Read Online Riggs Crossing by Michelle Heeter - Free Book Online Page B

me, and neither did Bindi. Bindi is up in her room. Lyyssa has learned not to put Cinnamon and Bindi on kitchen duty at the same time.
    ‘I got some takeaway,’ I say. ‘Here, I’ll help with the rest of the drying. Cinnamon can leave if she wants.’ I put down my backpack and grab a tea towel. Cinnamon throws down her tea towel and practically runs out of the kitchen and up the stairs to where Bindi is. If I didn’t know better, I’d say those two were lezzo lovers.
    There are only a few things left to dry, so I got some brownie points with practically no effort. Normally, I would watch some TV, but I feel tired. I try to read the ending of my book before I go to bed, but I can’t concentrate.
    It must be about eleven when I wake up. I feel dizzy. I’m going to be sick. I run to the bathroom and vomit into the toilet, but that’s not the end of it. I keep heaving and heaving even though there’s nothing left in my stomach. Then I start to cry. I’ve never felt so bad in my whole life. I want Daddy, but I don’t know where he is. I hear Cinnamon stomp downstairs and pound on Lyyssa’s door. ‘Len’s puking her guts out,’ she yells, sounding annoyed. Then she stomps back to her room and closes the door.
    ‘Len!’ Lyyssa’s in her bathrobe. She kneels beside me and rubs my back. I’m embarrassed about the vomit smell but Lyyssa doesn’t seem to mind. She helps me rinse my mouth out. ‘Here, let’s get you back into bed.’ I stagger back to my room, hanging onto Lyyssa for support. Lyyssa brings me some cherry-flavoured medicine and two cans of Coke.
    ‘You poor thing. It must be the flu. I hope the rest of the kids don’t come down with it.’ Lyyssa puts the wastepaper basket next to the bed in case I have to be sick again.
    ‘It’s not the flu.’ I’ve taken a few sips of Coke and I’m starting to feel a little better. ‘It was the pizza.’ Even though I know I should just keep my mouth shut, I tell Lyyssa about the pizza place and the Vietnamese kids and the guy lying in his own puke until the ambulance took him away.
    ‘Well, it wasn’t pizza that made him sick,’ Lyyssa says, with a hardness in her voice I’ve never heard before.
    ‘I know. It was heroin. I know all about that.’
    Lyyssa is quiet for a good few seconds. ‘Len, you’ve gone to a place specifically off limits. If the Foundation or DOCS hears about that, they might say I breached my duty of care. They might want to move you to another home. A place where you’d have less freedom.’
    I start to feel sick again. They could send me to Ramsay. Or some foster home. I can imagine what happens to kids in foster homes.
    ‘I know you didn’t go to Kings Cross to get into any trouble. But in a place like Kings Cross, trouble can find you.’ For once, one of Lyyssa’s bumper-sticker sayings is right on the mark.
    ‘I won’t go back there,’ I promise, and I mean it.
    Lyyssa relaxes a bit. ‘Good. I’ll have to tell Renate Dunn to explain why you won’t be at your lesson tomorrow. But I think our secret is safe with her.’
    I don’t know what Lyyssa tells the other kids about me being sick. She insists that I stay in bed on Monday. I read and she brings me my meals on a tray. And for some reason, Bindi and Cinnamon never tease me about the LeeLee Nelson song again.

Chapter 16

    No sooner do I get over the food poisoning and convince Lyyssa not to take away my MyMulti pass than I manage to get into trouble over Scott the physio.
    Scott clips the ultrasound film onto a light box and points at it with his pen. ‘See that bit there? That’s fluid in the sub deltoid bursa. You also have some inflammation in the tissue around the rotator cuff joint.’ Scott yanks down the ultrasound, puts up another, and points at a fuzzy patch with his pen.
    My left shoulder was starting to hurt even when I wasn’t swimming. I couldn’t even pick up a glass of water with my left hand. When I rolled onto my left shoulder at night,