Taylor sat on his bed, thinking. Zac was on the floor, playing with some Lego, and Isaac was hanging around the house somewhere.
"So Zac, where'd you go today after you left?" Taylor asked, breaking the silence in the room.
"I went over to Brad's house to ask him if he could go rollerblading, since you were occupied," Zac explained, trying to force a Lego onto a part of the unfinished castle.
"What do you mean?" Taylor asked.
"Well, we went over to Jewel's house and you were acting like you wanted to stay with her sister, so I just left."
"What made you think that I wanted to stay?"
"You were acting like a lovesick puppy," Zac scrunched his nose up in disgust.
"I was not!" Taylor said loudly, after comparing himself to a dog.
"Were too!" Zac sang.
"Was not!"
"Was too!"
"Not!"
"Too!"
"Was not! I'm leaving!" Taylor got off his bed and stormed out the door. Zac shrugged and grinned triumphantly as he managed to get the Lego peice on the castle.
It was three in the morning. I felt awful. I stumbled out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. I hung my head over the toilet as I threw up. That was lovely. Blech. I rinsed my mouth out with water, and splashed some more water on my face. My face looked all flushed and red. I sat down on the floor, my back resting against the bathtub. My mom was soon at the door.
"Honey, I heard you up. What's wrong?" she asked when she saw me.
"I just threw up," I mumbled. She sat beside me and placed a cool hand on my forehead.
"I think your fever's back. I'll go get a Tylenol." she left the bathroom. God, it was summer and I was sick. Katrina was coming here in what? One or two days? It was Wednesday now. She was supposed to be here tomorrow or the day after. I groaned, my stomach was hurting. Must be a bug or something. A small voice came from the doorway.
"Katie? What happened?" Jewel asked, carrying her worn out blanket and stuffed dog.
"Nothing Jewel, you just go back to bed. It's way past your bedtime," I told her. She walked over to me and sat down.
"You puked, didn't you?" she said, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. I couldn't help but laugh, it made my stomach feel worse.
"Yes, I did. Now go back to bed before Mom comes back upstairs." As if on cue, Mom walked into the bathroom.
"Jewel! What are you doing up? GO back to bed now," she ordered. Jewel jumped up and left. Mom handed me a Tylenol and a cup of water.
"Do you think you're going to throw up again?" she asked. I shook my head no. She helped me stand up.
"I want you to try and go to sleep, and wake me up if you have any problems." I nodded and shakily stood. Mom helped me go to my room, and tucked me into bed.
"Goodnight,hope you feel better," she said and gave me a kiss on my forehead.
"Thanks mom," I said and closed my eyes as she closed the door on the way out of my room.
Later that morning, I still felt bad, but not as bad as I did earlier. I woke up to the sun shining through the windows in my room. What a lovely day to be sick. Taylor would probably be coming over......what was I talking about? It was like I WANTED to see him. My dad knocked on the door andcame in. Mom was working and my dad was off work.
"Hi Kate, are you feeling better?" he asked.
"Yeah, a little," I mumbled, taking the Tylenol from him and swallowing it.
"Well, your mother wants you to get plenty of rest and to just relax. She says that there has been a bug going around. Lots of people have been getting sick."
"At least I know I'm not alone,"
"Well, go back to sleep, I'll bring you some breakfast later if you want any," Dad left my room. I soon fell asleep.
Sam was lazing around the house when the doorbell rang. He slowly stood up and took him time getting to the door. Taylor stood outside.
"Oh my gosh," Taylor thought,"This is the last person I would like to see. Why didn't Katya answer the door like she usually does?"
"Hey Taylor, Katya got sick again,so you can't see her. Sorry," Sam said, knowing why Taylor was at the house.
"Uh, okay. Um bye." Taylor quickly jumped down the porch steps and jogged down the driveway. Sam grinned as he closed the door. He knew that Taylor liked his sister. It was too obvious.
I heard the doorbell ring downstairs. I heard some voices, but I couldn't tell who's they were or what they were saying. I struggled to get up out of bed. I knew that if someone came to the house, they would have to leave sometime. I was glad that my room was right over the driveway because not a minute later, I saw Taylor running towards the road. I slammed my fist against the windowsill, cursing my bad luck. I had been hoping to see him today. I was so mad at myself that I didn't want to go back to bed, fearing that I would miss something else important. Of course I'm Kate, the queen of bad timing. I half walked, half tripped down the stairs. Sam was in the living room, wearing an orange inside-out sweater and sweat pants. He was flipping though the channels on the tv, stopping only to see if the shows on them were intersting. He saw me,
"Hey Scooter, your boyfriend was here, but I told him you were sick," he said.
"Shut up!" I shouted as loud as I could, which was not very loud,"He is NOT my boyfriend!"
Sam just looked at me doubtfully,"Yeah, sure, and I'm the Queen of England."
"Shut up!" I stalked out of the room. My face burned from fever and embarrassment. I went to the kitchen and grabbed the Sunny Delight out of the fridge. As I poured myself a glass, my dad came upstairs from the basement.
"You're up. How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Better." That was a flat out lie. I felt twice as awful then I did when I first woke up, not just from my fever. I took a long drink from the glass. The Sunny D tasted sour. I had forgotten to shake the stupid bottle. I probably couldn't get any stupider.
"That's good," Dad walked out of the kitchen. I heard him talking to Sam,"Samuel, go outside and mow the lawn, you've been very lazy today. You need to do your chores."
I grinned. Being sick did have it's good points. I went back into the living room after Sam left. As I laid down on the couch, my thoughts returned to Taylor. Then they turned to thetv. Why did I keep thinking about him? I heard laughing from the basement. Jewel and her friends. They were probably playing dress-up or something. That was one of the only reasons Jewel went into the basement. There was also a little mess of Barbie accessories scattered around the living room floor. The little girls would soon be coming up the stairs and begin to torture the poor dolls with combs and tight clothes. Alanis Morissette was on MTV. I forgot about everything else and watched the 'You Learn' video. Minutes later, I drifted off to sleep.
An hour later, I awoke to find that Jewel had found some fun, poking me in the arm with a Barbie ski pole.
"Jewel!" I muttered,"Stop it! I was sleeping!"
She giggled,"I know, that's why I woke you up!" Her three friends laughed. I knew them all. Jessica, LaToya, and Joy. LaToya was a loud, funny, eight year old, African American, with her long black hair braided into dredlocks. Joy was a nice, quiet, little girl. She had some-what pale skin, plain brown hair and grey eyes. She was a nice person to be around. Pity I couldn't say the same about her sister, Grace. Grace was a few months older then me. She had long honey colored hair, clear blue eyes, and she believed that she was God's gift to all men on earth. She always had many boyfriends, and was depressed when she dumped them, or was dumped by them. I had never liked Grace and she had never liked me. She thought that if you weren't cool enough, she would treat you like trash. There was only one word to describe her.....SLUT.
"I don't like cowgirl Barbie! She's old! Baywatch Barbie is much better!" LaToya whined. Sam had given Baywatch Barbie to my sister for her birthday. He had bought it for himself, but decided it would be better to give it to Jewel. My family was very weird. I tried togo back to sleep, but the girls' constant giggling wouldn't allow me. With an angry sounding sigh, I stood up and walked out of the room.