The First

Chapter 10

Fluid rushed up the back of her throat, searing her mouth and nose. Teagan retched and vomited for a third time that morning.

"Do you have a fever?" Her mom tapped away at the laptop on the bar.

"I don't know Mom. Haven't been able to ..." Again, she heaved and couldn't figure out where the fluid came from, surely she'd finished by now. "... get my head out of the damn toilet long enough to check."

"Watch your language, please. It's probably the twenty-four-hour 'flu or food poisoning. I guess you better stay home from school."

"Ya think?" Teagan said under her breath, the stench from the toilet making her heave again. She flushed, stood up and rinsed her mouth out with water. After brushing her teeth thoroughly and rinsing several times with Listerine, she grabbed her favorite comforter and Mr. Simpleton; her treasured stuffed black cat. She curled into a ball on the couch. She'd eaten way too much shit at Ellie's.

"Drink a lot of fluid today. The flu should be flushed from your system by morning,"

"Fine. I think I'll sleep all day. Nothing's on TV except those stupid babies."

"Those babies are a genetic anomaly."

"You figure out what they are yet? Where they came from?"

"Not yet, but we're working on it. Since Halloween, every fetus born has ... for lack of any other explanation, a genetic disorder. We're trying to pinpoint the mutated gene, isolate it and reverse or stop the process. It's very complicated."

"Blah ... blah ... spare me the details." Her stomach rumbled again. Shit!

"Take care of yourself. I think there's some Cup of Soup in the pantry."

Figures. Her mother never could cook. That particular job had gone to her father. She missed his patented Mexican spaghetti. He made it all Italian-oh to include large sausage meatballs, Portobello mushrooms, and his special ingredient; taco seasoning. She'd tried to recreate the dish, but like her mother, she had two left feet, or hands, when it came to cooking.

"Oh ... before I forget." Her mom placed her briefcase under her left arm holding the cup of coffee while she opened the door. "That boy called again. He sounds kind of old."

"His name's Lyle. I told you, Mom, he's seventeen." If Teagan told the truth (that Lyle's really a twenty-one-year-old college student) her mom would give some sort of spiel about underage sex and probably try to get the cops involved.

"Well, I don't want any boys here while I'm gone and certainly not while you're sick."

"Simmer, Mom. I won't be hearing from him again. Ever."

Her mom looked around for a moment. Not at anything in particular. But the vibe was all too familiar. She's searching for something to say.

"I'm sorry to hear it. Hope he wasn't too important to you."

"No. Not at all." Just talked me out of my virginity then joked about it to his friends. Teagan rolled her eyes.

"Good. Oh. Also, the president is making an announcement later this morning. You should probably watch."

Yuck. If one thing pissed Teagan off more than asshole college guys, it was politics. She'd had it force-fed to her every day of her life. From the time she woke to the minute her mother walked out the door at 6:35 A.M (sharp), she had to listen to C-Span or to her mother going off on some political tirade. But once she left, MTV or a mundane cartoon became the new topic of the day before she left for school at 7:50.

For her seventeenth birthday, her mom gave her a little red beetle bug car, of course, only after she'd proven complete trust with an automobile for an entire year. Even so, she wasn't allowed to have any passengers until she turned eighteen. What her mom didn't know wouldn't hurt her; she picked up Alyssa and Ellie almost every day without her mom's knowledge, why would this be any different?

Teagan rolled over and swiped her iPod off the glass end table next to the plush beige couch. At least her dad had left them with a nice entertainment system. The fifty-inch plasma screen TV mounted on the wall had small Bose speakers embedded above and on either side. The speakers could out-bass any of her friends' three-foot stand-up speakers. Her mom didn't mind because they didn't take up much space mounted on the wall with the rest of the electronic equipment. If she'd seen one wire, she would have made him take it all back. Come to think of it, that same week she went with her father to pick out the entertainment equipment for the new house, was the same week they found out he had cancer.

With a sniffle, she squeezed back tears. Those dark tears she'd been holding onto for a year. She'd gushed enough after her dad died; enough to last a lifetime-no more. There would be no more tears for dad, mom, or the bastard at Phi Theta Delta whatever. She'd used up her tear quota for at least the next ten years.

She channel surfed, stopping on a station with the words 'Stand by for an important message from the president' scrolling across the bottom. The announcers speculated on what the president might talk about.

Boring. She clicked recall on the remote.

"This is a test, right?" She scowled.

Every channel she switched to had the 'Emergency Broadcast System' scrolling across the top. "Ughh." For some reason, this time, with all the bouncing baby shit, the emergency message meant something new and a nest of hornets whizzed around her stomach. Again, she nearly vomited. This thing with the babies was bad but bad enough to cause a national emergency. He's just gonna come on and announce the troops are going back to war.

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