The PTA Queen Bee & The Teen Rebel 02

"Rebecca, can you get a bucket and put it next to Courtney's bed when you get inside?" Allison asked. "And then get Courtney a jug of water and a glass?"

Allison walked Courtney up the stairs, her eldest daughter so exhausted from her vomiting and diarrhea issues that she was like a mountain climber struggling up the summit of Mt. Everest. In her dizzy state Courtney struggled to undress in her bedroom, taking off her cheerleader clothes and standing bare-breasted and in her white panties, before sliding her bare feet into bed.

Allison pulled up a chair and sat next to Courtney, pouring her daughter a glass of water. "You need to keep your liquids up, Courtney. The doctor should be here soon."

"Thanks Mom," said Courtney in a weak voice, taking a few sips, before bursting into tears. "I can't believe Todd O'Dea, that disgusting fat pervert was in the girls' bathroom with me when I was sick." Courtney's distress over her privacy violation was clear.

"Hey, it's okay," Allison said, putting her arm around her daughter and getting the crying Courtney some tissues so she could wipe her teary eyes and runny nose. As she did so, Allison pushed some strands of hair from Courtney's sweaty face, then paused as she noticed how hot her daughter's forehead was.

"I just want to take your temperature, Courtney," said Allison, quickly retrieving the thermometer and putting it in Courtney's mouth to take her temperature, then looking in horror at the result. One hundred and four degrees.

"You're burning up, we'll have to take you to the hospital," said Allison. She assisted Courtney to put on a pair of sweat pants, then walked her daughter towards the door, holding Courtney's sick bucket close handy in case she vomited.

Outside the door, Dennis approached his wife and daughter. "The doctor should be here soon."

"Change of plans, Courtney needs to go to hospital," said Allison. "You're driving."

Dennis looked dismayed. "But I just called the doctor."

"Well cancel him!" Allison screeched.

Dennis, too afraid of his wife's temper to disobey her, did as he was told. Pausing only once to tell the other kids that she and Dennis were taking Courtney to the hospital and that she would call them from a pay phone in the waiting room when she found out what was happening with their sister, Allison had sat with Courtney in the back of the car while Dennis drove.

At the hospital, the queue in the emergency waiting room was long and Allison sat Courtney down in a chair, Courtney with the bucket on her knees knowing from the feelings in her stomach that it was not a matter of if she would need it, but rather when.

Allison and Dennis sat one each side of their teenage daughter, Allison giving the dehydrated Courtney sips of water from a cup, and glowering at Dennis if he happened to look at either her or Courtney for too long. In the end Dennis decided not to risk Allison's wrath any further and picked up a magazine about life in the English countryside from the table and began to leaf through it, his attention captured and held when he found pictures of a foxhunt. Dennis's eyes went wide as they took in the photographs of horses ridden through the English fields by people in black and red hunting attire.

Allison continued to fume internally at Dennis as she tended to Courtney. After everything else, what Dennis had done at the fete by making women, teenage girls and children feel very uncomfortable had embarrassed and concerned her in equal measures. If it was just a one off, it might not have been as bad. But her husband had been acting so weird over the past couple of years, his behavior bizarre and his loss of interest in sex just the tip of the iceberg, but what was the problem? Infidelity and gambling topped her list of suspicions, but she had seen from other ways Dennis behaved that these seemed unlikely. One thing was for sure. Dennis and Allison had had sex just three times in the past year, but tonight would not be number four as he would be sleeping in the guest bedroom or his study rather than in their marital bed beside her.

*

While Dennis was already in trouble with his spouse, over at Swan Street Carol O'Dea had fully expected her husband to be yelling his head off mainly at her over two of their sons getting themselves suspended from school. However, this was not the case, not because Mike was acting calmly and rationally, but because he could not be found.

His father's absence was not noticed by his eldest son, Todd having more pressing concerns when he noticed that that tampon inserted in his nose was becoming full. Would Todd need to change the tampon? It was best to check.

Going upstairs, Todd noticed that the bedroom shared by Jenna, Libby and Polly was empty, so he could not ask Jenna's advice. However, Todd noted that Jenna's purse was next to her bed. As Jenna had put the tampon up Todd's nose in the first place, surely Jenna wouldn't mind if Todd went into her purse and took the tampon box out to check and get another one if necessary?

Todd took Jenna's purse and opened it, soon finding the pink bag in which Jenna kept her period supplies. Todd extricated a spare pair of his sister's panties from the bag, followed by some sanitary pads and a washcloth before he came to the tampon box and removed it, opening the box to find quite a few tampons inside, along with some instructions.

Todd puzzled over the instructions, none of them making much sense but what did catch Todd's attention was something about toxic shock syndrome, which could be caused if one kept one's tampon in for too long. Todd had never heard of toxic shock syndrome before, but it didn't sound very pleasant, and Todd was sure he didn't want to get it. Could Todd catch toxic shock syndrome from leaving the tampon up his nose for too long? It was probably best he changed it.

Taking a tampon from the box Todd went to unwrap it, but before he could do so, there came an indignant female voice from the doorway. "What the fuck are you doing Todd?"

Todd jumped, and turned to see the petite form of his twin sister standing there, regarding him with a severe expression. "You scared me, Jenna," Todd grunted.

"And you're scaring me going through my purse like that," snapped Jenna. "You shouldn't go into my bag and help yourself."

"I thought you wouldn't mind," said Todd.

"You thought I wouldn't mind if you went into my purse without permission and got my pads, tampons and panties out?" snapped Jenna. "You are such a fucking dickhead, Todd. Give me those."

Jenna snatched the tampon box from her brother and put it back into the bag, glaring at him indignantly as she returned them to the bag along with her pads and spare panties.

"Jenna, do you think I'll get toxic shock syndrome?" Todd wanted to know.

"What?" demanded Jenna. She shook her head. "I can only wish, but I don't think so. Just so long as you take that fucking thing out of your nose."

Todd extricated the tampon from his nose. "What should I do with it?"

"Chuck it in the fucking bin, you moron," said Jenna. She pointed at the bathroom door. "I need to go to the bathroom. I don't need to check every possible hiding spot in the bathroom, and have Polly and Libby stand guard outside the door when I'm in there, or do I?"

Jenna turned and went into the bathroom, closing the door and locking the door behind herself, before lifting her skirt and pulling down her panties to her ankles and sitting on the toilet, her legs open at the knees showing her hairy pussy. Outside the bathroom door, Todd pondered about what Jenna had said. Was Jenna's unusual statement about checking the bathroom and having their sisters stand guard outside the door a way of mocking Todd about Todd's disaster with Courtney Johnson and her friends in the girls' bathroom at school? Maybe, but Todd couldn't be sure. He ambled his fat body downstairs, pondering Jenna's latest comments.

On the way downstairs, he encountered his mother who asked him, "Is Jenna up there?"

"Yeah, she's on the toilet taking a crap," Todd grunted, taking the tampon to the kitchen trash, then parking his fat ass in an armchair in the living room to watch television.

Upstairs, Carol knocked nervously on the bathroom door. "Jenna, are you in there?"

If there was one thing that got on the tempestuous Jenna's nerves more than anything else, it was being disturbed while she was sitting on the toilet. Jenna was just reaching for some toilet paper as she heard her mother's knocking on the door and it nearly caused her to jump off the toilet seat.

"Of course I am Mom!" Jenna snapped.

"Jenna, I can't find your father," said Carol.

"And that's such a bad thing that you feel the need to knock on the bathroom door and tell me about it while I'm on the toilet having a shit? Jesus Christ, first Todd and now you."

"Jenna, I wouldn't bother you but it's really strange with your father."

Jenna unwound some toilet paper from the roll and wiped herself. "Yeah, it's a real mystery up there with the Marie Celeste and the Bermuda Triangle. Maybe Dad went out? Did you think of that?"

"Your father's car was still in the garage."

Jenna rolled her eyes. "Maybe he walked wherever it was he was going? He does have two legs, you know."

"Jenna, the house was unlocked when we got home. And there's other strange things too ..."

"Okay, okay, just give me a few minutes and I'll come and solve the strange mystery for you," snapped Jenna sarcastically. She unwound several lengths of toilet paper to finish, then stood up and flushed the toilet. Jenna pulled up her panties and adjusted them around her vagina and the cheeks of her bottom, before smoothing down her mini-skirt and washing her hands.

Jenna flung the bathroom door open, her mother's nerves evident as she looked at her teenage daughter's face of thunder. "Well come on, show me what's so strange," Jenna demanded.

Carol and Jenna went downstairs where a furious fight was breaking out between the other O'Dea siblings in the living room.

"I know one of you two took my baseball bat, now give it the fuck back!" Chris was yelling at Todd and Libby, Todd's fat figure filling out a lounge chair and Libby lying on a couch, Libby having removed her sneakers and socks and chucked them on the floor for her mother to pick up later.

"Don't know nothing about it," Todd grumbled.

"Yeah, don't know nothing either," said Libby.

"Bullshit, I know one of you took it," Chris stormed.

"Seriously, you're accusing one of them, Chris?" Polly asked. "The fat fuck whale, and our sister who makes a sloth or a koala look like an Olympic triathlete? What would either of them want with a baseball bat, or anything to do with sports in general?"

"Did you take it Polly?" Chris wanted to know.

The 12-year-old gave her brother a look of contempt. "No Chris, what would I want with your bat? I do ballet and I'm actually good at it, I'm not a loser try hard wannabe who wants to play baseball but will never ever be good enough?"

Like cat and dog, Polly and Chris squabbled while Carol took Jenna into the kitchen and showed her the bench, where a half-eaten cookie sat on a plate with another beside it, and a can of soda was open. Jenna picked it up and swirled it around, it was completely flat.

"Strange," said Jenna.

"And that's not all," said Carol. She led Jenna downstairs into the basement and indicated the half-finished shelving Mike had been working on, his drill still out and plugged in.

"That's weird," said Jenna. "Why would Dad have gone out and left everything behind? Has he left his wallet and keys?"

Carol nodded. "Yes, beside the bed."

Jenna was puzzled. "There must be a reason." Jenna led the way back upstairs where her other siblings were still arguing.

"Do any of you have any idea where your father might be?" Carol asked, her voice drowned out by the kids quarreling.

Outside Sambo began barking again, the same nervous hesitant barks that Jenna recalled earlier when they arrived home. She glanced out of the front windows at the Cape Cod house at Number 24. It was starting to get dark, and Jenna noticed that some lights were on in the house as well as the porch light, which they obviously shouldn't have been as it was vacant. An upstairs window was also wide open, as was the front door. A theory began to form in Jenna's mind.

"Chris, come with me," she said to her younger brother.

"Huh? Why?" asked Chris.

"Don't ask questions, just do it," ordered Jenna, Chris shrugging and following his older sister out the front of their house. As the siblings crossed the road and onto the front garden of Number 24, Chris hesitated.

"Um Jenna, this is the haunted house," he said nervously.

"Yeah, it is," said Jenna matter-of-factly.

"We aren't going inside are we?" Chris asked.

"Yeah, now come on and stop being a wimp. Are you a chicken or what?"

Jenna's insults were enough to motivate Chris, but the young man could not help but feel nervous as they went through the front door and into the house the atmosphere of which always seemed depressing. On the porch the wind chimes continued making their eerie noise, the sound of Sambo's nervous barking drifted through the evening air.

Inside the foyer, both Chris and Jenna could hear a frog croaking, but the sound stopped abruptly as the siblings went into the living room, and now the only sound inside was the ticking of the clock.

"Jesus Jenna, what are we doing in here?" Chris demanded. "Dad isn't in here. Why would he be in the haunted house?"

"It's best we check. The door is open and it shouldn't be," said Jenna, as she and Chris went into the kitchen. The clock attracted no attention from either of them as it was now turning correctly, not anti-clockwise as their father had observed hours earlier.

The kitchen was empty, but as Jenna and Chris turned Jenna noticed the basement door was open and headed towards it. "Jenna, why would Dad be in the basement of all places?" Chris wanted to know, wanting to visit the eerie basement of the haunted house least of all.

Jenna ignored her brother, turned on a light and started down the stairs immediately spotting her father lying at the bottom, his face covered in blood from a cut on his forehead. Beside him was Chris's missing baseball bat. Jenna ran downstairs finding her father unresponsive. Moving fast, Jenna checked his pulse and breathing. He had both, but his pulse was weak and his breathing very shallow.

"Chris, go and call an ambulance now!" Jenna called.

"Jenna is Dad down there? What happened?"

"Don't ask questions Chris, go and get the ambulance fast! I think Dad's had a heart attack."

Jenna heard her brother's footsteps as he ran out of the house, and Jenna moved her father into the recovery position, awaiting the return of the paramedics.

*

Carol O'Dea had been too upset to drive to the hospital after the ambulance as it pulled away from Number 24 with Mike inside, the lights and sirens blaring. This left Jenna again to drive her mother and siblings to the hospital, Carol not daring to leave them behind given how they had acted all day.

This of course meant that the O'Dea family would impose their presence upon the many people in the waiting room, including Allison and Dennis Johnson and their very sick daughter. Dennis was now sitting staring vacantly in front of himself, Allison not noticing the picture of horses that was hanging on the adjacent wall.

Out of the corner of her eye, Allison picked up a large male form enter the waiting room and sighed. The last thing she wanted to see was some fat guy who reminded her of Todd O'Dea. Then Allison looked again and nearly did a double take - it was Todd O'Dea. Not only Todd, but all six of his siblings too and their mother. The only members of the O'Dea family missing were the father Mike and the dog Sambo.

Allison to put things mildly was unimpressed by the arrival of the O'Dea family, but her daughter and husband showed no reaction. Courtney stared into her bucket, fighting off the waves of nausea while Dennis continued to stare at the painting.

Carol immediately caught a glare from Allison as it was directed at the fat form of her eldest son, and tried to move away as fast as she could. It was only Jenna who stopped to talk to the Johnson family.

"Well hi there again Allison," said Jenna. "I suppose you're interested in why we're all here right now?"

"I'm obviously more concerned about my own daughter, but the question did cross my mind," said Allison coldly.

"We're here because of a house," said Jenna. "You know the Cape Cod house at 24 Swan Street? The one you sold to a young teacher and scientist earlier this week without disclosing the history of the property to them?"

"Why are you all here because of the house?" Allison asked, maintaining a deadpan expression.

"Well if you look you'll see our father isn't among us," said Jenna. "That's because we found him unconscious in the haunted house, and he was rushed to hospital in an ambulance."

"I'm sorry to hear about your father, but what was he doing in the house?"

"You tell me," said Jenna. "Windows and doors were open when we got back, and some lights were on. Still think it's an ordinary harmless house in suburbia, do you?"

With that challenge to the woman who was her secret Sapphic lover and prospective employer over the summer months, Jenna turned and went and sat with her family, Carol O'Dea wisely having herded them some distance from the Johnson family.

Noticing Courtney was running low on water to sip, Allison took her cup and handed it to her husband. "Dennis, get Courtney some more water."

Dennis obeyed Allison's direction without question, filling up the plastic cup with water at the fountain and returning to his wife and daughter. As he went to hand the cup to Courtney Dennis let go of it too fast and it fell, some of the water splashing onto Courtney's sweat pants, the rest of it on her bare feet and the floor.

Allison fumed and got to her feet. "I want a word with you Dennis," she snapped, pushing him away to an alcove where there were several payphones for people to use.

"Dennis, what is going on with you?" snapped Allison.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to spill the water on Courtney," Dennis weakly.

"I don't just mean that, I'm talking about everything else. The incident at the fete today for a start. Why did I get an official complaint about you from the lady in charge of the pony rides that you were making women, teenage girls and children feel uncomfortable? Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was for me? And you haven't been yourself for months? What is going on?"

Dennis attempted to pacify his wife with nervous, hyena-like laughter to which she was not impressed, and stammered to think of an explanation under Allison's fierce gaze. The very sick Courtney looked across at her parents and could see they were fighting, and it only made her feel so much worse. Then to her other side she caught movement and jumped, before turning and seeing the 300-pound form of Todd O'Dea standing over her holding a bag of potato chips, grinning inanely. Normally Courtney could glare as intimidatingly at anyone as her mother, but today she was too weak to do so.

Eating chips while sitting with his mother and siblings waiting for any news of his father from intensive care, Todd had been stealing glances at Courtney and thinking about the day's events and what his mother had said about apologizing to Courtney. Todd initially didn't think it was his fault and that he should apologize, but thinking about it more Todd came to the conclusion that he was at least partially to blame and should apologize. Todd also decided that now, as Courtney sat white as a ghost, feverish and with her sick bucket close handy, was as good a time as any, and waddled across to her, his fat body still sore from the beating he had received from Brad, Jeff and Esau.