Thanks to Justice237 for reviewing.

I have so many ideas for this story right now, if I could just update this one I would, but I can't. I have to update other stories too. Even though they are far less now than they were a few months ago so I can update this one and update it again and update… yeah, you get what I mean. I kind of have to decide what order things will come in.

This chapter is a lot of conversation. I hope it's well otherwise, it will bring you forward.

"I hate throwing up. I hate even the noise of it."

When we were back in our room, and May- Li had finished changing the sheets on Minnie's bed to go to Kim who was still throwing up I sat down on Minnie's bed and let her lean against me- I couldn't tell why but she was shaking and even putting her hands over her ears.

I knew some people were like that with other people throwing up, but Minnie seemed so scared out of her mind it could hardly be healthy. And I almost thought she would get sick herself with all the crying and hyperventilating.

"There." When I heard the bathroom door open and close and footsteps I turned towards Minnie again. "It's quiet now. Do you think you can fall asleep now?" Minnie nodded slightly and I carefully moved away from her and stood up. I was so tired I had to lean against the dresser in between our beds to get forward.

That was probably why Minne suddenly annoyed me.

"Kenny? Can you check my temperature? Only one more time?"

I had done it only when we came out from the bathroom, ten minutes ago.

I laid my hand on my forehead in a calming move and then watched out the window where the sun was starting to rise. I just couldn't help it…

"Minnie."

I was sounding annoyed, and if it had been daytime or I was being fair for the moment it certainly wasn't being fair when I fizzled at her.

"I'm tired and I know you are too. I want to go to bed and so are you. Please, you just have a cold. Can you stop freaking out?"

It was as if I had something much worse than what I actually had. Minnie's face grimaced as she started sobbing and pulled Lamby close while she turned her back against me.

"Minnie… look. I'm sorry for that."

I didn't say anything more when I could see she wasn't going to listen to me. Neither would I at three in the morning. So I laid down again and hoped that both Minnie and Boo would let me sleep through the night.

"Goodnight."

Minnie didn't answer, but I heard her continuing sniveling and it could have broken my heart literally. But still, I was kept up so much at night by Boo who kept moving. At last my eyes closed by themselves as I fell asleep.

The next day, after being woken by the middle of the night I wasn't up until noon. When I woke up both Mike and Duke were here, Minnie sat by the table and three more had been caught by the bug.

"Sofia's ill too. She's in her room and we're keeping an extra eye on her just in case. But of course, as you know the chance is very little a simple cold would get any worse for her than anyone else. "Also Belle is ill and Harry. Minnie's feeling a bit better and as you can see, so is Duke."

I glanced towards the kitchen and then back at Mike and I saw in his eyes that he knew what I had said.

"It wasn't so bad. I was just so sick and tired and all of her questions and…"

"That can seem bad for an eight- year- old who thinks she's sick."

I waited for a moment, there was actually only one question I wanted, and needed the answer for.

"Is she very mad at me."

Mike shrugged, then nodded towards the door.

"I think you'll have to talk to her yourself."

I sighed before I went into the kitchen and wasn't sure if I wanted to go inside there or run for my life. I decided on the first only for bad cravings for orange marmalade that I got from the fridge before I sat down on the other side of the table from Minnie. We even usually sat side by side ever since she arrived.

"Are you feeling any better today Minnie? Almost as brand new?"

Even I heard how shaky and stupid my voice sounded.

And Minnie didn't even look at me, something in what I had said when I just wanted to go to bed had really hurt her and she wasn't for any reason start talking to me again. Mike was right. An eight-year-old who thought she was sick, something she thought was meaner than I understood.

I sat down in my bed after I finished breakfast and the rest of the day I only came downstairs for the meals. Minnie was in her bed but asleep for most the time. When it hit her it really hit her hard. And while I was trying to draw, and had forgotten the rest of the worlds for hours at the time I suddenly found myself drawing clothes that would suit her.

"Look here." I tried when I saw Minnie was awake at the end of the day. "Do you think those would suit you? I really like drawing clothes that could fit someone. I've done it for as long as I can remember so maybe I could get the chance to actually see it being made into real clothes one day. Do you think you'd like a shirt like that?"

Minnie shrugged, and by the look on her face I could tell she wasn't going to talk to me any time soon.

"Well, maybe when you're not ill and maybe not angry with me you can take a look?"

Minnie silent and I looked down into my drawing even if I couldn't have concentrated on it for anything in the world now.

"My mum was mean when I was ill."

I stopped in my drawing and turned to my side where Minnie sat on her bed, or sat… she laid and I hadn't noticed she had turned back towards me.

"What do you mean?"

I laid my stuff on the dresser and went to sit down next to her, without me having to ask she turned and laid half across my lap.

For every child in here there was a story, mine was mostly about adults who had wanted and tried to take care of me. I hadn't exactly liked it but it wasn't half as bad as most of the other kids' in here. Minnie's too…

I didn't know much about it but…

"Did your mum have a co… did she get ill and very ill?"

Minnie shook her head, she sniveled but I didn't know if it was from the cold or from crying. I hoped that she was crying, she didn't seem to be crying at least but…

I could do nothing else than hope she would say more and I'd be able to help her.

"My mum was nice." She told me. "Except for when I was ill. Sometimes I wasn't even ill. When I had a cold… She said I had a pneumonia and she took me to the hospital. They did tests and they were terrible, x-rays that took forever and needles- they had to hold down my arm even to be able to take them and still I screamed. When the doctors said I was fine my mum shouted at them to try again. I didn't want to, the doctors said I should go home, watch a movie and wait a couple of days and then I'd be well again… But it wasn't so simple."

I would have asked about her telling me more, why it wasn't so simple? But I didn't want to pressur3e her and soon she continued by herself.

"The next day mum found a new birthmark on my arm and she took me to the doctor's to check it. They had to remove it to check…" Minnie pulled up her sleeve revealing several small scars on her arm. "…I don't like needles but knives are even worse. The doctor had to have several of the nurses hold my arm still before he cut my skin so he could cut the birthmark away."

I could hardly breathe by now, oh- all these terrible things that had happened to Minnie. What she must have been going through by a regular cold.

"My mum said it could be a melanoma- that's cancer. Skin cancer… She said there was no way I'd get those birthmarks if I didn't have it. But it was checked and they were just regular birth marks… I hoped they would take a while to show and maybe I could stay at the hospital for a while- at least a couple of days. But they let me go home. And mum just got angrier and angrier they didn't find anything that she said she knew was there. And then she sat on me. She literally sat on me when I laid on the floor to give me bruises all over. She took me back to the A&E and told the doctors I had leukemia. Leukemia is a type of cancer that is a terrible disease. The doctors checked and there were more tests. But even after all the tests they did they couldn't find something that was wrong."

Anyone else would be happy for that- maybe for Minnie it just made everything worse.

"She started yelling at them that they had to check again. And that was finally when the doctors thought she might be the problem. She was the problem. She was put in the hospital and they told me it was for something in her brain. I was put in care and I… I came here. And that's the whole story."

I couldn't even move where I sat, now it had all made sense about why she had freaked out over a regular cold.

"Mum kept telling me I was ill." Minnie had tears in her eyes when she looked back up on me. "Now, every time I have a cold, every time I have a birthmark or even just a paper cut. It's like my whole mind is taking my mum's voice and tells me there's something worse. There's something I need to find or I'm going to die."

She started sobbing and shaking into my shirt, I felt my arms fall lax by my sides- what was I supposed to do knowing all of that now?

"I don't want to die Kenny. I don't want to die."

"Sch, sch, sch." I wrapped my arms around her and stroke her chin, warm by salt tears and her forehead warm by fever. "It's okay now Minnie. Your mum can't touch you here…"

"I don't want to die."

However much would it have caused her to hear me complain like that. Oh, everything that she must have been going through by just a simple cold made sense now.

"You're not going to die here Minnie." She coughed so badly that it almost made her coke and throw up, and then kept sobbing. "Sch, sch, sch." I still had Minnie lying across my lap, if she threw up all over me and herself we could deal with that later. "Breathe Minnie, just take one single breath for me."

Minnie tried to take a breath, but after half of it was stopped by an invisible hand and started coughing again.

"Sch, sch, sch." Minnie just kept her fast breathing. "It's okay Minnie."

All of a sudden Duke was standing in the doorway. And even though I barely noticed him there I saw the movement in the corner of my eye when he left and closed the door after him.

"Sch, sch, sch."

I tried too comfort Minnie with my voice and just as I held her. But none of it helped.

After more than seven years her mum had hurt her like she had and I was supposed to comfort her during a few, short minutes and try to make it matter.

"Sch, sch, sch."

The sobbing and gasping went quieter at last, then at last deeper tool. I could feel a headache creeping up inside my head and it got worse and worse, quickly.

I just knew I couldn't leave Minnie like this.

At last, at almost midnight as I knew she had fallen asleep I carefully moved and laid her down. Then, just as I did I felt a dizziness spell spinning my whole world and I tried to ignore it going through the house. Maybe it would get better if I too got a sandwich or some cereal before I went to bed.

"You handled well." I hadn't even noticed someone except for me was awake and jumped when Duke came into the kitchen. "Minnie's very lucky to have you."

"I'm lucky to have her."

Duke just smiled for a second, then, I could almost hear the way he frowned when I slumped down on a kitchen chair, put my elbow on the table and my head in my hand and I heard him come closer before he felt my forehead.

"Is it your turn to get sick?"

"I'm fine."

"You know you're not only taking care of yourself Kenny…

I was stopped in the middle of a word when I started coughing again- oh great!

"How was it you said it to myself and to Tee?" Duke asked me with a slight smirk. "Bed, young lady. Schoo, now."

He didn't exactly give me a choice when he led me upstairs and into my bedroom where Minnie was asleep on her bed after everything, her cheeks still stained by tears and rain water.

"No… you're under no circumstances taking care of her now." I glared at him but then picked out a pyjamas bottom and bra from the wardrobe and obeyed to what he had made clear before I laid down, pulled my quilt around me tight and looked down on my belly tiredly the last thing before I fell asleep.

"You better let me sleep well now little Boo."

Random fact

Earlier I had written that Kenny took Minnie with her outside for fresh air and that helped her in a panic attack. Then, that isn't the way it works so it kept annoying me. Then I re-wrote it when I've now noticed that this and another chapter needs to be re-written some.

Please review, this story is so close to 100 reviews.