The Orphans Series Vol. 1: The Orphans Read Online Free Page A

accident, then cursed himself for the error. He slammed the phone down, picked it back up, and angrily restarted the process. He punched the right number the second time, and then had to choose from a vast array of options that came on before he finally made it to a receptionist who obviously hated life and everyone who called to bother her.
                  "Good afternoon and thank you for calling E&T Pharmaceutical Corporation. It's a wonderful day to start a healthy new you. This is Debra. How may I direct your call, please?"
                  "Good afternoon. I would like to speak with Dr. Fox, please."
                  "One moment." There was a lot of typing and tapping and she came back on the line. "Can you tell me in a bit more specific detail which Dr. Fox you are trying to contact, please?"
                  "Well, I am trying to reach ... um ... well, do you have more than one Dr. Fox, sir--I mean ma'am?" he stumbled.
                  "Sir, I am not at liberty to disclose confidential information to you. It's against the privacy act."
                  Mr. Peterson was getting irritable. "Well, I will let you know that I am Principal here at Raccoon Valley High!"
                  She didn't let him finish. "Congratulations on being Principal sir. Now as I stated earlier, could you be more specific on the Dr. Fox you'd like to speak to, please?"
                  He started fumbling with the file growing more and more agitated by the second. He found the parents and emergency contacts block--Dr. Francis Fox. Next to it there was a scribbled note, triple underlined, which advised to call him Frank, not Francis. "Yes, I'd like to speak to Dr. Frank Fox."
                  "Transferring ... please hold," Debra droned with the tone of the dead in her voice.
                  The phone rang echoing in a laboratory filled to capacity with enough technology to cure the worst of diseases. There were work benches filled with test tubes, DNA sequencers, computers, chromatographs, microscopes.... Anything that could be thought of, someone had already furnished it. In it was a man buried over his head with data results, test experiments, and dry erase boards filled with formulas and hypotheses--some that worked and some that failed.
                  The phone rang five times before the ringing penetrated the scientist's concentration. Frank Fox pushed himself up off of the lab stool he'd been sitting at for hours and stretched his lean muscular frame. He rubbed at eyes that never got the amount of sleep they wanted and picked up the phone, annoyed and  thinking there wouldn't be so many interruptions if a secretary could be put in his budget. He cursed the young research assistant that was nowhere to be found. "This is biochem lab 562."
                  Frank came from the military, and patience was not a virtue he had been blessed with. He wasn't about unnecessary questions like how are you, how can I help you, is there a problem, why are you calling? In Frank's eyes, if you didn't know why you were calling then you shouldn't have picked up the phone in the first place. He started tapping his fingers on the counter, looking at the clock, waiting impatiently for whoever was calling to speak.
                  Mr. Peterson was contemplating if it would have been less trouble to place Lucas and the other two in detention after all. Sitting down, he cleared his throat and tried. "Hello. Good afternoon. This is Mr. Peterson, the Principal at Raccoon Valley High School."
                  Shaun's dad grew concerned. "Is there a problem at the school?"
                  "Well, there was an issue with Shaun today, sir."
                  "Is Shaun okay?"
                  "Shaun and his friend Ellie had an altercation earlier today with a few other boys. He is