As he slowly began to wake up, Manny could feel himself laying in what felt like a bed and also, he had never felt so awful in his entire young life, his whole body ached, his head was burning and his throat had never felt so sore. As he slowly opened his eyes, he tried to remember what had happened during the past few hours, he recalled himself running through the woods after escaping from the house where he was going to be forced to live with the teachers that had appeared to him and his two missing friends, giving them lessons which ended in something that would fit well in a horror movie but it had been heavily raining outside and it had made him fall sick so he was unable to get away and his weakened state meant that it was much easier for the teachers to bring him back to the house after they found him and that was where he must be now, back at the house. The child began to have a coughing fit and he felt someone take hold of him and turn him on his side before they began patting his back.
"Go on, let it all out" whoever had turned the child on his side said "better out than in I say." After he had finished coughing, Manny laid on his back again with his eyes closed but he could now feel whoever was with him running their fingers through his sweat covered hair brought on by the fever.
"All done now?" they asked and Manny gave a weak nod "you're still burning up though, I think you need to have your temperature taken." Manny felt the person get up and leave so he drifted off to sleep again for a few moments only to be gently shook awake again.
"Now I need to put this thermometer in your mouth for a minute to check your temperature" the speaker instructed and with his eyes half open and his vision blurred, Manny saw a figure sitting beside his bed place the thermometer in his mouth "now I need you to leave it there for a few seconds." The feverish child drifted in and out until the thermometer was removed from his mouth before falling unconscious again.
"Dear oh dear, it seems you have a pretty high fever my child, eighty point nine degrees, looks like you'll be bed ridden for quite a while until you're well enough to get up again."
Meanwhile downstairs, Tony, Paige and Colin where in the front room, discussing on what they should do to prevent Manny from trying to escape again.
"Well I don't think the boy will be going anywhere any time soon" Tony implied "I think he'll be bedridden for a while with that nasty fever he caught, he was very foolish, trying to escape in the middle of the night and whilst it was pouring it with rain too."
"Why would he ever try to leave?" Paige wondered "doesn't he know that we just wanted to have some fun with him." As the group continued discussing about Manny's attempt to escape and what they should do to prevent him from ever trying to escape again, the door opened and in walked another one of the teachers.
" Shrignold, I thought you were keeping an eye on the boy" Tony implied "is he awake yet?"
"Well the child began to stir a little when I was taking his temperature, the poor dear has a pretty high fever of eighty point nine degrees" the butterfly like man informed "if you want me to continue keeping an eye on him then I can do that, it wouldn't be right after all to leave him alone, especially if he is unwell, no one should ever be alone."
"If that is what you believe" Tony replied as he leaned back in the armchair, his fingers pressed together "but I think we should ask the boy his reasons for trying to escape."
"You could try but he's not even fully awake yet" Shrignold implied "if you go up there now and question the child about why he tried escaping, I think you should wait until he's more fully awake because I don't think he'll be able to provide a straight answer right now, not if he's too delirious."
"Well I'm not waiting around, we must find out why he tried getting away" Tony replied as he got up from his chair and headed to the front room door before turning to face the other teachers "now are you all coming with me or shall I question the boy on my own?" The rest of the teachers agreed to come along because they also wanted to find out Manny's reasons for trying to escape and when they reached the boy's room, they found him in the same place they had left him when they brought him back, that place being his bed and the boy stirred as the four teachers gathered round his bed and he slowly opened his eyes to find Tony standing at the foot of his bed, arms folded.
"So, finally decided to wake up have you?" he asked the child who was clearly still feverish and slightly confused "you know we came up here to try and wake you up, find out as to why you attempted to run away but it seems that you've saved us the trouble." Paige helped Manny sit up as Tony sat on the edge of his bed and began to question him about trying to escape earlier that evening.
"What where your reasons then?" Tony questioned as Manny grimaced and placed a hand on his burning head which didn't go unnoticed "you're still burning up I gather, well I'm not surprised you're feeling unwell after being out in the middle of the night and whilst it's raining" he then told Paige to get a wet cloth and when she returned, she placed it on the boy's head and the coldness brought some relief to his burning head.
"Is that better sweetie?" Paige asked in a sickly sweet voice and Manny gave a small weak nod before answering the question that Tony had asked him.
"I miss my friends" he replied with a few coughs "I wanted to go find them."
"You're friends?" Tony scoffed "you mean the ones who left this place and just left you behind, well correct me if i'm wrong my dear boy but I don't believe they're your real friends if they just left you behind."
"No, you're lying" Manny replied weakly "they wouldn't do that, they wouldn't just leave me." Tony chuckled and leaned close to the boy in a rather intimidating manner.
"Well it appears that they have my dear boy" he told the weak and feverish child "so I wouldn't bother looking for them anytime soon if I was you. They just left and abandoned you in this place, now if those are what you call friends then you are very much mistaken." As Manny tried to get his head around what was being said to him, the boy pulled his knees up to his chin and couldn't believe what was being said, he didn't want to believe it but Tony sounded pretty convincing.
"I can't believe they would leave me" he whispered "I thought they where my friends."
"Now don't be sad little one" Shrignold said, pulling Manny into a hug "we will never leave you."
"He's right you know" Colin replied "we're you're real friends Manny, we won't ever abandon you."
"That's right sweetie" Paige added, stroking the child's cheek "that is why we don't want you to leave, you can trust us, we're you're true friends."
"You're not lying to me are you?" Manny questioned "this isn't all a big trick is it?"
"If it was then we would have abandoned you too, just like those two imbeciles who pretended to be your friends" said Tony "we would have left you out there in the rain with that horrible fever you have, not you bring you back here and put you to bed so you can recover."
"I was just feeling lonely, after when they went away" Manny replied as sleep began to take it's toll on his small body "I felt lonely."
"Well not anymore, because you got us now and we're not going anywhere" Paige told the young boy "we've always been here for you Manny and we always will be."
"That's right my child, you will never be alone ever again" Shrignold replied as Manny gave a weak nod, eyes beginining to flutter which didn't go unnoticed by Tony.
"Are you wanting to sleep some more?" he asked the young child who gave another weak nod before his eyes closed shut "Shrignold, you can let go of the boy now." Shrignold nodded and released his grip on the now sleeping child and gently layed him down on the bed before the teachers got up and left the room.
"Well now that he believes that those two fools who escaped this world were never really his friends, he won't even dare try and escape again" Tony informed as he glanced over at the small sleeping figure in the bedroom.
"So what happens now?" Paige asked.
"It's simple" Tony replied " we continue to convince the brat that we're his real friends and that he can trust us that he won't even think about leaving, we'll keep him here for the rest of his life." The teachers then looked over at the sick child who lay sleeping in his bed, unaware that he had been tricked by them and they all had a sinister expression on their faces as the plan to keep the boy forever was slowly coming into place.