Part 3 (1/2)
”No. Don't do that.” Brooke leaned against the wall.
”But what if it's not allergies? Let Ms. Carter make sure you're okay.”
”No. She'll make a big deal out of nothing. I don't want her hauling me off to the in.rmary like she did Nikki. I've got too much to do before the science fair on Friday.”
”You might need some medicine. Otherwise, you could be so sick by Friday that you'd still miss the science fair.”
”I won't be. I won't.”
Jeri rubbed the back of her neck. What was wrong with Brooke? ”All right. I hope you feel better.”
One bedroom door opened down the hall, and then another one. ”What's going on out here?”
”Quiet out there! Some people are trying to sleep!”
”Sorry,” Brooke said.
”You couldn't help it,” Jeri said, then raised her voice. ”She's sick!”
”I'm okay now.” Brooke headed back to her room. ”I feel better already.”
When Jeri returned to bed, she couldn't settle down to sleep. This was the second time in two days someone got sick from food .xed in the dorm kitchen. What was go-ing on? They couldn't blame the delivery boy this time. Something about Brooke's insistence on keeping her illness a secret seemed strange. Was she really protecting herself from Ms. Carter's mothering? Something didn't add up. Whatever it was, Jeri was thoroughly awake now.
Tiptoeing past her sleeping roommate, Jeri turned the bright computer screen away from Rosa and then Googled ”food poisoning.” She could use the information for her newspaper-and maybe discover what was happening in the dorm at the same time.
But forty minutes later when she logged off, Jeri hadn't found anything helpful. The next morning she told Rosa about Brooke's episode in the restroom. ”I've decided not to eat any food from the dorm kitchen from now on.”
”Oh, that's crazy,” Rosa said. ”Brooke probably ate half a pizza instead of one piece and made herself sick from pigging out.”
”Maybe,” Jeri admitted, remembering the rash and Brooke's odd behavior. Or maybe not.
Once a week, the house mothers .xed a lip-smacking breakfast for any girl who wanted to eat in the dorm. U sually Jeri loved trooping downstairs in her pajamas to eat waf.es or pancakes, but this Tuesday morning the aroma wafting up the stairs didn't tempt her.
”I'm eating at the dining hall,” Jeri reminded Rosa. ”You coming?”
”Are you nuts? I smell fresh coffee cake and banana bread!”
”Don't get sick then,” Jeri warned. ”I'm not taking any chances.”
”Talk about paranoid,” Rosa said, pulling on her bunny slippers.
Ten minutes later in the noisy dining hall, after gobbling down some Frosted Flakes, Jeri headed to the greenhouse to interview Mr. Petrie. A gentle breeze blew as she strolled along sidewalks bordered by terra-cotta pots of impatiens and petunias. The carillon bells in the tower chimed as she skirted around a stand of white pine. The horse barn was on her far left, and then she pa.s.sed the Sports Center. Lawn mowers zigzagged over the soccer . eld, and several high school girls jogged around the track. Jeri veered off the sidewalk and followed a white-rock path to the greenhouse.
The outside reminded Jeri of a gardening store, with its bags of rock, mulch, and fertilizer stacked beside clay pots, shovels, and three wheelbarrows. She meandered through everything to step inside the huge shed-like room attached to the greenhouse. At .rst, the darkness blinded her, so she stopped a minute and breathed deeply the smells of wet dirt and mulch. Where did she know that smell from? For some reason, it put her right back in Iowa on her grandpa's farm.
”h.e.l.lo?” Jeri called, peering around the dim room. No answer. Mr. Petrie must be out in the greenhouse part where he grew the plants.
A scurrying noise to her left made her whirl around. She peered into the shadows. Was it mice? She shuddered. Or rats? A shadow darted from behind a clay pot, and tiny claws scritch-scratched across the cement .oor. Jeri pivoted to run.
Her elbow hit a rack of hoes and shovels, and several clattered to the cement .oor. The clanging echoed and rang in her ears. She groped for the handles and stood them back up, and then worked her way to a door at the back. Let me out of this cave!
Beyond the door was a room full of light with walls made of gla.s.s or plastic. It was twenty degrees warmer, and Jeri unzipped her jacket. The sun pounding down on the clear roof turned the greenhouse into an oven. Sunlight shone on long rows of tables full of small potted plants. Baskets of ferns and ivy sprinkled by misters hung above her, and she felt the moisture.
She moved away and called again. ”Anybody here? h.e.l.lo?”
Mr. Petrie must be outside. Jeri started down an aisle of potted .owers she recognized from home: pansies, b achelor's b.u.t.tons, and marigolds. No wonder all the .ower beds on campus were so colorful. The next aisle over contained vegetables she and her mom used to grow, like tomato plants and green peppers. She guessed the viney plants like cuc.u.mbers and melons were outside. The greenhouse grew more of the school's food than she'd thought.
Jeri glanced at her watch. If only Mr. Petrie were here. A good quote for her article was all she needed before heading to her .rst-period library cla.s.s to write it up.
She strolled up the last aisle and, without warning, stubbed her toe hard on something under the table. Jeri sucked in her breath and bent to see what she'd kicked.
Underneath were various bags and boxes of plant food, insecticide for garden pests, and weed killers. No wonder Mr. Petrie's plants looked like blue-ribbon winners at a county fair, Jeri thought, if he put all that stuff on them.
On a box of weed killer, the word Warning! caught her eye. She crouched down and read: Children are highly s ensitive to the harmful effects of pesticides. Exposure to pesti-cides may produce brain cancer, leukemia, and birth defects.
Whoa! This stuff was deadly. Why wasn't it locked up somewhere? What if a person got it on his hands and then touched his food? Was it possible that - ”What in blue blazes are you doing there?” thundered a deep voice from behind her. ”How many times do I have to tell you kids-”
Jeri jerked, falling over backward and cracking her elbow on the cement .oor. She dropped and spilled the box of weed killer. ”I . . . uh . . . I . . .”
”I repeat, what are you doing?” Mr. Petrie asked.
”I was looking for you, actually.” Jeri crawled to her feet and turned to face him. ”Hi, Mr. Petrie,” she said sheepishly, wis.h.i.+ng she'd had a chance to clean up the mess before he saw it. And yet, she didn't really want to touch poisonous stuff.
Mr. Petrie's bushy gray eyebrows shot up. ”I didn't rec-ognize you. I was .xin' to chew you out.” His gra.s.s-stained .ngers clenched a spade balanced on the toe of one worn work boot.
Jeri wrinkled her nose at the acrid smell of the pesticide. ”If you'll show me where you keep your broom, I'll clean that up.”
”Nah, I'll get it. I don't want you touchin' that stuff. It's dangerous.”
”Yeah, I saw the label.”
”Good eyes.” Mr. Petrie nudged the box with his toe. ”Always read labels.”
”Why?”
”Labels have signal words that tell how poisonous
something is.” ”Signal words?” ”Words like danger, which means very toxic or poisonous, or warning, which is medium poisonous. Caution means a little toxic.” He paused. ”Say, shouldn't you be in cla.s.s?”
”Cla.s.s is why I'm here. I wanted to interview you for an article.” ”Interview me?” He grinned. ”What for?” ”About the food you grow here, mostly, and also about, well, food poisoning.” He frowned. ”Why that?” Jeri explained about her friends being sick from some thing they ate, and she was writing an article on food poisoning. ”I heard you grew the school's vegetables.” ”You think my vegetables poisoned someone?” ”No, I didn't mean that.” An idea occurred to her though. ”Are weed killers ever missing?” ”You mean stolen? Naw. Kids don't steal from me.
U sually it's only careless pranks that cause me trouble.” ”Like what?” ”Nothing big-just irritating things. Science cla.s.ses come through on .eld trips and knock over plants. Softb.a.l.l.s break windows. Occasionally horses from the barn get loose and run through the garden. Makes my job harder than it needs to be.”
Jeri dug into her backpack for a small notebook and pen. ”Can I ask you a few questions?”
”Thought you just did.” He grinned and moved away. ”Talk to me while I water.”