Fear Street: Don't Stay Up Late EXCERPT

Chapter 2

“Is that a real word?” Isaac asked. “Vomitorium?”

“Mr. Hammer explained it to us,” Saralynn said. “In Drama class. They had these aisles in theaters. Like in Roman times. For the audience to leave the theater quickly. They were called vomitoriums. In Latin, it meant spew forth.”

Isaac scratched his curly black hair. “You mean the audiences puked their guts out in the aisles?”

“No. That’s a mistake people make,” Saralynn told him. “Vomitoriums didn’t have anything to do with vomiting.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can we talk about something else? I mean, we came here to eat cheeseburgers, right? Why do we have to talk about vomitoriums?”

Nate nodded agreement. We were sitting in a wide, red vinyl booth in the back of the restaurant. He had his arm around my shoulders. Saralynn and Isaac sat facing us.

“’Cuz that’s what the lunchroom looked like yesterday,” Isaac said. “Kids were heaving all over the place. It was totally sick.”

Nate’s hand squeezed my shoulder. “Does anyone know what made those kids all toss their lunch?”

“Maybe the food?” Isaac said.

We laughed. Isaac is a total joker. He always knows the dumbest thing to say.

“It’s still a mystery,” Saralynn said. “Someone said they all had the mac and cheese. But what could go wrong with mac and cheese?”

Yesterday had been a bad day at school. A dozen kids had to be sent to the emergency room at Shadyside General. But this puke talk was making me queasy.

I was glad when the waitress came back to the booth to take our order. I recognized her from school. Rachel Martin. She is a senior, but we are in the same Politics and Government class.

“What’s the special tonight?” Isaac asked her.

She blinked. “Cheeseburgers.”

“That was the special last night,” Isaac said.

Rachel poked him with the eraser on her pencil. “You’re very sharp, Isaac.”

“You shouldn’t poke the customers,” Isaac said, rubbing his shoulder. “Didn’t Lefty tell you that?”

We all looked to the window that opened into the kitchen. We could see Lefty’s back. He was at the grill, frying up cheeseburgers.

“Lefty said it was okay to poke you,” Rachel said.

Isaac jumped up. “Really? I didn’t know you liked me. Should we go to your place or mine?”

Saralynn pulled him back to the seat. “Ha ha. Funny.”

“We’ll have the usual,” Nate told Rachel.

She scribbled something on her little pad. Then she poked Isaac again with the pencil, turned, and headed to the kitchen.

Nate slid his hand from behind my back. “Okay, phones on the table, guys.” He slid his phone from his jeans pocket and set it down in the middle of the table.

The rest of us pulled out our phones and stacked them on top of Nate’s in a neat pile.

“Hey, make sure Isaac didn’t turn off his ringer,” Saralynn said.

Nate pulled Isaac’s phone from the pile and examined it.

“You guys really think I’d cheat?” Isaac asked, pretending to be hurt.