Doesn't get sick

“And so you are,” he said. He frowned, an expression that was really sort of terrifying on his features. I didn’t say anything. You just don’t rush the Forest People. They’re patient on an almost alien level, compared to human beings, and I knew that our meeting was already being conducted with unseemly haste by River Shoulders’s standards. Finally, he swigged a bit more Coke, the bottle looking tiny in his vast hands, and sighed. “There is a problem with my son. Again.”
I sipped some Coke and nodded, letting a little time pass before I answered. “Irwin was a fine, strong boy when I last saw him.”
The conversation continued with contemplative pauses between each bit of speech. “He is sick.”
“Children sometimes grow sick.”
“Not children of the Forest People.”
“What, never?”
“No, never. And I will not quote Gilbert and Sullivan.”
“Their music was silly and fine.”
River Shoulders nodded agreement. “Indeed.”
“What can you tell me of your son’s sickness?”
“His mother tells me the school’s doctor says he has something called mah-no.”
“Mono,” I said. “It is a common illness. It is not dangerous.”
“An illness could not touch one born of the Forest People,” River Shoulders rumbled.
“Not even one with only one parent of your folk?” I asked.
“Indeed,” he said. “Something else must therefore be happening. I am concerned for Irwin’s safety.”


Brief Cases, I was a Teenage Bigfoot, Page 91-92