Black Tuesday by Susan Colebank

one last look inside her bag. French book, chemistry book, The Scarlet Letter . Everything she needed was there for her first day back at school.
    Whoopee.
    She straightened and saw her belt buckle wasn’t centered with her shirt buttons. She didn’t bother doing anything about it. Or the cuff that had come undone on her right pant leg. Jayne just wanted to be in her pj’s. That sounded good about now. So did popping a few of those pain pills, taking a marathon nap, and snuggling with Britney. Life would be perfect if she could just stay home.
    Okay, maybe not perfect, but at least she’d be away from the real world. Where people knew about . . . Where people knew. Thanks to the midday, five o’clock, six o’clock, and nine o’clock news.
    Jayne sat down and looked at the clock. It was time to go. Time to get the day over with. “Where’s Dad?”
    Ellie had given up her bracelet search and was leaning against the kitchen counter, eating M&M’s. She shrugged. “Dunno.” She dumped the last M&M into her mouth. “Don’t tell Dad I can’t find it. He’ll write his number on me in Magic Marker or something.”
    A week ago, Jayne would’ve lectured Ellie about eating that candy crap. It wasn’t good for her diabetes.
    It also wasn’t good for her diabetes to be going outside without her bracelet after eating a handful of M&M’s.
    Today, though, Jayne sat down and put her forehead on top of her crossed arms.
    She heard the jingle jangle of pocket change a few seconds before her dad rushed in. She lifted her head, the movement cracking her neck. God, she was tense.
    Her dad took a traveler’s mug out of the cupboard. “Good, you’re both here.” He filled the mug with the green iced tea he’d made the night before. “I was hung up on a conference call with U of A.”
    He looked around, patting his blazer’s pockets. “Insulin. Did Jaynie give you your shot, Ellie?”
    Ellie shook her head. “Not yet. She’s been too busy getting ready for school.”
    Jayne wanted to put her head back down on her arms and shut out her sister. Whatever. Ellie had had plenty of time to ask her. She was just being self-centered, like always.
    Like Gen.
    Jayne didn’t say anything as she went to the fridge. On top of everything else going on today, she didn’t want to get into an argument with Ellie. On autopilot, like she’d done a thousand times before, she pulled out a vial and started rolling it with her good hand against the side of her leg, mixing together the milky liquid inside.
    â€œI’ll swab the decks, Captain.” Their dad mock-saluted Ellie and took a cotton ball out of the jar by the fridge and soaked it with the bottle of rubbing alcohol beside it. “Where are we doing this one today?”
    Ellie pulled down her waistband a few inches on her left hip. She looked up at the kitchen light. “You almost ready, Jayne?”
    Her back to her dad and sister, Jayne pressed her lips together. Ellie was begging for a fight. The little jerk wasn’t going to get one, though.
    After checking the syringe for air bubbles, Jayne pinched the flesh at Ellie’s hip and pushed the needle into the skin. Ever since her sister had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age six, it had fallen on either their dad or, in the last four years or so, Jayne to give Ellie the shot three times a day. At school, the nurse did it.
    No one else could do it, though. Or rather, would do it. Their mom’s gag reflex activated whenever she saw a needle, and Ellie couldn’t stomach giving herself the shot.
    Their dad gave Ellie a fresh cotton ball with alcohol to clean up the tiny dot of blood from the puncture. Jayne threw the used syringe into a lidded plastic container and wondered what the garbage men must think of them. Did they think they were a bunch of drug addicts?
    With everything else that