I'M DYING 4: FLU MISERIES
Chapter 6
Someone else had eaten the bad seafood . . . and just their luck, it was the professor.
"Remind me never to ask for restaurant tips from
Kurt," he groaned.
"I'm sure he had no idea the food was bad," said Jean. "At least
food poisoning isn't contagious."
That was small comfort to Xavier. "Make sure no one else is affected," he told her.
"I'm trying, believe me."
Storm gathered everyone together and found that no one else
had eaten the tainted seafood. So they were safe, at least for now.
Unless Kitty decided to bake muffins, that is.
"So when you gonna tell me?" Lance asked Wanda.
"Tell you what?"
"Why you call him Boo."
"It's a long story . . ."
"We got two weeks. It's not like I'm going anywhere. Unless I die, that
is."
"You're not going to die." She had just taken his temperature again,
and it had actually gone down a little.
"Please?"
"OK. It goes back to when we were little kids. After
our mom died, we were raised by her Aunt Luisa . . ."
"Wanda . . ." came a plaintive wail from across the room. "I'm
hot again."
"Just a sec . . ."
Lance was upset. "I'm never gonna get to hear
this!"
"Will you relax?" said Wanda. "I'll get to it!"
She went to Pietro and checked everything again . . . then picked up right
where she had left off. "She was a witch."
"A what?" Lance looked at her skeptically.
"Not a black-hat/broom-riding/Halloween witch. A real
witch. Who knew a lot about herbal potions and charms and stuff."
Lance stared.
"She taught me a lot about healing, even though I was
still really little. I have a copy of her spell book that I use now and then .
. ."
"Is there a spell for never getting sick again?" Toad asked.
"Cause we could sure use it."
"I don't think so."
"We're gonna die."
"No, we're not."
"Yes we are," said Pietro. "It hurts when I swallow."
Wanda reached into her pocket. "Try this," she said, holding out a cherry lozenge.
"Is it the good kind or the cheap kind?"
"What difference does it make?"
"I don't like the way the cheap ones taste . . ."
"Uh huh." Wanda decided
not to argue with him. That would come later, when he was feeling better.
She remembered the time when they were three years old and had the measles.
Their father, who had just returned from a "business trip", nearly
panicked . . . highly unusual for him. But at the time, he was just getting
used to being a father.
Her favorite part of the memory was sitting on Daddy's lap while he rocked them back and forth and sang to them.
It was right around that time that she'd first started calling Pietro "Boo" . . . but if she told the whole story, it might be a bit embarrassing. So she gave them the edited version.
"OK, a long time ago--"
"Not that long," Pietro interrupted.
Wanda rolled her eyes at her brother. "Anyway,when we were kids, we lived with Aunt Luisa after Mom died. Then when we were about three, a man showed up at the house. Someone we'd never seen before."
Lance was all ears. He'd always been curious about Pietro's childhood, but had never had the courage to ask him about it. Now here was a source of information he hadn't considered. And as an added bonus, he'd get some Magneto dirt too.
"Aunt Luisa said he was our daddy, and he'd been away for a long time but now he was back to live with us."
"Then what?"
"Well . . . he tried really hard. He wanted to learn how to be a good father, but some things he just couldn't get."
"You mean like dolls?" The image of Magneto, in full battle dress, sitting on the floor playing Barbies with a three-year-old Wanda made everyone laugh.
"Like how not to panic if we got sick
or something."
"Panic?" Lance looked at her. He couldn't even imagine Magneto
panicking about anything. "You're kidding."
"No, there was this one time when Pietro was little . . ."
"Please don't tell this," Pietro begged her.
"Why not?"
"It's embarrassing!"
"What's so embarrassing about it?"
"Well, uh . . ."
"JUST TELL IT ALREADY!" Lance shouted.
Pietro glared at him, but Wanda continued. "Anyhow, one day Pietro and I . . ."
Magneto stopped at the mansion's gates. He could easily have forced his way in, but that would have set off the alarms, and that wasn't quite what he wanted. So he pressed the buzzer instead.
"Yes?"
"I need to see Professor Xavier right away."
"I'm afraid he's . . . unavailable at the moment."
Magneto's eyebrows arched. That was very odd indeed.
"It's very urgent."
"I'm sorry, but--"
It's all right, came a
voice in Magneto's head. Let him in. I've been
expecting him, actually.
Relieved, Magneto walked through the gate.
He thought he'd be shown into Charles' office, or the study, but instead they took him to a room that looked an awful lot like a bedroom. He approached the bed . . .
"Are you all right?" he asked. "You look
terrible."
"It's nothing."
That was what Pietro had said when he first contracted Virus 10 . . . not a good sign in Magneto's opinion.
"I didn't mean to intrude . . ."
"That's all right," Xavier said, settling back on the pillows.
"I know why you're here."
"You do?"
"Yes, but I'm afraid the children can't be released just yet, due to the
quarantine."
Magneto didn't like the sound of that. "Quarantine?"
"I'm trying to keep the flu from spreading to the rest of the school. We've had quite enough of that already, I think."
"Flu?" Magneto definitely didn't like the sound of that.
"Didn't you know? I thought that's why you were here.
As I've said, the children are under quarantine--"
"Which children?"
Xavier told him, and Magneto shook his head. "I knew I
should have gotten them flu shots."
"Ours were scheduled for next week."
"Why do we have such lousy timing?"
"Well, if it wasn't for the children," Xavier
said, "what did you
come here for?"
Magneto produced a file folder. He opened it, and took out a satellite photo of
a landscape. "If you can't see it on this one," he said, "look
at the enlargement."
The second photo showed a huge form making its way throught the trees.
"Dear God, no," Xavier said.
"I'm afraid so. The mutant that Michaela created has broken loose. And
it's headed this way."
(Dunh dunh DUNHHHHHH! Stay tuned, next chapter will be up soon!)
