Gone (Michael Bennett 6)

Jane opened her eyes and stared up at her strangely. Then she let out a low groan.

“I’m not feeling well, Mary Catherine,” she said.

“What is it? What’s wrong? Do you feel hot?” Mary Catherine asked, putting a hand on her forehead.

“No, it’s mostly my stomach,” Jane said. “Maybe it’s something I ate.”

It’s probably nothing, Mary Catherine thought, squinting at her. Too much popcorn from the National Treasure movie-a-thon the girls had watched the night before.

“I’ll go and get you a ginger ale,” Mary Catherine said.

Before she went downstairs, she went into the boys’ room and shook the first foot she could find.

“Time to get up, Eddie,” Mary Catherine said. “It’s getting late. Could you wake the others for me?”

After a moment there came another low groan.

“Mary Catherine, my stomach’s killing me,” Eddie said. “I’m sick. I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Me too,” Brian said a moment later.

“Me three, MC. I really feel like I’m going to yack,” called out Ricky.

What?! Mary Catherine thought, panicking. They’d had a turkey for dinner the night before. Is it food poisoning? she thought. Salmonella? That was all they needed. She hadn’t even had a chance to find a pediatrician.

“Oh, no, guys. Jane’s sick, too,” Mary Catherine said. “Hang in there. You must have caught some sort of bug. I’ll wake your father. We need to find you guys a doctor right away.”

“Actually, you don’t need to go to all that trouble, Mary Catherine,” Brian said, sitting up across the room.

“What do you mean?” Mary Catherine said. “Of course I do.”

“We’re not that kind of sick,” Brian told her.

Mary Catherine stared at him, confused.

“What kind of sick are you?” she asked.

Brian sat up against his headboard and folded his arms.

“We’re the sick-and-tired-of-doing-all-these-stupid-farm-chores kind of sick,” he said. “Nobody asked us if we wanted to become agricultural slave labor, OK? We’re hereby done with the milking. Hereby done with the whole cock-a-doodle-doo, crack-of-dawn hick routine.

This is a strike.”

CHAPTER 16

I WOKE UP TO a whole heap of commotion the next morning. It wasn’t even the rooster this time. There was yelling at first. Then it stopped, and then came something that shot me out of bed like a skyrocket.

A loud, cacophonous clanging was coming from downstairs. It was amazingly loud, like an old school fire alarm or the hammering of a boxing bell after the last round.

I tripped out of bed and found my robe and headed down the stairs two by two. It was coming from the boys’ room. What the hell now? I couldn’t believe it. It was Mary Catherine. She was yelling like a drill sergeant as she banged two pots together.

“That’s it! Out of your beds, you lazy so-and-sos! Everybody up now. I said up! And on your feet! You think you can sleep in, you’re wrong! Every last one of you, rise and shine!”

Mary Catherine fired the pots into the corner and stood there sweating, her fists balled. I was about to say something, but when Mary Catherine glared at me, I immediately shut my trap.

“What the heck did you do?” I mouthed to Brian.

He just swallowed as he stood there, as wide-eyed as the rest of us. I’d never seen Mary Catherine so fired up.