Bird Kids (until said otherwise)

As we pulled up to the clinic I closely studied the extensive brick building. It looked fairly new; it had fresh paint, with everything clean and sparkling, and an unused/brand new feeling about the place. The parking lot was newly paved, with a sidewalk leading from it to the entrance. Surrounding the building were small bushes and all kinds of flowers planted in dirt and mulch. Hmm, they really have a nice place here.

“So you’re going to walk home?” my mom asked, interrupting my train of thought.

“Yeah.” The car stopped by the entrance and I opened my door and got out. “See ya later tonight.”

“Bye,” said my mom, waving, and then drove off, on her way to work.

I pulled the door open and walked inside and immediately looked around. The first thing that I noticed was that the walls were white. Wait, let me rephrase that. The walls weren’t just white; they were like super clean sparkly white, the kind of white you get right after a really good paint job, or the kind of white that’s associated with various celebrities’ teeth. Other than the super white walls, I noticed a couple rows of straight-back wooden chairs with nice unblemished royal blue plush cushions on them. It was almost an exact replica of the outside: fancy, pristine, and very expensive.

“Dang,” I muttered to myself. “This place has got to be privately owned, no kind of regular clinic would have the funds for this kind of stuff.”

Across the room was an enormous high-quality wooden desk with a tall metal filing cabinet next to it. A receptionist sat at the desk, her eyes glued to the computer screen. As the door pulled shut behind me with a click, the woman looked up at me, realizing another human’s presence in the room. I could see that she was the standard secretary type; dull, lifeless straight dark brown hair, brown eyes, an uninterested grumpy half-asleep expression on her face, barely-there red lipstick, and mascara. At least she didn’t have rectangular glasses hanging on a chain around her neck.

“May help you?” the woman asked, in the if–you-don’t–have-any-business-here- get-out,-or-I’ll–have-security-escort-you-out-the-door kind of tone people use.

”Yeah, my name is Anita Balek, I was told to come here for drug testing,” I replied in a confident and somewhat haughty tone.

The receptionist stared me for a full two seconds before she said, “Ah, yes. Follow me this way, Dr. Lawson is expecting you.” She led the way through several sparkling white hallways lined with doors. After a minute we finally stopped outside a closed door that had a metal name plate inscribed with “Dr. H. B. Lawson”. It gave no hint whatsoever as to what kind of doctor Dr. Lawson was.

“Well hell, as far as I know this guy could be some wacko, some crackpot who’s gonna give me an experimental antidepressant or a so called ‘natural’ Indian witchdoctor cure for the common cold.” I quietly muttered to myself as the receptionist knocked on the door.

A middle-aged man at average height with neatly combed black, mostly grey hair, a clean-shaven face, and a white doctor’s coat opened the door. He first looked at the secretary, and then he turned his gaze to me.

“Ah, good, our last member is here. Come on in,” he said with an indistinct British accent and with an encouraging smile on his face.

As the receptionist turned and left, I stepped into the room. It looked exactly like a doctor’s room where you go to for your annual checkup, except it was ten times larger, and there was a lengthy stainless steel counter covered with all sorts of important looking medical junk that took up two sides and a corner of the room. I also noticed four teens, two boys, two girls, who were sitting on stools in a circle in the center of the room. As they turned to look at me, I calmly walked to an empty stool in the circle and sat down. While they scrutinized me I returned their gazes, coolly examining them in turn.

On my left was a guy around seventeen, with brown hair and eyes. He looked to be the American equivalent of William Moseley, the British actor who plays the role of Peter Pevensie from Disney’s Chronicles of Narnia, with a confident, almost knowing look about him. Sitting next to him was the other boy. He looked to be around my age, maybe older. He had dirty-blond, almost brown hair, blue eyes, a very lean figure, a pale complexion like he spent most of his time indoors, and a slightly apprehensive expression. Beside him was an empty stool, presumably where the doctor was sitting. On the other side of the stool was an African American girl around my age with light brown skin, brown eyes, and shoulder-length black hair. She was wearing one of those “I heart” tee shirts. You know, the kind that say stuff like I ♡ NY, except her shirt had the “I heart”, and then a picture of a tree. Between Miss Nature and me was the last girl. She was a few years older than me and looked like a model. She had straight light blond hair that went a couple inches past her shoulders, perfect skin, was thin, and had an air of confidence and superiority around her that only the popular kids at school had. Then there’s me: Hispanic, past shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, slightly dark skin. Plain old me.

After he closed the door and sat back down in the circle, the doctor said in a light tone, “Now that we’re all here we might as well get started. Introductions first. This young man here,” he gestured towards the William Moseley doppelganger, “is Zachary Mannens, age seventeen. Next to him is Matthew Dawson, age fifteen. Then of course there’s me, Dr. Lawson. If it’s okay with all of you, I’d rather not tell my age,” he said with a smile. “Sitting to my left is Kiara Davis, fourteen. After that it’s Tanya Hayes, sixteen. Finally, we come to our last person, Anita Balek, also age fourteen. Any questions so far? No? Good.

“As you all know, you are here for the drug testing group. The drug that we’re going to be testing is a brain booster. I guess you could almost call it steroids for the brain. It is supposed to improve your thinking speed, and also improve some of your senses, such as in hearing and sight.

“The dosage will take place over the next few days as shots. We’re hoping to eventually have the drug as a pill, but for right now all we have are the injections. You will be getting a shot once a day today, tomorrow, and Thursday.

“We will be closely observing the results. You will come in twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays. We’re not quite sure how long it will take for your bodies to react to the drug, so we’re not sure how many weeks you will need to come.

“Mostly we’ll play it by ear, according to how your body is responding. The reaction may take place only after a few days, or it could take weeks for us to notice any difference.”

The doctor paused, clapped his hands together and brightly said, “Well, that’s all the information. Who’s willing to be the first one to get the shot?” No answer. “Anyone?” Again, dead silence. “Come on people, we have to start somewhere.” Another silence, and then after glancing around he sojourned his gaze on me and said, “Anita, why don’t you go first?”

What!? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m not going first, I’m -. (Humongous exasperated sigh.) Oh never mind. It’ll probably be no use complaining anyway.

I mumbled, “Sure.”

Dr. Lawson stood, walked over to a clear space on a low stainless steel counter and said, “Hop on up here, Anita. I don’t have any chairs here in this lab so you’ll have to make do with the table.”

As I walked over and sat down the doctor turned around and grabbed a filled needle and alcohol wipe from the table next to us. He pushed up my right sleeve so he could reach my arm near my shoulder and swabbed it with the wipe. I stubbornly looked ahead with a stern face, away from the needle as it neared my arm. I felt it puncture my skin, not exactly hurting, but definitely a weird sensation I don’t like to experience. A second later he pulled it out and pressed a Hello Kitty band aid on my arm.

Cute, Hello Kitty (mentally roll eyes). Now I finally have something to match my underwear (snort).

“There, all done. That wasn’t that bad, was it?” How old does he think I am, six?

I mumbled in response, “No.”

I got up off the table and walked back to my stool as the doctor called, “Next. Kiara, why don’t you go now? Matthew can go after you. We’ll do youngest to oldest.”

Without much emotion, Kiara replied, “Sure,” and walked over to the table.

Her shot was pretty much the same as mine. She also looked forward as Dr. Lawson stuck her.

Next was Matthew. He was different. As the needle pierced his skin he looked down nervously at it. When the needle came out he looked slightly relived.

Tanya was after him. She took the shot coolly, head up, looking as if she got a shot every day.

Zachary was last. He almost looked bored sitting up there, almost not even noticing when the doctor finished. He walked back to his seat as Dr. Lawson began speaking again.

“That’s it for today. We’ll be meeting tomorrow at the same time for the second shot. Make sure you’ll be here. You all may leave now.”

With that we all departed. I was one of the first ones out the door, almost afraid that if I stayed a moment longer I’d get stuck by another needle.

The next few days were exactly the same. Go there at eight, wait for everyone, get the shots, then leave. Very routine. Almost boring, but not quite. After all, we were getting shots. Thankfully, it was only the three days. Then on early Friday morning something not routine or normal happened.