Conner had only been gone for eighteen hours, but his friends and characters at the Saint Andrew’s Children’s Hospital had grown twice as restless since he left. It was almost ten o’clock at night and all the pirates, superheroes, Cyborgs, mummies, literary characters, and fairy-tale characters were wide awake. Every passing hour spent in the commissary felt like it was longer than the one before. They were itching for something productive to do and running out of ways to entertain themselves.
After their I Love Lucy marathon was finished, the pirates of Starboardia discovered a steamy soap opera on Telemundo. Auburn Sally, Admiral Jacobson, and the entire Dolly Llama crew couldn’t look away from the Latin American actors’ passionate performances. They felt their faces blush at every turn of the scandalous story.
“Does anyone know what they’re saying?” Winking Wendy asked.
“I don’t understand a word, but I feel everything,” Somersault Sydney said.
Across the commissary, the characters from “The Adventures of Blimp Boy” passed the time by teaching the characters from the Sherwood Forest how to gamble. It didn’t matter how many times Beau Rogers and his great-aunt Emgee repeated the rules, the Merry Men had a hard time soaking up the concept of poker.
“AHA! THE ODDS ARE IN MY FAVOR AGAIN!” Robin Hood boasted. “I HAVE THREE KINGS AND TWO ACES! GOOD LUCK BEATING THAT!”
The archaeologists folded their cards before they even had a chance to look at them.
“Robin, for the tenth time, you’re not supposed to reveal your cards until the end,” Beau said. “The whole point is to make us think you have a good hand—you don’t just come out and say it.”
The Prince of Thieves let out a haughty laugh. “BUT I HAVE FOOLED YOU,” he said, and revealed his cards. “BEHOLD, A PAIR OF TWOS! NOT ONLY HAVE I DECEIVED YOU, BUT I’VE DONE IT IN RECORD TIME! I DARE SAY THE STUDENT HAS BECOME THE TEACHER. NOW SLIDE OVER MY EARNINGS!”
The superheroes from “The Ziblings” were in the middle of a heated round of charades with the space explorers from “Galaxy Queen.” Blaze, Whipney, and Morph were one team, while the Cyborg Queen, Commander Newters, and Professor Wallet were on the other.
“It’s an elephant!” Blaze called out.
“That’s right!” Morph said, and quickly moved on.
“It’s a satellite dish!” Whipney guessed.
“Yes!” Morph said, and went to the next paper.
“It’s a toy box!” Blaze said.
“That’s it!” Morph said. “Boy, we’re really good at this!”
“Of course you’re doing well!” the Cyborg Queen complained. “You’re literally transforming into whatever the paper says! I don’t see how this is a fair game!”
Meanwhile, Trollbella got roped into playing a game of hide-and-seek with the Lost Boys from Neverland. The troll queen counted to a hundred while the boys hid, but when she was done counting, instead of searching for them, Trollbella had a seat and flipped through a magazine.
“Aren’t you going to find them?” the Tin Woodman asked her.
“I was, but then I had an epiphany,” Trollbella said. “If I want boys to stop playing games with me, I’ve got to stop playing games with boys.”
“Even hide-and-seek?” the Tin Woodman asked.
“Especially hide-and-seek,” Trollbella said in total seriousness. “Who we are on the playground is who we are in life, and I’m done being a seeker. If someone wants to be my Troblin King, he’s just gonna have to find me.”
Charlotte stood by the window and watched the characters getting fresh air outside. Peter Pan and Bolt competed in several rounds of a questionable activity they called Who Can Fly Closest to the Moon Without Passing Out. Lester, the Rosary Chicken, and Blubo were picking at bugs in the lawns surrounding the hospital. Bones, the mummified dog from the Pyramid of Anesthesia, buried the parts of his body that fell off. Unbeknownst to him, Clawdius was digging them back up and burying them in other spots.
The Blissworm inched up a tree, hung upside down from a branch, and blew Charlotte a kiss good-bye, and then its soft body slowly hardened into a cocoon—which was very surprising, since Conner had never mentioned anything about it having a metamorphosis. The space worm even placed a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the corner of its chrysalis.
Although there was plenty to distract her, nothing could take Charlotte’s mind off her children. Every additional hour she didn’t hear from Conner was more torturous than the previous one. The delayed communication made her fear that something was wrong—very wrong.
The commissary doors swung open and Bob entered with a mummy who had slipped out without Charlotte noticing.
“Look who I found in the emergency room,” Bob said.
The mummy had two large burn marks on the wraps covering his heart.
“What happened to his chest?” Charlotte asked.
“Apparently two paramedics found him roaming the parking lot,” Bob said. “They checked his pulse and took him to Emergency right away. The nurses were trying to revive him when I got there. I had to make him sign a DNR to get them to stop.”
“He must have walked right past me,” Charlotte said. “I’ve been trying to keep everyone stimulated while we wait to hear from Conner, but there’s only so much they can do. You know things are dull when the dead start wandering off.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself—you’ve got a lot on your mind,” Bob said. “Speaking of which, any word from Conner?”
“Nothing,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I’ve tried calling a dozen times, but no one is answering. I know I worry about them constantly, but I can’t fight a feeling that something terrible has happened. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel like they both need me.”
Bob and Charlotte were distracted when the pirates from Starboardia started moaning at the television.
“What’s going on?” Charlotte asked.
“Some lady came on the screen and interrupted our show!” Fish-Lips Lucy grumbled. “And Maria was just about to catch José being unfaithful!”
Bob and Charlotte glanced at the screen to see what they were talking about. President of the United States Katherine Walker was sitting at her desk in the Oval Office, about to give a national address.
“That lady is the president,” Bob said. “She only comes on TV when something important is happening.”
“But it’s past midnight on the East Coast,” Charlotte said. “What could be so important?”
“Beats me,” Bob said. “Turn it up, guys.”