"Arthur! Dinner time!" Mrs. Read called from the stairs. Arthur ran to the door and shouted, "In a minute, Mom!"
Pal was whining on the bed, and Arthur sat down next to him, still rubbing his arm. "I can't believe this is happening to me! I have the plague! How am I supposed to live here now? Everybody will hate me and avoid me," he said sadly, looking at the spot.
"Arthur, now!" Mrs. Read shouted up the stairs again, and Arthur quickly pulled his sleeve down. "I can't tell them about this. I'll have to keep it a secret." Pal whimpered.
Later on, Arthur was tossing and turning in bed. He was muttering to himself, whilst touching the spot on his arm.
Arthur was a peasant farmer. Buster was standing next to him, wearing a straw hat and rags. They were both carrying pitchforks. Suddenly, a man wearing a brown cloak appeared.
"The Black Death has come to England!" the man shouted. Buster dropped his pitchfork and started screaming.
Arthur looked down and saw a red spot on his arm. He gasped and tried to conceal the mark.
"You brought the plague to England!" Buster said in an English accent, grabbing his arm and pointing at the spot. "It's all your fault, now the whole town will die!"
"It's not my fault! I didn't mean it!" Arthur pleaded, throwing his arms into the air.
"I think we should be rid of him now!" the man with the cloak said, and Buster agreed.
"NO! NOO!" Arthur screamed.
Arthur woke with a start. He looked down and saw that the spot was still there.
"I can't go to school! Everybody will catch the plague! What am I going to do?" Arthur slipped into his dressing gown and went downstairs.
Mrs. Read was in the kitchen, feeding Arthur's baby sister Kate. "Arthur why aren't you dressed yet?" Mrs. Read asked, spooning baby food into Kate's mouth. Arthur clutched his stomach and walked sluggishly over to the kitchen table.
"I think I'm sick, I can't go to school today," he said slowly, groaning and collapsing into a chair.
"You were fine, yesterday," Mrs. Read said. "Maybe I should take your temperature."
"NO!" Arthur protested, taking his arms away from his stomach and quickly putting them back. "I feel so hot it'd probably break…."
DW came into the room, fully dressed and smiling. "Good morning, Mother. Why's Arthur not dressed? You're faking!"
Arthur jumped up and scowled. "No I am not!" he yelled, and quickly sat down again, pretending to groan with pain.
"Even I can fake better than that," DW said, unimpressed. Mrs. Read looked at both of them suspiciously. "Well I guess a day off won't hurt…"
"Thanks Mom," Arthur said meekly, and he hurried off upstairs.
Suddenly the phone rang. A few minutes later, Mrs. Read was calling up the stairs again. "Arthur! Buster's on the phone!"
Arthur walked slowly down the stairs, still holding his stomach and groaning with pain. He took the receiver and said scratchily, "Hello?"
"Arthur! ARTHUR! I think I have the plague!" Buster said nervously. "I work up this morning and I felt different. I felt cold, Arthur! Cold!"
"I have a spot on my arm! I definitely have the plague!" Arthur whispered back, looking at the red mark on his arm. "We can't go to school, can we?"
Buster shook his head, and hissed back, "We can't go anywhere ever again! I've already infected my Mom, she has a cough this morning!"
Arthur sat on the stairs, curling the telephone wire in his fingers. "I thought the plague disappeared over three hundred years ago!"
"Me too! I'm staying at home today." Buster said gravely.
Arthur put down the receiver and turned around. DW was standing in the doorway with her arms folded.
"The plague? Boy you are in so much trouble!" she said dramatically.
