Rock Bottom by Jones Jerusha

Author:Jones, Jerusha [Jones, Jerusha]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2014-12-16T08:00:00+00:00

Someone pinched my nose. Hard. I flapped my arms at the perpetrator, but they didn’t move like they were supposed to — they were sucked under by a blurry sea of black and white one-inch hexagon tiles. I was floating — swimming — swirling. My head felt like it was trapped in a trash compactor. Blazing light stabbed through my eyelash filter. I groaned.

“Wake up.” Someone jiggled me.

“Uhhhoooooh,” I said, louder. A huge head blocked the glaring overhead light.

I opened my eyes in the shadow. “Ford,” I croaked.

“Yep.” He grinned, just inches away. His breath smelled as though he’d had sauerkraut for dinner, and I thought pinching my nose was now a good idea. “Can you get up?”

“I jesht want … lie here frwhile.”

He sat back and the light stung my eyes again.

“Kay. Gemme up.”

He slid me around and propped me against the wall.

“Oooooh.” I slumped forward and dropped my head in my hands. A wave of nausea surged through my stomach and then returned to slosh the detritus around. “Shick.”

Ford jumped over me, through the doorway, and dashed back to slide a chamber pot in front of me — almost in time. How could grilled cheese get so putrid in just a couple hours? Ford grabbed the roll of toilet paper off the holder and swabbed the chunky, yellowish-mauve puddle on the floor.

If the water was turned off, why was there still toilet paper in here? At least reason was returning. I looked at Ford. His coveralls were unzipped to the waist, revealing grungy red long underwear underneath. I didn’t need to see the flap in the back to know it was a union suit.

“Why’re you here?” I asked.

“Borrowin’ a pot. Were you tryin’ to scare me, hidin’ in here? I almost shit my pants.”

“It’s you. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why aren’t you using your bathroom?”

“Somethin’s wrong with the plumbin’. Backed up.”

“You should have told me. Sooner.”

“That pot —” Ford jerked his head toward the bedroom, “is like one we had when I was a little ‘un. Reminded me.”

I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes. I should have checked on him at the first indication things weren’t right — that night in the pickup when his clothing stank. I should have known. Ford was always saying he had nothing to complain about, even if he really did.

“Take the pot home with you until we can get your plumbing fixed. I’m sorry, Ford.”

“Thanks, Missus Morehouse.”

I needed to grill him about how he got into the locked museum, but later. “Thanks for helping me.”

“Yep. See you later.”

I kept my eyes closed and listened to his departure. There was a scrape on the wood floor as he scooped up the chamber pot, then he clumped down the hall. I lost his footsteps after the stairs. No clue about how he’d entered.

I probed my jaw with my fingers and found a painful lump in the squishy part under my chin. It was so swollen it pushed my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

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