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She had no idea how she managed to escape it. But she had.
Loren Power had managed to survive the week without getting even a hint of the combination stomach bug and flu that was floating around the Solar Blue boarding house.
Adam had been the culprit. He had brought it into the house, a week earlier, complaining of a stomach ache. Bec had been all for quarantining him in the downstairs bedroom, but Garry had laughed it off and said that he had probably just inhaled his dinner too fast.
But when Charley and Guy had similar symptoms the afternoon after, Garry knew that he should have listened to Bec.
Cassie was next- not surprising, to anyone. But when Bridget's face tinged green at the mention of dinner, she was shipped across the hall to keep Cassie company in the red bedroom.
"You must have a damn strong immune system", Garry complained on day three, as he settled himself under a blanket on the lounge (he wasn't man enough to admit that he too was feeling under the weather).
She just shrugged. "Maybe", she said.
It had been three days. Three lonely days, where she would traipse to school, endure six hours of classes, and make the journey home along the beach. All by herself.
"Is there anything you guys want?" she called cautiously from the hallway- Bec and Garry quarantined to their respective bedrooms, too.
(She had known it would be a stupid question, the moment she asked it. With eight people in the house, any question usually had seven different answers.)
"Panadol", Guy moaned into his pillow.
"Can you bring up another surfing DVD?" Adam asked pathetically from the top bunk.
"Do we have any Codral?" Cassie wanted to know, letting out a chesty cough.
"A new box of tissues", Bec said dramatically, before sneezing four times in a row.
"The newspaper", Garry croaked, not even lifting his head off the pillow.
"Something to read", Bridget murmured, her eyes shut.
"Chicken soup", Charley said (he had managed to get off easily- he just had the flu, and not the stomach bug).
She was surprised- it was the first request for food that they'd had in days (making mealtimes very lonely).
(According to Bec, it was history repeating itself, with the Great Stomach Flu of 2005, the year that she was a student. Bedridden for a week, all they had been able to stomach was Sao biscuits and dry toast.)
Heading downstairs, Loren managed to fill their requests. She found a box of tissues for Bec, retrieved the newspaper from the driveway for Garry, pulled a Nicholas Sparks novel out of the shelf for Bridget, opened the new box of Codral for Cassie, searched for a an unwatched surfing DVD for Adam and popped the Panadol from the sleeve for Guy.
After delivering the aforementioned items, she raided the freezer for chicken (knowing that Adam had been saving it for chicken schnitzel night) and the fridge for vegetables, before hauling out the biggest pot they owned.
Her mother had taught her to cook. She loved it, but, by the rules of the house, she was only allowed in the kitchen on the nights she was rostered on. By the first night, when she and Charley cooked spaghetti bolognese, the rules had been tossed out the window and she had been called in to intervene on many occasions.
Soup was her favourite, chicken especially. In her opinion, there was nothing she liked better when she was sick than chicken soup.
So, once it was ready, she dished out a bowl before grabbing a spoon and taking it upstairs.
The boy had been overjoyed, and she watched as Guy and Adam eyed it jealously.
"Can I have some soup?" Guy asked quietly.
"Only if you can stomach it!" Garry croaked from the hallway.
After hearing their requests, Loren returned downstairs to dish out bowls of soup for Cassie, Guy, Adam and Bec (Garry had turned green at the thought of food and Bridget was sound asleep with her Nicholas Sparks novel crashed to the floor).
"Thanks Mother Hen", Bec smiled at her, her cheeks pale but her eyes starting to get back some of their usual spark.
Two days later (two lonely days, where she had only popped into school to get work for the others); they were all up and out of bed, feeling three hundred percent better as they shuffled around the downstairs level of the boarding house.
"It was the soup", Charley declared, as he served himself a second bowl. "Don't tell my mum, but I think it's even better than hers".
"One day I'm going to go to Perth and say 'hey there Mrs Prince, did you know Charley likes Loren's chicken soup better than yours?'" Guy said, as he dunked a toast soldier into his bowl. "That's what I'm going to do".
"Aren't you eating, Loz?" Bridget wanted to know.
"I've got a bit of a headache; I think I'll sit this one out". Loren shook her head from the kitchen, leaning up against the bench.
"You aren't getting sick, are you?" Bec worried, jumping up from her seat to press her hand again Loren's warm forehead.
As fate would have it, she was in bed for the next four days, while the others resumed their everyday schooling and training. Sleeping and trying to break her temperature, all she wanted to do was be at home in Laun, curled up in her little pink bedroom with all her home comforts surrounding her.
(The others had had it ten times worse, she had admitted to herself but that didn't mean she liked it.)
By the third day in bed (the day she had actually managed to keep down a glass of water and two Sao biscuits), Charley appeared at the door with a bowl in his hands.
"We made you soup", he said almost shyly, holding it out to her.
She took it warily, poking it with the spoon.
"It's from a can", he added as an afterthought. "Guy thought it would probably be advisable not to make you sicker than you already are".
She laughed, before taking a small mouthful. "It's pretty good".
He grinned. "You planned this, didn't you?"
"Planned what?" she took another careful bite, looking at the boy inquisitively.
"You planned to get sick after we were all better, I knew it!" he grinned cheekily.
"Of course I did", she played along. "I needed someone to be able to make me soup too!"
Charley just plopped down on the end of the bed, laughing, preparing himself to keep their ailing housemate company until she was well again.