Veronique the Brat (Chapter 5)

After the girls witnessed Veronique fall down the long flight of stairs, Madeline decided to call the ambulance for her cousin. It took not so long for the ambulance to come to the house and strap the knocked-out Veronique to the gurney. Madeline spoke with the doctors as Veronique was slowly gaining conscious when the gurney was hoisted up. The girls were standing in the lounge with no equipment on, watching Veronique about to get rolled out of the door.
Madeline stood with her girlfriends after finishing her convo. "Get well, Ronnie!" she waved.
"Fille de joie!" Veronique uttered in a weak yet loud voice.
The doctors helped each other push the gurney out then closed the doors for Madeline.
"What does 'fille de joie' mean?" queried Skye.
"It means 'floozy'," Madeline answered with a weak smile.
"Oh."
"So what did the man say?" asked Lizzie.
"He said that since Veronique already has a sickness," started Madeline, "they might as well keep her at the hospital until she gets well. Which means we don't have to take care of her anymore."
The girls threw their hands in the air and whooped.
"Good," said Skye. "You know, I was just doing it for the money but money obviously doesn't mean anything if I have to be tortured the whole time."
"No more goggles to mess up my hair," said Andrea, fluffing her curly brown hair with one hand.
"You know, you guys didn't really need to wear that stuff," mentioned Madeline. "Lyme disease is not really contagious."
"I don't care. I didn't want her coughing on me or nothing. Just normal people habits."
"I'm glad that's over," admitted Debra. "Now we can just relax." She closed her eyes and put her hands together as ones would do when praying.
"I couldn't agree with you more," said Lizzie.
"Say Madeline," said Skye. "Whose bag is that?" She pointed at the big purple purse in the corner of the lounge.
"I don't know," answered Madeline. "I think it's Veronique's."
"Let's see if it's Veronique's." Skye walked over to the corner and picked up the purse by the brown handles. It was already open so she just stuck her hand inside. She grabbed a wallet then put her arm through the handles. She opened it and found I.D. "Oh, I found Veronique's identity card from school so this is her purse." She poked around in the wallet and pulled a numerous amount of money. "And this must be the thirty-thousand dollars."
The girls ran up to Skye to get a good look of the money.
"Skye, you can't be going through people's wallets like that," said Madeline.
"Hey, that little hamster owes me," said Skye. "Don't you think my hard work deserves a little something?" She flipped through the cash and counted for her desired amount. "Four thousand dollars because there is four letters in my name." Skye folded up her money and stuffed it in her jeans' pocket.
"You know, I helped out, too," mentioned Andrea. "And I think I deserve at least ten thousand so can you hook a sister up?"
Skye counted the remaining money and pull out a total of ten thousand dollars to give to Andrea.
"I saw these shoes online," shared Lizzie, "that total up to... I'm gonna say five thousand!"
Skye flipped through the money until she counted five thousand dollars. She took the amount out and handed it to Lizzie.
"You guys, money doesn't buy happiness..." said Debra. "But give me five hundred."
Skye counted five hundred dollars then gave it to Debra.
"You know," started Madeline, stepping closer to Skye, "my manager, Penelope, has been slow with her checks lately and I need to be paid of course. So you can break a fifty? You know what? Just give me the rest of it; I need new sheets."