This chapter opens with Doctor L. L.'s funeral/memorial service:
Almost everyone on the island followed, each of them somehow touched by Layland’s kindness and generosity.This would be more meaningful if they weren't living on an island especially designed by him and his wife for their children to live on. Of course they were each somehow touched by him. That's the only reason they're on the island at all. But whatever.
Skye gives a little speech to Morgan and Tammy about how "Father is with Jesus now," though she follows it up with "Mother is so happy," which makes me wonder, because I don't think we ever heard anything about Skye converting her mother, so, um, I'm pretty sure we have no reason to believe they are both in Heaven. So that's disconcerting.
Tammy plans to head back to St. Paul to put things in order at their clinic, but Morgan suggests:
“Maybe I should do that, since I’m the administrator.”HEY! Maybe you SHOULD do some administrating somewhere! Since you've done absolutely NONE of that in this book so far. But Tammy says, no, she's going to go administrate their St. Paul clinic to get closure.
And that's the end of chapter 30, so I'm moving on to the next chapter, because otherwise this is the saddest little mini-chapter ever.
The next morning, Morgan and Tammy were awakened by Skye’s bouncing on their bed. “Hey Dad, wake up! We have to take our morning walk along the beach. Do you want to go all the way back in the cave? It’s scary!” Skye pretended to shudder with fear.Well, she has clearly gotten over her parents' death pretty quickly.
Actually, what this opening makes me think is, "OH MY GOSH I HATE KIDS LIKE THIS." Reason #14535 I should not have children: The idea of a child waking me up by bouncing on my bed is filling me with snarky rage.
This seems to be a pattern with Skye, though. Morgan and Tammy may just have to resign themselves to never get a full night's sleep again, even though she is certainly old enough to have some self-control about waking up her "parents."
Skye tells a somewhat gruesome story about going all the way back in the cave with Ty(rion) and discovering scratch marks on the wall from when prisoners were clawing to get out of the cave as the tide came in. On that cheerful note, they go have breakfast.
“We won’t have time for exploring today, because I have a big tennis match with Lance.”Morgan's officially taken over the clinic, but he's still not doing anything that resembles work. Sigh.
We get some brief descriptions of the couple doing some vaguely work-y things but worrying all the time about how little time they have left with Skye. Then, suddenly, we have this timeline update:
Dr. Rozak left for two weeks on the annual Cruise for a Cure.So I'm assuming it's been about a year since that first cruise. I went to look up how much time happened between the cruise and Lance the Tennis Player arriving with his letter. Turns out it was about 3 1/2 months. So we have just zoomed on by their life on the island. Nothing important happening here, gang. Morgan's supposedly administrating and Tammy is... doing something sciencey and caring about rare childhood diseases but mostly everyone's just waiting around for Skye to die.
Morgan suggested Skye enter some of her quality photographs in a contest.A cropping and printing contest? Because that is what Skye is best at.
If she enters Mrs. Scott's pictures in a contest and wins money without acknowledging she was not the photographer (as Morgan suggested way back when), she had better send some of that prize money to the old lady...
One morning, Morgan and Tammy are woken up by Skye giggling about how she let a bunch of the island's black squirrels into the house. Maya discovers them and screams a bunch, while Skye thinks this is the funniest thing ever and laughs for like three minutes straight before deciding maybe she should help Maya get the squirrels out of their house. Yeah, she's a charmer. But she tells them all this while doing a bad John Wayne imitation, so, um, I guess that makes it cuter?
Skye and Maya spent the next two hours trying to get the squirrels out of the house, finally succeeding using a fishing net and laundry basket.TWO HOURS? Skye thinks it's hilarious that she and her housekeeper are going to have to spend TWO HOURS getting rid of a couple of squirrels? While, what, Morgan and Tammy lounge around in bed? Something tells me Maya's not nearly as amused by this as everyone else is...
So then we zoom two months ahead, and Skye continues to be as obnoxious as she was a year ago:
Skye was always the first one up on Sunday mornings. “Time for church,” she would bellow at the top of her lungs, jumping on her parents’ bed.Oh my gosh. SOMEBODY needs to get this child to calm down, right now.
 |
| Reason #5481 I shouldn't be a mom: I see nothing adorable whatsoever about being woken up by children bouncing on my bed. I don't care if it's Christmas. Go away. |
Anyway, Morgan and Tammy wake up one Sunday to find the power is out and Skye is still sleeping, but when they go in to wake her up, she doesn't wake up. Morgan and Tammy panic, but as they start to panic, suddenly people start arriving:
Hearing the commotion, Maya rushed in. “The ambulance is here. What’s wrong?”
Ty and Penni raced into the room right behind her.
Quickly assessing the situation, Ty shouted, “Lay her on the bed.”Hold on hold on hold on. Ty(rion) is an IT guy, not a nurse! What the heck is he even doing here?
Apparently there was a power surge that made all the girls' alarms go off, so it wasn't until like ten minutes after Skye went comatose that they even realized anything was genuinely wrong with her. So the IT guy grabbed the only nurse mentioned by name, called Dr. Rozak, and rushed over in an ambulance.
They all follow Skye to the hospital, where most of them file into the chapel and pray for her.
Eventually:
It was hard to read Tammy’s expression when she entered the hushed waiting room, but there was no doubt that it registered concern.So, wait, isn't that reading her expression? Doesn't that mean "her concerned expression was easy to read"? I think what he really meant is that Morgan couldn't tell right away whether Skye was alive or dead. However, it turns out Skye is alive. She had a seizure, but they got to her in time... which is too bad because we still have like 20% of this book left and I'm not sure I can take Skye squealing at the top of her lungs about church for another 35 pages.
I know, I'm a terrible person, eagerly waiting for this fictional child to die, but if he hadn't made her so dang annoying...
Dr. Rozak announces:
“I’ve called the team in and we’re going to work today. In fact, we’re going to work around the clock until we get as far or farther than the Leontiou’s were.”Sigh. I see Rothdiener and his editor still don't know how to use apostrophes.
I'm pretty sure they've been talking about the team working around the clock anyway. Was this like their one day off in the past two months? I guess now the reality has sunk in that Skye's going to die any day now, so they should really work on this whole cure thing.
Morgan insists that Dr. Rozak should have known something about the Leontious' work, but apparently all he ever did was administer the injections. He is a doctor, not a scientist. If he wasn't ever involved in the procedure to begin with, I don't really know why he's doing any work on the procedure now.
Morgan asks if there were backup hard drives.
OH MY GOSH. If there were backup hard drives and everyone forgot about them because they were idiots and all this time they could have just restored the freaking virus killing antidote from the backups that were there all along, I'm going to hit someone.
Fortunately, that's not the case. Ty(rion) tried to save the hard drives, but they were all wiped. (I mean, obviously they should have saved the backups on external hard drives that weren't connected to the network because that's how backups work, but at least they weren't like, "Hey, we never thought of using the backups!")
Dr. Rozak says Skye has like a year, tops, before she dies. Then we get this speech:
With fresh optimism Morgan began to speak, starting in a whisper, but growing louder with each phrase. “She’ll get better! I know she will. We’re going to beat this! Skye is going to beat this! Everyone get to work. We have a job to do. Lives to save!”
Morgan rushed out of the room to Skye’s side.Guys, there is NO WAY to do this without making it hilarious.
I issue you all that challenge. Say Morgan's speech, starting by whispering "She'll get better" and getting louder with each sentence until you're yelling, "LIVES TO SAVE!" and then run out of the room. If you can do this with great sincerity and seriousness and not burst into laughter about halfway through, you're a better person than I.
Morgan goes to see Skye, who is very concerned that she didn't get to play piano in church that morning. (That may be one of the first actual childlike responses I've seen from her. Kudos, Rothdiener.) She then pleasantly reports that she had an out-of-body experience during this whole thing, which freaks Morgan out. She ends by quoting Scripture at him and saying God knows what he's doing.
We are 80% of the way through. Eight chapters, 44 pages, two more months. (Unless chapters are short again and I can cram a couple in together like today. Whoo!)
We are GETTING THERE!
(Chapter 32.)
No comments:
Post a Comment