I can't be the only one who hates Saturdays.
I usually only hate them for one reason, but now I have two.
I wish Saturdays never existed.
A retching cough from the other bedroom interrupts my wonderful thoughts, causing me to slowly slide off the couch. The sound is coming from North's room, where he's been holed up for the past, I don't know, eighteen hours, at the least?
I drag my feet into my little brother's room, already knowing that nothing I can do for him will help. He's been coughing and throwing up and saying random phrases, which scares me. The sick North is not the smart, creative North I used to know.
I'm afraid he's going to die.
"Nora," my brother says, holding his arms out to me from his bed like he used to do when he was a baby. The thought makes me tear up more than I know it should as I hug, no, hold him tightly, like I'm afraid he's going to let go and leave me forever.
Because I am.
"Can I try to eat?" North asks. "Can Momma make me a banana sandwich?"
I don't bother correcting him this time. "Sure," I say, sliding off his bed, probably looking worse than I feel. "I'll go tell her right now."
I left his room, wishing I could hold onto the twelve-year-old North I used to know, before he got sick. I take the normal left into the kitchen, where I make the traditional Niles family peanut-butter banana sandwich. I'm about to take the plate into North's room when I see it.
The letter.
The letter that would change the course of the rest of my life.
YOU ARE READING
The X Games
Science FictionNora's younger brother, North, is sick. Deathly sick. But as a non-working member of her community, she has no money for treatment. So she is forced to play in The X Games, a national television show where the players must escape to survive - on pen...
