Pick Your Poison Part 3

"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."

Jeri trotted behind him while he grabbed a rubber hose, turned a spigot, and began to water the .rst aisle of plants. He talked about how he started vegetables grow-ing indoors during the cold Virginia winters and then transplanted them outside in the spring, plus how he used b.u.mblebees inside the greenhouse for pollination.

Choosing her words carefully, Jeri steered him to the topic she was most interested in. "Do you grow mushrooms here?"

"Naw."

"I heard that people go mushroom hunting at this time of year and accidentally eat poisonous mushrooms."

"True. They can be hard to tell apart," he said. " Mushrooms aren't the only problem. Quite a few common plants are poisonous." He motioned her to follow him. Back inside the main building, Mr. Petrie led the way to a small room that turned out to be his of.ce. A bookshelf . lled one wall, and he handed her a book with a tattered cover.

"Wild Plants of Virginia," she read aloud. It was . lled with colorful photos.

"You'll .nd a good bit in there about poisonous plants," he said.

"Can I borrow this?" Jeri asked. "I could bring it back in a couple days."

"Sure." He rummaged on his messy desk for a pen and paper. "Just write your name down here . . . and your dorm. If you don't return it by Friday, I'll come lookin' for you." He winked.

"I'll bring it back. Thanks!" She wedged it into her backpack and zipped it shut. "Thanks, Mr. Petrie. I'd better go."

"Not till you scrub," he said, motioning to a sink in the corner of his of.ce. "You touched that weed killer. You might put your hands in your mouth."

"I won't."

"Do it anyway. Lather up real good there," he said. "Lots of suds."

Jeri sighed. He made her sound like a baby, but she didn't have time to argue. She washed and rinsed and then wiped her dripping hands on her blue uniform jumper. "Thanks again!" She hurried out of the nursery and raced up the hill.

In library .rst hour, Jeri leafed through the plant book and found one alarming thing. She saw that the medicine her mom kept in their cupboard at home-ipecac syrup-was actually made from a poisonous plant! The berries and juice from that plant caused nausea and vomiting. Ipecac syrup was used to make poison victims throw up and get rid of poison quickly.

Jeri stared at the bell tower outside her window. The ipecac plant was found in all parts of the country, according to the book. Could it have somehow found its way into their food at Hampton House?

She read on about many common plants that were poisonous and easy to .nd. They were often accidentally used in salads and ca.s.seroles-to a deadly end. Jeri leaned back and gazed unseeingly at white clouds . oating behind the bell tower.

Yes, deadly plants could be ingested accidentally. But just as easily, someone in Hampton House could be using them on purpose.

5.

poison potatoes.

When the bell rang, Jeri raced across campus to Herald Hall for literature cla.s.s. She caught up with Rosa at the cla.s.sroom door. "Where's Abby?" Jeri asked.

Rosa whipped around. "She's sick now! So are Emily and Miss Barbara! It happened after breakfast."

"See?" Jeri cried. "I told you not to eat the food in the kitchen. Is Nikki sick again too?"

"No, but she didn't eat. She was at the horse barn since before breakfast doing some jumping."

"How's your stomach?" Jeri asked, following her into cla.s.s.

"Fine, and I ate what everyone else ate." Rosa shrugged. "It's a virus. It has to be."

"I don't think so. I'm even more convinced that it's poison."

"Oh come on. You're just inventing a poison plot so you can write about something exciting and win the media award."

"That's not true -or fair!" Jeri sputtered. "In a book of Mr. Petrie's I read about a bunch of common plants that can be poisonous. This is no virus. I just know it."

Jeri could tell Rosa was still skeptical, but she'd talk to Ms. Carter right after cla.s.s today. She'd show her Mr. Petrie's book, and then the house mother would see that they must be using contaminated food from somewhere. They were being poisoned-either by accident or on purpose. Jeri was sure of it.

The afternoon turned hot -mid-eighties-and at 3:30 Jeri gladly changed out of her school uniform. Cut-offs and a baggy T-s.h.i.+rt felt perfect.

She knocked on Abby's door, but no one answered. Jeri trotted down the hall to the restroom and called Abby's name, but she wasn't there. At least she's not sick again, Jeri thought. That's good. She was probably watching TV. Carrying Mr. Petrie's book, she headed for Ms. Carter's tiny of.ce behind the kitchen. She had to tell the house mother what she suspected.

Ms. Carter sat at her desk and listened carefully as Jeri listed reasons she believed their dorm food was being poisoned.

"But I'm the one who cooked breakfast today," Ms. Carter said. "The food was . ne."

"But what if you couldn't tell? What if someone dies next time?"

Ms. Carter came around to the front of the desk and put her arms around Jeri. "I understand your fear. First Nikki goes to the in.rmary and now Abby. Of course you're - "

"Abby?" Jeri pulled back. "She's in the in. rmary?"

"I thought you knew." Ms. Carter leaned against the edge of her desk. "She was sick several times this morning, and I put her in the in.rmary to be watched. She's so tiny and frail. I didn't want to take any chances."

"Can I go see her?" Jeri said, already heading to the door.

"I'm afraid not. The doctor disagreed with the nurse and suspects a virus. He wants to isolate any sick girls so no one else picks it up."

Jeri was unconvinced, but she could tell Ms. Carter didn't believe her poisoning theory. She trudged back up-stairs, more worried about Abby than Ms. Carter knew.

She was studying the plant book when Rosa walked in. "Did you hear about Abby?" Rosa asked, tossing her books and purse on the bed.

"Yes, and we can't see her either."

"I know."

Jeri stretched. "What are you going to do now?"

"Brooke and I are taking homework outside. It's an excuse to get some sun."

Jeri raised one eyebrow. "You don't need to tan. You were born with one."