Word Count: 702

“Sweet Pea, you’re going to be late!”

Peter could barely manage to open his eyes, despite the cheerful call from his mother on the other side of his bedroom door. His head was heavy… hell, his whole body felt sore and achy. And cold… even though he was sure he had all the blankets pulled up over him and they hadn’t been kicked off during the night.

He groaned as he weakly pushed the covers away, rolling to the side of his bed to stare with half opened eyes at the clock.

7:23

Ugh… his mom was right… he would definitely be late to school if he didn’t hurry up and get ready and leave by ten ‘til. But he didn’t understand why he was so exhausted! Sure, he’d been out late with Chris and Paris on Friday night, but he’d had plenty of time to sleep and relax over the weekend. And it wasn’t like he did anything strenuous. He’d watched television, played around on the computer, worked on writing up a report in order to get a new merit badge, and was relatively lazy by his standards.

Even still, he slowly rolled out of bed, landing on the carpet below on his hands and knees. And there he sat for another few moments while his head decided it wanted to spin uncomfortably. Maybe he just got up too fast? Whatever the reason, Peter finally pushed himself up so he could slowly get dressed.

“Did you want orange juice or milk, Sweet Pea?” his mother asked once he finally stumbled his way down into the kitchen, his uniform and hair rather disheveled, but it wasn’t really that much of a difference from his normal days. He went to sit at the breakfast table to wait for his mother to fuss over his hair and straighten his collar and whatever else she wanted to do to make him look more presentable.

“Peter?”

“Oh… uh… juice,” he managed to get out, although it sounded more like a whimper as he poked at the bowl of oatmeal in front of him. He didn’t mind oatmeal, but today it just seemed more gross than usual.

“Are you feeling okay??” his mother suddenly asked, moving over to like she was going to start fussing with his hair and uniform, but instead she sat down next to him and reached out to feel his forehead, and then squish his cheeks in her hands.

“Ugh, mom,” he groaned, trying to pull himself away from her, but it was too much of an effort, so instead he just flopped over one arm, laying his head on the table when she finally let him go.

“You’re burning up! Why didn’t you say you weren’t feeling well??” she fussed.

“I’m fine~” a muffled whine came from under his arm, his face still hiding against the light and his mother. And now it felt too heavy to lift. He couldn’t afford to be sick! He’d missed too many days already!! If he missed too much more, what if they held him back a year?? He couldn’t be in fifth grade again! He was already too smart for these kids! He didn’t want to be that kid who was held back for being sick all the time.

But as he thought of how much it would suck to be stuck in the same grade, his stomach churned uncomfortably.

“Sweet Pea, you need to go back to bed,” his mother fussed, digging around for something in one of the cabinets, and when he looked up he realized she’d pulled out a thermometer for him to stick in his mouth.

“Uggghhh,” he groaned, but didn’t have the strength to really fight it.

102°

“You’re not going to school today,” she frowned worriedly at him, taking a few moments to lean down and press kisses on his forehead, which only made him try to back away even farther. “You’re going back to bed.”

“Noo,” he whined even more, remembering how much it sucked to make up work for the classes that he’d missed only earlier that year!

There wasn’t much more of an opportunity for him to argue with her, though… because his stomach churned uncomfortably again, and once he did leave his chair, it wasn’t to go to his room…