Karen's School Trip

by Ann M. Martin

  “Good-bye, Karen. Thank you. And bless you.”

  The Bad Dream

  “Karen?” said Mommy. “You look very tired.”

  “I know,” I replied. I yawned. Then I sneezed.

  “Bless you,” said Mommy and Seth and Andrew.

  “Thank you. You know what? I do not think I can finish my supper. I’m sorry. I guess I was not very hungry.” I looked at my plate. I had eaten half of my vegetables and some of my salad, but only a few bites of fish. My plate was more full than empty.

  “That’s okay, honey,” said Mommy.

  “May I please be excused?” I asked. “Achoo!”

  “Of course,” replied Mommy.

  “Bless you,” said Andrew.

  I went to my room. I lay down on my bed with Goosie and Tickly.

  “My head feels funny,” I told Goosie. (I made him nod.) “So I think I will rest for awhile.”

  Before I knew it, I was asleep. I fell asleep so early that I was still wearing my school clothes. But when I woke up later, I was in my nightgown. The light was off. And the covers were tucked around Goosie and me.

  I sat straight up in bed. I looked at my clock. It said one-thirty. That was late. I bet even Mommy and Seth were asleep.

  “What a horrible dream,” I whispered to Goosie. “Do you know what I dreamed about? I dreamed I was running through the jungle. And it was full of wild animals. The animals were friendly. Except for the gigundo snakes. They were hanging from the trees, and they were not friendly. They looked very pretty — like rainbows — but they snapped at my head when I ran underneath them…. Boy, my room is hot.”

  I kicked off my covers. I lay down again, hugging Goosie. Very soon, I was freezing cold. I was so cold I rubbed my hands together to warm them. I was so cold my teeth chattered.

  “Brrrr!” I said, and I pulled up the covers again.

  Soon I was too hot.

  Also, my head ached.

  I kicked off some of my covers but not all of them. Then I lay very still. I watched the numbers on my clock change. I wished I could go to sleep. My head would probably stop hurting if I slept.

  But I was not sleepy. Guess how long I lay in bed. For a whole hour. At two-thirty I sat up again. I was uncomfortable and bored. I tiptoed downstairs. In the darkness and silence my little house seemed huge.

  I turned on the light in the kitchen. Mommy had bought Oreo cookies. I opened a cabinet and found them. But I did not eat any. My tummy did not want any food.

  I crept into the living room and turned on another light. A newspaper was lying on a table. I tried to read it, but my eyes hurt. Also, I was not wearing my glasses. And also I was shivering again.

  I crept into the rec room. I did not turn on a lamp, but I turned on the TV, which made blue TV light. I lay down on the couch. I pulled a blanket over me. (It was Rocky’s blanket and covered with fur.) I watched whatever came on the TV on Channel Four. First I watched the end of some old movie. Then I watched a show called Our Miss Brooks. It looked even older than the movie. After that, I watched a news program.

  The news was very boring.

  It was so boring I fell asleep.

  Fever

  “Karen? Karen?”

  Someone was calling my name, but I did not want to answer. I had shrunk. I was four inches tall. And I was in Candy Land. Andrew was with me. He was only three inches tall. Candy Land looked just like our game — except that the candy was real. I was eating a peppermint stick.

  “Karen? You’re dreaming, honey. Wake up.”

  Bullfrogs. I was not in Candy Land after all. I had been asleep. Now Mommy was shaking my shoulder.

  Very slowly I opened my eyes. I was lying on the couch in the rec room at the little house. The TV had been turned off. Outside, the sun was shining.

  “Mommy?” I said sleepily.

  “Karen, what are you doing here?”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I came downstairs. I watched TV. Mommy, I feel awful. I’m hot and achy and my head hurts and my throat hurts and my nose is stuffed up.”

  Mommy put her hand on my forehead. “You have a fever,” she said. “You probably caught the flu.”

  I groaned. So this was how Ricky had felt on Monday.

  Mommy picked me up. She carried me to my room and put me in bed. (Mommy has not carried me in ages.) Then she took my temperature. “One hundred and three degrees!” she exclaimed. “No wonder you feel awful.”

  “Do I have to go to school?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” Mommy replied. “You are going to stay right here in bed for awhile. One hundred and three is a very high fever. I will give you some Tylenol.”

  Andrew peered into my room. “What’s wrong with Karen?” he asked.

  “She caught the flu,” Mommy whispered. “She does not feel well.”

  “Is she going to stay at home today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do I have to go to school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh,” said Andrew.

  That morning, my little-house family was very nice to me.

  Mommy said, “Do you want some breakfast, Karen? I will make tea for you. I will fix you whatever you want.”

  “No, thank you.” My tummy still was not hungry.

  “Do you want me to wheel the old TV in here?” asked Seth. “You could watch TV in bed today.”

  “No, thank you.” Now my head hurt so much that I did not want to watch TV. Even though the I Love Lucy hour would come on soon.

  “Do you want my new coloring book, Karen?” asked Andrew. “You can have it. Really. I only colored one page in it.”

  “No, thank you.” What I really wanted to do was sleep some more.

  Being this sick was not fun at all.

  A little later, Andrew came into my room again. “Good-bye, Karen,” he said. “Seth is going to take me to school now. You can still have my coloring book if you want it.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Goody-bye, honey,” said Seth. “Feel better. I’ll see you tonight. Mommy will be downstairs if you need her.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled. Then I fell asleep.

  The Stay-at-Home Day

  When I woke up later in the morning, Mommy was standing by my bed.

  “Hi, Mommy!” I said. “I feel much better!”

  “You do? I was thinking maybe I should call the doctor.”

  “The doctor! No! Take my temperature first.”

  Mommy did. “Well, you are better,” she said. “You still have a fever, but now it is one hundred and one. It has dropped two degrees.”

  “And my head does not hurt so much.”

  “Good. Maybe you will get over the flu quickly.”

  “What time is it?” I asked. The night before seemed strange and long ago. And I was not used to sleeping in the daytime.

  “Almost twelve o’clock,” Mommy answered. “Andrew will be home from school soon. Would you like something to eat?”

  “Yes! Now my tummy is very hungry.”

  Mommy smiled. “Would your tummy like some chicken noodle soup? And some toast? And maybe some ginger ale?”

  “Yes, yes, and yes.”

  “And would your eyes like the TV now?”

  “Definitely!”

  That day I ate lunch in bed. I slurped up those noodles while I watched Jeopardy and Let’s Make a Deal and Concentration. Someday, maybe I will get to be on a game show. I would like to play Concentration. I would like to win a car. Then I would give it to Charlie so he could drive it instead of the old Junk Bucket he drives now.

  Even though the game shows were fun, I grew bored. After awhile I turned off the TV. “Mommy?” I called. “Can Andrew play with me?”

  Mommy would not let Andrew play with me. She was hoping he would not catch the flu. So I read. I started a new book by Roald Dahl. Mr. Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I simply adore his books. His new one was called Esio Trot. Guess what that means. It is the word tortoise bac
kward. There is a good riddle in Esio Trot. I finished the story that afternoon. (I read the funniest parts aloud to Goosie so he could enjoy the book, too.)

  Then I yelled to Andrew to ask Mommy to bring me a soda.

  Then I yelled to Andrew to ask Mommy to bring me my crayons.

  And then I yelled to Andrew to ask Mommy to bring me some Tylenol.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?” said Mommy when she came into my room with the children’s Tylenol and a glass of juice. “Do you feel bad again?”

  I nodded. “I’m all achy. And I’m hot again.”

  Mommy took my temperature. It had gone up. “That sometimes happens late in the afternoon,” she said. “Why don’t you take a nap?”

  “I’m not sleepy,” I said. But I took a nap anyway.

  When I woke up, Seth had come home from work. Mommy was getting ready to take Andrew to Daddy’s for the weekend.

  “Feeling better?” Mommy asked me.

  “A little,” I said. “I wish I could go to Daddy’s, too.”

  “I know you do,” said Mommy. “But you don’t want to give everyone the flu, do you? Anyway, you can stay here and rest. We will have a quiet weekend. Maybe you can go back to school on Monday.”

  “I hope so,” I replied. I had to get better. I did not want to miss the zoo trip.

  The Horrible, Rotten Weekend

  I slept very late on Saturday morning. Even though I had slept most of Friday morning, napped Friday afternoon, and gone to bed early Friday night. I was a lazybones.

  “You are not a lazybones,” Mommy said when she gave me breakfast. “You are sleeping because you are sick. Sleeping is your body’s way of helping you to get better. You need your rest.”

  “I wish I didn’t. I wish I could go to the big house.”

  “Not this weekend,” said Mommy.

  “No fair,” I complained. “Andrew is there. This is a horrible, rotten weekend.”

  “Sorry, sweetie,” said Mommy. “But look at this. I bought you an activity book.” Mommy left me with the new book and a pencil and some crayons.

  I opened the book. I connected a dot picture. Then I worked a crossword puzzle. After that, I looked at my watch. If I were at Daddy’s, I said to myself, I would probably be playing with Hannie now. Or maybe I would be helping David Michael feed Shannon. Boo, boo, boo. I was bored.

  Seth took care of that. He came into my room and read me a chapter from a very wonderful book called Caddie Woodlawn. The book was so wonderful that when Seth left, I read another chapter to myself. Then I realized I was hungry. “Hey, Mommy!” I yelled.

  Mommy came into my room. She said she would fix me a sandwich. She would bring it to me on a tray.

  “Do I have to stay in bed?” I whined.

  “You do today,” Mommy answered. “But if your temperature stays down, you may get out of bed tomorrow.”

  “Hurray!” I cried.

  After lunch I said, “I have a good idea, Mommy. I am going to build a special invention. I will build it right here in bed. You will like it. I promise.”

  “Okay,” said Mommy. “Make sure you stay in bed, though.”

  “I will. Can you bring me some string, please?”

  I was going to invent a bell ringer. The bell would be a nice way to call Mommy. It would be much nicer than yelling, “Hey, Mommy!”

  I wound the string around my bed. I tied one end to a handbell. This is how my invention was supposed to work: The string would make all these funny things happen, and then the bell would ring. I saw that on TV. But when I pulled the end of my string, nothing happened. I decided that ringing the bell with my hand would be just as easy.

  * * *

  Guess what. On Saturday afternoon my temperature did not go up. On Sunday it was normal. Mommy let me get out of bed. I even got dressed. I called my big-house family to see if everyone missed me.

  “Hi, Kristy,” I said. “I can go to school tomorrow. Did you miss me?”

  Kristy said she had. So did everyone else.

  Later, I called Nancy. “I am all better,” I said.

  “That is good,” Nancy replied. “But six people were absent on Friday.”

  Uh-oh. Just because I was well did not mean we could go to the zoo. My classmates had to be well, too. All of them. And Ms. Colman had to be well.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Nancy.

  “Fine,” she said.

  I phoned Hannie. “How are you feeling?” I asked her.

  “Fine,” she said.

  I hoped we would stay fine.

  The Mean, Green Bug

  By Sunday evening I felt pretty happy. I could go to school the next day. Andrew was back from the big house. I had not missed anything. The weekend had been quiet. And maybe we would go to the zoo on Friday.

  Before I went to sleep that night, I sang a song to Goosie. It went, “Flu, flu, you make me feel blue, and I hate you, I really do, but now I am all well. So there!” (Goosie whispered that he liked the song.)

  I fell asleep quickly.

  I dreamed another strange dream. I dreamed I was at school. Hannie and Nancy and I were in the cafeteria. Awful Pamela Harding was sitting at our table. She was eating chocolate pudding.

  “Have some, Karen,” she said. She pushed another container of pudding toward me. I ate the pudding. Pamela gave me more. I ate that, too. Then she gave me even more.

  “I cannot eat that,” I said. “I feel sick.” When I woke up from the dream, I really did feel sick. My tummy felt awful. Like I was on a roller coaster, but not having fun.

  “Oh, no!” I cried. I sat up fast. “Mommeeeee!” I called. I ran into the bathroom. Mommy ran in after me.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I have to throw up,” I said. And then it happened.

  I hate throwing up. It is disgusting. I started to cry.

  “Poor Karen,” said Mommy.

  “I have to throw up again,” I told her.

  I threw up lots of times that night. So many times that Mommy brought a pillow and a blanket into the bathroom for me. I could not leave the bathroom. And my fever came back.

  Mommy took my temperature. “Only one hundred this time,” she said. “Not as high as before, but it is still a fever. I guess the flu did not go away after all, honey. Sometimes that happens.”

  “No school tomorrow?” I asked.

  “No school tomorrow,” said Mommy.

  “You have the mean, green bug.”

  “Yuck.”

  When I woke up on Monday morning I felt much better, though. Mommy took my temperature again. “Almost normal,” she said.

  “Can I go to school tomorrow?”

  “We’ll see. It will depend on how you do today.”

  “Okay.”

  What if I was still sick on Friday, and everybody but me got to go to the zoo? That would be gigundoly awful. I had to get better.

  So on Monday, I did everything Mommy told me to do.

  In the morning I stayed quietly in bed. I did not fool around trying to invent bell ringers. Instead, I read another chapter in Caddie Woodlawn. Then I wrote a letter to my grandparents in the state of Nebraska. I told them I had the mean, green bug, but I was getting better.

  Mommy let me eat soup and crackers for lunch. Everything stayed in my tummy, where it was supposed to stay. Mommy took my temperature. Normal. I did not have to stay in bed anymore. I ate dinner with my family. My tummy felt fine. My temperature stayed normal.

  “You may go to school tomorrow,” Mommy told me.

  Hurray!

  I’m Back!

  When I woke up on Tuesday, Mommy said, “I better take your temperature again. Just to make sure.”

  It was still normal. And I felt fine. I could not wait to see my friends again. And Ms. Colman. And Hootie, our class guinea pig. And my desk. And my cubby. And the cafeteria. I felt as though I had been absent for ages.

  When I got to school I rushed to my classroom.

  Ricky was there!
So were Natalie and Pamela. They had gotten well.

  Soon Ms. Colman came into the room. I ran to her and cried, “I’m back!”

  “I am so glad,” replied Ms. Colman. “But please remember your indoor voice.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “And you are back, too, Ms. Colman. Are you better?”

  “I feel fine.”

  “So do I,” I said.

  I sat at my desk. I waited for the rest of the class to arrive. But eight kids were still missing when Ms. Colman began to take attendance.

  Half the class was absent again. It was Tuesday. We were never going to be able to go to the zoo in three days. Were we?

  I asked Ms. Colman about the trip. “We will have to wait and see, Karen,” she told me. “We will have to wait until Friday.”

  Bullfrogs.

  “Today,” said Ms. Colman, “we are not going to do the things we usually do. Too many students are absent. I would have to teach the lessons all over again, some other time. So instead, we are going to hold a spelling bee. And later you may work on your animal sculptures. Don’t forget that you have music class today. And gym — but not for those of you who have just been sick.”

  What a great day! First, the spelling bee.

  I happen to be a very good speller. Once I was even the runner-up in a state spelling competition. I got to be on TV.

  Each team wanted me on their side.

  That day, I did not miss one word. I won the game for my team. This is the word I won with: cafeteria. Isn’t that long? Nine letters.

  In music class we learned how to sing “Do Re Mi.” Then we sang it in a round, which was fun until Natalie got confused. She sang the wrong verse. Then everyone else got confused, too.

  I could not take gym that day, since I had been absent the day before. That is the rule. I like gym. But Ms. Colman let me and the other kids who had been sick go to the library. And in the library was a storyteller. He told the story of Peter and the Wolf. He used lots of sound effects.

  In the afternoon, we worked on our animal sculptures. My capybara needed lots of work. Some of the other sculptures looked almost finished. But I was not sure what most of them were. I did not see an elephant or a bear or a tiger or a lion. Just weird animals.