The Fever Read Online Free PDF Page A

Tom’s desk one day, tail wagging—Tom always claimed he was too busy at the moment to watch, sorry. One night at home, though, he looked up an episode and was surprised to see four hundred comments posted and more than twelve hundred thumbs-up. All of it made him feel unbearably old.
    But even Nat was distracted today, talking about epilepsy and electrical currents and auras.
    â€œMr. Nash, what if it was a tonic-clonic?” he burst out, voice breaking. “It can damage your brain forever.”
    â€œNat,” he said, “let’s focus, okay?”
    But he was having trouble focusing too. He’d even walked down the aisles summoning all his best jokes, teasing Bailey Lu about the doodles on her hand, which usually made her blush and giggle.
    Nothing worked, and Bailey could only stare at her hands in distress, her inky palms sweat-smeared.
    Clearly, and he felt it himself, it wasn’t the kind of day one of Mr. Nash’s awesome gummy-bear-and-potassium-chlorate or Mentos-and-Diet-Coke demonstrations would become the talk of the school.
    So he surrendered, gave them a pop quiz, and gazed out the window while they moaned and protested, their hysteria giving way to cries of injustice and the cruelty of teachers.
    Meanwhile, he thought about Lise, and what it must be like for her mother, worrying. Sheila Daniels worried constantly anyway: about school trips to the falls, vaccines, the sound of hydraulic drills by the water wells.
    And he reminded himself it was likely nothing. Girls fainted, kids fainted, fevers could do things to them, stress too. Some of these girls never seemed to eat, floating through the hallways like wraiths, crumpling under the bleachers during gym. There wasn’t much he hadn’t seen in twenty years of high-school teaching.
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    After fourth period, Tom walked outside to the wind-slapping corner by the practice rink.
    The new French teacher with the tattoo on her nape was leaning against a heating duct, smoking.
    The first time he’d met her, he tried to imagine how he would have felt as a high-school kid if he’d had a slinky thirty-year-old French teacher with leather boots and a tattoo of a peacock feather snaking around her neck.
    He wondered why Eli didn’t take French.
    â€œBad habits,” she said, grinning, and he started a little.
    She gestured to her cigarette. He smiled.
    â€œThere are worse,” he said.
    â€œLike what?” she said, still grinning.
    â€œCrack?” he ventured. “High-fructose corn syrup?”
    â€œCome on,” she said, offering him the gold pack in her ringed hand. “Don’t make me the provocateur.”
    Just then, his cell phone tingled to life.
    DEENIE , the screen flashed, the picture of her in the sock-monkey hat she used to wear.
    â€œHey, Deen,” he answered.
    â€œDad,” she said, her voice sounding very far away.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, honey? Where are you?”
    â€œDad, can you come get me? Can you take me to the hospital?”
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    He spotted her standing in front of the Danielses’ duplex, headphones on, jumping a little in the cold.
    Her parka, those skinny legs—she looked for all the world like she had at eleven years old.
    Noticing her bluing ankles, he could imagine what Georgia would say. He only hoped she’d taken the bus to Lise’s and not gotten a ride with an older student, some boy. Sometimes he found it hard to believe he was in charge.
    He wanted to ask what made her think it was okay to leave school like that, but he didn’t. The truth was, he was always glad when she asked for a favor because she almost never did.
    â€œHey,” he said, “get in.”
    Just like her brother, she didn’t seem to get in the car so much as tumble into it, like it was a disappearing space she had to hurry in and out of.
    Headphones on, not quite looking him in the eye.
    â€œSo,” he said, turning the steering wheel