Laura Burns - Quarantine

Sure, she'd fantasized about talking to Maria, maybe even becoming friends with Maria. But somehow it had never occurred to her that Maria would want to talk about their father. Or that Maria would say bad things about him.

"Well, this is all crap," Maria muttered. She pushed back her chair and stomped outside to the patio.

Sadie glanced over at Michael. "Don't sweat it, kid," he said. "She's not mad at you."

"I feel so stupid," Sadie whispered. "My father is gonna kill me."

"Not if Maria kills him first," Michael said.

Sadie felt tears well up in her eyes… again. She had spent the last hour crying, at least that's how it seemed. "But I love my father," she sobbed.

Michael looked frightened. "Yeah, I know. I mean, of course you do," he said quickly. "I didn't mean Maria would actually kill him!"

Sadie buried her face in her hands and kept crying. She'd been mad at her dad when she'd first found out about Maria. She'd found a picture in his office. In fact, she'd found a whole file on Maria… report cards, pictures, and, most importantly, her address. Sadie had seen her last name and figured out she was his daughter from his first marriage. The only problem was, he'd never told her he had another daughter. So she'd been mad at him. Mad enough to run away…

"I wanted to get back at my father for lying about Maria," Sadie sobbed. "But he must be so worried about me!"

Michael opened his mouth, but couldn't seem to figure out what to say.

"Michael!" Maria yelled, pushing back through the

patio door. "What did you do to her?" She threw her arms around Sadie.

Michael backed away. "I didn't do anything!" he protested.

Sadie just sniffled and hugged Maria back. Maybe having a sister was worth running away for.

"Yeah! Yeah! Go, D-Backs!"

Kyle cringed and moved as far away from his father as possible while still sitting on the couch. Usually he yelled right along with Valenti whenever there was a game on. But he'd been feeling strange all afternoon. Noises seemed louder than usual, lights seemed brighter, and the food at the Crashdown had tasted funny.

"Gonzalez, huh?" Valenti added, turning to Kyle. "He's great."

Kyle cringed again. Even when his dad wasn't yelling, the sound of his voice was way too harsh.

"What's the matter, son?" Valenti boomed.

Kyle slapped his hands over his ears. He took some cleansing breaths and tried to clear his mind like he did when he meditated. But the air felt funny going into his lungs. He took another deep breath, and the feeling intensified. Now it seemed as if a thousand tiny moths had flown in through his mouth and were spreading throughout his body, fluttering their wings.

Panicked, Kyle leaped up from the couch.

Valenti jumped up next to him. "What?" he cried. "What's going on?"

"I don't know. I feel tingly," Kyle said. He knew it was a lame explanation, but he simply couldn't find the words to

express what was going on. Right now it seemed that every single hair on his body was squirming about in its follicle. He let out a little shriek.

"Kyle, just calm down," his dad was saying. But Valenti's voice was not only too loud, it also seemed to vibrate strangely. Kyle glanced over at the TV He could no longer see the baseball game… now the screen was covered with blurs of color and motion, but nothing sharp or clear.

"… an alien thing?" Valenti asked.

Kyle stared up at his father, trying to figure out what he was asking. But the very sound of the words was still bouncing around his brain. It was hard to concentrate on anything else.

"… taking you to the hospital."

The last thing Kyle saw was his father's frightened eyes. Then everything turned white. The sounds disappeared, but the strange tingly feeling intensified. Kyle couldn't tell if he was standing or sitting, and he had no idea where his father was.

I wonder if this is what Buddha meant by clearing your mind, Kyle thought. And then he stopped thinking anything at all.

"How old is your brother?" Maria asked. She still couldn't quite believe that she had two half siblings out there. And that her father had never bothered to tell her.

"He's six," Sadie replied. "His name is Richard Jr." Maria felt a lump rising in her throat and tried to swallow it down. He named his son after himself? It was like he'd just started over after he left her and her mom. He'd

gone off and had the family he'd really wanted. I was just some mistake he made, Maria thought angrily. 1 guess that's one feeling he and Mom have in common.

"Junior. Great," she said. "Well, it all sounds very well adjusted and super." She couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Sadie looked down at her hands. Now I've made her feel bad again, Maria thought irritably. The truth was, she liked Sadie. She didn't want to hurt her feelings. But it was hard to take in all this new information and not be bitter about it.

"So he and your mom are happy together?" Maria asked, trying to sound friendly.

Sadie nodded.

"Did he tell her about me?" Oops, there was the bitterness again.

"I don't know," Sadie said. "I found all that stuff about you in his office, but I never asked him about it. I never asked my mom, either. I just got on a bus and came to find you."

"What I want to know is where he got those pictures of you," Michael put in. "And your report cards. He must've had a private detective following you."

That's true, Maria thought. All these years, had there been someone watching her? She didn't know whether she should be happy that her father had bothered to keep tabs, or freaked out that he'd had some strange person following her as if she were a criminal.

"Because if someone was watching you, they were also watching me," Michael added significantly.

Oh, God, another alien crisis. Maria felt overwhelmed. If a private detective had been following her, he would have

seen some strange things. Alien powers, the Granilith taking off, who knows what else. He might have one file on Maria, and a whole different kind of file on Michael and Isabel and Max.

"You know what, I can't handle all this," Maria announced. She stood up. "Sadie, I'm sorry, but you have to go home now."

Sadie nodded miserably.

"It's not personal," Maria said gently. "I'm glad I met you, and I'm sure someday we'll be good friends, okay?"

Her little sister looked up at her hopefully.

"But your mother must be worried sick. And your… our father." Maria grabbed Michael's cordless phone and held it out to Sadie. "Call him to come get you."

Before Sadie could take the phone, it rang. Maria jumped and almost dropped it. She pressed the talk button. "Hello?"

"Maria, thank god I found you," her mother's nasal voice said. "I need your help."

"Why, what's wrong?" Maria asked.

"I can't breathe. I'm having some kind of asthma attack," Amy gasped.

"But, Mom, you don't have asthma," Maria said, a gnawing fear growing in her stomach.

"I used to when I was younger," Amy told her. "Maria, honey, I'm scared."

Maria's heart leaped into her throat.

"I need to get to the emergency room," Amy wheezed.

"Hang on, Mommy," Maria said. "I'll be right there."

Isabel waited impatiently with the crowd outside the emergency room. Every time it looked as if she might be able to worm her way inside, another group of people would come running up with a desperately ill friend or relative, and she would have to step aside and let them in. She didn't mind, of course. But she was growing more and more worried by the minute. What was going on here? All these sick people… they seemed to have nothing in common except that they were sick.

So far she'd seen one elderly woman who had an ugly rash all over her arms. A little boy with uncontrollable hiccups. A middle-aged guy whose entire body was shaking violently in a seizure. The latest one carried by had been a girl around her own age who had been vomiting and was completely dehydrated.