James Patterson - Gone

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 kind of sick,” he said. “Nobody asked us if we wanted to become agricultural slave labor, OK? We’re hereby done with the milking. Hereby done with the whole cock-a-doodle-doo, crack-of-dawn hick routine.

This is a strike.”

I woke up to a whole heap of commotion the next morning. It wasn’t even the rooster this time. There was yelling at first. Then it stopped, and then came something that shot me out of bed like a skyrocket.

A loud, cacophonous clanging was coming from downstairs. It was amazingly loud, like an old school fire alarm or the hammering of a boxing bell after the last round.

I tripped out of bed and found my robe and headed down the stairs two by two. It was coming from the boys’ room. What the hell now? I couldn’t believe it. It was Mary Catherine. She was yelling like a drill sergeant as she banged two pots together.

“That’s it! Out of your beds, you lazy so-and-sos! Everybody up now. I said up! And on your feet! You think you can sleep in, you’re wrong! Every last one of you, rise and shine!”

Mary Catherine fired the pots into the corner and stood there sweating, her fists balled. I was about to say something, but when Mary Catherine glared at me, I immediately shut my trap.

“What the heck did you do?” I mouthed to Brian.

He just swallowed as he stood there, as wide-eyed as the rest of us. I’d never seen Mary Catherine so fired up.

“Trent!” Mary Catherine barked.

“Yes, Mary Catherine?” Trent said, like a nervous miniature recruit about to start marine boot camp.

“Get the girls in here, pronto! They’re part of this. I know they are.”

“Yes, Mary Catherine.”

The girls came into the room sheepishly, followed by a groggy Seamus.

“Now, whose idea was this? Tell me now who organized this little work stoppage.”

Everybody glanced at each other.

“We all did,” Brian said after a moment.

“Oh, you all did? How creative of you. That’s just great. After all I do for the lot of you, you plot behind my back? That’s just a real fine how-do-you-do after the nice meal I cooked for everyone last night. Speaking of which, I have a question for you. Where did that food come from?”

“Mr. Cody,” Eddie said, raising his hand.

“Wrong,” Mary Catherine snapped at him. “Also, you all slept warm in your beds last night under this roof. Where did this house come from?”

“Um, Mr. Cody?” Eddie tried again.

“Wrong again, wise guy,” Mary Catherine said. “Food, houses, everything good that you use in this world, comes from one place: work. Men and women worked to put food on your plate. Men and women worked to put this house together. Now, let me ask you another question. Where would the lot of you be if all those men and women decided to claim that they were sick and sleep in?”

“Up a creek?” Eddie said with a shrug.

“Finally, Eddie, you got one exactly right. Without people working, we’d all be up a certain type of creek without a paddle.”

Mary Catherine circled the room, staring into each of the kids’ faces one by one.

“I think you guys know me pretty well by now. I try to help everyone. Sometimes I even let things slide.”

She stopped in the center of the room.

“But what I will not do, by God, is sit idly by and watch all of you become a lot of lazy, useless ragamuffins. While I live and breathe, you will do three things. You will work. You will help. And you will pitch in. Or I’m out of here. You’ll never see me again. Understand? No work, no food, no house, no nanny. Is that perfectly clear?”

“Yes, Mary Catherine,” a few of them said.

“What? I can’t hear you!” Mary Catherine yelled.

“Yes, Mary Catherine,” everyone said loudly, including me and Seamus.

I stepped back as my young, blond nanny hurried out of the room, her blue eyes sparking. I actually had goose bumps on my arms.

Whoa, Nelly. Talk about a wake-up call!

“Exactly,” I said to the kids after Mary Catherine left. “Exactly what she said, and don’t you ever forget it!”

The next morning, I awoke with a start as my bedroom door creaked open. It was early, I saw, as I glanced with one eye at the still dark-gray window, and someone was out in the hallway.

Something was up. Of course it was. Something was always up.

“Hark! Who goes there?” I said into my pillow. “If it’s you, Mary Catherine, please, no pots and pans this morning. I’ll be up in a second, I swear.”

“Good morning, Michael. Are ye awake?” Seamus whispered.

“I am now,” I said, sitting up in bed. “What is it? Let me guess. The kids are occupying the barn.”