Code Orange (book)

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Code Orange (ISBN 0385732597, 2005) is a young adult novel by Caroline B. Cooney. It is about a teenage boy who is care-free and doesn't worry about blackouts or grades or anything, which is why he's late starting his advanced biology report. He would rather watch a game or listen to his i pod than do research on infectious diseases. He finds some old medical books in his weekend house, but when he finds smallpox scabs in one of the books in a envelope, it's no longer about a grade -- it's life and death. It has the potential to kill everyone in New York City.

Code orange is about a student named Mitty, who doesn't enjoy school work, but has to research an infectious disease. After finding an envelope of scabs labeled " Smallpox Epidemic 1902" in an old medical journal from a dead doctor, this topic becomes more then a school project. He inhales the scabs, without thinking about the consequences. Later, he begins to realize that he is starting to get the symptoms of small pox. He is kidnapped, after attempting suicide to make sure he doesn't start the small pox epidemic all over again, by terrorists who want the precious scabs to infect the U.S. In the end, Mitty escapes, and finds out that he does not have small pox, but must be put in the hospital after the injuries which are from carbon monoxide he suffers from the assault his kidnappers placed upon him. But everything works out okay, and in the end of the book the author implies that Mitty and his close friend Olivia will get together and be a couple.