Hush Baby, Hush

The Black Nancy Drew

“Daddy, daddy STOP!” I pushed the plastic cap of horrible smelling green liquid away and pressed my body as hard as I could against my bed post.

“Take this baby, It’ll make you feel better,” He reached for my chin and when I turned it to side he sighed, “I’m just trying to get your fever down.”

“Karen tell him to stop! Please, I beg you.” And I never begged Karen to do anything, but waking up in my bed after screaming my bloody head off I felt like somebody owed me something.

When Dad and Karen had rushed into my room with my wide eyed siblings in quick procession everything had gone from bad to worse. I just wouldn’t stop screaming, it was like the stop button to my voice box was stuck. Daddy tried to calm me down while Karen hid Joanna and Max in the folds of her tiered skirt.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,”I stopped screaming long enough to point to the ceiling, “It’s leaking blood. Make it stop Daddy, make it stop.”

When he reached for me I flinched back and he held his hands up as well as his head back to peer up at the ceiling. The blood flowed in thick waterfalls now, it splattered everywhere, on my shoes on my daddy’s shoes, on my beige carpet everywhere, but he said, “There’s nothing there Cris. Calm down baby, come here.”

“Daddy, it’s there,” I sobbed and held my arms tightly, “She’s coming after me. She’s trying to kill me.”

“Who Cris? Come here,”he beckoned, but I shook my head.

And then I just blacked out.

I woke up a couple hours later with a fever of 104 degrees and daddy having a conversation with Karen as they sat in the chairs they had pulled into my room. I had a fever…big deal! It wasn’t that bad----until I raced to the bathroom and puked out my guts two consecutive times.

Now my dad was not only convinced that I was suffering from massive hallucinations because I was sick but he also had the nerve to DEMAND that I stay home from school the next day or rather later that morning considering it was one a.m. and he was still trying to force down my throat a capful of nasty ass Nyquil.

He was convinced that I had overworked myself from work and school and that’s how I had contracted a fever so quickly, but I didn’t think that was the case. When I was screaming my brains off there was no sick bone in my body. How I’d gotten sick from screaming until my throat was raw and my lips were cracked I had no idea.

Maybe it was magic.

Poof! Voila! You’re sick!

“Either take this or we’re going to the clinic tomorrow.”

I shook my head, “You know how much I hate that place.”

Sterile white walls, and touching me in areas I didn’t want them to, I would be damned.

“Then take this and I’ll leave you alone.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and Karen, “I don’t believe you.”

“Just take the damn thing Crystal.”

My resolve fell and I took the cap away from him. I held it in the air, under the dim light of my room the green liquid looked more like slime and smelled like….licorice. I pinched the bridge of my nose with my forefinger and thumb, opened my mouth and took it in like a G.

“Here,” daddy knew me well cuz as soon as that nasty shit hit my tongue I was flailing for something to take the horrible taste away. A full glass of orange juice did the job and within ten minutes I was out straight.