"Morning," Todd said. He carried Tad into the kitchen and strapped him into his seat. He wasn't quite big enough for a high chair yet, so they'd bought him a little bouncer seat. It vibrated, too, which always made him laugh.
The others acknowledged Todd with assorted grunts. Mystique was busy knitting, her needles flashing back and forth so fast he could barely see them. She was almost done with the ducky blanket, and was planning on a little sweater set next, if she could find her crochet hooks.
Todd got a bottle out of the fridge and heated it up, then poured himself what was left of the cold cereal. Trying to eat with one hand while feeding Tad with the other wasn't as easy as he thought it would be.
There was a small sound.
"Did he just sneeze?" Todd asked. He looked down at Tad, who sneezed again.
Todd went into extreme panic mode. "Oh no! Call 911! Get a doctor! He's gonna die!"
"Will you calm down?" Lance held him back before he could hurt himself (or anyone else). "He's fine!"
Tad started to cough. It didn't sound good.
"See? He's dying!" Todd insisted.
"He's not dying, you idiot!" Pietro snapped.
"YES HE IS!"
The click-click of the knitting needles stopped. "Something going on that I should know about?"
"Tad's dying!" Todd exclaimed.
Tad grabbed Lance's finger and started chewing on it. (Or as close to chewing as you can get with no teeth.)
"He looks fine to me." Mystique went back to her knitting.
"Uh . . . someone wanna get this kid off me?" Lance asked.
"Tad, NO!" Todd pulled his baby brother away. "Don't do that! You'll give Lance all your yucky germs and then he'll get sick and be impossible to live with!"
Lance glared at him. Tad just drooled.
"We should take him to the doctor," Fred said.
"But he didn't even break the skin!" Lance protested.
"Not you, Tad! He's the one who's sick, remember?"
So they went to see the doctor who lived next door to them.
The doctor wasn't home at the moment, but his mother, who usually watched Tad during the week, let them in.
"What can I do for you, boys?"
"It's my baby brother! He's really sick and he needs help! Where's the doc?"
"He's out on an emergency call right now, but maybe I can do something to help you?" the older woman said.
"He seems to be a little congested," Lance told her.
"A little? Listen to him breathe! He's practically gasping for air!" Todd was on the verge of hysteria.
"He doesn't sound that bad to me," Mrs. Ryan said. "Matter of fact, he seems pretty healthy to me."
"I'll wait for a professional opinion," Todd said.
Lance rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Ryan. I'm sure he doesn't mean to be so melodramatic. We'll just give Tad some Vitamin C and keep him indoors the rest of the day." He took Tad back and the baby coughed in his face.
"Yuck!" Clearly Tad hadn't understood the warnings about not sharing germs. He just gurgled happily. Lance, however, did not look happy.
"Great, now I'm gonna get sick! I hate being sick!"
"I'llgotothestoreandgetsomestuffforhim." Pietro was off before anyone could stop him. He was back before they knew he was gone. "The pharmacist said to give him this stuff. Directions are on the bottle."
"Ooh, grape flavor," Todd said. "You'll like that, huh, Tad?"
"What about me?" Lance wailed. "I got yucky baby germs all over me!"
"Ah, you'll live," Pietro said.
Just for that, Lance breathed on the back of his neck.
"I guess we'll be going now," Todd said. He put Tad back in his carrier. "See ya Monday."
"Unless we're all dead of Baby Plague," Lance grumbled.
The first dose of Tad's medicine did not go down well. Even though it was grape-flavored, Tad seemed to know it was medicine, and he spit it out all over Todd.
"No, no, Taddy!" Todd tried again, with the same result. He went and got Fred to help him hold the baby down, and both of them got covered in the stuff. It took half a dozen tries to finally get enough medicine into Tad, and then they all had to change their grape-medicine-splashed clothes.
Lance, meanwhile, had holed up in his room, drinking gallons of orange juice in an effort not to get sick. It didn't do any good. When he didn't come down to dinner, Mystique went to get him, and found him in bed, surrounded by a pile of crumpled tissues that, laid end to end, could have reached all the way to Mars.
Tad, though, was much better. The medicine, once it actually got into him, had worked wonders. After dinner he lay on Todd's bed, giggling at something he saw on TV. Nearly everything he saw on TV made him laugh. At the moment, Tinky-Winky was falling down. Tad's cute little baby laugh rang through the air. And he wasn't coughing at all.
But someone else was. Todd went downstairs to investigate.
"You okay, yo?" he asked Pietro.
"No, I'm dying! I think Lance gave me his bug on purpose. He wants everyone to be as miserable as he is." Pietro blew his nose and moaned. "How's Tad?"
"He's fine now. The medicine worked. There's still some left . . ."
"No thanks. That stuff makes me sleepy."
"Okay, whatever." Todd went back to his own room and put Tad in his crib. Then he watched TV until it was time for bed.
Maybe he had been silly about Tad this morning. What
was a little cold, after all?
He turned off the light and went to sleep.
The next morning, Todd woke up and was starting to get out of bed when he suddenly felt his nose getting plugged up. Then before he could stop it, he felt a really powerful sneeze erupt from his nose.
Great, he thought. Now I'm dying!
