CHAPTER 10

Warm yellow light greeted me when I opened the door. Grandma was cooking dinner, Ava was playing with her puzzle on the floor, and Cody was pushing an empty juice box with his nose. Everything looked almost ordinary.

But Dad was gone.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked, setting the laptop up at Jason’s usual place at the table.

At the bench chopping vegetables, Grandma turned. “I think he might’ve just popped to the loo,” she said.

My heart doing loop-de-loops, I plugged in the laptop, adjusted the screen and helped Jason to sit down. Dad had left the table. Maybe he’d snapped out of the fog he’d been in earlier. Logged off? Gone up to get dressed? I hardly dared to hope.

I was about to go looking for him when Grandma crossed the room and put her hand on my back. “I’m pleased you came to fetch me, Seb,” she said softly. “It was the right thing to do. This virus is nastier than I thought. Your father barely even noticed I was here.”

My shoulders sagged. So there hadn’t been a miracle after all. Dad wasn’t cured. Wherever he was, he was still behaving like a zombie. I felt like I’d dropped a double scoop ice cream on the footpath.

Jason groaned and clutched his head in his hands. This time, I wasn’t fooled. I checked his laptop. Ha, I was right—the laptop had decided to re-start and he couldn’t bear the wait. He could’ve been one of those Pavlova dogs Darren had told me about. The ones in that famous experiment where the scientist made them wait for their food. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Jason started drooling. He was already whining and twitching.

Grandma’s face though, crumpled in concern. “Not you too, darling?” she crooned as if Jason were a baby. She wiped her wet fingers on a tea towel, and put the back of her hand on Jason’s forehead, checking his temperature. “You’re not too hot, at least.”

Jason ignored her. His computer had rebooted. He put his headphones on, punched in his password and went back to his tapping.

Grandma shook her head wistfully. “Such a nasty bug. I suspect they all have dreadful headaches.” She nodded towards Jason’s headphones. “I checked on your mother a moment ago—took her up a cup of tea and an aspirin. I’ve never seen Grace looking quite so grey. I tried to get her to come away from her work, but you know your mother. So dedicated to her job.”

Ava patted Grandma on the arm. I hadn’t seen her toddle over. “Jason’s gotta owie,” she said.

I’d completely forgotten about his tumble outside, but it was all Ava could see. With her head at table height, she had a slug’s-eye view of Jason’s palms hovering over his keyboard. That, and up his nose.

“Yeah, he…um…had a bit of a dizzy spell on the way in and tripped on the path,” I explained to Grandma.

“We are in the wars today, aren’t we?” said Grandma, turning one of Jason’s hands over for a closer look.

Jason snatched his hand away. “Ouch!”

“We’d best get these grazes cleaned up,” Grandma said. “Seb, could you grab the First Aid kit, please?”

“Right,” I said, turning on my heel and scuttling for the hall, pleased for a chance to look for Dad.

The door to the downstairs bathroom was firmly closed. “Dad?” I knocked a couple of times. “Dad, are you in there?”

“Yep, I’m here,” Dad called. He sounded pretty normal.

“Grandma needs the First Aid kit.” Moving closer, I lay my hands flat on the door.

“No worries. I’ll be out in a sec,” he replied.

Really? Out in a sec. Out in a sec. Why did everyone say that? I knew for sure he wouldn’t be. It’s exactly what Jason had said. It was getting on my nerves.

Muffled noises sounded on the other side of the door. Something was going on in there. I squeezed my ear flat against the door, part of me hoping to hear Dad on the loo and part of me grossed out at the thought of it. I closed my eyes and concentrated on listening…

Tap, tap, tap.

I sighed. Dad had his tablet in there.

“Dad, I—”

“Keep your pants on, Seb. I’ll be out shortly,” he said.

I tried the door. It was locked. There was nothing I could do. For all I knew, Dad might spend the rest of his life in the loo.

I left him to it, storming through the kitchen, and grabbing the ute keys from the hook by the back door.

“Seb?” Grandma asked.

“In a second!”

I let the door slam behind me. As soon as the cool air hit me, I felt bad. I shouldn’t have snapped at Grandma. None of this was her fault. It’s just this whole thing was doing my head in. I needed her help and she didn’t get it. She couldn’t see what was happening right under her nose. Ava was only two and she understood, for all the good that did me. I felt like Robinson Crusoe.

Still, stressing wasn’t going to help anything.

I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, then went out to the ute and rummaged under the retrofitted bench seat, feeling for the green canvas kit. I grabbed it, locking the ute before going back inside.

The warm glow of the kitchen greeted me. Dad was back at his seat at the table, his tablet propped up where it had been for most of the day. Grandma was at the bench, dishing up.

I sat next to Jason and swabbed his injured palm with anti­septic.

He swatted me away. “Get off!” he snapped, but I snatched at his hand, patting the bandage on before he had a chance to jerk it back. Scowling, he turned back to his computer. I packed up and put the kit on the bench.

“Dinnertime,” Grandma announced, sliding a steaming plate in front of Dad.

I lifted Ava into her high chair. For once, she didn’t complain, slipping into her seat like bread into the toaster.

“Will you run upstairs and get your mum please, love?” Grandma said.

I couldn’t bring Mum downstairs for dinner. Not without Darren’s help anyway. Too dangerous. Look what’d happened to Jason when he’d attempted just two steps. To get downstairs, Mum would have to tackle sixteen of them. It’d be like descending Mount Everest in slippers. She might not survive. Instead, I went into the hall, stood there for a few minutes, before coming back.

“Mum said to thank you for cooking, Grandma, but she’s feeling too ill to come down. She asked if you’d mind if she ate in her room.”

“Grace won’t come down? My goodness, she must be feeling awful. Yes, of course she can eat upstairs. You can take her up something after you’ve eaten.”

Grandma handed me a plate.

Liver and onions. I tried not to gag. Liver and onions in dark gravy with mashed potato and boiled cabbage to be precise. Mountains of it.

“Good hearty food for when you’re under the weather,” Grandma said, sitting in Mum’s spot beside Ava’s high chair. She touched the tip of Ava’s nose with her finger. “And for growing girls and boys.”

I shuddered. What was I going to do? Grandma hated it when we wasted food. If nobody ate it, Grandma would make me eat the leftovers until they were finished. It could take days. I picked up my fork, my heart filled with dread.

But something amazing happened. Dad was digging into his meal with gusto. Even Jason was eating it, and he hates liver as much as I do. Tonight, Jason was wolfing it down as if he hadn’t eaten in ages, which wasn’t too far from the truth. To be fair, I’m not sure either of them actually tasted what they were eating. They just ladled the food in, their mouths opening and closing like goldfish, their eyes on their devices. It almost made me wish I was a zombie. I pushed the disgusting concoction around my plate.

“Seb, is something wrong, love? Don’t you like it?”

“Just not very hungry, Grandma. I had a big lunch,” I said.

Grandma gave a little hum. “I hope you’re not coming down with this virus, too.”

Ava flung a piece of liver. It scudded across the floor leaving a greasy gravy trail. Cody raced over, his nails clicking on the floorboards, and gobbled it up. I admired Ava’s cunning. Cody will eat anything, so long as it’s not Marmite.

“Yucky,” she said.

“Ava!” Grandma tut-tutted, pulling one of those exagg­erated mock frowns which don’t fool anyone, especially not Ava, who threw a second piece of meat over the side of her highchair for Cody.

“Ava!” Grandma exclaimed. “That’s not very nice.”

Not very nice? It was inhumane. Bordering on cruelty to animals. But with her attention on Ava, Grandma wasn’t watching me. Quickly, I slid my hunk of liver on to Dad’s plate. Just as quickly, Dad stabbed it with his fork and folded it into his mouth.

Yes! It was gone.

I probably should’ve felt guilty.

“It’s good for you, Ava. Eat it up,” Grandma was saying.

Ava looked at me and grinned. “Daddy eat it,” she said, and leaning over she plopped her last piece of liver on Dad’s plate.