2 Days Later
We had been back in London for two days now and Alicia and I were hard at work, looking for a vaccine for the virus. All of the girls were sick now, and it was really starting to bug me and Alicia. "Have you found anything yet?" I asked as she looked at the medical books sprawled all across the floor. "No," Alicia said as she put her pen down and closed her eyes. "This is really frustrating." There was a soft knock at the apartment door. She got up and said, "Who is it?" "Me." said a voice. Alicia recognized that voice anywhere. It was her best friend, Alejandra. She opened the door and said, "Hey girl, long time no see." They shared a hug and then closed the door as she got her luggage in. I looked up and said, "Hi." "Hi." Alejandra said. "Alejandra, this is Janie," Alicia introduced. "Janie, this is Alejandra." "So nice to meet you." I said, shaking her hand. Alejandra smiled and asked, "So, where's my room?" "Back there," Alicia pointed down the hall way. "Second on the right." "Thanks a lot," Alejandra said. "Be right back." Alicia nodded as Alejandra went off down the hall. She sat back down in the floor beside me and picked up her notebook and pen again. "Should we try antibiotics?" she asked. "We could," I answered. "That'll keep it away for a while. Then, we can try something else." "But what?" she asked as Alejandra came back into the room. "What are you guys doing?" she asked as she sat down in the floor in front of us. "Trying to find a vaccine for that virus that's going around," I answered. "It's quite hard." Alicia put her head in her hands. "My father showed me some kind of recipe that's supposed to help fight viruses and stuff." Alejandra said. Alicia and I looked up at her. "What's the recipe?" I asked. "Well," Alejandra began as she stood up. "First, I need some sunflowers." I looked over at the sunflowers that were in the vase full of water then looked at Alicia. "But we just picked those this morning." Alicia whined. I looked at her, so she gave in. "Okay." She muttered. She carefully got the flowers out of the vase and handed them to Alejandra. "Thanks girl," Alejandra said. "Now I need some sugar, and some lemon juice." I got those items out of the cupboard. "Thanks girl. Give me a bowl." Alejandra said as she rolled up her sleeves. Alicia handed her the bowl and I handed her a spoon. Alicia handed her a knife too, just in case she needed it. "Now," Alejandra said. "Let me work." Alicia and I stepped back and leaned up against the counter behind us. Alejandra worked for fifteen minutes, with us watching her closely. "Okay," she finally said. "I'm done. Have a smell." Alicia and I took a sniff. "Smells good." Alicia complimented. "We better go and check on Mel." I said. Alejandra and Alicia I nodded, and then we got our stuff and left out.
We all walked up to the gate of Melanie's house. Alicia pushed the button to let us in. "Who's there?" asked a voice, whom Alicia instantly recognized as Ying's voice. "It's us Yingy." Alicia answered. "Okay," said Ying. "I'll let you in." Soon, the gate opened and we went inside. We walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. Soon, Tom opened the door. "Hi Tom," we greeted. "We came to visit Mel." "Hi guys," Tom said. "She's right in there with Scarlet." We smiled and went inside, with Tom closing the door behind us. I walked in first, followed by Alicia and Alejandra. Scarlet was in her pram, sleeping, and Melanie was sitting on the sofa. "Hi Mel," Alicia greeted. "We came to see how you were doing." "And we made you a get well card." I added. "And we got you some flowers." Alejandra joined in. Melanie turned around and smiled. "Hi you lot," she greeted. "Thank you very much. I'm doing so much better than I was." She started coughing, coughing her lungs up. Alejandra reached into her bag and pulled out the bottle of stuff she made. She poured some into a little cup, then handed it to Melanie. "Take this Melanie," Alejandra said. "This should make you feel better." Without question, Melanie gulped down the medicine. She instantly started to feel better. "Whoa," she said. "I don't know what was in that, but I feel better now." She coughed a little bit, but she looked better now. Scarlet heard a bit of the commotion, so woke up. "Awe," Alicia said, noticing that Scarlet was waking up. "Scarlet's up." Alicia walked over to her and carefully picked her up. "Hi Scarlet." Alicia whispered. Me and Alejandra came over as well. "Hi Scarlet." We whispered. Melanie smiled and said, "I find it very cute that my friends hold my baby more than I do." We laughed and handed Scarlet to Mel. "We better go anyway." Tom walked in and said, "Hi everyone. Are you feeling better Melanie?" "A little bit better." Melanie answered. "We're gonna go now," Alejandra said. "Hope you get better Mel. Bye you two." Alicia and I waved as well, then we all left out.
It wasn't a very long walk to Geri's house. Maybe that was because we talked about random stuff to pass the time. We got to Geri's house, got into the gate, and rang the doorbell. Soon, Fabrizio answered the door. He let us in and we walked down the hallway. Soon, Alejandra's cell phone rang the ringtone of Never Say Never, by Melanie C of course. "Hold up." she said. She pulled it out and answered. It was Tom. "Hey, it's Tom," said Tom. "And we have a problem." "What's up?" Alejandra asked. "It's Mel." Tom answered. "What happened?" asked Alejandra, fearing the worst. "She passed out right after you guys left." Alejandra's eyes widened in shock. "Scarlet's okay right?" she asked. "She's fine," Tom answered. "Melanie put her down before it happened." Alejandra was speechless. "Let me put you on speaker Tom." Alejandra said. "Okay." Tom said. Alejandra put Tom on speaker. "Okay," she said. "They can hear you too." "Tom," Alicia asked. "Can you make sure that Mel is okay?" "And make sure she knows that we're coming?" I asked as well. "Of course I can," Tom answered. "I better go back inside now. Bye." "Bye." we said. Alejandra closed her phone and stuffed it in her pocket. "Mel passed out." Alejandra explained. "Scarlet's okay right?" Alicia asked. "She's fine." Alejandra answered. I ran off down the hall to tell Geri the news. Soon, Geri came out of the back and said, "You girls run down to the Portland. We'll meet you there." We nodded, and then ran off, down the street to the Portland Hospital. While we were running, Alicia pulled out my phone and called Melanie's brother, Paul, to explain what was going on. He promised that he'd be there as soon as he could, then they hung up. As for us girls, well, we kept on running to the Portland.
We finally got the Portland. Our legs were burning, but we fought it and walked inside. Tom was sitting in one of the waiting room chairs, his head in his hands. "Tom." Alejandra said. Tom looked up and smiled. "How's Mel doing?" Alicia asked. "She's doing better then she was." Tom answered. "Do you know why she passed out?" I asked. Tom was about to answer, but Scarlet started crying. "Uh-oh." we all said. "Can I take her?" Alejandra asked. Tom nodded, so Alejandra picked Scarlet up. "Uh-oh," Alejandra said. "Someone needs a diaper change." "So who's gonna do it?" Alicia asked. We looked at each other. "I'll do it." I finally gave in. We got Scarlet's diaper bag and went to the bathroom. We put her down on the changing table and got to work. Alejandra supplied the wipes and Alicia supplied the powder. Soon, we were done. "There you go Scarlet," I said. "All fresh and clean." Alicia threw out the dirty diaper. We walked out with Scarlet and the diaper bag. Scarlet was silent for a minute, but then started crying again. "What's wrong now?" I asked, looking at Scarlet. "Maybe she's hungry." Alejandra said. "Maybe." Alicia said. We sat down in the waiting room chairs beside Tom, pulled out the bottle. I put Scarlet in Alicia's arms, and she started feeding her. After she was done, and burped,
Alicia gave her back to Tom. "Hey," Alejandra said. "Can we go and see Mel?" "Sure." Tom answered. He told us where to go, and then we went. We got to the room, and Alicia walked in first. Melanie was laying there, watching TV, but she looked pale. "Hi Mel." we greeted. Melanie looked up and smiled. "Hey." she greeted back. "How are you doing?" I asked. Just when Mel was about to answer, Paul showed up. "Hey sis," he greeted. "I came as soon as they called." He pointed to us. "Mel," Alejandra said. "How did you pass out?" "I really don't know," Melanie answered. "My head just started spinning, then everything went blank." Alejandra turned away, because she felt as though she was gonna cry. "Alejandra," Melanie said, sensing what was wrong. "It wasn't your fault. It could be any number of things." The rest of the girls soon burst into the room. "We came as soon as we heard Mel." Mel B said. "Thanks." Melanie said. Her normal color was back now and her breathing was fine, so she was off the oxygen. "Well, Mel," Alicia spoke up. "We're gonna head on back to our apartment. See you later." We each gave her a hug, then left out.
"I just don't seem to get it." Alejandra said as we walked into our stuffy apartment that afternoon. "This virus isn't gonna go away without a fight." I stated. Alicia closed the door and looked at both Me and Alejandra, who both looked confused. She was just as confused as us. Suddenly, something hit her. "What has Mel eaten today?" she asked. "Tom said that she ate some baked chicken with rice and spinach earlier." Alejandra answered. "No wonder she passed out," she said. "There's a recall on all spinach, remember. It was making people sick and giving them breathing difficulty, and stuff like that." "And causing them to pass out." I added. Alicia quickly researched the spinach recall on the internet.
Sure enough, exactly what Alicia and I said came up. We were right. "Alejandra," I said. "Could you please call and check on Mel?" "Sure." Alejandra answered. She picked up the phone and did what she was told. "All the time we spent, looking through medical books," I said. "And it was just bad spinach." "Yeah," Alicia said. "Kinda weird huh?" I nodded. We both shared a laugh. Alejandra hung up the phone, then said, "Tom said that Melanie is doing wonderful. She's up and playing with Scarlet as we speak. He also said that he just found out about the spinach recall, and is spending most of his time apologizing to Melanie for making her sick." We all laughed at that. "So," Alicia said. "Now what?" "I really don't know." I said. We all sat down in the floor. "First thing's first," Alejandra said. "We have to get Mel some of those pills that cure this stuff. What is it called?" She thought for a second, and then said, "That Protozyn stuff." "Yeah," Alicia said, looking at the clock. "But now, we can go to bed, then get up early and go." "I agree." I said. We all got up and headed to bed.
We were up really early the next morning, so we could get on a bus that could beat the London traffic. We were riding on the bottom part of the double-decker bus, and heaving a great time chatting about whatever. "Here's our stop." Alejandra said as the bus screeched to a stop in front of the London Shopping Mall. "Thank you very much sir. Have a good day." we said to the bus driver as we got off the bus. "You're very welcome ladies," said the bus driver. "And thank you." We waited for the bus to drive off, and then darted across the street and into the drug store. "Wow." Alicia said. The store was huge, and filled with all kinds of little knickknacks and stuff. "I found the stuff." I said. It was a small bottle, but had enough to give to all the girls. We went up to the counter and paid for the medicine, only I had to show some ID. We got out little bag, and then headed up to Mel's house.
"Okay," Alejandra said as we looked at the girls. "Each of you has to take one, and you'll be one-hundred percent fine." The girls nodded and each gulped down a pill. It wasn't long before they looked like the Spiceys we knew. "Thank you girls so much." Mel B said. We smiled and shared a group hug with each other. We were so happy that our Spiceys were fine