Gone (Michael Bennett)

caring kids.
    She smiled as she looked around the room. She loved the old kitchen. The handmade cabinets, the huge pine table they used as an island, the pots and pans hanging on the rack above the new Kenmore stove.
    There was even a real mudroom with a sink, where they stored the slickers and the wellies. The mudroom reminded her of the one on the farm where she’d grown up, in Ireland. So much so that on some dark mornings, coming down to get breakfast going, she would look through the mudroom doorway and could almost smell the acrid scent of turf smoke, almost hear the whistle of the kettle coming to a boil.
    Even though we’re in hiding, it actually is a good place here , Mary Catherine thought for the hundredth time. It felt warm, safe. It felt like home.

CHAPTER 15
     
    FIVE MINUTES LATER, MARY Catherine had the big pine table covered with four different types of bread, spreading mayo here, peanut butter there, portioning out cold cuts.
    She hadn’t made the kids brown-bag lunches since New York and had almost forgotten what a Herculean feat it really was. It would have been fine if she could have made, say, just ten bologna sandwiches and been done with it, but of course they all had their idiosyncrasies. Shawna had to have a plain bologna sandwich, while Chrissy would tolerate only grape jelly with her peanut butter. Some would eat only turkey, others only ham. Ricky’s order was the biggest pain: yellow American cheese (not white, heaven forbid) and mustard on wheat toast.
    She’d already made potato salad and a couple of loaves of banana bread the evening before. It was all for the surprise picnic she had planned. After milking, Mr. Cody wanted to take everyone to a part of the ranch they’d never seen before, the rugged, hilly southeastern section. Cody had been out riding on his horse, Marlowe, the afternoon before and had spotted a huge, hundred-head herd of wild antelope that he wanted to show the kids.
    Mary Catherine looked out at the sun, just cresting the top of the Sierras. She couldn’t believe this place. Every day was like a new show on the Discovery Channel.
    After she’d Sharpied each of the kids’ names on their tinfoil-wrapped sandwiches, she went into Jane’s room to wake her up. Jane was sleeping in the lower-left bunk of the girls’ two sets of bunk beds. Mary Catherine smiled when she saw the latest Rick Riordan paperback on the floor over the flashlight Jane wasn’t supposed to use to stay up late reading.
    Mary Catherine gently shook her shoulder.
    “Rise and shine, kiddo,” she said.
    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