Nobody's Perfect by Marlee Matlin

Author:Marlee Matlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

8

Gesundheit

“AAAAHHH-CHOO!”

Megan didn’t hear Matt sneeze, but she could tell that he had by the way he gripped the dining room table and scrambled for his napkin. His hair rattled and his face scrunched as his head bounced forward. Megan saw her mom admonish Matt to turn away or sneeze into his sleeve, and she saw her dad say “Gesundheit!” So she knew it was a sneeze.

Typical, thought Megan. She was in the middle of explaining her science fair project to her dad and she didn’t like to be interrupted. She had already explained to her dad the whole story about the new girl at school who was really perfect—but really difficult—and how she, Megan, had got stuck doing her science fair project with the girl. She said, “Gesundheit, Matt” to acknowledge Matt’s sneeze, and went back to her story. She was deep into the science fair project itself at this point. “And one room is red and one room is blue, but the nicest room is purple.”

“A purple room?” her dad asked, somewhat disbelieving.

“Aaaahhh-choo!”

It was Matt again.

“Gesundheit, Matt!” said her dad.

“Goodness gracious, Matt,” said Lainee. “Are you catching a cold?”

“If you’re getting sick or something, could you not sneeze on me?” said Megan to Matt. “I’ve got a big weekend planned. I have to run the hamster through the maze—”

“A hamster through a maze?” her dad asked, still somewhat disbelieving.

“So I really don’t want to catch Matt’s cold!” Megan insisted.

“I’ve got a big weekend too,” said Matt, sniffling and wiping his nose. “This is my baseball tryout weekend! I can’t afford to be sick!”

“It’s probably just dust,” said Lainee. “You were perfectly fine earlier.”

“Right,” Megan said to her dad, “and we run the hamster through the maze, from room to room.”

“Hamster? What hamster?” asked David. He looked down the table at Lainee. “Nobody ever tells me anything.”

“That hamster,” said Megan, pointing to the hamster cage on the floor in the corner of the dining room. “His name is Zippity.”

“He belongs to the school,” Lainee announced with assurance.

Zippity was awake now—go figure—and taking a rather lazy trot on the rodent wheel.

“What’s a hamster doing in the dining room?” asked David.

“Aaaahhh-choo!” said Matt.

“It’s only temporary,” said Lainee.

“We have to return Zippity to school on Monday,” said Megan. “So it’s really important that we run him through the maze tomorrow.”

“ ‘We?’ Who’s ‘we’?” asked David. “Lainee, would you pass the garlic bread, please?”

“Me and the difficult girl, Dad,” said Megan.

“I don’t think you should call her the ‘difficult girl,’ ” said David.

“Mom met her,” Megan protested. “Mom, tell Dad that it’s true. Alexis is difficult!”

“I wouldn’t say ‘difficult’ necessarily,” said Lainee as she handed the basket of garlic bread down the table.

But just as the basket passed in front of Matt—“Aaaahhh-choo!”

Matt sneezed again, all over the garlic bread.

“Ick,” said Megan, as her dad set the basket aside.

“I think you’re definitely coming down with something,” Lainee said to Matt.

“Something disgusting,” said Megan.

“Megan, leave your brother alone,” said Lainee. She got up from her chair and stepped behind Matt so that she could place her hand on his forehead.

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