  Cripes, you'd think I never sleep!  NOW, if you'll let me finish seeing my patients..." she turned around, "AND QUIT BUGGING ME!" she yelled over her shoulder as she stomped down the corridor.

"Jeezus!" she thought as she got to a door, stepped up onto one of the 35 footstools strategically placed throughout Meridiana General Hospital for her personal use, and pulled the four charts that hung outside of the room.  She stood there, paging through each one, sighing occasionally.  She then pinched the bridge of her nose, hopped down, and knocked on the door.

"Come in!" a voice came from within.

Reba inhaled deeply, opened the door, and entered with a large smile on her face, "Hi everybody!  And how are we all doing?"

In unison, all four occupants of miniward 23 chanted, "Hello Dr. Pearce!  We're doing fine!"

She stopped, made a face, turned to the bed on her right, and said accusingly, "Miss Kiara Jones!  You put them up to that, didn't you?"

The girl in the bed giggled, as did the others.

"I thought so!  You first!"  Reba went to the bed and pressed the button to lower it.  She then pulled the privacy curtain around and pulled the covers off of her patient.  She then very carefully began to check the leg bones of her patient.

"It's not getting better, is it?" Kiara asked in a small voice.

"It takes a while." Reba said, "You come down on that foot pretty hard when you do a jete, so we need to make sure its healed and strong before you go back to the ballet school."

"I-I think-" she stopped.

"What?" Reba turned to her.

"I think I heard my jaw crunching."

"When?"

"While I ate lunch."

Reba frowned, turned to the head of the bed, and began to carefully feel at Kiara's jaw.  She pressed on one spot, and felt the bone give a little, almost crunching like an eggshell.

Kiara saw Reba shudder, "It IS getting worse, isn't it?"

Reba pulled her hands away, "I'm afraid so." she said in a very low voice, leaning forward, "We still don't know what's affecting you or the others, but we're trying our best.  In the meantime, you'll have to be brave for the others.  Can you do that?"

"I'll try."

Reba smiled sympathetically, leaned over, and gently wiped the tears that appeared under Kiara's eyes.

"I suppose I won't be able to be Clara this year, then." the girl commented sadly.

Reba glanced at the side-table, on which sat a small statuette of a ballerina en pointe, "It's still a long while before you should be thinking about Christmas or this year's performance of the Nutcracker."

"When do YOU start thinking about Christmas?" Kiara asked.

"Umm." Reba rolled her eyes, "Not til next month." she confessed, "I start covering for a lot of the other doctors then, so they HAVE to give me Christmas."

"Where do you go?"

"Back home, where I grew up.  A whole week with my parents, brothers, and sisters.  Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Big family?"

"Very big." Reba assured her.

The examinations of the others did not turn up any better: Even though they were not as far advanced as Kiara's, their bones were progressively deteriorating.  Reba tried to hide the look on her face, but children are perceptive, and they picked up the bad news.  They somehow knew that their doctor was a very reluctant liar.

"Well, we're still trying to figure out what's happening to you." she finally addressed all of them from the door, "There HAS to be something common that all of you have done or ate or encountered or have happen to you to have this condition.  Talk amongst yourselves.  Compare your backgrounds and experiences.  Try to think of something and tell me about it.  Okay?"

"Yes Dr. Pearce!" they all said in unison, giggling.

She smiled, waved, and fled the room.

Closing the door behind her, she leaned against the door jamb, "This is bad.  I've got to get Dr. Zack in here to take a peek at their bones and see what's happening." she thought, starting to scribble her observations on the charts.  Hopefully, the kids themselves may come up with something, and talking amongst themselves would be good therapy.

"Is she gone?" "I think so."

Reba froze, her Cyber hearing picking up the shaky, frightened voices within the ward.  Part of her wanted her to leave to spare herself the pain of listening to the poor children, while the rest of her wanted to be sure they were giving each other strength instead of terrifying each other.

"Shouldn't we tell?"  "About those bad men?  No!  They'll hurt our parents!"  "They may hurt other kids if we don't tell the police!" "I'm scared!"

Finally, she heard Kiara's voice rise commandingly above the younger ones in the miniward, "No.  We won't tell them about those men sticking us with those needles!  Gerard is right.  They'll get our parents.  We must be quiet and hope the police catch them before they get anyone else!"

Reba went pale and shook, "Son of a bitch!" she thought, quietly moving away from the door and taking the charts with her, "I KNEW I should have killed those bastards!"

She turned around, walked loudly to the door, hopped onto the stool, and put the charts back into the holder, clearly hearing the children inside telling each other to hush.

She then hopped down and walked toward the Doctor's lounge to check out of the hospital.

She needed time and a different place to think hard thoughts.
------
Jacinta (C) Black Inque
Kiara (C) Cyberpoet
Dr. Reba Pearce (C) Queen of Mars
Bethany, Cyprus, and Serena Trodden, (C) Bethany Trodden
Dr. Anthony Zacharias, (C) Ptah Aegyptus
------
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Chapter 6
Chapter 8