‘You don’t have to make up excuses for me, Nikki,’ he said, his voice as gentle as his fingertips. ‘I know how hard it is, living in the spotlight, having to listen to the gossip. And I’m glad you’re getting the help you need now—’

‘But—’

‘Everything’s going to be all right now,’ he said as he led the way to the elevators. ‘I’m really pleased you decided to come back to the hospital. Your parents will be happy to see you.’ He gave me a wry grin. ‘Maybe they’ll forgive me now for sneaking on to your floor the other night when I wasn’t supposed to.’

‘Um.’ Cosy and I joined him in the elevator car as it arrived. I was feeling more dazed than ever. ‘Yeah. About that—’

‘Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards conquering it, you know, Nikki,’ Gabriel said, smiling down at me. I smiled back up at him because I couldn’t help it.

But smiling at him turned out to be a mistake. Nikki Howard’s smile was like kryptonite to guys, or something. It seemed to completely immobilize them. Gabriel seemed to totally forget where we were. The elevator doors closed, and then we just stood there for almost a whole minute, with Gabriel staring at me.

Hello. Awkward.

‘Uh,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what floor we’re going to.’

‘Oh.’ Gabriel gave a start, then dropped my hand and hit the button for the fourth floor. ‘Sorry.’

Before I had a chance to think of anything to say — such as, I am not now, nor have I ever, been on drugs — however, the elevator doors slid open to reveal a burly security guard, who said, ‘Sorry, folks. Access to this floor is… ’ Then his eyes widened when he got a closer look at me. ‘You!’ he cried.

‘Um, yeah,’ I said. My cheeks were still on fire. Drugs! Alcohol! Really. Did I ask for any of this? ‘Are my mom and dad around?’

And the next thing I knew, Mom and Dad were all over me with their Where have you beens and their We were worried sicks, hugging me and berating me at the same time. It really was just as embarrassing as I’d anticipated. Dr Holcombe was hovering around too, nervously chewing on the end of his glasses while holding a clipboard. Dr Higgins — the female doctor, who’d been wearing her hair in a bun — was beside him. Only her hair wasn’t in a bun any more. It was hanging all over the place, looking straggly, like she hadn’t had a chance to fix it up, given the whole part where I’d disappeared and everyone was freaking out about where I was, apparently.

Which was going to be hard to explain, since I didn’t want to rat out Lulu and Brandon, as they’d genuinely thought they were doing the right thing.

On the other hand, I did have to answer my parents’ questions.

But Gabriel Luna solved the whole problem for me by cutting everyone off and saying, ‘I found her at her flat.’

Which was when Dr Holcombe slid his glasses back into place and asked, ‘Excuse me, but who is this young man?’

It was right then that Frida came around the corner, her head down and her shoulders slumped dejectedly. When she heard Dr Holcombe’s voice, she looked up, saw me and broke out into a huge smile…

… until her gaze fell on Gabriel. Then the smile vanished and she gasped. ‘Gabriel Luna!’ she cried.

‘That’s Gabriel Luna?’ Dad whispered to Mom in a perfectly audible voice. ‘He’s the one who was here asking for Nikki Howard a little while ago.’

‘That’s the boy I saw beside her bed,’ Dr Higgins said, pointing at Gabriel. ‘He’s the one who brought her the roses!’

The glance Frida threw at me could have frozen coffee. ‘He brought you roses?’

‘He brought Nikki Howard roses,’ I corrected her. Because I could see all too clearly where this was heading.

‘Wait… Gabriel Luna from the Megastore grand opening?’ Mom asked.

‘Yes,’ Gabriel said, extending his right hand towards my parents. ‘Hello. I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier, but you were busy having me thrown out. It’s very nice to meet you.’

Mom, looking like she was in a daze, shook Gabriel’s hand and murmured, ‘Nice to meet you too,’ while Dad, as soon as she was done, stuck out his own hand and, shaking Gabriel’s, said, ‘Where have you been with my daughter?’

‘Gabriel brought me back here,’ I explained, rushing to Gabriel’s defense. ‘It’s a long story, but I didn’t exactly leave on my own and… well, he sort of rescued me.’

Gabriel flashed me a smile of thanks for this. Which I returned. In spite of the fact that he apparently thought Nikki Howard was a drug addict, I figured he deserved some credit anyway.

‘Well,’ Dr Holcombe said, in a voice that was a little fake in its heartiness ‘in that case, we have much to thank you for then, Mr, er, Luna.’

‘It’s nothing,’ Gabriel said. ‘Really. But I have to say, I think—’

Dr Holcombe wasn’t interested in hearing what Gabriel thought, however.

‘Frida,’ he said, cutting Gabriel off, ‘why don’t you show Mr Luna to the cafeteria and get yourselves a bite to eat while your sister and parents and I have a little talk. All right?’

Before Gabriel could say anything, Frida went from staring daggers at me to staring lovingly up at him, her pupils practically going heartshaped, like a cartoon character’s.

‘Sure,’ she said in a breathy voice I’d never heard before and, taking hold of Gabriel’s arm, she cooed, ‘Here, follow me. I’ll show you the way.’

Which of course made me actually want to slug her, for acting so dopey. Why does my sister always have to act like such — I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true — a girl sometimes?

Although, now that I know what it actually feels like to get kissed, I guess I couldn’t really blame her.

‘Uh,’ Gabriel said, looking back at me as Frida led him towards the elevator we’d just stepped out of, ‘all right then, I guess, uh, I’ll see you later… ’

‘Bye,’ I started to say, waving.

But before I could utter a word more, Frida had dragged him around the corner and he was gone. For all I knew, forever.

But I had more important things to deal with just then than my sister’s completely inappropriate crush on a British singer-songwriter. And that included my mother, who was looking down at my half-open jacket and going, ‘Oh my God. Is there a dog in your coat?’

‘It’s Nikki Howard’s dog,’ I explained.

‘How in God’s name,’ Dad wanted to know, ‘did you end up with Nikki Howard’s dog?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘it all started when I woke up and found that somebody had put my brain in Nikki Howard’s body.’

Dr Holcombe, looking very uncomfortable, opened a nearby office door, and gestured for us to follow him, saying, ‘Please. Come in. Sit. We need to talk.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said, following him with my head — or should I say Nikki Howard’s head — held high. ‘We do.’

‘You have to understand,’ Dr Holcombe said as he sat behind his enormous mahogany desk, a cup of coffee cradled between his hands, ‘the procedure we performed on you, Emerson, was necessary in order to save your life.’

‘I get that,’ I said. ‘I doubt you go around doing brain transplants on people who don’t need it. Although I don’t know how I got lucky enough to be the first.’

Dr Holcombe cleared his throat. ‘Er… ’

‘Wait.’ I stared at him. ‘I was kidding. You mean… I’m not the first?’

‘Oh, my word, no,’ Dr Holcombe said, laughing heartily. ‘The youngest, definitely. But not the first, by any means.’

I blinked at him. ‘But… wait a minute. I just saw a documentary on brain transplants a few months ago. It said none had ever been successfully done on a human being before.’

‘Well, none that we’ve ever publicized, no,’ Dr Holcombe said. ‘None of our recipients has ever cared to make the procedure public. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact—’

‘Recipients? You’ve mean you’ve done this… a lot?’

‘Oh yes,’ Dr Holcombe said. ‘My team and I perfected the procedure some time ago. We’ve been performing it for several years now. It’s extremely expensive — and still quite rare. You came to us with injuries that, in any ordinary circumstances, would have been instantly fatal. It was pure serendipity that a viable whole-body donor became available at the same time your heart gave out.’