Rani's POV
Meeting the Blathereen last night had been so mind opening; we could save the population of the whole planet! It made me want to do some sort of charity run or something. Well, no, maybe a bake sale.
I was ready for school, I'd been dressed for a while and was in the kitchen eating toast. Luke came in from downstairs and starting eating his cornflakes.
"Err, Luke?" I said.
"Yes Rani." He answered, shovelling spoonfuls of food into his mouth. He was more than a little hungry.
"Tie?" I laughed. He sighed and rolled his head back.
"How did I forget?" He asked. I laughed again.
"I don't know. Where is it?" I asked.
"The attic." He didn't seem to care. God, boys and they're food.
"I'll go get it." I said, taking the last bite of toast and jogging back up the stairs. I saw Luke's tie draped over the back of the chair. I grabbed it and started for the door. I felt something, like a blast of air hit my face and felt terrible. Luke I was going to throw up, burn up, freeze, then fall over because of the headache; all in seconds. I tried to carry on, going out the door and making it down a couple of stairs before I lost my balance. I gripped the banister and got down a couple more stairs. I made it to the last floor landing.
"Rani? Are you alright?" Sarah Jane asked, she sounded dead serious and worried. Then I blanked out, and felt my body bashed around and bruised before landing and passing out completely.
Sarah Jane's POV
"Rani? Are you alright?" I asked, she looked terrible; pale, with red blotches with little black dots covering her face, arms, hands, legs, every inch of her skin. She rolled her eyes, flopped back and fell down the stairs; the horrible sound of her body rolling down the stairs and the thump as she hit the bottom.
"Rani!" I called, running down the stairs to figure out what's wrong. Luke came out the kitchen.
"Mum what happened?" He asked.
"I don't know." I admitted.
"She went up to the attic." Luke told me.
"What's in the attic that could do this to her?!?!" I asked.
"The only new thing in the attic is the racweed, and Mr Smith said that was perfectly safe." Luke explained, his exquisite memory coming in handy once again.
"Help me carry her upstairs. Then we can get this problem sorted." I said. Together we carried her upstairs. At this point I realised, I should have bought a fat, short house, rather than a tall, skinny one, too many stairs.
When we reached the attic, Luke pulled her onto the sofa and found a blanket and placed it over her.
"Mr Smith, I need you." A whooshing filled the room and Mr Smith was available to help us.
"What is wrong with Rani, Sarah Jane?" he asked me.
"I'm not sure. Can you find out please?" I asked.
"Scanning, Rani Chandra." Mr Smith stated. Luke was kneeling by Rani.
"I should have got my tie myself." He muttered.
"It's not your fault Luke! It was never your fault, if you went up there this would be happening to you!" I realised, glad that it wasn't Luke, and then felt guilty that I felt glad it was Rani rather than Luke.
"Look, Mum, the racweed!" Luke pointed. A flower had grown out of the top.
"Mr Smith, what's happened to the racweed?" I asked.
"I'm not sure. It seems to have grown," Mr Smith stated what we could all see.
"We can see that. Is it dangerous?" I asked, always the first question to ask in my line of work, well, my secret line of work.
"It contains some resemblance to the poison inside Rani." Mr Smith stated.
"Poison?" I wanted some elaboration.
"Yes. Rani will be dead in a few hours, and it will take days to find an antidote and I cannot be sure it will be correct." Mr Smith explained.
"We can't take that risk and it would take way too long." Luke pointed out, again the obvious.
"I know. Mr Smith is there anything we can do?" I asked.
"I will research." He answered. I turned back to Luke.
"You better go to school, Luke." I whispered, kneeling down next to him.
"I can't go do some biology test not knowing if Rani's going to be ok." He answered; he was so sweet; when he got a girlfriend she would be treated very well.
"You have to. I'm not letting you miss school, in fact I better call them and tell them Rani's ill." I mused to myself.
"I better go tell Clyde too." He answered. I could see he was excited about the biology test; he enjoyed that type of thing. But it was fairly obvious that he was worried sick about Rani.
Luke's POV
Mum could keep denying it but I knew this was my entire fault. Rani offered to get my tie from the attic; I'd been lazy and agreed.
I met Clyde in the usual place outside school. He could read my facial expression like a book (I was unsure that he could read a book though, so, maybe book wasn't the right comparison).
"What's up mate?" He asked.
"Rani. It's that racweed stuff, its grown overnight and we think that's what's made her ill and she's only got a few hours left!" I felt my voice about to break but I knew how much of a girl Clyde already thought I was and didn't say anything else, I was sensitive but I was pretty good at hiding how I feel most of the time, except when something's really bothering me.
"What?" Clyde's face was a picture. He looked gobsmacked, this was one of those times when you could tell he really fancied Rani, he was pretty good at hiding his emotions too, he told me that guys don't talk about feelings, but to be honest, I wasn't completely human, so I guess I am the exception to that rule, as usual. I controlled my emotions and explained to Clyde again.
"No, she can't die! I can't handle that kind of depression! We have to go back and help SJ!" He'd adopted this nick-name for Sarah Jane, but she didn't like it so he only used it when she wasn't around.
"We can't bunk off school." I told him.
"You're right, we can't." He agreed suddenly. I could see how guilty he looked.
"Clyde," I started. "What have you done?" I asked.
"Nothing, let's get to biology, we're going to be late." Clyde said quickly, slinging his bag over his shoulder and rushing into school.
We walked into biology and Clyde sat in his seat at the back. Normally I sit at the front with Nigel, my friend who also enjoys science, even if he isn't so good at it, but I know for a fact that Clyde does not sit on the back row, 2 desks from the left. He sits in the middle row with Rani. I left Nigel on his own and went to sit with Clyde at the back.
"What are you sitting here for?" I asked him.
"I want to know what you're up to." I said, knowing this would make him deny it.
"I'm not up to anything." He protested.
"Good morning master Luke, will you be requiring my knowledge too?" I heard K9 from under the desk.
"You brought K9 to help you cheat on the science test?" I asked, I don't know why, the answer was obvious, I wanted to know why.
"He said, a test was one human showing superiority of knowledge over another. I think, bringing a dog from the year 5,000 was pretty clever don't you?" He asked me.
"Clever isn't the first word I think of. Lazy, selfish, manipulative," I started.
"Manipulative?" Clyde inquired.
"Manipulative – using someone and something to result in a positive outcome for yourself." K9 blared.
"Shush!" Clyde hissed. "I know what manipulative means, but how am I being manipulative?" He asked.
"You're using K9 so you get a good score on the test." I spelled it out for him. "How're you going to get the answers without everyone hearing him?"I whispered. Clyde pulled an ear pod out his bag and explained that K9's voice goes straight through to the ear pod, he doesn't use all the information he's given me and get an average score on the test." Clyde seemed proud of himself.
"It's cheating and you know it." He ignored me and took the exam sheet we'd been given and showed it to K9.
He whispered something about here's the questions, K9 said it was cheating, Clyde used his 'a test is showing superiority of knowledge over others', and soon the teacher hushed him. We started the test, I flew through the first couple of questions and was starting to relax and enjoy myself when the teacher saw the bulk that was K9 under the table.
"Clyde Langer what is that thing?" She shouted.
"Um," He muttered. I felt something hit me in the face. Suddenly I felt headachy and ill. I felt terrible.
"Luke are you alright?" Miss's voice softened.
"No, I think," I started; I'd never been ill before.
"Miss, what's that plant over there?" Clyde interrupted, looking past me. I turned round. Miss went to look at it.
"Clyde, that's the racweed. How'd it get here?" I asked, rhetorically but he shrugged anyway. Miss turned round again, covered in the same red sores with the black spots as Rani had. My arm started itching like crazy and I rolled up my sleeve to see if there was something there; a lone red sore with a black dot infected my arm. Miss had feinted on the floor and Clyde could see the posing threat, everyone was running screaming. I felt dizzy but couldn't give up now; we had to solve this problem.
Obviously the racweed had got into other classrooms and infected other people too.
"Luke, are you alright?" Clyde asked, I must have looked terrible if it resembled how I felt.
"Yeah," I shrugged it off, I couldn't give up.
"What brought this on?" He asked.
"I think it was the racweed." I answered.
"Why aren't you covered in those sores then?" He asked.
"I'm not sure. Probably because I'm superhuman, to put it simply; my immune system is a lot stronger. Now let's sort this problem out." I smiled, I didn't feel too bad but I could feel more sores developing on my arm and my vision was going fuzzy.
"Wait for me masters." I heard K9 call, I couldn't stop running or I would just give up.
Clyde called Mum and explained what was going on at school. She said she was going to Antarctica to confront the Blathereen and that Mr Smith would monitor Rani's condition and call us if anything happened. We reached the front office in half an hour, having to wait for K9 at every door way and being on the opposite side of the school.
The whole room was dotted with racweed plants, beautiful but deadly as they were, making a low buzzing noise. The school bell rang the plants almost winced and shrunk away into nothing; dead. I suddenly felt better.
"Dude, you look a million times better." Clyde commented, I smiled and my brain started whirring. Maybe it wasn't just buzzing, maybe each particle was communicating; and when the bell went it was pretty loud, it must have broken the communication, which must be how they live and survive. I explained this to Clyde and called Mum back, I didn't expect the raspy voice that answered.
Is it good? Shall I continue? I'll probs continue anyway coz if I don't, I know Zia (Zia Cullen) will murder me, even if it was bull, and I enjoy writing it so yeah :P
Plz review, it brightens my day to know that people are reading
Ty
~Sal