Jonathan, being Jonathan, just gave me that look he sometimes gives Evie when he thinks she's being childish. "Now look here, old man. It's only a book."

"Ut-oh!" I poked it back toward him with a finger, like it was something disgusting.

"Before your eyeballs pop out of your head, Rick, Let me say this. There's nothing in it. It's blank. A journal if you will. You write in it."

I cocked my head to one side and looked up at him. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Well, for one thing it would keep you occupied while you were stuck up here."

"Jon, just what do you suggest I write. Dirty limericks?" I grumbled at him. "It's you and Evie that have got the knack for this kinda thing. Not me."

"My good son, there's nothing to it. Just put your pen to paper, and let the words flow. It's bloody simple."

"If it so BLOODY simple, why don't you do it?"

"Grumpy are we?"

God, I wanted to smack him. Just punch him in his nose. I would have to, if I didn't feel so damned lousy. So, I had to lay there and listen to him, go on and on about the self satisfaction of "Writing One's Life Story" for future generations. All I knew was, if he didn't quit yacking, he wouldn't have any future generations to worry about. "Stop!" I tried to look angry, but I coughed and the moment was ruined. "If I promise to think about it, will you leave me alone, Shakespeare?"

He looked hurt then and I felt a little guilty. Oh hell, it wasn't really his fault. "Okay. I guess no harm ever came from writing in a book," I said with a sigh.

Suddenly Jon beamed, like the cat that bit the canary in the ass. "It depends on what you write in it old man!"

I could think of a million things I'd rather do with my time and writing is definitely not one of them, but since I seem to be under 'House Arrest' by my loving wife the 'Warden', I've decided to take Jonathan's suggestion. He too, seems to be one of the inmates, as of late, since he caught my cold. Although, since his didn't develop as far as mine, he has more freedom than I do, but he says if we inmates stick together, we can eventually take over the asylum. That made me grin. Jon can be a devious little shit when he wants too. He said he's a master at knowing how to get around 'Old Mum' when she goes off on one of her Mother Hen/Warden tangents.

What made me laugh out loud was when she caught the 'Master' trying to sneak out to go to London for some peace and quiet and probably a drink or two, which by the way, he could have invited yours truly along., except he decided I'd be more of a hindrance than a help.

"I dare say, if you coughed or sneezed we wouldn't get to the front gate before she sicked Bordeaux on us!"

Bordeaux is an Irish Wolfhound, that when he stands on his hind legs and put his front paws on my shoulders is as tall as I am! It's hard to believe that when Alex and Kit got him, he was the runt of the litter. In fact, the only reason they got him at all, was the fact, the man that had him was gonna put him down, cause he was the runt and didn't have much of a chance at survival. Although to look at the monster now, you would have never believed it. It was amazing what a diet of dog food, love and an occasional mailman or milkman could do for the appetite.

Any way where was I? Oh yeah. To make a long story short, Jon promised to bring back a bottle of Bourbon, since Evie had locked up 'The Medicine Cabinet' as Jon and I affectionately named the liquor cabinet, while we had been laid up. Jon said she had probably swallowed the key and we'd never get it back from his anal retentive sister. I was inclined to agree with him for once, since I couldn't go to the bathroom without a hall pass! But seriously since we had got sick, Mother Hen/The Warden had added a new title to her growing list of credentials, the latest one being 'Tyrant'.

The Tyrant caught His Nibs two nights ago, as he tried to make a break for the prison wall. Just as he was about to go over (well, out my window onto the balcony) she drew from the hip and shot him down with a cool, "Just where do you think you're going?" She stood there, hands firmly on her luscious hips. Fire shot out of those beautiful eyes and I had the faint impression of smoke pouring out of her ears. Ut-oh!

The picture of Jon, his head scrunched down low on his shoulders, as if my darling wife were to take a swing with a sword, would miss his neck and take off the top part of his head, will be forever etched in my memory. One leg bent at the knee, ready to climb over the window sill, his face screwed in a ricottas of a grin showing a mouth full of white teeth, squinted as he looked at me pathetically.

I tried to shrug, hoping Evie wouldn't see me. Well, that was my intentions anyway. Those eyes snapped in my direction and that's when I realized I smelt smoke. Big UT-OH! "Get back under those covers, Mr. O'Connell!"

I had the brilliant idea to cough and look pathetic, but it only made the fire shoot farther out of her eyes and I suddenly felt singed. That perky, little right eyebrow shot to attention when it arched straight up, as she surveyed the two juvenile delinquents and the open window. Jon had the grace to close the window and look contrite. Although before he turned back to face the music, his sister would no doubt play for us, he winked at me. My hopes soared. Jon yet had a plan to escape. I could almost feel the Bourbon scorch a path down my throat. GO GET HER, JON, I thought with a grin. I didn't count on her seeing it though. Shit!

She frowned at us, plainly going over the events in my Cell. She smelt a five foot, nine inch, one hundred thirty-five pound, sky blue eyed rat with brown curls and a heavy wool coat. Why did I know it was Jon? Simple. She pursed her lips, kept her hands on her hips and did that finger thing, where you have all your fingers raised and you lay them down one at a time, starting with your little one. You know what I'm talking about. Plus Jon was already a dead man walking and he didn't even know it. His plans for a quick escape had flew out the window before he closed it.

"I'll just go on back to my room and leave you two lovebirds alone," he offered with a twinkle in his eye, still not realizing he was done for, as he walked toward the door. I knew what was coming. Well maybe not exactly, but when she continued to block her brother's path I knew it was the end of a Bourbon Dream. Evie just stood there. A small brick wall, and from the view I got, all the bricks were in the right spots. So I'm sick. It don't mean I'm dead!

"Evie? I need to get past, Luv."

That deadly eyebrow arched up. "Coat."

"Pardon me?"

"I'll take your coat since you won't be needing it."

"Don't trouble yourself, Old Mum. I can hang it up."

"Jonathan."

"Ah...Yes Old Mum?"

"COAT."

"Ut-oh," I mumbled, hearing the finality of the word.

Apparently Jon wasn't worried as he shrugged out of it and handed it over to his waiting sister. Satisfied, he tried to again step past her. Big mistake there. He wasn't going anywhere, till the beautiful brick wall was satisfied.

"Is there something else, Old Mum?" he asked innocently.

Innocent? More like smug. Yeah. Smug. That's the word. S*M*U*G!

Evie returned the same identical look. Now Smug stood toe to toe with SMUGGER, if there is such a word and I doubt it seriously, but there they stood. An English-Egyptian standoff and I already knew who the winner would be, before it ended. I would have watched a bit longer, but I was hit with a sneezing fit and heard them both start counting. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten sneezes. Ten God bless you’s," they said in unison. It was a practice Jon had started when Evie had been a baby and continued to this day having been revived when Alex was born and finding its way into my room now.

"Didn't I just tell you to get back into bed?" she asked.

I wiped my nose on a tissue and looked at her through blood shot eyes. "I am on the bed."

"Granted, your backside is on the bed, but your feet are on the cold floor."

Okay, so she had me there, but hell, I had just come back from the bathroom and then I ran into Jon skulking about in the hallway, with his coat in his hand, while he listened for Evie to go into the kitchen to start dinner. So we retreated back in here and he told me of his plot to Break Out and I offered to help if he would bring back some 'Cough Medicine' (as he called it) for me.

"Mr. O'Connell!"

I nodded my head quickly and in doing so, I started to cough. Oh Hell. Great! What next? I coughed so hard, I thought I dislocated my breast bone. The next thing I knew, Smug and Smugger were putting me in bed and pulling the covers up to my chin. Evie's hand went to my forehead and neck feeling for a temperature, while Jon grabbed the spoon and the real cough medicine off the nightstand. He unscrewed the cap, filled the spoon and ordered," Open up," to which I opened my mouth unwillingly.

"Through the teeth and over the tongue, look out stomach, here it comes," he grinned seriously as he watched me swallow it. Then he filled a second spoon. "One more my good son."

"Good, then you take it, Longfellow," I sneered at him. "Smells like a combination of camel shit and creosote."

Jon screwed up his mouth and frowned at me as if I were just a stubborn little kid and I told him to smell it, if he didn't believe me. He did, then he nodded his head in agreement. "It bloody well does smell like shi..."

"TAKE IT!" Evie cut him off. "You're running a fever again."

"It's just a cold Evie! It's not like it's gonna stunt my growth or cause any body parts to fall off!" I managed to get out, before I broke down coughing for a second time. That won me the "Fire In The Eyes" look again and the Arched Eyebrow.

Jon swallowed hard, as he pushed the spoon closer to my face and whispered, "I suggest if you don't want her to start chopping off body parts, my good son, you take this."

I opened my mouth without further protest and swallowed. "Eeeee! Ewwwww!" I shivered, not from a chill, but the taste of the camel shit flavored creosote. What made it so bad was the damned flavor seemed to linger long after the medicine was gone.

I'll say one thing for those two, when they work together, its efficiency in motion, like two well greased cogs in the same machine. I was covered, pillows fluffed at my head, dosed with the CSC (camel shit and creosote) and even had a pair of wool socks on my feet! Jon pulled the wastebasket close to the head of the bed, not so much for discarded tissues, but for the loss of the CSC. Seems like every time I take it, it's usually in the middle of the night or some other damn time when there is no sign of food around. It really plays hell on an empty stomach. Although with my waste basket in place, I was ready for anything. Almost anything.

Then I saw Evie coming my way with the damned thermometer! Don't get me wrong, I love my beautiful wife more than life itself, but this woman could put the fear of God in an atheist! Especially with a thermometer in her hands. How do I know?

Two weeks ago my beautiful, gentle, little reincarnated Egyptian Princess, threatened...THREATENED mind you, to flip my two hundred and ten pound frame on my stomach if I refused to open my mouth! She grinned at me like a deranged mummy and informed me if I didn't open my mouth she find a more, how shall I say this delicately? She'd find a more delicate and vulnerable place to STICK IT! Let me say, it had the desired effect she wanted. My mouth popped open in shock and in went the thermometer.

So now when I saw her, making her way toward me, my lip trembled. A certain orifice on the lower part of my body clenched tightly in fear and my mouth popped open. Even Jon rolled his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief when the thermometer slipped under my tongue. But he regained his composure quickly and he winked at me from behind her back, as he started to quietly back away to the door. I'll never know if there was some creaking of an old floor board, the subtle rustle of the cloth of his pants or the reflection on the window of him skulking away that caught Evie's attention, but whatever it was, it stopped him dead in his tracks, when she said, "Jonathan."

"Uh...yes Old Mum?" he smiled half-heartedly, knowing he was caught in the act.

"KEYS! NOW!" She continued to look at me, threw those steely eyes as her hand shot out, palm up for the Duzenberg's keys.

Jon must have been feeling half cocky or damned suicidal, cause both his eyebrows raised in indignity and he scoffed," I haven't the foggiest notion what you're ranting and raving about now, my dear baby sister, but I suggest..."

She turned that steely eyed gaze on her brother. Then she suddenly smiled sweetly at him. Shit! Poor Jon just had his neck measured for a noose, by the Queen Executioner herself!

Even this Warrior for God couldn't save him! The Twelve Tribes of the Med-Jai couldn't save him! Shit, Ardeth Bay with the Book of the Dead and the Queen of England with the President of the United States standing by their side couldn't rescue poor Jon, when she announced in a cold gut and butt clenching fear, "If you want to go to London fine...but first I'm going to make sure you're well enough to go."

She pulled the thermometer out of my mouth, looked at it with a frown, then at me. I almost wanted to scrunch down and hide under the three quilts and two blankets that were piled on top of me, since I felt a chill and it had nothing to do with a fever. Luckily for me Evie turned her attentions back to that wide blue eyed brother of hers.

"Let's take your temperature, shall we?"

Don't get me wrong. Jon's not a coward. He just gets spooked, kinda easy. He's come along way since the Gruesome Twosome (Imhotep and Anck-su-namun), soldier mummies, flesh eating scarabs, pygmy mummies, flying strapped to the wing of a plane, a really, really big bug and last but not least, hanging upside down, caught in a net, and reaching for the world's largest diamond, on top of a pyramid while everything in sight is getting sucked under the sand!

Looking back on it now, I really think he had more guts than sense. Yeah, Jon's a gutsy little shit, but don't tell him I said that. He'd just get a big head and then I'd have to lie and say I never said it. But what the hell, I am proud of him, no matter what he thinks of me, sometimes.

Although to look at him now, he really didn't look all that tough. She'd just threatened him with something akin to the HOM DAI and he had all but wet his pants! (He hated thermometers more than me and with good reason.) See, he had pneumonia last year and half the time he was out of it so much...well, suffice it to say, there was only one way Evie could take his temperature. And me being the instigating bastard I was, at the time (cause he shared his germs and I wound up once again in 'The Warden's' tender care) let him know in no uncertain terms, just how she took his temperature!

Then what did that little screw do? That's right. He didn't get mad. NO! HE GOT EVEN! He waited till I was in bed, thermometer in my mouth hand rushed into the bedroom like Imhotep had jumped out of a closet at him.

"RICK! RICK!" he shouted in what I could only perceive as pure, unadulterated terror. "GET THAT BLOODY THING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH! I JUST FOUND OUT WHERE IT'S BEEN!"

I spit the goddamned thing clear across the room, as Jon collapsed in an overstuffed chair by the bed laughing like a madman.

I sorta felt sorry for him, when Evie advanced on him with the hated object in one hand, as she pointed down the hall, toward his room with the other. He was ready to genuflect, fall on the floor at her feet in total submission, do back flips or even get his skinny butt shot out of a cannon, across the Themes for that matter, to keep from getting skewered.

They began to exchange words. Evie's voice low and demanding while Jon's getting that high pitch to it, when he felt that invisible noose tighten around his neck. I tried to keep up with the exchange, but I was laughing too hard and then I was coughing again and the next thing I heard or though I heard was the tinkle of metal and Jon's forlorn voice moaning in defeat. "There."

For now the Inmate Uprising has been averted at the asylum and the warden has us all locked safe inside. Even Bordeaux has been turned against us. I swear it! No lie! Evie has him stationed in the hallway. If Jon or I come out of our rooms, Bordeaux starts whipping his tail back and forth so hard, we could use him to beat a Persian rug! Then he starts what Kit calls his happy bark, letting everyone know in a ten mile radius we're out and about as we turn tail and run, forgetting to go to the bathroom. Hell, the way I look at it, I can wait till they let Bordeaux outside to find his own little plot of heaven, hopefully, Jon will wait till I find mine.