“Something like that.” DJ took a drink from her water glass.
“Well, you better not get what the boys have. The clinic doctor told Maria this is a vicious bug going around this year.” She reached her hands out to Joe and DJ. “Let’s say grace. DJ?”
DJ cleared her throat again. It felt like a sheet of sandpaper was wedged in there. “For health and strength and daily bread, we give you thanks, O Lord. Thank you for my family, please take care of Mom and Robert, and make Bobby and Billy and Maria better. Thank you for the ride into the park today, too. Amen.” She squeezed her grandparents’ hands and reached for the salad bowl. “I don’t know if there is enough salt in the gravy, so you better try it first.”
Their conversation during dinner was punctuated several times by coughing from the boys’ room, but still the twins didn’t wake. When they were done eating, Gran laid her napkin on the table and sighed. “I hate to wake them, but they need their medicine. Cough syrup might help, too.”
“You go ahead, Mel. I’ll do the dishes so DJ can get her homework done.”
“I can help.” DJ gathered her salad bowl and silver onto her plate and stood.
“Thanks, but no thanks. You already did your share.”
“Okay, but remember, I volunteered.” DJ set her things on the counter and ambled down the hall to her bedroom. Spreading her books out on the bed, she attacked her history chapter first. After reading that, she made a list of four things she might want to do a term paper on. After an hour on the algebra, she still hadn’t finished. And the problems that were done could be right or wrong—she had no idea. How come she had such a horrible time with algebra?
Halfway through her grammar assignment, she felt her chin hit the book. Lifting her head again took all her remaining strength.
Blinking and swallowing hard, she got a drink in the bathroom, donned her nightshirt, and mumbling an apology to her unbrushed teeth, fell into the bed.
When she awoke to the sound of crying some hours later, her head ached and her throat felt like someone had been walking around in it wearing football cleats.
Chapter • 4
“Gran,” DJ croaked from the school phone on Monday. “Could you please come and get me?”
“Sure, darlin’, one of us will be there in ten minutes. I knew you should have stayed home today.” She paused to cough. “Excuse me. Now, don’t you go waiting outside in the rain. We’ll meet you at the door in front of the office.”
“You have to come sign me out.” Now it was DJ’s turn to cough.
“Will do. At the office, then.”
“Thanks.” DJ shivered again as she hung up the phone. She wrapped her arms around her middle. If only I could get warm. She never had taken her jacket off that morning, and she wished she’d brought gloves. DJ retrieved the rest of her books from her locker and went to tell the vice-principal, Ms. Benson, what was happening.
“You look like you should have stayed in bed today.” The woman smiled and raised a hand to DJ’s forehead. “Good grief, child, you feel like you’re freezing!”
DJ nodded. When she cleared her throat, she could finally speak. “All day.”
“Well, I’d bet my socks you’re running a fever. Thanks for spreading more germs around this germ factory.”
“Sorry”
“I know. If all the kids had the perseverance you have, we probably wouldn’t have room for them all. How’s that horse of yours doing?”
DJ’s head had begun to feel like miniature ponies were pounding around it in a circle. “Good. Shows will start in a month or so.”
“Why don’t you go sit down in that chair before you fall down.”
“Thanks.” DJ did as suggested and tucked her cold feet up under her. With her hands in her armpits, she still shivered. Just as Joe walked in the door, Ms. Benson brought DJ a blanket.
“Bring this with you when you come back to school, and don’t be in too much of a hurry. Get well.”
DJ nodded her gratitude and snuggled the blanket around her shoulders. While she was glad none of the kids were around to see her, she was too cold to care if they did.
“That bad, huh?” Joe handed her into the Explorer, where he had left the engine running and the heater on full blast. “I knew I should have insisted you stay home this morning.”
“Don’t tell me how bad I look, please.” DJ poked only her nose out from the blanket. An onset of coughing felt like it tore the lining right off her throat.
“Since the boys have strep, maybe we should take you right to the doctor.”
“Please, Joe, I just want to go home to bed.”
“I have to warn you, Bobby and Billy are better. They’ve been on the antibiotic twenty-four hours now, and little kids bounce back quickly.”
DJ groaned. “Maybe I should just go home to my own house.”
“All by yourself? Not on your life.”
Hours later when she woke up, she felt even worse, if that was possible. She drank the hot lemonade Joe brought her, sucked on some throat lozenges, and conked out again. When she woke again, her bed was sweat soaked and so was she. But in spite of all the sweat, DJ couldn’t quit shaking. She put on dry pajamas and crawled back under the covers after Joe and Gran changed the bed.
“I’m calling the doctor.” Gran stuck a thermometer under DJ’s tongue.
DJ shook her head. When she tried to speak around the thing in her mouth, Gran just held up a hand.
“Don’t bother to argue. Dr. Jaspers most likely won’t want you in his office anyway. If they need a throat culture, I know how to do that. Open your mouth and stick out your tongue.” Gran pointed the flashlight into DJ’s mouth. “Yuck. He said that both strep throat and the chest flu are going around, plus a nasty combination of both.”
The bed tap-danced on the floor, DJ shook so hard. She could hear the boys giggling in their room. If only she got over this as fast as they did. If she didn’t die first.
Gran returned in a few minutes. “Amazing, I got right through. Probably because he was ready to go out the door.” She sat down on the bed. “Anyway, Joe just went to pick up a prescription and some throat swabs. The doctor said this sounds like what everyone else has, only you got the double whammy.”
Gran turned her head away to cough into her hand.
“Hope you told him you’ve got it, too.” DJ’s head spun just from talking.
“Not yet, I don’t. Just a cold so far and not bad at that. I’m taking care of myself.” Gran opened a bottle of pills. “Here, this will help get your temp down.”
DJ tried to swallow them, but they stuck at the back of her tongue. She gagged and choked, finally spitting them out again. The room twirled, and Gran turned into two. DJ coughed till it felt like her lungs might come flying out of her mouth.
Gran shook her head. “Well, I haven’t had to crush tablets in sugar for you in a long time, but if that’s what it takes to get them down, so be it.” She handed DJ a juice bar. “Eat this.”
Sick as she was, DJ recognized an order when she heard one. Bites of the frozen bar slid past the sore throat amazingly well.
“Drink.”
DJ’s eyelids had started to close already but flew open at Gran’s General Crowder voice. DJ drank, swallowed the sugar mixture from a spoon, then drank again.
She was nearly asleep when Joe returned. Gran sat on the edge of the bed. “Here are the antibiotics. Good thing he put them in small capsules. If you drink plenty of water with them, they should go down.”
“Gran, I can’t. I’m so dizzy.” DJ tried blinking, but the room tilted, and Gran looked to be sliding off the bed.
“Keep your eyes closed.” Gran put the pill in DJ’s hand, then held her head while she drank. The glass clinked against her teeth when a shudder hit her.
“Good girl, now I’ll leave you alone.”
DJ mumbled something, but even she wasn’t sure what.
“What day is it?”
“Wednesday afternoon.” Joe sa
t down beside her.
“What happened to Tuesday?”
“We skipped it.” Joe didn’t crack a smile.
“Where’s Gran?”
“In bed.”
“Same stuff?”
“Hope not. But I sent her to bed so it wouldn’t get worse.” He handed her a glass with a straw that bent. When she slid up against the headboard, the room stayed level. “Drink.”
She did. He handed her another pill. She swallowed it and drank again. “Thanks, Dr. Joe.”
Suddenly, DJ’s eyes flew wide open. “Wednesday afternoon! I had classes to teach and—”
“Too bad. Bridget took them. I told her you would probably be out all week.”
“All week!”
Joe looked around the room. “We got a parrot in here somewhere?” He patted her hand. “Just go back to sleep and get better. The Bs are missing you.”
“Yeah, right. They started all this.” DJ scooted back down under the covers and rolled over on her side. “It’ll take me a week just to catch up on all my homework.”
“You hungry?”
DJ thought a minute. “No.”
“Okay, call me if you need anything. I’ll be taking the boys up to the Academy with me to feed the horses.”
His last remark sounded like he stood a mile away.
Later that evening, Joe came to her door. “You feel up to talking with Amy? She’s called every day.”
DJ raised up on her elbows. Her window showed only darkness outside. She blinked. “I guess so.” Now she sounded like a frog who croaked tenor. After she’d flipped on to her back, Joe handed her the portable phone. “Hi.”
“Hope you look better than you sound.”
“I guess. Haven’t seen a mirror.” DJ took the glass of water from her nightstand and sucked on the straw.
“You know half the school is out with strep or the flu? They’re calling it an epidemic.”
“Uh-huh.” DJ rubbed her eyes. She could hear the boys in the kitchen with Joe, asking him their standard million questions.
“You want me to bring you your homework?”
“I guess.” Who cares about homework? Living is the issue.
“So you feel any better?”
“Better than what? All I do is sleep.”
“You’ll get better.”
DJ tried to think of something to say, but words and ideas failed to creep out of the fog in her head.
“Maybe I should call back tomorrow.”
“ ’Kay.” DJ clicked off the phone. She drank again and decided she needed to use the bathroom. She sat up, and the room spun. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. The room tilted. She stood up. The floor rushed up to meet her. Getting from the floor to the bathroom and back to bed would equal about a fifty-mile run—in the rain—through a flood. DJ laid her cheek against the cool hardwood floor. Her knee hurt.
“My goodness, what happened?” Gran barged through the bedroom door, the boys right on her heels.
DJ straightened her arms and tried to push herself up. Before she could do any more, Joe joined the circus and scooped her up. When he started to put her back in bed, she shook her head and pointed to the bathroom.
“I’ll carry you in there, and Gran will help you.” His gentle voice tickled her ear.
How freaky can I get? I can’t even walk across the room. DJ forced her fingers to let go of Joe’s arm when he set her down on the cold bathroom floor. When Gran had her arm around DJ’s waist, Joe left the room. “Now that I’m standing, it’s not so bad.” DJ sucked in a deep breath and prayed the room would stand still. It did.
“It’s changing altitudes that make things spin.”
“You don’t sound so hot yourself.”
“The rest helped. And Joe is pretty much taking care of things, especially the boys. If only the rest of us bounced back like they do.”
“If only they’d kept their germs to themselves.”
“Their father and mother taught them to share.”
DJ shook her head. “Bad one, Gran.”
By the time she was helped back into bed, given more pills, forced to drink some chicken soup and cough hard, DJ felt like she’d run that fifty miles after all.
“Why make me cough like that?” she groaned.
“So your lungs stay clear. All you need is a bout with pneumonia.” Gran rubbed DJ’s back now instead of just thumping on it.
“So I should thank you, huh?”
“I know you do, darlin’. It’s just that right now, anything feels uncomfortable.”
“You think I’ll be able to take a shower in the morning and wash my hair?” DJ ran her fingers through the sticky mass.
“We’ll see.” Gran touched a finger to the tip of DJ’s nose. “That means you’re feeling better.”
“No, just feeling too grossed out to stand myself as is.”
After the shower the next day, DJ slept the rest of the morning. But that afternoon, she gave in to the twins’ pleading and read them a story. With the three of them propped against the head of her bed and the zany words of Dr. Seuss, DJ even managed to laugh a little. When Amy called that night, they talked for a half hour. Finally caught up on all the news of school and barns, DJ looked at the pile of books by her bed.
“I have no brain left for homework.”
The phone rang, but DJ ignored it until Joe called to say it was for her.
“DJ? This is Brad.”
“I know. How are things?”
“You sound terrible.”
DJ groaned.
“Oops, not a good thing to say, huh?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, let’s start again. Are you getting sick or getting well?”
“Better be well.” DJ told him a little of what she remembered of the last three days.
“Uh-oh. I was hoping you could come up for the weekend. Stormy’s been missing you.”
“I’ll ask Gran.”
“No, you won’t. I take back the invitation. Maybe we can try for next weekend.”
“But—”
“Nope. You’ve got to get better. If you come up here and have a relapse, your mother will kill me, if Jackie doesn’t first.”
By the time DJ said good-bye, she felt flatter than a piece of paper. I could be going up to see the foals, to play with Stormy. Soon, she’s not even going to remember me.
When one of the twins came to her door with another book in hand, she glared at him. It was his fault she got sick. Throwing the book on the bed against the wall seemed like a good idea.
“Brad wanted me to come up there this weekend,” she told Gran a bit later.
“And you told him no?”
“No! I was going to ask you, but he took back the invitation.”
“Smart man. You can’t go visiting when you aren’t well enough to go to school.”
“I’m going tomorrow.”
“I don’t think so.”
“G-r-a-n.”
“No.” She shook her head and shrugged. “One more day won’t hurt, and it may keep you going next week.”
“Then I can’t go to the barns!” The groan escalated to a wail.
“You got it.”
“If I don’t cough all night, can I go?” DJ tried to ignore the tickle in her throat, but the cough finally won out. She coughed till she felt sick to her stomach.
Gran handed her the water glass. “Did you want to start counting any time soon?”
DJ glared at her grandmother. In her wishes to stay at her grandparents’ house, she’d forgotten how stubborn Gran could be.
Gran dropped a kiss on DJ’s forehead. “Love you, darlin’. Too much to let you get sick again.” She shut off the light as she left the room.
By Saturday afternoon, DJ wanted to ship the twins to Siberia or outer Mongolia, whichever was farther away. She knew they couldn’t help talking nonstop, but her head rang from it. When she asked them to quit bouncing on her bed, they climbed off and bumped all her school books
to the floor. And she’d lost track of the times they asked her to read to them. Couldn’t they understand she felt like crud? Outer Mongolia, for sure.
Chapter • 5
If I hear “DJ!” one more time, I’m going to throw them out the door!
Gran and Joe had gone to the store for groceries, leaving DJ to watch the boys.
DJ had read the boys three books, helped them build a fort with their Legos, and either wiped or reminded them to wipe their noses 422 times. She quit counting after that. A video of The Lion King held their attention—for the moment.
Back to her homework. She studied the list from her English teacher. One journal entry for every day. It had been two weeks since she’d written anything. The journals were due yesterday, but since she’d been home, she’d have to turn it in Monday. One paper using contrast, one on comparison— she’d have to read the chapter first. Another book report was due, too, and she hadn’t begun to read another book.
She sighed and took out the history list. Only four chapters to read, then choose a famous person from the middle ages to research and write about. No big deal, right?
Her head started to ache again.
She ignored the algebra book for now. She’d missed a quiz on Wednesday.
She headed for the freezer. A juice bar sounded good. Should she disturb the Double Bs and see if they wanted one? Nope.
Not fair! Her little voice plagued her at times. This was one of those times. Sighing, she turned and entered the family room instead. “You guys want a juice bar or Popsicle?”
“Is there purple?”
“I don’t know what kind there is. Come choose.”
Licking her own strawberry one, she left the boys back in front of the video, purple Popsicles in mouths, napkins in laps, noses wiped—again. I sure hope Mom and Robert are having a good time. Look at all the fun they’re missing out on here.
She piled the pillows behind her and settled on the bed, history book in hand, note pad beside her knee. Maybe if she hurried, Gran and Joe would let her go feed the horses later. If she could indeed convince Gran she was all better. She coughed and blew her nose. She kept her mind from replaying the fun she was missing by not being with Brad and Jackie. As Gran had reminded her, they didn’t need the germs, either.
High Hurdles Collection Two Page 4