Note: My thanks, as usual, go out to everybody who has reviewed this. I'd do individual notes, but I'm always afraid I'll forget someone, so THANK YOU AAAAAALL! Hee hee. You all rock! Here's the next bit of madness I could come up with. Enjoy.

Summary: Ach, verdammt hayfever!

=== SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION ===

It was May, and everything in Bayville was blooming like crazy. The world was decked in color. Emerald grass, sweet pink buds, happy blue violets, and vibrant yellow wildflowers blanketed the back lawn of the Institute. Ororo made a point of tending to them along with her own garden. The weather was great, too. Most of the students at the mansion were enjoying the sunshine, getting up early just to watch the sun rise and feel the warmth on their bodies.

Kitty Pryde, in particular, was a total "flare fiend," sitting out on the front steps every morning with her cereal, just to feel the sun cut the chill and watch it light up the world. Summer was getting closer, and she couldn't wait. It was Monday. She yawned, shifting where she sat on the steps, happy for the quiet.

*BAMF*

"Ku-urt!" she moaned, fanning the air and coughing. Leave it to Kurt Wagner to spoil a perfect morning.

"Zorry, Keedy," he said, from his new spot next to her. "Jeed deeds sahm wadrobe advice. She assged bee to fide you." *snnnrk*

"Wha --- huh? Who's Jeed?" she asked, forgetting her annoyance for a bit. The fuzzy elf's accent was usually a little thick, but he was utterly incomprehensible today.

"Ach, you doh! Jeed! Jeed Grey!"

"Oh! JEAN! Kurt, do you like, have a cold, or something?"

"Nah, eez jast hayfeber."

"Wow, that sucks."

"Eh, eez not so bad. I'll go tell Jeed I --- ahh, ahh, AHH . . . CHOO!"

There was a crack like lightning, a huge burst of smoke, and Kurt was gone. Kitty, although used to strange things at the Xavier Institute, was not prepared for this.

"WHOA my God!" she yelled, jumping up. Her cereal splashed onto the steps. "Kurt? KURT!"

She heard a moan about ten feet to her left, and an "Ova heeya."

Kurt was hanging upside-down by his tail, dangling from a branch on a huge sycamore tree. He was trying to shake off some dizziness --- not an easy task while on his head. Kitty ran over.

"What happened?"

"Beez be. I sink eez by powez. Dey've been goig crazy --- happids veneva I sdeez." His tail began to twist of its own accord, turning him around like a slow ceiling fan. "Man, dis sahks," he finished.

Kitty didn't know whether to laugh or help him, so she did both. With a giggle, she grabbed Kurt's hands, which allowed him to release his tail and swing down to land on his feet. They both went inside.

XXXXXXXXXXX

"Here, Kurt. This should keep you from sneezing at school," the professor said, and handed Kurt a small bottle.

After hearing Kitty's tale of what happened in the yard, Charles Xavier knew that this hayfever thing could be pretty serious for the blue furry mutant. Kurt accepted the bottle and looked at it curiously.

"Vhad izzid?"

"A nasal spray. Just give yourself a squirt in each nostril before you leave --- Oh, I think Scott's almost ready to take everybody. You'd better just do it in the car."

"Okay, tanks, profezzur." *snnrk*

"You're welcome, Kurt. Have a good day."

Kurt waved and scampered out of the professor's study. He raced through the hallway, slid down the main banister, and burst out the front door of the mansion. Scott, Rogue, Kitty, and Evan were waiting in the car, a little impatient. Kurt leaped clear over the front steps, clicking on his inducer mid-jump, and landed in the back seat between Evan and Kitty. Rogue had shotgun. She turned her head and smirked at her adoptive brother's antics.

"Zorry fur da holdup," he said, buckling in.

"It's okay," Scott replied, and floored it, just as Evan went "Daaaamn!" and Kitty muttered, "Show-off."

"Hey, y'all, ah wuz wundrin'. Evabody has ta do a history project, raht?" Rogue said, as soon as they were on their way.

"Yeah / Yup / Ja / Of course," the others chorused.

"Well, ah ain't started yet," Rogue finished, a little embarrassed. "And ah kinda need ideas."

"Rogue, it's due next week!" Scott chided her.

"Ah know!" she shot at him, grumpily. "Ah just ain't gotten any inspiration, though."

The conversation went quickly from how to help Rogue, to how dead Rogue was going to be when she flunked the project, and Kurt got distracted. The talk was lively, Kitty was right there, so close that he and she were bumping against each other as the car bounced, the wind was flapping his hair just so . . .

He forgot to use the nasal spray.

By the time he *remembered* to use the nasal spray, it was halfway through first period, when he realized he was about to sneeze. He held it in, making several interesting faces, until it passed. He sighed in relief, feeling gooey and completely relaxed for a just a moment. Then he raised his hand to be excused.

In the bathroom, he gave himself the spray, which was not very pleasant, but seemed to hold off the symptoms. He figured he was good to go. He was very, VERY wrong.

XXXXXXXXXXX

"Okay, class. We will now turn to the severing of electron bonds," Mr. Stemper said.

The entire 4th period Chemistry class stared back at him, faces slack with boredom and fatigue. Kurt, in the next-to-last row, wasn't even giving him that. He was staring out the window, at the sunny day outside.

"Mr. Wagner!" Stemper barked, making sure to pronounce it "WAG-ner" instead of "Vag-nur."

Kurt dragged his eyes back to front-and-center, and blinked at the teacher. "Yezz?"

"Please repeat the last thing I said."

Kurt didn't know the last thing Stemper had said from his own left butt cheek. And even worse, he was starting to feel a sneeze coming on. His holowatch picked up on his nervousness. Although his razor-sharp fangs precluded such a move, his induced image began to nibble on its lower lip.

"Um, I, ah . . ."

"As I suspected. Kindly stop daydreaming and start taking notes, WAG-ner."

Evan, who was sitting next to Kurt, shook his head and made a disgruntled "Pssht" noise. Stemper always picked on Kurt in class, even though he had plenty of other people to mess with. It wasn't fair.

"Did you have something to say, Mr. Daniels?"

"No sir," Evan said, although privately, he was wishing Mr. McCoy was back teaching Chemistry.

Stemper blathered on for a few minutes about electron bonds, and then he said the magic word.

". . . Explosion. It's the basis of combustion, which we will be doing a lab on in a minute."

Everybody perked up. Kurt's nose was starting to itch.

"Mr. Stemper?" a perky girl in front asked, raising her hand.

"Yes, Miss Simms?"

"I was just wondering. Is there any truth to the stories about spontaneous human combustion?"

The entire class started laughing. Kurt felt his throat closing up.

"First of all, burning is not the same thing as exploding. Spontaneous human combustion is the creation of a bunch of pseudo-scientific quacks, nothing more. And, I might add, there is no recorded case of a human being actually going ka-boom."

"Ah . . . Ah . . . Ah . . ."

Kurt's eyes watered as he desperately tried to contain his sneeze. Everybody was staring. He gave Evan a very helpless look. Evan returned it with a puzzled gaze that said very clearly, "What, man?" He was about to find out.

"AH-CHOOO!"

Ka-BAM!

A burst of smoke and ash.

No Kurt.

Instant chaos.

Everybody was standing, and screaming, and pointing, and yelling about spontaneous human combustion. Evan tried to look terrified, but nobody was looking at him, anyway. Even Mr. Stemper had lost his cool. He was shouting for everyone to take their seats and screeching, "CALM DOWN!"

Which naturally didn't help.

Evan took the opportunity to slip out while everyone was distracted, and crept out into the hall.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Kurt was leaning against a bank of lockers, alternately honking into a tissue and coughing. Evan ran over to him, going from relieved to upset in less than a second.

"What the hell did you DO, man?!"

Kurt hacked up some dust. "I dunno. Itz dis verdabbt hayfeber! Ugh. Begs by powez go dutz."

Evan took a second to translate-slash-absorb this.

"You do realize that our entire Chemistry class thinks you exploded."

"Ja." *HONK*

There was a brief silence as Evan and Kurt looked at each other. And then Evan broke into a wide grin.

"That was so COOL! Gimme some!"

He held up a hand and Kurt, now grinning as well, slapped him three.

"DANIELS! There you are. Get back in --- WAGNER?!"

Both boys turned to see Mr. Stemper heading towards them, a very ugly look on his face.

"Ah oh," Kurt muttered. He tried to back away, but Evan grabbed him.

"Don't, man," he hissed in Kurt's ear. "It'll only make it worse."

Stemper glared at the boys for a moment, but suddenly . . . he seemed to back off. He now looked vaguely annoyed, and no longer psychotic. It was as though someone had flipped a switch.

"That was quite a magic trick, Mr. Vagner," Stemper said.

Kurt raised an eyebrow at the correct pronunciation.

"I'd appreciate it if you NEVER DID THAT AGAIN. You scared the class half to death."

"I'm zorry, Mizdah Shtebbuh. Eet vont happid agged."

Stemper stomped off, still looking a little steamed, but left the boys behind.

"Magic trick?" Evan asked.

Kurt shrugged. "Eezer da profezzur deed zomzing to alda Shtebbuh'z memory, or zombody up zere laigs bee."

There was a pause as they contemplated this.

"Yeah, I'm going with the Prof."

"Bee doo."

"Magic trick," Evan repeated, starting to laugh. "Classic, man!"

He threw an arm over Kurt's shoulders and they walked back to class, giggling like fools.

THE END