Digging Up Trouble Read Online Free

illness.
    A handrail lined one wall and a rainbow of colors decorated the floor. Looked like a class of preschoolers had had their way with a box of crayons.
    I came to a set of yellow doors.
    Yellow?
    Red, green, blue. Green, red, blue? Blue, green, red?
    No yellow at all! Oh no!
    "Riley," I whispered loudly as I passed open doorways. What was it about hospitals and nursing homes? Why couldn't I pass a room without looking in? So far all I'd seen were two empty beds and a storage closet.
    "Riley?" I whispered louder.
    "Shhh!" someone said from within one of the rooms. "Trying to watch Price Is Right! "
    "Sorry!"
    I came to a set of green doors and decided to try my luck. I pushed through them. They led to another hallway that looked like it had a nurses' station at the end of it.
    Quickly, I walked toward it, still unable to keep from peeping in the rooms I passed. I walked past an open door, looking in out of the corner of my eye, and stopped so fast I turned my ankle.
    "Ow, ow, ow!" I hopped around like a rabid bunny. Not that I'd ever seen a rabid bunny, but I figured that's what I looked like.
    I was rambling. Never a good sign.
    "Nina Ceceri, is that you?"
    Like nails on chalkboard, that voice, German accent and all. I thought about pretending to not hear her.
    "I know you heard me," she snapped.
    She sounded awfully healthy for someone lying in an E.R. hospital bed.
    I backed up, stood in the doorway. "Mrs. Krauss, I really can't stay. I'm looking for Riley."
    She sat upright, the oxygen tube in her nose straining. "Riley? Something's happened to the boy?"
    The genuine fear in Brickhouse Krauss's eyes softened my hatred of her. "I don't know. I got a call that he'd been brought here."
    She scrambled out of bed, tugging her johnnie around her to cover places I never ever wanted to see.
    "I don't think that's a good idea," I said. "You're obviously not well."
    A white eyebrow arched angrily. "Ach."
    Ohh-kay.
    With the oxygen tube abandoned and IV pole firmly in hand, Mrs. Krauss shuffled out the door, her paper-thin gown flapping.
    "Did you check the nurses' station?" she asked me.
    "No."
    "Never were a good problem solver, were you, Nina Ceceri?"
    Mrs. Krauss, aka Brickhouse Krauss, had been my English Lit teacher once upon a time. She was evil, pure and simple, but it seemed as though I was the only one who saw her that way. More recently she had an on-off relationship with my neighbor, Mr. Cabrera. Currently they were off, even though they really loved each other.
    It was Mrs. Krauss's fear of dying that kept breaking them up. See, all Mr. Cabrera's lady friends had the unfortunate habit of kicking the bucket while dating him. Brickhouse freely admitted she broke up with him every few weeks to even the odds.
    "Why are you here?" I asked her.
    Her short white hair stuck out in wayward tufts. "I'm not dying, if that's what you're hoping."
    "What? Me? Hoping? Never."
    Again with the eyebrow as she narrowed her ice blue eyes on me. I shivered.
    "So?"
    "Pneumonia," she said. "Mild case."
    The wheels on the IV pole squeaked as we walked down the hallway. "Isn't it funny that you get sick when you're not dating Mr. Cabrera? Didn't you get strep the last time you broke up with him? It's kind of ironic."
    "What do you know about irony, Nina Ceceri?" she snapped.
    "I paid some attention in your class."
    "Hah!"
    Thankfully, we'd reached the nurses' station, the center of four hallways that created an X. In an odd way, I was glad I'd run into Brickhouse. I had calmed down considerably. "Riley Quinn?" I asked the nurse on duty.
    She checked a chart, said, "Room 5, down the hall on the right." She motioned straight ahead. "Follow the blue line."
    As if it was that easy.
    Brickhouse started in that direction, but I held back. "Tamara Oliver?" I asked.
    Again with the chart flipping. "She's still being evaluated. Check back in a few minutes."
    I said thanks and rushed to catch up to Brickhouse. As we neared Room 5, I could hear all