Finding Cassidy Read Free Page A

he have?” There was a Texas twang in Mom’s voice as she finished the question for me. A sure sign of stress.
    “Yeah.”
    “ If, ” she stressed, “If it is Huntington’s, he could live a very long time. Ten, twenty, even twenty-five years.”
    Whoa. I could breathe again. “That’s a relief.” Twenty years was time to find the right doctors, find a cure even. “When can I see him?”
    “He’ll be at the hospital for observation tonight.”Mom stood and wearily combed her fingers through her hair. “He should be home midday tomorrow.”
    “I’ll go see him first thing in the morning.” I rinsed my glass and put it in the dishwasher.
    “You need to go to school,” Mom said. “You missed a week with that cold. You can’t afford to miss any more time. Tomorrow’s Friday. You can spend the whole weekend with Dad. I’ll be with him at the hospital. So will the doctors.”
    Which was precisely the point. My parents subscribed to the mushroom school of parenting—keep the kid in the dark. I wanted to ask the doctors a few questions of my own, like, what is this Huntington’s thing, and does my father have it?
    My mother clearly read my mind. “I’ll ask the right questions, baby. You can count on that.”
    I could count on it, all right. What I couldn’t count on was Mom sharing the answers. But I didn’t argue. It was after eleven—too late to call Jason, but not too late to go online and find out all I could about Huntington’s chorea.

TWO
In the wild, birds hide sickness. They do this to trick predators. Predators are those attacking things like wolves, other birds, people even.
    Cassidy MacLaughlin, Grade Four Science Project
    W hen I typed “Huntington’s chorea” into my computer a few minutes later, I got over forty-four thousand hits.
    I scrolled past chat rooms, e-zines, and the Ecure Me.com sites. I needed a site I could depend on. I can’t help it—I have scientific leanings. They might be hidden behind my Guess jeans and Fleshpot lipstick, but dig deep and they’re there.
    Words jumped out as I scanned: Spastic. Ballistic. Central nervous system. Disabling. Dementia. My stomach flipped. This sounded bad.
    Finally I found the Northwestern University Medical School site. I clicked it open.
    The first page was dry, to the point and laid out in logical order: symptoms, stages, progression, treatment, complications and prognosis. I read quickly through the section marked “symptoms.” Clumsiness. Twitching. Irritability. Accident-prone. Dad was clumsy and irritable, but he didn’t twitch. He did tap his finger a lot though. Did that count?
    There was a bang on my door. I jumped.
    “Cass!” Mom called.
    Fingers shaking, I minimized the screen. The last thing I wanted was to upset her more. “What?” I braced myself in case she walked in.
    But she stayed in the hall. “Make sure you get some sleep. If you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll end up with a cold again and it could turn into bronchitis or pneumonia or mono or God knows what.”
    Now that sounded like my mother. I smiled in spite of myself. “Okay,” I said. Only after a long minute of silence did I maximize the screen.
    My eyes jumped to the list of stages: early, intermediate, advanced. Wanting to get the worst over with, I skipped to the advanced stage. Dementia. Purposeless movements. Rigidity.
    Pictures of Dad flashed through my mind. Dadquitting smoking after his last heart attack. Losing that last twenty pounds. Dad skiing. Laughing.
    This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
    I skipped over treatment and complications and went right to prognosis.
    My blood froze.
    Huntington’s had no cure. It was a death sentence.
    It was also genetic.
    That couldn’t be right. I read the section again.
    It was so right and so genetic that Huntington’s rarely skipped a generation. Genetic.
    My stomach did a nauseous little somersault. The day was going to shit faster than geese could. “If Dad has it,”