Inspired by a really good idea from Gypsy Abby. I hope it doesn't make anyone reading it too queasy. The next few weeks were a whirl of activity for kids and teachers alike. In Ms Dixon's class, Ethan asked her:

"Didn't you want to go to Disney, Ms Dixon?"

Ms Dixon wanted to reply that she'd rather eat her arm than go to a crowded theme park where adults dressed as cartoon characters kept popping up and Disney tunes played remorselessly all day but she just said politely that it wasn't her thing. She gave him a rather more strenuous set of excercises than usual to keep him from asking further questions.

Ethan asked Miss Honey the same question and she told him that she didn't count anyway, as she was the dinner lady and not a teacher. On seeing his sad little face, she confessed that she had a new boyfriend and wanted to be with him as much as possible. Ethan wanted to punch and kick the new boyfriend, but just said "That's nice" instead.

"I'm doing something different tomorrow; seafood carbonara. You can see if you like it."

Why should someone as clever as Miss Honey be wasted on a scabby old boyfriend, thought Ethan.

Next morning, before she and Miss Freeman drove Cal and Ethan to school, Mrs Beauchamp needed to visit the supermarket. While Mrs Beauchamp and Miss Freeman were having a giggle behind some shelves, Ethan spotted something. Food samples. He knew he wasn't supposed to eat between meals, but he hadn't wanted much breakfast and was now hungry again. He fancied some of the quiche that was cut up in bits for people to try. He sneaked a nice fat piece of it and scoffed it quickly before Mrs Beauchamp and Miss Freeman came back, and had a quick swig of his fizzy water to take the taste of quiche off his breath. Cal had been looking at some t shirts and planning to ask if he and Ethan could have one each for the holiday. Suddenly all the tins fell off a shelf, and Miss Freeman and Mrs Beauchamp, slightly red-faced, replaced them as best they could.

Later at lunchtime Ethan's guts felt a bit wobbly so he only had a small portion of the seafood carbonara. Even that proved disastrous. He suddenly went green and threw up all over Lofty's shoes.

"Ugh, gross!" Louise commented.

"It's okay", the ever-patient Lofty said, going off with Ms Chao to get some spare shoes while Ms Chao had the charming task of cleaning his own shoes up. Lofty didn't want anything else to eat so was happy to come out of the canteen.

Then Ethan was sick again.

The canteen was closed down for the afternoon and arrangements were made for Mr Fairhead to take Ethan home.

Ethan never made it to the car; he was sick another three times, then started to sob in pain and clutch his gut.

Normally he'd have felt like a VIP with the ambulance coming roaring towards him but Ethan feared the worst. He was going to die and never get to Disney. And maybe he'd go to hell for not doing what Mrs Beauchamp told him, and stealing the piece of quiche.

His stomach hurt horribly again, he was sick once more, then a kind doctor injected his arm and Ethan seemed to go into a nice snooze.

"I checked that seafood, it was fresh! Oh what have I done to him, he's only a baby!"

Miss Honey was crying. She was fond of all the kids, but Ethan was 'her baby' more or less.

"It could have been me. He was asking me all kinds of questions about Disney and I gave him more excercises", sighed Ms Dixon.

Meanwhile, Ethan was having a nightmare probably brought on by the drugs. He'd made it to Disneyland and was at the front of the queue to get Mickey and Minnie's autographs. Then he'd thrown up on Minnie's dress. Minnie and Mickey ordered him out of Disneyland forever.

He woke up to find he didn't feel sick any more but his stomach was still very sore.