Poisoned Read Online Free PDF

frowned. “A fever? What?”
    “He won’t eat! Dallas must have fed him the wrong food! I bet he didn’t cool him down after his workout either.”
    “He did just what you told him to,” Jeri said. Nikki had a lot of nerve, even if she
was
worried.
    “Well, Show Stopper’s totally off his feed and really sluggish. Why?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe Sam should call the vet.”
    “He did.” Nikki plopped down on the bottom step of the staircase. “He couldn’t find anything wrong.”
    Jeri sat beside her. “Show Stopper probably just misses
you
as much as you miss him,” she said.
    “You think so?” Nikki gave a lopsided grin. “Maybe you’re right. Sorry.”
    Jeri grinned back.
    Late that night Jeri read her murder mystery in bed long after Rosa fell asleep. At the end of her chapter, her bedside clock read 11:21. She yawned so wide her jaws popped. If she didn’t get to sleep soon, she’d snooze through her classes tomorrow.
    She headed to the restroom, her feet padding quietly in the empty hall. She’d finished and was washing her hands when she heard running footsteps. Brooke pushed open the restroom door and dashed to a stall. She was sick to her stomach once, then again.
    And again.
    The toilet flushed, but Brooke didn’t come out. Jeri finally swung open the stall door. Overhead lights were bright, shining down on Brooke where she sat on the tile floor, eyes closed.
    Jeri knelt beside her. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine.” Brooke clutched her stomach.
“Now
anyway.”
    Jeri felt Brooke’s forehead like her mom always did when Jeri had the flu. “You don’t feel feverish.”
    “I think it was something I ate. I got hungry while I was doing homework, so I went downstairs for a piece of cold pizza.” She wrinkled her nose. “It didn’t stay down.”
    “Was the pizza yours?” Each girl had her own small cupboard and a small labeled plastic container in the huge fridge for their own special food.
    “Yeah, it was mine.” Brooke stared at Jeri. “Why?”
    “Nothing.” Jeri took Brooke’s arm and helped her to her feet. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a rash on her hands. “Maybe you have chicken pox or measles.”
    “I don’t. It’s allergies, that’s all.”
    “Can you make it back to your room alone? I’ll go get Ms. Carter.”
    “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 infirmary 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 fixed in the dorm kitchen. What was going 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