Page 26 of Rhymes with Metaphor
Chapter 7: New Bug Thaws
“Yes,” said Reg testily.“You go and have a romantic afternoon in a boat with Juliet while I play nursemaid to New Bug.”
“This is romantic for you, too,” said Martin.“You’re a poet.In a boathouse.”
“Watch out, Shakespeare,” said Reg.
“That’s the spirit.”Martin clapped him on the back.
The boathouse wasn’t so much a writer’s room as a repurposed guest bedroom with a view of the lake and—this was new today—a view of Martin rowing Juliet slowly across the water.Behind Reg, Joel lay in the guest bed, looking peevish and sulky and wearing striped pyjamas that were, thankfully, not translucent.He’d gotten his appetite back overnight and was now loudly crunching a packet of Combos.It made focussing on poetry impossible.
O for a muse of fire—and an exterminator.
“Couldn’t you have stayed with someoneelsethis week?”said Reg, turning to look at him.
“Like who?”Joel was still hoarse, but his voice was nothing like the wreck it had sounded when he’d first arrived.
“Whoever gave you the mono.”
“It’s ‘mono,’ not ‘the mono,’” said Joel.
“You’re a nerd,” said Reg.
“Thank you,” said Joel with such forceful sincerity that Reg felt insulted.
“Don’t be pedantic.Anyway, why couldn’t you stay with her?”
“There isn’t a her,” said Joel.
The conversation had become marginally more interesting.
“...a him, then?”said Reg.
“Not that I know of,” said Joel.
“That you know of?”said Reg.
“Mono is transmitted through the sputum,” said Joel.“Someone coughed into their hand and touched a doorhandle, then I touched the doorhandle and got infected.That’s the most likely scenario.I have no idea if it was a man or a woman.”
Reg noticed that the hand Joel was holding his root beer with was unnaturally steady.
“Planning to become a surgeon?”said Reg.
“Psychiatrist.”
Reg felt less sorry for him.“Why?”
“I have an aptitude for science.And I’m good at reading people.”
