Against Medical Advice by James Patterson Read Free Book Online

branch. I stand on the rope step and can tell it’s strong enough to hold me.
    I hook my foot around the next rung, but right away my leg shoots straight out and slams into the tree. This is what I’m most afraid of, the excitement making my body spark more than usual. A wrong move a hundred feet in the air will make the trip down a lot faster than the climb up.
    On the next try, my leg is okay, and I keep going until I run out of ladder and can grab hold of the first branch and pull myself into the tree.
    The next few branches line up one above the other, and I climb them quickly. Then a large gap stops me.
    My bending tic hits all at once, and my stomach clenches so hard that for a few seconds I can hardly breathe. The thrust forward shifts my weight so much it throws me off balance, and
suddenly I’m falling.
    My whole body jerks to a stop when my legs get tangled in a thick bunch of branches and end my fall. It all happened so fast that I didn’t have time to be scared, but I am now that it’s over.
    I stay very still and suck in a few gallons of air.
    I look down and see just how bad an idea this whole thing was. Below, there’s a pattern of small light and dark rectangles, and I realize they’re the roof shingles on my house.
    I’m much higher up than I thought, and I wonder how I’m going to get down.
    That thought makes me
need
to test the danger of a fall. I let go of the limb I’m holding on to for just a second until I start to lose my balance. Then I grab it again at the last moment. I test again by letting go for a longer time and almost don’t get my grip back before it’s too late.
    But I still need to climb. I wrap both arms around an overhead branch and hook one leg around it, then the other, and in a moment I’m hanging upside down.
    All at once a big muscle in my left leg contracts, making it straighten out. Now only one leg is attached to the tree, and
I’m still hanging upside down.
    I dangle there, high off the ground, not knowing if I’m going to fall. I wait for the spasm to stop, then I wrap my leg back around the branch and haul myself right side up.
    I don’t know how long I’ve been climbing. My shirt is soaked with sweat.
    The muscles in my arms are tingling from the strain of holding on for so long, but being this close to the top elates me.
    I push apart a final thick clump of leaves, and a small space opens up. Now I can see where some of the highest branches end. The branches here are thinner, and I don’t know if the last one will hold my weight, but I’m not going back down until I find out.
    I take a deep breath and go for it. It bends but doesn’t break.
And I’m there!
    I actually begin to relax. The breeze is like a silk scarf on my skin. Far below, the earth looks like it’s moving back and forth, but it’s only the treetop swaying.
    I’m like a bird in the canopy of a great forest — one that’s washing stillness over my body. Up here, I’m part of another world — a zone without time or stress. I needed to get here because of the thrill but also because, up here, there’s something I can never find on the ground.
A place where no one can see me tic.
    I don’t see any reason to come down.
    No reason in the world.
    What I don’t know, and won’t for many years, is that the act of climbing this tree is the key to something wonderful.
    This is it.
I just don’t know it yet.

Resource Room

Chapter 19
    YOU’D HAVE TO BE unconscious not to realize that something is about to break loose in the Resource Room at my school. It’s obvious to all the kids that Phillip is getting more hyper by the minute, but Mr. Jansen is still sitting behind his desk, reading today’s
New York Times.
He seems concerned with what’s going on only when it gets so loud that you can hear us in the halls or when someone starts to freak out. Then he yells, “Be quiet and sit down! Now!”
    The Resource Room is a classroom set up as a quiet space for special-needs kids like me who