The Despairing Tribulations of a Doomed Boy

Chapter 12

Thursday

"These X-rays are absolutely fascinating!" Dr. Piero said on Thursday morning. He had been examining the inside of Otto's nose-button and brain for nearly two hours on every available machine in the building, from a simple pen light in the nostrils to a MRI.

"What does that mean? It's abnormal?" Otto sat on the exam bed, bored and tired and wishing he had something to do besides reading the same medical posters over and over again while the two doctors stared at pictures of his head.

"On the contrary," Dr. Piero said, "I never expected such an extraordinary nose-button to look so ordinary on the inside. It just deepens the mystery of the magic, don't you think?"

Otto rolled his eyes. Dr. Piero had a way of making no progress sound like the most exciting part of his day. It was annoying. But more than that, it was worrying. The best doctor in the world for nose-buttons and he didn't even know what good his own nose-button truly did. He couldn't help Pieter and from the sound of it, he had written off Mr. Detroy as well. What could he possibly do with Otto?

Dr. Dalle sat next to Dr. Piero in the small office looking over all the pictures and notes they had gathered so far. She squinted and bit her lips together as she thought over the data. She hadn't said much of anything all morning, but nodded at anything that Dr. Piero said.

"None of this is going anywhere, is it?" Otto said to break the silence.

"On the contrary!" Dr. Piero said, "We are narrowing down our field of exploration with every dead end we come to!"

Otto rolled his eyes again and let out a loud sigh in exasperation. "How long did it take before you gave up on Pieter?" He asked.

"Pieter? I have never given up on Pieter," Piero said, "I think about that boy all the time. But taking action is something that must be done with extreme caution. I must first determine the safest action to take. And that takes time and thought."

"So, why can't he go home to be with his family while you think?" Otto said.

Dr. Piero nodded in sad understanding. "Because we don't know how dangerous his button may be, we cannot recommend that he be set free to roam where anyone could push his button. Honestly, it makes me a tad nervous that he does not ware a nose casing, but given his current state of mind, it's the least we can do, I suppose."

Dr. Dalle nodded in agreement.

"So, what does that mean for me?" Otto asked.

The two doctors looked up at him with concern. "What do you mean?" Dr. Dalle said, speaking for the first time in an hour.

"I'm going to get stuck here like him, aren't I."

"There is no way of telling!" Dr. Piero said most joyfully. "Anything can happen. We could discover a breakthrough in modern science because of you!"

Otto ignored him and turned to Dr. Dalle, imploring her with his eyes to give a straight answer.

"I don't know," she said. "If your nose-button truly is as dangerous as we suspect, the courts will have a tough decision to make. This is something that we've never encountered before, Otto—never even suspected that there could be a button like this out there."

Otto's heart broke just in time for lunch. Ellsworth escorted him down the hall and through the lunch line in silence, interpreting the look on Otto's face as one on the brink of despair. They sat together at the table with Amelie, Ms. Cypress, and Pieter and said nothing through the meal. The table sunk into silent depression.

In the recreational room, Otto became desperate. The reality that he'd be here for the rest of his life was a heavy weight to bare—one that he didn't want to bare alone.